Timillustrator

Personally I don't mind any of those and love Cajun Hart. I'm convinced that people "hear" different things; Some seem to go for the voice - I tend to listen to the production, rhythm and melody and I like raw and unpolished sounding. So when I hear more disco or produced stuff with sophisticated arrangements it doesn't grab me, others are totally the opposite they'll like a nice vocal or admire the production. No one is "right".

Great stuff, you clearly know what you are doing - maintaining the grittiness and dark backlighting. All too often people over use flash or lighting (particularly on videos) and it looks as bright as an operating theatre a totally sterile environment.

Haven't got round to reading this one yet: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Harlem-69-Future-Soul-Trilogy/dp/1846974208

That's really interesting (I love statistical analysis!) everywhere is growing, or more or less static and just the odd blip (Czech Republic?) downward. I guess this is similar to the number of events in the UK which seems to be forever upwards. The next step would be to see if the numbers attending are also static; that seems to be many people's take on the British scene that numbers overall are falling due to rising numbers of events and a static or slightly declining number of punters - not sure I agree though.

Does that really happen!? That's appalling. I find the vast majority of people at the vast majority of events are in their 50's or over. There are a few with younger people but they are always less than say 30% - if the older people went there'd be no one left.

I remember my mate getting a video camera back in the 80's - it was the size of a small fridge and weighed a ton, videotape was expensive too so we never did much filming, mainly made bad "experimental" films; wouldn't have dreamt of taking it anywhere because it cost a fortune and was so heavy. Now of course everyone has a "free" one in their pockets. Certainly with my kids, posting video is taking over from photos as technology gets faster, so there's only going to be more and more and more of it.

Has anyone ever done that? Would be a very hard one to implement.

Maybe that was the point - perhaps he was filming himself so he could see where he was going wrong and improve?!

Brilliant description! I've experienced something similar myself, could be a disaster if anyone had epilepsy (and a friend of mine has!). I can't see how you could stop it being posted now, the genie is so out of the bottle; YouTube and FaceBook have been reluctant to take action on even very serious posts. The organisers or promoters can't do much other than ban people after the event but they're not going to.

He posted (on Facebook I think) last January that he was fed up with all the trolling negative comments that people put on YouTube; he put up some examples - homophobic, racist, moronic, stupid comments "can't dance", "gay" "mincers" etc. He just said he was fed up of constantly having to delete them. It sounded like it had worn him down. So sad as they were clearly just from bored people who'd chanced across it and had absolutely no interest in the actual content.

I'm pretty sure that footage is American as well so unlikely to have even been seen in the UK until recent years.

I like Jud's, but did you see why he gave it up? Just over a year ago. On a similar topic, does anyone have an opinion on sketching at events!? Only half joking - I always take my sketchbook and try and capture the dance floor and/or DJ's, I sometimes draw the crowd but inevitably 90% of them are looking at their phones. Most people don't take any notice of me, usually I get complimentary remarks. A few of my friends (also sketchers) have had hassle from security for drawing in public places, usually shopping centres where they seem to be wildly paranoid although totally unconcerned about people taking photos. Similar security jobsworths with no clue or common sense.

This is getting really interesting now! I went somewhere not too long ago, a fairly specialist night, good crowd, well known DJ's etc. There was one bloke on the dance floor (actually a very good dancer) who for at least an hour was constantly dicking about on his phone - doing selfies, taking pictures of his girlfriend and his mates with the flash, texting when he was dancing (or so it appeared), had one hand in front of him the whole time looking at the screen; maybe he was filming himself? I am usually very 'live and let live' and I just went to the other side of the room but I couldn't believe what a prat he looked. You could expect this from a 19 year old girl with her mates who'd had a drink for the first time but he was at least mid 50's. It's rare, but a good reason for banning phones on the dancefloor.

Nifty dancing though!

Interesting, pointless and horrible! A bit like remakes of classic films like Alfie, The Italian Job, Get Carter (and 1,000's of others) may introduce it to a new audience but the people doing it would be better off spending their time doing something original rather than trying to "improve" the past.

It wasn't this one was it?

I've heard it, quite a few times

The way I see it The Snake and Frank Wilson are wonderful tunes just overplayed but that doesn't lessen their quality, perhaps in the same boat as A Little Togetherness and a few others, you can't deny they're great soul records. Whereas Bob Sinclar is just not a great soul record, I can't understand how it even fits in to anyone's set? For me in a similar vein are California Raisins What Does It take or Billy Ocean Red Light Spells Danger - people do dance to them though.

Not at all; these videos are brilliant, as a rare artefact of the past as well as for the music and dancing. People reacted differently then too - someone with a video was important so they'd take time to talk to them in the knowledge it was something that would be around forever. Now every idiot is filming, most of them in the hope someone will fall over or make a prat of themselves. I'm going to set aside an hour or two to watch them all the way through at the weekend.

56 last year - 3 niters, 4 dayers, the rest mostly local soul nites although I travelled the region a fair bit. Probably over did it a bit but personal circumstances were unusual last year and I had my reasons.

Quite often nowadays you'll see someone with videoing the dance floor - it ranges from people with their mobile phone to others with steadicam type rigs and lights attached. There are at least two YouTube channels - 'Jud's Northern Soul' and 'Northern Soul TV' dedicated to just this activity. My understanding is that if the promoter is OK with it and the event is "public" then it's fine. There's nothing much that can be done about it, and as we all have a mobile phone in our pockets it's only going to increase but what are your thoughts?

I'm almost inclined to post a topic about videoing at events - what are people's thoughts? There are more and more people doing this from their phone or with more sophisticated equipment and at least 2 YouTube channels just of footage filmed at NS events. There's not a jot anyone can do about it of course. Personally, and at the risk of offending people, I think that footage of (mostly) younger people energetically dancing to fast songs in the Blackpool competition type manner look good (especially if grainy and in black and white) whereas colour footage with the lights on of older people dancing sedately to slow tracks or the top 10 are not so attractive, or at the very least look like footage filmed at almost any wedding or 50th/60th Birthday party disco. I'll openly admit that's age-ist, size-ist and bald-ist but it's also probably a fact of life?

I think he quoted you, quoting me!

Yeah, but I drink lime and soda or Diet Coke! My wife likes a glass of wine though.

That's hopeful then, isn't it? Any ones over that way you can recommend? I'm getting a new car soon! Almost a haiku.