Soul Scene Pre Or Post Internet?

[Barry]

I think I felt it was a more 'special' thing to me pre internet, you had to work a lot harder to obtain stuff etc but there are many obvious post internet bonuses nowadays.

If you could choose pre or post internet, which would it be?

[Simsy]

Post deffo..

No more paying subs for lists and no Soul Source?

[Geeselad]

pre wins hands down, there just too much knowledge out there now, lol. The net's created an equal playing feild, but equality = mediocrity in my book.

[Roburt]

Post for me ............ loads of fascinating facts at your fingertips.

[Tiberius]

100% post internet for me. I'm a miserly bugger so my opinion is from a purely financial point of view. I've bought stuff I'd never have dreamed of off the net, and seen records I would probably never see in a lifetime of digging. Importantly, the thrill of the chase, so to speak, is still there. For me, as a complete tight wad, early ebay days were best, up to just after the $/£ exchange rate started falling from £1=$2. It's not quite as easy to find a bargain now imo.....although without a doubt they're still there.

[nubes]

Well both to me had/has advantages...use to love getting Blues and Soul..and Black Echoes to see what was on etc...getting flyers from nighters .....nowadays the scene has just moved with the times..and has opened up the field for information ..it is much easier to access stuff...Delxxxx

[Guest drewid]

I think I felt it was a more 'special' thing to me pre internet, you had to work a lot harder to obtain stuff etc but there are many obvious post internet bonuses nowadays.

If you could choose pre or post internet, which would it be?

good question!, both have there ups and downs ,but for me pre internet, as now for me the hunt for a record is not the same , as doin it on the net we tend to get idle and has prob killed of a lot of record fairs etc so the thrill of the chase is somewhat dulled when you can just log on , just my opinion

[Harry Crosby]

I think I felt it was a more 'special' thing to me pre internet, you had to work a lot harder to obtain stuff etc but there are many obvious post internet bonuses nowadays.

If you could choose pre or post internet, which would it be?

Very good question, i was talking amongst some friends the other week and this came up. Pre-internet for me, i used to love hanging about in record bars, talking and learning from my peers.

[Len]

Pre — Without a doubt, we all know we have to "Ëœmove with the times' an all that, but for me, the "Ëœmagic' has been sucked out of the scene, not sure the internet is to blame, but everything "Ëœeasy to get' and a "Ëœplatform' for just anybody, can't have helped the "Ëœspecialness' of it — Just my opinion....

All the best,

Len

Edited September 24, 2012 by LEN

[Davenpete]

Defo pre - the excitement of tape swapping and tracking sounds down that interested you, going through cheap boxes with a sound burger and finding something you loved but had never heard of - it's all out there now and it's just a question of trudging about on you tube etc. Of course youth had something to do with the starry eyed excitement (amongst other things).

Dx

[Pete S]

I tend to agree with those in favour of pre, not just with the scene but with everything, I remember I used to love going to big music stores and buying cd's and dvd's whatever, then as the internet got faster and things became more widely available to download, I more or less stopped going in these shops because it was all there on line (and in most cases, it was free, not legally obviously) but I had over 1500 music cd's up to about 2007, and I never bought one after that and still haven't as far as I can remember. There's little or no point going to the shops anymore, it's all online. But thats also made things very boring as well, heading to a shopping mall knowing the most I"ll be buying will probably be a cup of coffee and a sandwich...it's even spread to books and magazines now, you don't have to go outside to get them.

The other thing is that the internet has allowed everyone to become an "expert" without putting the time or legwork in, in the old days you had to learn about music, about records, about labels, nowadays you just open google and find the answer, knowledge about prices and rarity was learned, now you open a book and it tells you things in seconds that it took us 2 decades to learn.

I do love the internet but I really do miss record shops as much as I miss being able to smoke in a pub.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Pete S

[Tfk]

Pre all the way...Yep back then it was .those who were first up in the morning sometimes got the best records but were always the best dressed- i can remember it like it was yesterday, watching for the postie appearing,, grabbing the Soul Bowl sales list out of his hand before he even had chance to put it in to the letter box....a quick 2 minute glegg up and down the pages - and then marking upwith a pencil the the ones that looked good.....mmm no pens or sound files back then twas all word an mouth and paying attention to what was being played out and about over the weekend!!!!.....then the 100 yard sprint to the public phone box at the top of the street loose change a jangling in ya pockets.....then dialing those magic numbers 0553 840895 yep these numbers back then were as exciting as owning the todays winning lottery numbers. .....it would know be about 08:00am and if you got straight through you were in with a chance of getting the good uns.....if the phone was engaged you would start panicing but would keep ringing until you got through just hoping that you had not been pipped to the the prize.....week in week out rain /wind or snow to the phone box you would go????.......you needed sharp teeth and loads of enthusiasm and a warm coat...no regrets!!!!! and quite good fun if thats what ya digged!!!

Hey i would never ever swap Pre computers etc etc for todays simplicity world[far to easy and for cissys only]!!!! who would want to be sat by the warm fire typing away on google etc etc ebay/computors/paypal etc etc not for me no way!!!!!

So dump ya computors get ya sheepskin coat on and go and find them super soul records......

ktf and right on right tfk

Edited September 26, 2012 by tfk

[Geeselad]

I tend to agree with those in favour of pre, not just with the scene but with everything, I remember I used to love going to big music stores and buying cd's and dvd's whatever, then as the internet got faster and things became more widely available to download, I more or less stopped going in these shops because it was all there on line (and in most cases, it was free, not legally obviously) but I had over 1500 music cd's up to about 2007, and I never bought one after that and still haven't as far as I can remember. There's little or no point going to the shops anymore, it's all online. But thats also made things very boring as well, heading to a shopping mall knowing the most I"ll be buying will probably be a cup of coffee and a sandwich...it's even spread to books and magazines now, you don't have to go outside to get them.

The other thing is that the internet has allowed everyone to become an "expert" without putting the time or legwork in, in the old days you had to learn about music, about records, about labels, nowadays you just open google and find the answer, knowledge about prices and rarity was learned, now you open a book and it tells you things in seconds that it took us 2 decades to learn.

I do love the internet but I really do miss record shops as much as I miss being able to smoke in a pub.

modern life is shite!

[Tiberius]

modern life is shite!

Exactly what I thought Sunday morning when I woke up to find I'd missed out on a bargain because my ebay auction snipe had inexplicably failed to work.........

[Diddy Morgan]

ringing up after reading the list, and hearing the previous caller has just bought what you really wanted and then settling for second choice............happy days

[davidwapples]

only get one list through the post now and the stuff on that has gone usually if i dont ring at the start time

post internet , no more buying dud records that you dont know , no more waiting for cheques to arrive and clear , if you want to listen to something you can hear it online in most cases , no more getting ripped off on unknowns that are not rare and available on ebay

only downside is lack of record shops in towns but can deal with that

[Ged Parker]

Pre.

[Denbo]

Pre 4 me.

It was magical. Hard work, but magical.

[Steve L]

I can completely understand the pre arguments for for me personally its post, the amount of info I've learned makes up for the negatives

[purist]

I spent a massive amount of time in record shops in the pre days, and their loss to me is HUGE. They were a meeting place where plans were laid and friendships made.

And it wasn't just about the records we bought. Yes, I know I can go online and buy sleeves, boxes, cleaning products etc and the service will be (in most cases) excellent, but I can't talk about what I heard some DJ play at the weekend at the same time. We'd spend endless hours trying to work out what some cover up was, and every like minded soul who stepped across the threshold could join in. If you were lucky you'd be included when the kettle was put on, and maybe one of us would pop to the corner shop to fetch biscuits, and all of these activities were accompanied by a northern soul soundtrack and a constantly flowing conversation that changed as every new person joined in.

Maybe it's better for finding records now we have the WWW., it's certainly easier, but it cold and sterile. Our scene is as much about the human contact as it is about the music or we'd all just be armchair collectors..... or is that where we're heading ?

[Ged Parker]

I can really get where you're coming from here John. Another dimension is that any advantage you gained in going to different venues and hearing new stuff is lost. Contacts are more easily made but that's for everyone and it is too simple.

Records have also become much more costly since the web despite being easier to find and that is a paradox I can't get my head round.

[Barry]

I can really get where you're coming from here John. Another dimension is that any advantage you gained in going to different venues and hearing new stuff is lost. Contacts are more easily made but that's for everyone and it is too simple.

Records have also become much more costly since the web despite being easier to find and that is a paradox I can't get my head round.

They've gone up as there's no leg-work involved Ged, you don't have to put any real effort in.

[Barry]

They've gone up as there's no leg-work involved Ged, you don't have to put any real effort in.

.....easier for more people to have access to the system of purchasing a record nowadays.

That make sense??

[tim smithers]

Post for me, had far to many bargains that i wouldn't have got , pre

[Pete S]

Another thing I sort of miss is doing compilations: remember when you got a cassette and lovingly compiled your singles on there, or dubbed from another tape, anything to put a great 90 minutes together, the whole process always took at least 2 hours, often longer. Now I can do all of that in 5 minutes using itunes. When I used to do magazines, finding a photograph of a lesser known artist was a nightmare, if I eventually found one in a book, I then had to take it to a shop to get it reduced in size and copied, now I just type a name in and it appears within 2 seconds. The internet sure has made our lives a lot easier. The one thing it isn't though, is tactile. People say to me, why get a record when you can just play an MP3? Well with an MP3 I can't look at it, feel it, remove it from it's sleeve, place it on the deck, pick the tone arm up and place the needle on the record. The only thing you can do with it which it has in common with a record, is that you can listen to it.

[Len]

The one thing it isn't though, is tactile. People say to me, why get a record when you can just play an MP3? Well with an MP3 I can't look at it, feel it, remove it from it's sleeve, place it on the deck, pick the tone arm up and place the needle on the record. The only thing you can do with it which it has in common with a record, is that you can listen to it.

Absolutely right...But try explaining the sense in that to 'The Outside World'!

All the best,

Len

Edited September 25, 2012 by LEN

[Anais nin Carms]

I bet its a lot easier to arrange a lift nowadays , and also to be an arm chair soul , you can read whats happening all over the country . The internet has brought many back to the soul scene. I do wonder what the next stage will be my guess is the future will be "local" soul internet groups forming as we travel less

[nickp]

Talking about that phone call to Soul Bowl whenever I got a new list ,working in a further education college, I used to go along to the janitor's box and old Harry the Janny use to let me use the 'strictly not for personal use ' phone to make my call.

Hiding behind the door he would listen in wonder at this foreign language that I spoke as I spent my weekend earnings.

There was nothing worse than having to hang up in mid buy whenever a figure of authority came near to the box.

Then phone cards came on to the scene..............

[Guest turntableterra]

pre and post internet have their own identity. and as with a few on here, i believe they have advantages and disavantages. one thing i do miss is the smell of those old record sleeves as you flicked through them for sometimes hours on end. i recall a full day spent in sam the record man on canada`s yong street and finding loads of albums, i found 3 elvis costello elmacombo for 39cents and one instantly brought 17.50 in a record collector auction back in 1980. the anticipation of the lists arriving and 2 seconds past 9.00 ringing the dealers only to find again that it had gone. discussing the details with more knowledgeable guys at the casino, it was all a sort of apprenticeship in northern soul. and, imo, if you went to wigan all those years and had your head stuck in record boxes you know how rare a record is. even now there are still some i have only just seen and held, chorleyblokes earl jackson and yum yums, i mean we didnt even know these existed so for me, to see these items, which had it not been for the internet i may not have had the pleasure to see or own an issue of larry clinton. some basic advantages to the internet are

1) availability of items, not only records but memorobilia

2) highlighting rarity more so, we all thought clara hardy or the epitome of sound was rare.

3) in the early days items could be picked up really cheap

4) clever people managing sales has had a positive impact on the record collector.(the "big find" a case in point with some not even scratching the surface.) consider the danny moore as a case in point, my 600 quid would still be safe

5) you tube has identified tracks to hear before you buy or to search for the unknown item

6) eplayer, actually hear what you get, scratches and all..........(better than bent over a burger in the record bar)

7) there is a sort of thrill of the chase

8) i often used to smile when i loose a record because of a snipe and think........BUGGER, SHOULDA, WOULDA, COULDA.....

9) Sites like this for obvious reasons, knowledge, scans, video, finding old friends, sharing tunes and incredible information

10) PAYPAL and protection from sellers with low feedback who sell you broken records and accuse you of breaking them

11) feedback. they sellers chase the positive so its neary always good

some disadvatages

1) too much information to keep up with

2) takes the chase almost totally out of the question

3) instant record collections and dj`s

4) thousands of people who went to wigan LOL

5) records that some sellers consider northern soul

a positive disadvantage for me, and i wonder if this is the same for many others, is now the records in my collection are more readily available to others, it makes me seek out the unkown stuff more and more, and best of all THEY ARE THERE TOO....... consider nat mayer, edwina salisbury, karol morgan, danny penny. another advantage is i am hearing tunes that i never heard, say at the casino as my head was stuck in record boxes, and getting a second chance if you like.

all in all i think the advantages outweight the disadvantages IMO............

[Guest gordon russell]

Pre internet for me......nowadays a lot of the scene has (regardless of the age thing) got very middle aged in it,s thinking and attitude

[Guest allnightandy]

It has to be pre , anyone can appear to be knowledgeable on the subject just by obtaining information via the net

i know a guy who claims to have been into NS since the 1960's , went to the wheel etc , go's to loads of venues dances like he's been doing it for years etc

Truth is he went to a wedding reception at Radcliffe civic a few years ago and wandered into the wrong room after sitting there a while both he and his wife enjoyed what they saw and heard so started going to local soul nights as for his dancing he used to go to work early and spend a couple of hours practicing in his office

Source of my information ?

His Son Lol

[Guest turntableterra]

quote name='allnightandy' timestamp='1349425884' post=1805847

It has to be pre , anyone can appear to be knowledgeable on the subject just by obtaining information via the net

i know a guy who claims to have been into NS since the 1960's , went to the wheel etc , go's to loads of venues dances like he's been doing it for years etc

Truth is he went to a wedding reception at Radcliffe civic a few years ago and wandered into the wrong room after sitting there a while both he and his wife enjoyed what they saw and heard so started going to local soul nights as for his dancing he used to go to work early and spend a couple of hours practicing in his office

Source of my information ?

His Son Lol

he`s gonna get the belt when he gets home lol. but you are right and its great to share, i rest on one thing, you cant lie to yourself, and they get found out,

[Dirk Tiggler]

Pre for me too. I reached saturation point a couple of years ago. I don't know if this analogy works for you but for me it's the same with football and sky sports. I'm only really interested in watching my own team. Ade

[Benji]

Neither pre nor post internet for me. Early internet days were the best for me. Pre-Soul Source site, the days of the Soul Source/Soul Talk mailing lists were the best. Happy times.