pow wow mik

My collecting has more or less ground to a halt, due to limited time and money but that's definitely not caused me to lose interest and think of selling. I stripped down the collection using the 'if I dont love it or dj with it, it can go' filter. I had a lot of stuff that I bought cheap and kept because it was pretty good, or 'interesting' and I dont miss any of that. I'm trying to develop a house and have no disposable income at all and could really use the money, yet when I consider selling a perfect record I find the prospect offensive; what, to buy a fucking gutter?, a load of plasterboard? It raises the question - what could you buy that is better? What could you do that is better, go jogging? I realise, then, that if it came to it, I'll sell the fucking house and spend the money on records rather than the other way round! you end up with a nice house and no records, I dont know...guess I'd feel like just another comfortable boring chump. Not that I feel defined by records or any other material stuff, but they're an interesting thing about me and lead to a world of other interesting things for me to do and people to know, more interesting than anything I could do with the money...you start getting rid of stuff like that out of your life and spending the money on less interesting things than its not good, and what is more interesting? I can only think of two things...which happen to work well in combination. If you're gonna spend the money on them, go for it ;-) '

I think you're wrong in thinking that peoples' interests are so subjective, that they only care about things that relate to their own experiences...maybe most people are like that I dont know...but in any case, this was a documentary and therefore purporting to be factual. if I watch a documentary about, say, the history of a country, an art movement, or a culture, then I want the full history of it, not just the bit I like, or the bit I lived through, or the bit the film maker was able to google. That's not how history should be told or passed down - in sound bites and mythical 'golden ages' with convenient starts and ends and star players. Reminds of those 'history of rock' programmes that started with elvis then jumped from million selling artist to million selling artist. History of fuck all. however, the northern scene did start in the 70s, and the scene then was incredible, so I think the main focus being on that era is reasonable.]

The media always does this, persevering with the false assumption that the most popular is the most important - that somehow, we are more interested in the phenomenon of liking something, than in that which is liked. Hence the bizarre obsession with record sales, number ones, money made etc and the disregard of 1000s of great pieces of commercially unsuccessful music... so in this case, the position is contradictory and absurd - shoehorning celebrities into a documentary about a scene that's whole purpose was to invert the mainstream, media-lead position and focus on music, regardless of its commercial success. To disregard celebrity culture and that whole 'propaganda of the victors' paradigm still running through the mainstream music media today. if people can only relate to something via a celebrity endorsement, then they shouldn't be pandered to but cured of this affliction. the best thing about underground culture, the phenomenon that absolutely encapsulates it, and particularly the soul and mod scenes, is that the person at the top of the game, who knows more about music than pete water man , simon cowell and all those chumps combined could well be a welder from Stoke, a mechanic from manchester or a drug dealer from sheffield. Fat middle ages guys can be great dancers, rough or awkward white British folks can gurn with ecstacy at the feeling expressd by black Americans decades earlier. I know the programme did touch on this via ian levine and the lovely lady from edinburgh, may she rest in peace, but in wheeling on celebrities to talk shit, and to bring up tony blackburn, trivialises the whole thing. As in all areas of life - the stars are the normal people who are good at stuff or passionate about stuff, who just get on with it, whether its the in thing or not. If that alone isn't interesting enough to you then dont bother making a documentary at all, cos you dont get it. .

Where is it in sheff? Cheers

Got the record Rick, thanks mate it's spot on. Get well soon!

It's that sort of Chicago, blood sweat and tears, electric flag jazz rock sound that no one really likes except session drummers. Only time I can remember anyone liking this sort of sound is in the early 90s when the beardy acid jazz elite flirted with stuff like Colluseum, Hammer, american gypsy, giant etc. ...cant see it taking off personally. If I heard it out I'd do a tree growing from a seed modern dance type move, like hippies made their kids do in the 70s.

These acts released a lot of stuff, but have they done anything for the deeper 'musicologist' (person with good taste). Only awb track I can remember liking is 'stop the rain' back in the acid jazz days, and even then, Lena Conquest made a better track out of it. similarly, I only remember liking one cotb track a bit - 'when will she tell me she needs me'

I also try to always relate each track to the last when djing and so end up with common pairings or sequences. Not that imaginative, as they share the same backing track, but we've been making a feature of playing Johnny Barnes on jaba and Mel williams on chipper together at the Pow Wow room at Lifeline - two of the best 45s ever made imo, and great how they make completely different tunes out of the same backing, and both rare as fuck too - a real treat for me at least.

I think that if you're already a soul connoiseur then 80s soul will likely tick enough boxes for you to enjoy it, but would it attract newcomers to a club or to a scene; would it sustain a passionate scene? while I like it, it just doesn't have those incredible other-worldly qualities that music from the 60s and 70s does. The playing and orchestration on records from the golden era is mind boggling, and is rare in the sense that you almost couldn't replicate it. anyone, an aficionado of soul or not, would marvel at good 60s or 70s productions, it's over-engineered and simply impressive as musical and human achievement. on top of that, it was the cutting edge of popular culture in the 60s and 70s and that vitality can be felt now - it spoke of and to all people. soul in the 80s, like jazz, had passed it's most creative phase surely, or at least it coincided with a less creative era in music and culture generally.. not saying 80s soul is bad music, but is it impressive enough to bring together 100s of people from different generations and cultures? i think, rather than progress into whole new styles, the mood just evolves, as it always has done. You could do a 'now' sounding set out of wigan oldies by just playing the gritty and moody ones, and eliminating the major key poppy sounding ones. i find it ridiculous when i hear that we, or younger generations, will somehow get bored of the incredible catalogue of 50s, 60s and 70s soul now known. Even with no new discoveries, we know enough to keep us entertained for several lifetimes without needing to expand into more marginal styles.I

There wouldnt be all these pretend records cluttering up the world if there weren't plenty of pretend collectors buying them. It's like blaming drug dealers for drug addicts

50-80? I think the sound quality worries put people off, it did me. Belting track though for a fiver, pure new orleans

All gone a bit cryptic this thread, the Mcgees must be a holy grail!

Sorry to jump on your thread but heard that all these are a bit noisy, as in hiss, is that the case?

terrible thing schizophrenia

It's fucking awesome in and not loud. Pure belter

Luckier for me though, I got a real 10" metal acetate of 'helpless' off him

Really should have put the track name in the thread title!

Great track, but to play it you only have to flip over the copy you've already got, not buy a new one! ]

Insane. I thought the fetish for first labels was limited to northern classics, not fairly common r&b records. (Good record though)

For real, do you know him? He got in touch with me when I put one of his records on youtube, ended up talking about all sorts of shit, very nice and interesting fellow; I love his pop/ psych track 'I cant face the animals'

Aye, you can tell that a whole different market has developed for the top end 'investment pieces', as the difference between mint price and anything less is growing, matching that of other investment markets like jazz lps, british beat and coins - djs would never have cared about condition so much. 'Soul investors' - a contradiction in terms if ever I saw one!]

The boots and pressings on ebay is a disgrace and has turned what used to be a collectors site into a big tacky pile of shit; sometimes 20 listings of the same shit bootleg. The extraordinary glut of boots and re-issues over the last few years has done nothing for music, as is sometimes claimed; no normal people buy them...normal people rip off youtube or download of I tunes, these only sell to shit wannabe djs, who proceed to all play tbe same records, which are also piled up on ebay and pretty soon all the mystique and excitement of great music is lost to all but the enthusiasts who the re-issuing parasites exploited in the first place, and that's that. some twat paid over £100 the other week for a fake jt parker...words cant describe how shit that whole event is. It's like when you find out that queues form on motorways because people slow down to gawp at accidents : makes you ashamed to be a human. anyway, regarding the actual subject, i just put up 30 buy-it-nows, must have sold 20 within a week, none less than £20, I was surprised. t

yes, surely 'has' is grammatically correct? Have would indicate pluality in having the wings I.e. 'black wings have my angels'. another reason I'd chose the 'has' version!'

Always thought the normal Resist version badly lacked something - the production seems a bit weak - and imo this version gives it that missing bit of beefing up which he achieved on the unreleased garagey type version that Pomonkey has, and on the Claire version of 'i'll be waiting'. I wouldn't want the normal Resist versionbut I'd buy this. I guess he was one of those artists like Cleveland Robinson or Earl Conelly who somehow had a fair amount of autonomy to experiment with production, re-makes etc. the Claire version of 'Love plays funny fames' has terrible production with no drums but I had a 10" acetate of the record which was the other way round, perfect production on 'love plays...' but no drums on 'I'll be waiting'.

Both nice but which is the best version though?