The 21st Century Soul Xmas Present List

Hi All,

I thought as is getting close to the festive season that it might be a nice idea and metion a few possible gift ideas for todays Northern Soul fan.

 This item is inspired by the new yet to hit the streets Wigan Casino Soul Club - 30 Years Of Northern Soul Memories - CD FBUBX101 from Fabulous Records with a pop up full colour model of the Wigan Casino in its Northern Soul hey-day! So inspired by this ive been looking around for other goodies which Santa may deliver on the big day.

Firstly Northern Soul The Board Game, a wonderful journey of discovery, this game for up to six players will give hours and hours of pleasure, infact you feel like you are really at a Northern Soul venue when playing this without leaving the comfort of your own home. Its a game for everyone you can be a record collector, promoter, punter, drug dealer orDJ, experence the whole scene with realistic politics, venue clashing,back stabbing the whole real deal is here... The object of the game is to move around the board trying to avoid the many traps and horror along the way, you can buy and sell records, run a venue, fill a venue and play the nostalgia or future cards, the rules are a little complex but once mastered this game becomes very addictive. The playing counters are designed in the keep the faith black fist in red, green, blue,white, yellow and black so plenty of battles to start as you will all want to be the black one i know as i did when i first opened the box. The price for this seems a little high at £339.99, but the board is hand painted and crafted in China, its ok another Monopoly type game, but in the Northern Soul version jail means jail if your found out to be a bootlegger for example, there are so many twists and turns to this game i can see it becoming a best seller very quickly, produced by Afastbuck Ltd.

Next up we have the Northern Soul Action figure, this is a fantastic toy and was only a matter of time before it hit the streets. There are male and female versions of this doll sorry action figure, approx 12 inches high with realistic hair, movable joints and record box with the male version. There are also talking versions in development which should be ready for next Christmas. The price is reasonable on this classy item being £99.99 each ( oh the DJ versions also in development will be a limited edition set of six at £299.00 each but chances are there will very quickly be copies of these out there so i suggest you pre order these directly form the makers which are SoulDoll Ltd of Wigan.

And lastly one for the children Charlie - The Soulful Singing Chicken £39.99 which is a bargain for this electronic gismo, Charlie is very much based on the singing fish idea popular a few years ago but Charlie has an incredible 2,000 original full version Northern Soul records in his memory and is an ideal way for the children to also enjoy Northern Soul thats of course if you can get him away from mum and dad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He sings, dances and chuckles away to some outstanding classic Northern Soul, he even tells you to fuck off if you try and play the same record twice in the smae hour, a real clever chicken.

 Although these items are most enjoyable and would be a fantastic gift for anyone , top of my Christmas list will always be a hard to find, original not often seen American first generation 45, basically the things that are the fundimental single most important part of the Northern Soul scene and not how much more manufactured crap do we have to put up with , im glad September 2003 has now passed so we can get on with the promotion and development of Northern Soul circa 2003, now and for the future and stop looking back throught rose tinted glasses at past glories.

 Keep it real and in the 21st Century. Mark Bicknell.