Northern Soul .... Companies lining up to use 'fashionable' music. Constantine's money making love story, Shredded Wheat and Northern Soul... Synonymous with a healthy lifestyle?  Someone didn't do their research. 

There is a lifetime spent from teenage years joining a movement with very little parental knowledge, intervention or in my case care. This underground scene was forged for reasons of social acceptability, to challenge authority, thankfully it needed no money to join, and the countrywide connections made, (a time pre internet,mobiles) ensured there was always someone to help with costs, travelling, entrance fee, drugs. 

'People' will talk about it just being about the music... It was so much more than that, Friday night all nighter Saturday night all nighter Sunday all dayer, travelling the length and breadth of the country, scoring drugs, losing jobs, relationships made and broken due to the hardships of committing to living the life.

And that music, something about that music... if it gets you...its for life.

Dancing all night and day, singing til your throat is hoarse, no sleep, little eating, LIVING exciting daring challenging definitely not conducive to a healthy lifestyle.

Drugs were widely used by the majority and acceptable in this closed society,police drug squads set up specifically for controlling the Northern scene, chemists regularly ransacked, people died on dance floors and 30 years on the people that 'left the scene to raise families' quote unquote are stable, socially acceptable, caricatures NOW financially able to cultivate a 'look',  family raised, able to join a scene that at times, heartbreakingly so, survived underground in between those years....

There is a whole age being glossed over, churned, and spat out as this respectable twee existence.

Look deeper for longer.

All in all the film made by Elaine was a really good effort and does catch a good deal of truth about specifically 16 to 18 year olds around the NS scene in the 1974 \ 75 period those older would perhaps view it slightly differently at the time,  because they had already been there, 

ML

8 hours ago, marco said:

Just came across this creepy thread and, for the record, thought I'd let anyone who was labouring under the impression that Elaine and I are swanning around in anything other than our 20 year-old Fiat, cutting up hearses to make a dramatic entrance, while swigging from bottles of vintage Crystal etc etc., that to date we have recouped somewhere between 8 and 10% of what we invested in the film. Given that it's done 90% of it's business already it's highly unlikely we'll ever get back our investment, never mind any profit. Just sayin'...

 

On top of that, Elaine has turned down all offers of paying work (of which there have been many) that have anything to do with NS.

Marco, Maybe if there hadn't been so many bootleg copies being sold openly at soul nights then maybe you may have turned a profit, but it just seems everything is bootlegged nowadays hurting many music artists, collectors, film makers etc. It's just sad when people put thier heart & soul into something & unscrupulous people are the only ones making a profit 

Kirsty

9 hours ago, marco said:

Just came across this creepy thread and, for the record, thought I'd let anyone who was labouring under the impression that Elaine and I are swanning around in anything other than our 20 year-old Fiat, cutting up hearses to make a dramatic entrance, while swigging from bottles of vintage Crystal etc etc., that to date we have recouped somewhere between 8 and 10% of what we invested in the film. Given that it's done 90% of it's business already it's highly unlikely we'll ever get back our investment, never mind any profit. Just sayin'...

 

On top of that, Elaine has turned down all offers of paying work (of which there have been many) that have anything to do with NS.

Don't let the fcukers get you down mate, sounds like someone has a grudge to me and there is always someone who think they know more than anyone, including those involved!  Hope you are both well btw?

19 hours ago, marco said:

Just came across this creepy thread and, for the record, thought I'd let anyone who was labouring under the impression that Elaine and I are swanning around in anything other than our 20 year-old Fiat, cutting up hearses to make a dramatic entrance, while swigging from bottles of vintage Crystal etc etc., that to date we have recouped somewhere between 8 and 10% of what we invested in the film. Given that it's done 90% of it's business already it's highly unlikely we'll ever get back our investment, never mind any profit. Just sayin'...

 

On top of that, Elaine has turned down all offers of paying work (of which there have been many) that have anything to do with NS.

Hi Marco, you really don't need to justify yourself to a couple of bitter old "keyboard warriors" with their half baked theories and obscured memories of "how it was" for them. Hope all is well with you and E.