Steve G

Not the same as the imaginary Dance Police, or the Soul Police then? I am sure Arkwright is making some of these designs up now...

£300-£350 sounds about right. Used to be a wee bit bit more. Steve

Shockingly cheap!

You know what stomper, I have seen some pretty cr*p NS dancers in my time, flapping about, out of time, no rhythm, pogo-ing about etc. But I have NEVER seen people laughing at them, and that is one of the beauties of the scene - you are absolutely free to express yourself to the music without being laughed at. There are no dance soul police.

1st one quite rare Billy, doesn't show up much.

Hiya Jordi, I am afraid it's us that's now in the minority/ Agree some are still flying the flag with pride, but a majority? Presumably all this tat sells, or else it wouldn't be produced. Steve

Well we still have freedom of opinion here...it's not China Pete. Point was thread was about woman giving dance classes, and in the context of the commercialisation of NS, that is relatively timid, so my point was why ridicule her when so many others are making a buck. Seems like many didn't know the extent of this commercialisation / merchandise, and thanks to Arkwright advertising some of his wares on here we now know. Russ Vickers would be shocked if he read all this, but it proves the point made earlier that NS is totally commercialised. Any lingering thoughts that NS is the last true underground scene has been finally laid to rest. Our precious underground scene is overground. Steve

Only if you make the kids listen to it

And the irony is the Ronnie McNeir watch isn't selling and has been discounted in price. While you still have to pay full price for Frank Wilson watches....says it all

Last 10 years Mark.\ Gets worse every year.

Excellent find Granville. New category NS Kitchenware Now all we need is a NS toilet roll holder.\I am sure some enterprising person can come up with the goods Steve

Well it's SPanish? How different is it?

Tell you what....at the next major weekender someone should do a survey of the stalls Categories: NS clothes (outerwear / fancy dress sorry couldn't resist that) NS clothes (underwear) NS dancing shoes NS Mugs, plates and Teapots NS Greetings Cards and Pendolphin figures NS Cufflinks, tie pins, pin badges NS car stickers "Keep da faith", "NS A way of life" etc NS Miscellaneous "tat" NS CDs and Bootlegs NS Vinyl paraphanalea (covers, record boxes, record centres etc.) Vinyl

Where can I get me one of those really cool Frank Wilson watches please? : There is no end to this tat on sale at any weekender....That's my whole point. The NS scene is totally commercialised, and despite the best efforts of a minority, the "entrepreneurs" have found some increasingly novel ways to make a fast buck out of NS. As for libel position, as long as not defamatory, people are allowed to express views....

A different perspective on this. The scene has always had a hard core of devotees, and there have always been a regular flow of people both coming onto the scene and dropping off; but back in the 70s there was a constant flow of new people attracted to NS on a weekly basis. The evidence of that is the 100,000 + membership of WC when the average attendance was only about one fiftieth of that. Soul was still appealing as a music form / youth culture and northern was it's underground incarnation, and played music that was fast but up to ten years old. It was hip to be part of something that was not on the BBC, and I can still remember looking over the balcony and thinking "this is great" it was so far away from anything that was happening in my town. For a large part of the community until the late 70s the best music to dance to was based on soul music and Motown and so it was not a great jump across to northern soul, allnighters and WC. By the late 70s disco music became established in it's own right and that effectively 'stole the crown' for the masses when it came to music to dance to. I can remember things like that infuriatinly banal "Ring my bell" being played at every local disco, whereas five years before it would have been a Junior Walker track. With that change, soul became untrendy and the number of new recruits coming onto the scene dried up. That led to the inevitable falling attendances. I know that the playing of crap records also played a part - a number of us stopped going to WC for that reason (preferring instead authentic 6Ts nights in London), as did the rise of the jazz funk scene, but realistically a weekly event was never going to sustain the type of attendance that it did in the mid 70s, when the music style had moved so far away from what the mainstream considered to be "dance" music.

Nor will you Dave, there aren't any. As far as Brunswick is concerned one of those album only groups (except for this Euro release). Lots of great Brunswick albums from the early 70s beyond this and The Eliminators, maybe I should start a new thread on them all.....

It's not hard to find, nor expensive. So good luck.

Smith & Wolenski for a steak

Yes a lovely record even if the vocals are a bit weak. As the Plumbmeister says one of those turning point records, and a great dancer too. Ray Dahrouge wrote it and later covered it on Polydor, and he's on here as well......Steve

Hey Jocko, thanks for the comments. Do you think Mr Dewhirst and the folks over at manifesto would accept a few editorials from me? How about some dancing lessons in Manifesto then? : Mark, the joke was in the words "kick" and "heel", a "heel" being someone who plays the part of a villain. But I am sure you knew that. Steve

Hi Mark - Does Russ get a kick out of being the "heel" ?

Sorry guys, I no longer get upset by this sort of thing. If the lady wants to make a bit of money teaching others how to dance then so be it, good luck to her. And please spare me the "this is commercialism" line - several years ago at a weekender Tim A and myself were discussing the fact that there were more clothes stalls in evidence than there were record stalls! It was a shocking revelation. The complete comercialism of NS has been there for years now - everything from car stickers, to birthday cards that play Frank Wilson. I even succumbed at one point and purchased a "Darrell Banks London demo" mug to drink me tea out of So why not some lady who teaches people to dance? The way I see it the majority of the NS scene today is just a retro revival scene playing the same 200 records like the Teddy Boys / Rockabilly lot and some would say now what remains of the scooterists. There is nothing "cool" or "underground" about this brand of NS at all and if you want to find a scene that sticks closely to the original principles of NS - well there are a few obvious clubs and promotors, but you have to search them out. So unless you are all going to give the handbag sellers at the weekenders a hard time as well, and berate Johnny Vaughn for his cringeworthy TV "send ups" leave this woman to her classes and her happy punters......who presumably can now do airplane spins without knocking the beer tables over -unlike me. As for Winstanley, well why would anyone be surprised he is popping up on a commercial NS site? - his contribution to the soul scene since Wigan closed has only been to harp on about Wigan Casino endlessly and try and recreate it in increasingly bizarre locations - at least this time he has travelled beyond the boundaries of Wigan for once, up as far as Preston.........yipee doo! Perhaps it's time to be serious about re-employing the term "rare soul" again so as to distance ourselves from the pungent smell of overt commercialism that hangs over NS.......but only on condition that the usual suspects don't start posting up how many good records are not "rare" (we know that)....

What me a curved ball? :yes: At this rate I'll be eating Gavin's famous "sock" at Yarmouth

I am not that cynical folks. Clarkie did tell me it was a wind up when I asked him about it at Yarmouth. Anyway let's see if anyone actually gets it. I've never been afraid of eating my hat if I get something wrong and Dave T's comment about Ernest Kelly is interesting - so if it does exist is it being suggested that it was not a contemporary release at the time of the album but something done some time later? The plot thickens.

This is a serious comment, but I have got a feeling he is related somehow to George Bush.