Soulfusion 20Th November

[Guest Glawster]

Having arrived early doors and taking our records into the hitsville room we set about trying to get a drink but as per usual we kept bumping into fellow soulies and yakking, so when Pete kindly brought our first drink over our throats were indeed in need of lubrication!

Quick squizz through the sales boxes and parting with a few quid it was time to do the rounds and say hi to Sean,Steve and Jerry who were already behind the decks in the respective rooms,also dropping off "SOULFUSION TALC" in each room!!!

As always when we're DJing we like to stay in the room we're in so as not to duplicate any chooooooons that had been previously played - so I'll leave the modern and main room for others to comment on - As far as the hitsville room was concerned Sue and I had a blast as per usual , the extended dancefloor works wonders - now I know a lot of DJs dont particularly like too many requests but hey we love 'em especially as we had possibly 99% of the tunes requested!

Jerry and Jinksy had been on before and the room was starting to fill up nicely,Sue had been on her travels snapping away with the camera and unbeknowing to me had already collected a substantial amount of requests and had half our two hour set already mapped out in her head - you gotta love her,made my life easy! Spinning choons and smiling faces makes for a great night! Many thanks for the kind comments and applause we got during and after our set,its much appreciated - roll on 21st January for the 5th Anniversary bash where we also have the pleasure of the Motown Maestro Don Palmer Djing in this room too ,who knows a quick double deck with the Motown Maestro and Mrs Motown might be on the cards!!!!!

It has to be said the trip home in the car(cheers Sue for driving) had to be the funniest journey home from a soul do we've ever had!! Graham and Pete in the style of pub singers trying to sing In Orbit ,Dust my Broom and murdering Brenda Holloways When Im Gone and we're only too glad it was the instrumental of Wade in the water!!! Pete and Graham the new Reeves and Mortimer!!!

[Guest maccerafcb]

Well had a cracking night at soulfusion as we always do,stayed in the modern room for most of the night some great sounds in there had a few dances in the northern room and the end of the night was upon us too soon really.

So many thanks to neil for the cd's and to Mart and Sue for putting up with us as always, and im sure we've had a few eventful drive homes before i remember someone having fun with the electric windows that i was sleeping against but im glad you liked the singing suprised i could remember the words think i was just backing vocals for Graham. atb Pete

[Mark R]

Big shout out to Neil and the Soul Fusion massive for a great night out on Saturday as part of my weekend of birthday celebrations.

Met Trev & Denise Cox and Steve & Vanessa Lloyd beforehand for a nice meal accompanied by a couple of shandy's and a fair few laughs...........nice one!

On to the venue and a warm welcome and birthday drink off the host Mr. Self......cheers mate! And thanks to Lloydy for the taxi service from the B&B...........and only £15 LOL

The usual up for it crowd in attendance.........not many there when we got in early doors, but within ½ hr it was a packer.

I got 1.5hrs for my set following Mr Lloyd, and ahead of Ady Pountain, who brought another successful Soul Fusion to a close. Neal wanted a playlist so here it be for those interested in such things:

Helen Bruner & Terry Jones - Better

Faith Evans - Sunshine

Toni Braxton - Make My Heart (MuthaFunkaz Traxsource Exclusive Vocal Mix)

Benedetto & Farina feat. LT Brown - I'm So Grateful (Clemens Rumpf Edit)

Carlos Vargas feat. Stephanie Cooke - This Must Be Love (Original Mix)

Mark Grant feat. Swaylo - Relax (Soul Pass Vocal)

The Layabouts feat. Shea Soul - Perfectly (The Layabouts Vocal Mix)

Ray Jones feat. Heidi Vogel - In The Dark (Deep Inc. Soulful Mix)

Glenn Underground - Afro Gente

Charles Spencer - Even Now

Shuya Okino feat. Navasha Daya - Still In Love (Demo Mix)

Barbara Mendez - Got To Be In Love (Vocal Mix)

Louie Vega - Mozalounge (12" Mix)

Richard Earnshaw feat. Erik Dillard & Roy Ayers - In Time

Kenny Bobien - Father (Harmonica Vocal Edit)

Hardsoul feat. Ron Carroll - Back Together

Chris Herbert feat. Asaph Womack - Shelter (DF's Roofoverurhead Vocal Mix)

Thanks for the invite to play Neil, appreciated fella........you have a good gig there!

And thanks to Mike Hodges for the lift back to the B&B!

Cheers,

Mark R

[Guest Glawster]

Well had a cracking night at soulfusion as we always do,stayed in the modern room for most of the night some great sounds in there had a few dances in the northern room and the end of the night was upon us too soon really.

So many thanks to neil for the cd's and to Mart and Sue for putting up with us as always, and im sure we've had a few eventful drive homes before i remember someone having fun with the electric windows that i was sleeping against but im glad you liked the singing suprised i could remember the words think i was just backing vocals for Graham. atb Pete

[Jerry Hipkiss]

Yet another cracker, a cold night outside turned into a very sweaty one by the end! Warmed up the Hitsville room early doors, then did my usual thing of trying to be sociable while keeping ears on the main room for the same reason as Mart and Sue, and the occasional foray into the modern room. Great to see Sue Reddy and Pauline up from South Wales amongst loads of friends old and new, never seen so much vinyl for sale at Soulfusion (on the night I'd promised myself I wasn't buying...and I only weakened once!), Steve Ray did the early set in the main room with some good stuff, then Neil got 'em going ready for our guest Derek Mead, who kicked straight in with Buddy Miles version of "What does it take", and did an excellent set mixing classic oldies with some well different things and loved every minute!.

My turn to wrap it up this time, so it was mainly requests and favourites but a few curve balls thrown in, and all too soon it was 1am and time to finish, Rufus Lumley "Stronger than me" sent everyone home happy (I hope ) and left us looking forward to January 2011 and Colin Curtis's two-room spot.

Thanks to everyone who came, drank, danced and gossiped, and especially to Neil and the backroom team who work their bits off to make sure Soulfusion is such a success - all I do is turn up and play tunes but that crew do a lot of work that most people take for granted .

Edited November 23, 2010 by Jerry Hipkiss

[JON WILLIS]

Soulfusion as a punter, good night, didnt move very far from the Northern room Steve started with some under played (Track listing in Playlist section)..

Neil followed through with some tunes not often played out, nice one...

Derek Mead came back with some solid dancers and kept it all together......

Jerry, sorry had to go........

Catch you all later

See you at Oxford

Jon

[Neil Self]

Mart, Sue

thanks for posting up your revue of the evening, it always takes me a day or two to get over soulfusion what with having to collect all the equipment back in and meetings with the club to iron out a few bits and bobs.

anyway I'm here now and sorted,

What a terrific way to end what has been a briliant year at Soulfusion, the place filled up very nicely over the 1st couple of hours, seemed like the northern soulers arrived early and the modernists arrived fashionably late, but all rooms were seeing dancefloor action early on, hey even Sean Price had people up in the 1st half hour!! as per usual we had lots of new visitors to the event, I did 70 new memberships since the September event, where do they keep coming from? very pleased they do come and give us a try out.

times are hard at the moment and that makes it even more special when I know folks have made the effort to come to soulfusion.

folks keep telling me they will travel for a quality event such as ours which gives me a boost to carry on onto 2011 and beyond.

financially the books always seem to balance so at present we are treading water so to speak,

back to the important stuff the music, DJs and most importantly the paying punters

a BIG thankyou to everyone who attended be it paying punters or paid DJs and staff

musically the northern room rocked to quality oldies and the odd semi-known soul gem thrown in by each DJ spinning his set.

Steve ray kicked the night off, and anyone who knows Steve can confirm you won't hear any rubbish from him, all top notch norhern soul gems

I had the honour of doing the next spot which is unusual for me, normally finishing off the night. fair play it is a very different spot having to build it up for our special guest Derek Mead. anyway I did a good job (I think) and left Derek with a full dancefloor

Derek Meads box was steadily emptying as I did my set, Derek asked if I could leave a few big oldies for him to play as he was running out LOL!!

what a nice bloke Derek is and a terrific DJ too. Derek if you are reading this then you are very welcome to pay us a repeat visit in the future.

that left Mr Hipkiss to send them all home happy and as I stood up on the stage waiting for Jerry to finish, the place was still busy. and what a way to end!!

Rufus Lumley Stonger than me. Well done Jerry a brilliant way to end 2010.

The modern room from what I experienced was rammed and apart from one technical problem which got sorted very quickly we had a hassle free night in there with Mark Randle doing a superb 90 minute mix that left the place in buckets of sweat!!! November anyone would have thought it was a warm July evening in Cyprus!!! twas that hot in there, a quick trip to the bar to ask them to put the aircon on soon colled things down to a more acceptable temperature.

as previously posted you can see what mark played and any modern soul fan who hasn't been to soulfusion yet should get along soon because you are really missing out on some terrific nights Mark set is typical of the stuff that gets played, to a very appreciateive auduence who are on the floor very early and stay there till the close of play. for a DJ it's a dream gig. gotta say a BIG thankyou to all the other DJs in the modern room that's Sean Price. Steve Lloyd, & Ady Pountain, all doing terrific sets to keep the room interesting and vibrant.

on to the motown room now,

got to say this room although quiet early on has now established itself as a grower of a room, I only popped in there a few times during the evening due to me DJing and sorting things out, but when I did venture in I could see the growing crowd of dancers enjoying a real mixture of Motown, philly,club soul,and familiar soul sounds and a very nice atmosphere developing. BIG thanks to Jinksy, Jerry, martyn & Sue for providing the music in there, It's your baby so keep on doing what your doing!!

on to the punters now,

it gives me an great feeling to see you all enjoying the evening. so nice to see a lot of folks making the long journey to soulfusion

Trevor & Denise Cox from Cleethorpes, Steve & Charmain from Bournemouth, Simon Hunt & gang from Burton on Trent, Macca & Helen from the South coast, planky, Dave hulmes, Cheryl from Wolvo way, Wigan Brian Mick & Bet Perrins from Staffs to name a few. Thankyou so much for travelling to be with us, it's very much appreciated.

Roll on 2011

Oh Yes Saturday 22nd January is Our 5th anniversary Bash which will undoubtedly be our biggest event so far!!

COLIN CURTIS in both the Northern & Modern rooms YES you have read it correctly, Colin has very kindly agreed to do a Mecca style northern set for us. This will be a real treat for us, so make sure you put it in your diary NOW!!!

all that remains for me to say is thankyou so much for all the support over the last 5 years that goes out to everyone who has ever attended soulfusion and also to the team of keen soulies and friends who help us out with the event.

Have yourselves a soulful xmas & new year

one very happy promoter & DJ

Neil Self

Edited November 24, 2010 by neil self

[paup-ine]

Yet another cracker, a cold night outside turned into a very sweaty one by the end! Warmed up the Hitsville room early doors, then did my usual thing of trying to be sociable while keeping ears on the main room for the same reason as Mart and Sue, and the occasional foray into the modern room. Great to see Sue Reddy and Pauline up from South Wales amongst loads of friends old and new, never seen so much vinyl for sale at Soulfusion (on the night I'd promised myself I wasn't buying...and I only weakened once!), Steve Ray did the early set in the main room with some good stuff, then Neil got 'em going ready for our guest Derek Mead, who kicked straight in with Buddy Miles version of "What does it take", and did an excellent set mixing classic oldies with some well different things and loved every minute!.

My turn to wrap it up this time, so it was mainly requests and favourites but a few curve balls thrown in, and all too soon it was 1am and time to finish, Rufus Lumley "Stronger than me" sent everyone home happy (I hope ) and left us looking forward to January 2011 and Colin Curtis's two-room spot.

Thanks to everyone who came, drank, danced and gossiped, and especially to Neil and the backroom team who work their bits off to make sure Soulfusion is such a success - all I do is turn up and play tunes but that crew do a lot of work that most people take for granted .

Thanks Jerry we had a blast. Will deffo come again, and will be recommending the event I was all over the place in all the rooms and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. See you in January. Thanks to Neil for the CD on arrival, nice touch and memories of Prestatyn, thanks

Pauline & Sue

[Guest]

Soulfusion definitely finishes 2010 on a high roll on January!