Alan Walls

Really? It's been so long, but I'm sure I would have checked it out. No choice though Chalky - if I left it as is the crack would definately have worsened. I'd been mad about 'Since You Left' since hearing it on a cracking compilation called The Record Collector Vol 1 when I was just a wee youth learing the ropes!

I think the comparitive dearth of 'black consciousness' material lies in the fact that most musicians, first and foremost, simply needed to earn a living, and more commercially accessible material is more likely to sell. I can't imagine James Coit made enough to buy a BK Whopper, never mind pay his rent. If he was happy with that I'll be the first to salute him - and Gino Washington for the Rat Race vocal, which is as umbiguously strident a lyric as any folk protest song the 60's ever threw up. However, I wouldn't be surprised if even the most militant performers of the day nursed a yearning for the paycheck and fame being signed to Motown or Stax or Atlantic may have brought.

I've got one, £8 off Brady back in the day, due to it having a 1" full crack (ooh er). Plays ok though, after taping a little stout card to the flip for support.

We should bear in mind the "it's already been played" line can be used when a DJ simply doesn't want to play the track and he is exercising a little diplomacy. Like the old chestnut "it's in my other box", or my favourite "Jock's on later, loves the tune. He'll play it for you" - for years I used that ploy to get a procession of oldies heads to harangue him for Mickey Moonshine, Barbara Mills, Joe 90 and all that shite. How we laughed!

I'm maybe getting my references a little mixed up, but I'm sure it was in Pete Guralnick's book 'Sweet Soul Music' that one of the Stax staffers went into a little more detail about the PJ. Seemingly he was something of an eccentric, frustrated performer trapped in a job as a janitor, and was forever trying to 'accidentaly-on-purpose' make his presence felt in recording sessions - like barging in the studio or using his vacuum cleaner while recording was in progress, in the hope he would ghost his was into the record. Hence 'Phantom' Janitor. For a while took to appearing for work with a brief case, like an executive. They couldn't figure out why a janitor needed a briefcase so sneaked a look inside it one day. It was full of toilet rolls... Edit: just read Eddie's earlier post with the vacuum cleaner reference..

Aye, and a wee bit more with-it than the Dead Man Walking of yesterday! Fit's happnin' H? Nae seen ye for ages. btw, yer signature: Rob Marriot's next line was "I 'ad it when you were runnin' round wi' bread an' jam in yer 'and"! I wonder if Andy remembers that exchange?

Er, Steve got from Soul Bowl for £15. White demo. Bought blind 'cos it was on Nation. Totally freaked out when played it, he knew it was a current sound but couldn't put his finger on it. He played it down the phone to me, it was one of my fav Butch tracks and used to request it all the time. Then I freaked out! Thrilled to see the northern scene's capacity to generate weird and wondeful rumours is alive and well (though that's got nothing on the one that had me dead - twice!)

There's no point trying to 'educate' the crowd, they've just come to party, so give 'em a load of familiar Motown*, neck yer free ale and have done with it. *augmented with other familiar things, like 'The In Crowd', and...er...that kind of thing!

£150? Holy sheeeeeeeeeeeeeit!

The first 100 memberships were black with gold writing. Being Rob's pals, Steve and I got got Gold cards Just remembered - or maybe I've imagined this - for the ordinary people who didn't get a 'gold' card, I'm sure the chaps got a black card with blue writing, and black with pink for the Ladies. Anyone corroborate this? Cracking niter, didn't run too long IIRC. Remember Keb first playing Andy Whatshisname on Fat Fish and Wade Flemons on Vee Jay there. Also remember the time a Scottish rogue who travelled down with us found a wallet with a couple of hundred quids in it, which he considered trousering. It was my mate Pete Robinson's wallet and just as I was about to berate the rogue in question, Jim Wensiora announced over the mic that a wallet had been lost. I immediately shouted out "he's found it" and pointed to said rogue before he had a chance to blag it!

Does anyone know who Ipso Facto had in mind as their target audience? 'The Youth of Today' are feckless, gormless, tasteless , badly dressed air heads, obsessed with celebrities and shallow drivel passing for music - does anyone seriously think this film would appeal to them? What about it, exactly, would appeal? The skinny jeaned fops would wilt at the sight of the 40" bottomed Spencers and the dingy clubs. It could as well have been set in the Middle Ages or on Mars, for all they could relate to it. And it's pissed off the Old School. So who was it aimed at? Or was that another thing they didn't think through?

The Jewells - We Got Togetherness: another mental head banger!

The Chryslers and The Monarchs Band - I Ain't Gonna Lose You is a bonkers mental wig out of a tune. I love it to death but it's just demented, apart from being about 1000mph it's like there's about 2 or 3 different songs rattling away at the same time. I mean The Chryslers AND The Monarchs Band sound like two groups on the one record, no wonder it's a riot! Even the band seem to be bashing out an entirely different backing track. None of it fits properly yet it's still wonderful!

Surely the determining factor is the wether the DJ is playing the kind of set he was booked to play? Which, of course, puts the onus on the promoter to pick his DJ's logically. That said, if for whatever reason a fella's set is dying on it's arse and the peasants are revolting, it's in everyone's interest he either takes control or let's the next guy on a bit earlier.

Good man Nick. Never too young!

Yeah, definately think the 2nd photo is later, they look like they're brimming with attitude. The smiling, wholesome kids from the first pic have grown up without that elusive hit record. Love everything they did, achingly soulful. Was often tempted to play out Hey It's Love or Don't Be Afraid To Love Me back in the day, but just a bit too slow for the masses.

Couple more from the soundtrack: Jackie Wilson - Soul Galore Danny White - Cracked Up Over You

I sold one to JM on a visit to his shop donkeys years ago. He volunteerd the info that it was an original (I couldn't tell) as it bore a certain stamp, which I'm pretty sure sure was AT. It was a good, solid vinyl copy, with the label curving smoothly to the dead wax. edit: maybe the AT stamp was circled?

Well said Sir!

The last record played at Stafford TOTW was Edward Hamilton - Baby Don't You Weep, which pissed off many of us. As good as the record is, it's an oldie and untypical of TOTW. That was a big let down, but somehow fitting that it was played by Chris King, a fella who should never have been anywhere near the decks (if in the club at all).

Hey Nick, Bruce certainly wasn't alone. I came across many a gurning, goggle eyed youth in the YM, that Nelson Saunders & Sulphate Cybermen tended to set them off as I recall! Good to hear from you. Muchos congrats on the arrival of Carmen Lucia, best wishes to you and Aileen!

Billy Butler - Right Track had a stonker of a ritual clap. Always did it, regardless of whether anyone else did. On the beat. I remember this being debated in one of those extended sessions after a nighter, long ago. We concluded the urge to clap was enhanced by the amount of 'phet imbibed. Dancing wasn't enough, sometimes you just had to sing along and whack your hands! Same with the tortured soulful grimace that went dancing to a slower tune - it looked as if the dancer was feeling every ounce of the singer's anguish, when he was really just straining to slow himself down in time with the record! Nothing worse than a rogue clapper, though. I remember Guy being moved to comment on this over the mic, one night at Glenrothes YMCA: "if I find out oo''s clappin' outta tune, he'll be gettin' sent 'ome - WI' LOT'S O' SUPPER"!

Well, I saw it last Sunday after following the ebb and flow on here for months. I reckoned if was to be half as much fun as this and related threads then it might be worthwhile! Northern content or not, I found it an agreeable piece of typically Brit comedy/drama whimsy, and it dutifully ticked all the standard boxes. It was well acted - congrats to Martin Compston for disguising his Greenock accent - the dialogue largely impressive and best of all, the attention to period detail was astonishingly good. Clothes, street scenes, the naffness of decor - all really well done, but it's the very issue of attention to detail which has rubbed so many up the wrong way. Basically, when every other aspect of working class northen life in 1974 was replicated so faithfully and admirably, why blow all the good work with daft and just plain wrong representations of the Northen scene? The reason this film has generated such a heated response is because it is about the Northern Soul Scene: it's not just a film with some Northern as incidental music, or featuring a character who is into it. The Northern Soul Scene is the film's focus, The Scene is the star, so it behoves the makers to get it 100% right. No margin for error, no lee-way. And why should there be? This scene didn't beg for such a film to be made, it has never openly courted populist appeal and that self regard has been a huge reason for the scene's durability. Contrary to some poster's opinions, the film will surely only appeal to old heads. Everything about will seem utterly alien to the current generation of teens, it could be set in the Stoneage for all they will be able to relate to it, so that takes us back again to the need to get it right. AlanB made a good point a few posts back concerning how difficult it would be for the scriptwriters to contrive a fitting climax as a commercial movie demands and I quite agree, but that's not our problem. It's their job to get it right, and it's entirely reasonable that folk who have an emotional attachment to the subject matter might demand better. 6/10