Timillustrator

Wouldn't it be difficult to tell though? As it's the individual track rather than the song? DILYIID has 17,000,000 original and 16,000,000 Ian Levine version, there could be other versions too though.

2 hours ago, Chalky said:

I really thought the lockdowns and the time people have had to reflect would have brought about a change but if anything it is worse than it was before all this started.

Here is to a better outlook for 2022 and maybe change will be delivered, the scene really needs it.

Very valid point, I have definitely seen the same. The first few post-lockdown events we went to we thought were a bit mainstream, all top 500, Motown and upbeat but reasoned that maybe that was as a reaction to all the gloom and doom but it seems more that venues want to be packed and if they can achieve that by playing Motown and disco then so be it.

A couple of once decent clubs have definitely gone this way, even going so far as to change their name.

There are a few that fit the bill - Byron in Nottingham doesn't trouble the top 500 too much, Wolfies in Cannock is pretty much all rare and underplayed and monthly. Dark Horses, now in Dordon, is mainly obscure and unknown. I've not been but understand that Bellmans Yard (this Friday) is similar. 

Went to NG4 on Monday night, fairly full but no particular issues. Amazing how things can change so much within a short space of time. I think natural caution and time of year will keep numbers low anyway. Can't really be bothered myself for NYE.

I've seen half a dozen local events cancelled this weekend and beyond. I know a few did go ahead on Saturday but numbers were down a bit. I wonder if we'll be following Holland, Ireland and Germany shortly?

6 hours ago, Jez Jones said:

Well thats it...are we now saying Covid is clever and comes out to play after 1am lol

But joking apart...how I read this...is events open between 1am - 5am are scuppered......which means NO allnighters unless someone can show me different

Granted venues are open IF you provide proof ..but how they gonna be checked ????     door  protocol isn't exemplary on this scene 🙂

It's not that hard though. I've been to a couple of gigs in recent months where they needed this. In both cases there was one person on the line asking to look at everyones phone for the QR code and then waving them in. Younger demographic perhaps though because 100% of attendees had a smartphone which may not be the case at every soul do.

2 hours ago, Fish Fingers said:

Kids are less tribalistic than we used to be.

When I was young, most people were either a Soulie / Punk / Heavy Rocker / New Romantic etc. Its how people identified with the world in a time before YouTube and Tik Tok. Clothing and music tribalism were embedded in youth culture. 

I can see next gen just looking at NS as part of their overall diverse music experience. Maybe go to a soul night, then tomorrow go to an indie night. 

If that is the case, it would dilute certain aspects. Dancing and record collecting being obvious ones. 

I could also see the strict barriers of a NS night blurring (as already seems to be the case with Levs do) as next gen take it on their journey. 

More diversity with the music, drinks on the Dancefloor (sorry admin 🤣) etc. 

Just my 02p.

Absolutely spot on! There are some kids that still stick to youth cults - a few of my kids' friends are goths or skaters but even then their musical taste is way wider than those cults used to tolerate. There's even a sprinkling of young mods about but on the whole the under 20's seem to be into a wide range of stuff - partly because a massive range of music is now basically free and they don't have to invest their hard-earned cash into acquiring it. 

My 16 year old daughter likes a bit of Northern along with a bit of 70's rock, Harry Styles, disco, 80's indie etc; my 20 year old son also likes some Northern Soul, alongside drill, 60's, 70's, reggae, ska etc. Both have been to "proper" events with me in the past, they enjoyed it but it didn't grab them; my son goes to a Soul/Funk night in at a student club in Nottingham too he said it was his favourite night out.

I think it has become part of a diverse musical experience and not that many will identify with it to the exclusion of all else. 

Even more clashing than before! Everyone seems to want the same weekends.

On 27/10/2021 at 08:24, Steve G said:

2) Record collecting is more popular than it has ever been, despite the old boys saying it is dying out / will be over in 10 years. Genres that you couldn't give away decades ago, now fetching high prices. Some records that were in demand now badly out of fashion, others massively "in". And of course soul collecting is now global, not largely limited to callow youth in a record bar in the UK. Linked to this the advent of the "trophy record" which transcends trends and the people that crave them. Del Larks, Salvadors, Eddie Parker we all know 'em.

3) You absolutely can compare records to stamp collecting and other forms of collecting from football cards to enamel signs to comics, especially the genuinely rare records (not the "dozens of copy" records that people keep saying are "very rare" like Cecil W, Sam Dees etc. which are not rare). Aligned to that is a lack of knowledge amongst some collectors. No real idea of what is rare and what was about in quantity and therefore by definition no compass to guide them. At this point if something is genuinely rare, it is unlikely more copies will surface. Not impossible, but increasingly unlikely. Look at the amount of crap on eBay, discogs etc.

 

 

 

 

Hit the nail on the head there. I never collected soul - used to buy Kent albums in the 80's but only because you got more tunes for your money, I didn't particularly look after them either. 

It turns out though that I did collect records in other genres, and a hell of a lot of stuff I bought mail-order or in small specialist record shops in the 80's and 90's for well under a tenner is now in the high teens and hundreds. Now rare-ish records I bough in the Virgin megastore for £6.99 are sometimes fetching £100 +. Collectors mainly seem to be in the US and Japan but also all over Europe and I guess at the time they had no access to this stuff.

The only regret I have is how much stuff in the 90's I part-exed or sold to friends usually for beer money! And being a relative youngster I was seduced by CD's and stopped buying any vinyl around 91.

Butch if you're down south, if you're in the Midlands John Weston, Martin Farmer, Les Norman, Dave Rimmer, Ted Massey, Sean Chapman, Ashley Fellows, up northJordan Wilson has some interesting stuff.

If you want basically the top 500 almost anyone.

I've been to a few events and nearly all were down on numbers from pre-pandemic. Since the last Stoke All-nighter I've been unlucky enough to catch Covid - three weeks on still got no energy so giving it a miss because although I'm out of the self-isolation period I'm still coughing quite a bit. 

1 hour ago, Julianb said:

I'm old enough to remember when bootlegs drove down the price of originals. Jeff King and his Soul Sounds, Simon Soussan, Selectadisc, OOTP releases etc.

I snagged an original Sandi Sheldon demo around 1971 for £8 only for it to be booted and available for 90p the following   week.  Nobody was then interested in the original😪

Thankfully things have changed for the better👍

It's a complex market, BITD the only way to hear a record was to buy it; so simple supply and demand - the demand was for a track, more supply reduced demand and therefore cost. Follows the normal laws of economics. Now the added complexity is that originals are bought by collectors either for love, for investment or to DJ with. The presence or not of a reissue won't affect the first two and may affect the third depending on where they're DJing.

This is an almost completely different market to the "average" punter who may just want to hear a song now and again. In this case a range of issues come into play - how tech savvy they are, how bothered about "owning" something, how much they want to listen to it. I'd say the presence of a reissue would influence this market quite a lot but even this will be age related, younger people who aren't into the particular morals of a scene will just listen on Spotify or rip an MP3 off YouTube and not be so fussed with having a physical object. 

On 29/09/2021 at 17:13, Winsford Soul said:

Why would anyone want to boot such a cheap,  readily available record  ? 🤔 

Was it this bunch though? They had a big operation and they'd be less likely to get caught if they booted fairly common stuff rather than risk rare stuff that'd get them caught easier?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46393631

Do you mean this one? Full SAW treatment.

Or perhaps this? 

18 hours ago, Dim said:

I'm not pro or anti but I was told that it damaged the wooden floors in some way rather than anything else and that it was premises managers rather than promoters who were against it. I don't know if that's true or not. 

It is crushed rock - very finely crushed, so will grind away at the surface although if the floor is dry most will not cause that much damage. If it becomes wet and is ground in by moving feet it would do more but mostly it would be on the surface (varnish) rather than the wood itself.

I know of one club owner who's main objection was that it was left to the club's cleaners to vacuum it all up the next day and they were complaining that it got into all the furniture and carpets and so took them loads longer to clean up.

1 hour ago, LifesTooShort said:

Would Promoters or someone else tell me please, are there any 'talc-friendly' venues around Notts.? 
I'm not after a lecture about the evils of talc, I'd just like a positive answer please.
I'm surprised to see that so many people who have commented "Health and Safety gone mad!" to Facebook posts I've seen are now champions of the No-Talc regime.
Yes, I know people might sue you but get everyone to sign a waiver before they come in.
Cheers.

I'm not having a go but I do wonder why you are asking?

Some people splash it around everywhere but it really depends on 1. How you dance and 2. What the floor is like. If you shuffle, slide and glide then you need a friction free floor but if it's clean, polished, sprung maple wood, say, and you've got leather soles you'll have no problem. On the other hand if it's lino or vinyl or worse still painted concrete you might just need talc in order to unstick your feet. Other people still jump more or wear trainers in which case talc is pretty pointless.

Worst dancefloor I ever saw was a sort of vinyl safety flooring, the type with non-slip aggregates in it. Plus it was in a basement so condensation was dripping onto it - total nightmare it was wet and sticky; didn't seem to bother some people though. 

Two best dance floors in Notts I can think of are Sherwood Forest at Bilsthorpe and Grosvenor Rooms, Sutton In Ashfield. Neither need any talc.

Not sure if you can draw any conclusions but I've been to 6 events and not heard of any infections. A work colleague in her 20's has been to a couple of gigs and got "pinged" twice within 7 days. Both times she got a negative PCR test after being pinged and she's double jabbed too anyway. I'm guessing it's the age group difference though?

She also went to two weddings and a hen do in Brighton but nothing from them.

On 02/09/2021 at 17:23, Ian Stacey said:

Oh dear quite enjoyed your reviews  of clubs &djs attitudes creeping in who flogging bootlegs . I think you should get back out with sketch book out  .😇

Thank you, glad someone read them   I've got a few tickets - Wigan Empire and Ian Levine in Hednesford coming up so I'll go to those at least. 

6 hours ago, Len said:

Morning all,

I thought this lock-down business would change things, but until I'd read these comments I thought everyone had just 'sprung back' as if nothing had happened.

Lock-down aside, I know I've had my best times out 'n' about, so going out comes in 'waves' of enthusiasm, which has a lot to do with what else one has going on in life.  The moment you feel you are 'chasing your tail' is the time to stop and enjoy other things, then before you know it another wave of enthusiasm hits you and you go round that merry-go-round of Northern Soul one more time.

(Hope the above makes sense) 

Len 

Very good point, I think you're absolutely spot-on, lockdown for me as with many others has been a "life" event.

Reminds me of the 90's I had a bad car crash in '92, got made redundant in '94 (just after buying our first house) and then again in '95. All of which coincided with an almost total loss of interest in music which had probably been the major thing in my life before then. This sort of feels the same in a weird way.

Always like a nice Town/Civic Hall type building, Kings Hall Stoke, Sheffield City Hall, Birmingham Town Hall, Kidderminster Town Hall, Darlaston Town Hall. They usually have a massive dance floor, usually rather subdued lighting, great acoustics and there's nothing like the backdrop of a big pipe organ behind the DJ. There's a couple of ex-churches (one in Burton, can't remember the name?) too which have a great interior. In a venue like that the quality of the music isn't so crucial, even mediocre tunes echoing around have impact.

It's on at 18 Showcase Cinemas across the country this Friday, mostly between 2 and 3 in the afternoon though  what a rubbish time, might have to take the afternoon off work 😁 https://www.showcasecinemas.co.uk/film-info/summer-of-soul?fbclid=IwAR2lcVm0K32c7zPa2O1YntbdQ193yNYTU_gA6QB2APMjyl4qYPnEzFaFFyo

Sounds like a lot of things that there were multiple threads all involving the word "soul" and all pointing to the "north" of England or the UK and they just came together at some point. 

There's an interesting story in one of Bill Bryson's books about the origin of the hamburger - there are two restaurants in New York that both claim to have been the first to serve it but he points out that the first mention in print in a newspaper somewhere didn't refer to either and the context makes it clear that it was not a new thing but something that was generally known about.

I think my point is that by the time the phrase was first written down in a magazine (or on a patch) it was probably fairly well known already by word of mouth. 
 

9 hours ago, Chalky said:

Is that more to do with where they came from rather than a group on a scene?

That's what was said on the other thread. On the other hand they were a (British) soul band, which demonstrates that there was arguably some kind of "soul scene" in the North whereas in the south maybe it was more mixed in with R&B, blues, psych and early rock.