Ian Dewhirst

LOL, you're right! It's hard to get the vinyl thing out of your system especially since I've just spent the best part of 2 days filing the buggers........ Got to admit that 90% of my home listening is via computer these days though. I just save the vinyl for playing out and those special occasions now...... Ian D

Can't disagree with that Kevin. In fact I spent 5 years as Head Of A&R for a company called Simply Vinyl and did over 700 high-quality vinyl album re-issues between 1997-2002 but saw declining sales every year until I left. Needless to say the company is now no longer in existence along with most of the vinyl pressing plants. Time has moved on mate. Unfortunately. Ian D

Well, it's a rare record and I think he's a high-earning city lad isn't he? But God I'd hate to be seriously collecting now - I wouldn't be able to sleep at night paying the kind of prices I see these days. One of the greatest records ever made though innit? One of those I HAD to have the first time I heard it and boy was it a monster! I guess I'll just have to play my UK demo then. Funnily enough it still sounds EXACTLY the same.......... Ian D

Why? Ian D

Johhny M mate! I was always a cheapskate LOL. I even moaned about spending £40 on the Tomangoes when there were only two of 'em.... Ian D

LOL, not the kind of kids you wanna meet on a pissing down night in North Allerton! Ian D

Hey, talking of Sheridan's whatever happened to Rod? Is he still around? He was one of the one's responsible for getting me into it all in the first place......... Ian D

I'd be embarassed to spend £1K on a record! I've had some of the rarest records of all time and hardly ever paid more than a few cents or a few quid for most of 'em. Mind you easy to say that some 40 years later LOL...... Nowt like being smug is there? Ian D

That's my whole point! Technically I could turn up with a portable hard-drive in my shirt pocket with 20k tunes on, play for several months if need be and then get out in a hurry from the baying mob! I can remember having to escape from North Allerton Working Men's Club once and staggering under the weight of my 400 x singles box whilst dodging a hail of bricks! And no it wasn't because of my tunes LOL. It was barbed-up soulies v very hard miners! Ian D

But then that limits you to a) how much vinyl you can carry and how much vinyl you can afford. And supposing I had a bunch of digital files which were musically superior and rarer than any vinyl which anyone else had? Should people not be allowed to hear some incredible music just because a few people want to hear them on an outdated format? People used to think the world was flat! And techically you can't actually have 110% 'cos 100% is the whole enchilda if you see what I mean............ Just having a bit of fun here but it always pays to have an open mind about these things. I actually love vinyl - I just think that some people are unduly fixated by what is just a format at the end of the day..... Ian D

Which is cool Mischief, and I understand the respect angle totally but if I were deejaying with Ginger or any other DJ there would be no possibility whatsoever of me replicating any tunes 'cos I'd have 20k tunes at my disposal on my lappy! My only problem would be in getting out of the venue without being lynched by the 'vinyl-only' mob LOL...... Ian D

Hang on Ken, I can buy an actual record for that price! Ian D

OK, time to stop dicking around. Let's do a Northern Soul-A-Thon spanning a couple of weeks, find another few hundred DJ's, get the Guinness people down and set a new record for the most DJ's ever at a single event. And no need for needles - I'll be playing a WAV file of the Dynamics in my set LOL....... Ian D

Yeah, but surely they've got to be real 'soul' spoons haven't they? Ian 'Spoony' D

Now why would I need to do that unless it was to satisfy some bizarre fixation with plastic? I can play anything anything I want from a superior WAV file and select any one of 20k tunes direct from my lappy to the speakers. Why would I want to degrade the process by shlepping down to a vinyl carver place and spending £25 getting something that will be inferior to the file on my lappy? Unless I was trying to PRETEND that I was playing a record LOL. But that would be a bit hypocritical wouldn't it? I mean, why bother...........? Ian D

Yep, plenty mate. It's out there in one form or another. Plus I just picked 30 odd CD's t'other day and I'm amazed what's buried away on some of 'em. Mind you I missed a good few years so I'm still playing catch up on a lot of stuff I only just heard that BRILLIANT Dynamics track yesterday "You Can Make It If You Try" - whatta record! Where was that played? And can't tell you the unknowns 'cos they're top secret LOL..... Ian D

You might have a point there Chalky! Maybe everyone's been going up a blind alley with the rarity issue - something I guess we've all been guilty of at various times. So who's gonna take the bull by the horns and BAN rarities then LOL? The first £20 or less Northern Soul night coming to a venue near you soon ............? That'd level a few egos wouldn't it LOL.... Ian D

Dunno if they're necessarily totally unknown Simon, but I've found a good couple of hundred DYNAMITE tunes which I'd have happily paid fortunes for and played out back in the day without a doubt. Makes it frustrating for me when I don't hear 'em out anywhere. Maybe they're too rare LOL....... Ian D

Having just spent the last 2 days buried in my record room refiling my 7"'s, all I can say is physical formats are a pain in the ass and make no sense in this day and age. One can study a record and marvel at the physical beauty of it for a little while but ultimately it's just a format in the same way that cylinders, 78's, 8 track cartridges and cassettes were in their day. I'm much more bothered about what comes out of the speakers ultimately and that can be from any source. I think I've probably got over my vinyl addiction at the right time to be honest and I'm beginning to realise that knocking your brains out and emptying your pockets to possess a 7" piece of plastic makes about as much sense as using a CB radio or even two tin cans and a piece of string to communicate with someone. Mind you, it's taken a good 40+ years for the penny to drop LOL. Vinyl is quaint but hopelessly outmoded in this day and age. In the last 2 years I've discovered more tunes by crate-digging 1000's of blogs then I ever did from countless trips to the U.S. I've found at least 10 of the best tunes I've ever heard in 40 years of collecting simply by crate-digging from my sofa! Vinyl collecting makes sense if you're of a certain age and mindset but in the grand scheme of things, music formats have moved on. And the dust, the weight, the stylus replacement and the hours of re-filing have kind of outlasted the appeal for me personally. Naturally there'll be mostly die-hard vinyl freaks on here who wear their collections like a badge of honour, like my mate who has 1000's of blues 78's lovingly kept in his huge garage but mostly plays 'em to an audience of one these days LOL. And don't get me wrong, even though I have 20K tunes on my lappy I'll always keep a few thousand vinyl 'cos old habits die hard. But I think the future will be all about knowledge and taste in music and the format will be electronic, simply because that's what makes the most sense in this day and age. It may even be a good thing as it will free up playlists, liberate people and let the music spread on it's own merits rather than be confined by whether it's rare or not. Difficult for some to take I know but things move on and technology can be embraced positively if you want to. Soul Source is the living example. Ian D

Ian D

LOL, I've just had visions of 'promo police' studying CCTV footage of every Oxfam shop in the UK...... Ian D

Or alternatively how about sorting out the wood from the chaff DJ wise? With the all new handy DJ grading system! It works like this:- 'A' DJ's - £5000+ rarities only 'B' DJ's - £4000+ rarities only 'C' DJ's - £3000+ rarities only and so on until 'Z' DJ's - Badly scratched and/or warped Wigan's Ovation, Muriel Young and Joey Dee records only Ian D

Hey Rob, I just had a great idea! With 450 DJ's on here all raring to go, why bother with actual punters, when you can have the ultimate......... NORTHERN SOUL DJ SOUNDCLASH! Invite all 450 DJ's to the next do, they can play a record each, so it'll work out like this:- 450 DJ's x 2.5 minutes (average length of a Northern Soul record) = 1125 minutes divided by 60 minutes = 18.75 hours. So do an All-Dayer & All Nighter, invite the Guinness Book Of World Record people down, charge each DJ a tenner apiece for the publicity they'll reap by being involved in such a record-breaking event and bob's yer uncle! So that way all A,B & Z DJ's get to play, you pocket a quick £4,500 and there's no need for any actual customers! This could revolutionise things entirely. Punters? Pah. Who needs 'em when you have 450 DJ's! Ian D

You may have hit on a point there Rob. In the early 70's there were probably 10-15 key DJ's and a further 10-15 enthusiasts/DJ's playing to thousands of people every week. This crept up by the mid to late 70's when more DJ's entered the fray and then from the 90's onwards the floodgates seemed to open and the DJ's seemed to multiply as fast as the record prices were going up. However, the Northern scene isn't that much different to a lot of other scenes which are fueled by musical enthusiasts. Basically Deejaying is the greatest job that anyone could ever hope for. To get paid for playing music you love to a willing audience really cannot be beaten in my opinion. I realised that at the age of 14 when I saw DJ's for the first time and realised that Deejaying would be my life's calling. So I can't really blame anyone for wanting to try and good luck to 'em! However, there is a world of difference between Deejaying and playing records! The sequencing of records, the art of working a crowd and knowing when to put the right record on at the right time is a skill which can only be learnt by playing to audiences regularly, preferably 3-6 nights a week. And in my experience wo betide any DJ who didn't deliver to a packed house - they'd soon be out on their arse with no gigs. However these days, as you quite rightly pointed out, there seem to be more DJ's than customers LOL....It seems that everybody and their dog seems to be a DJ these days and I think that may have something to do with the decline in audiences at some of the gigs I've attended. To me, there is not enough vibe and energy at many gigs - the emphasis seems to be more concerned with rarity or the flavour of the moment rather then creating an incredible atmosphere and having a packed dance-floor. Also much of the sequencing and choice of records sucks IMO. Plus, as I've said on here before, there really needs to be an injection of youth onto this scene, if only to keep it viable for the long term. I'm saying all this as an objective observer much of the time these days. Whilst some DJ's are very good at what they do, unfortunately many others are not skilled enough to be playing to a paying audience in my opinion. I dunno how you go about fixing that Rob. It could be that the scene will eventually whittle down to a few blokes in a pub playing their favourite records which I think would be a massive shame. It pains me to say it, but these days the nearest thing I've seen to the brilliant Northern Soul gigs of the 70's in the last year or two, is Dimitri From Paris playing to a couple of thousand energetic punters and ripping the place up. Mind you, he's a professional DJ and knows EXACTLY what he's doing which is why he has such a fanatical audience and why his gigs are generally unmissable. THAT'S what the Northern Soul scene was always about - raw, exciting, makes-you-feel-good-to-be-alive BUZZ and brilliant music. Is it because it's now become purely a collector's scene rather than an all-round 'miss-at-you-peril' type of scene? Or maybe it's just an aging scene which needs re-inventing? WHERE ARE THE KIDS??????? Ian D