Paraboliccurve

Why would we even care? I just like the music.

Yes, I always post anything worth more than £50 Special Delivery Next Day Guaranteed by 1pm for precisely this reason. (Anything more than £1k I courier or even hand deliver if close enough.) I can't see the problem either - I'm mystified actually. I could easily claim more than £75 for a NM Cashing In, too - I'm simply claiming what I sold it for, not the likely replacement cost (I don't need a replacement). I'm familiar with the way the courts operate and I doubt it will come to it but I'm quite prepared to go that far if necessary. I can only assume they're under some sort of directive designed to fob off the less determined - the process certainly appears to become more laborious as you progress through the various tiers, which I assume is by design.

I sell (and buy) a lot of records. Only ever had to claim twice - once for a record that disappeared en route, and recently for one which arrived cracked. It was only a copy of Cashing In, but still. I had sent it guaranteed next day with standard insurance (I can't remember but I think you're automatically covered up to £750 - doesn't matter anyway, I had declared the value at £75, which is what I'd sold it for, and it was clearly well within the standard insurance figure). Well-packaged, the same as they always are - hence I've never needed to claim for a breakage before. Royal Mail have simply refused to honour the insurance (in two emails). They haven't even explained why, which is almost as aggravating as the refusal. I am of course escalating this claim, and if necessary I'll go to the small claims court, just on principle, but I wondered what experience others had had?

If all it required was google there would be no need for this site, would there? We could all be out there online on our own, individually searching for and even occasionally finding the same stuff. But it would be a bit of a waste of time to replicate all that effort when we could have - I dunno -a forum where like-minded people could share information. Thanks to all those who suggested tunes - much appreciated. I've obviously heard a lot of them, but a lot more I haven't heard so (having been away for a week) I will spend between now and the football tracking them down and listening.

'Newies' to me is a term we used to use to describe non 60s oldies in the 80s ie the stuff Guy, Keb, Butch and others were digging out with help from Tim Ashibende and the likes. Like so much in northern it's all subjective - I could probably come up with five different definitions of northern soul itself!

As someone who got into northern in the early 80s, 'modern' to me is 70s soul and later - so Skip Mahoney, Flame N King, Nicky Newarkers etc - because that's what we called it then. Obv this is a dated view which is why I put it in inverted commas - records made 50 years ago can't be modern except by way of distinction from stuff made even further back, and the term itself is of its time. My post should perhaps have asked for any non 60s biggies, which arguably means 1970 to today. But as I say I'm a creature of my times. BTW thanks to all for suggestions so far!

Yep, I'm a member there - but I'm specifically interested in stuff played (a lot) at northern nighters. Don't get me wrong - I have quite a lot of the big sounds after 40 years collecting, and I know a lot of those I don't have, I'm just way better on 60s. I'm interested in a proper idea of the biggest dance floor fillers across the eras, though I'd like to know what's particularly rare too.

good idea yep

We've got all year!

I've only ever really dabbled in collecting 70s - which we slightly ludicrously continue to call 'modern' - but recently acquired a collection of some 1000 records, 80% of which was 70s and 80s. A lot of it I did actually know, some I didn't, but it got me thinking, specifically: what are the (say) top 100 modern sounds played on the northern scene? I'm looking for a new target on which to turn my collecting passion, and that's as good as any! AS SUGGESTED LOWER DOWN, IT WOULD BE GOOD JUST TO GET ARTISTS AND TITLES (THOUGH CHAT ABOUT WHERE FIRST PLAYED AND BY WHOM IS ALWAYS OF INTEREST)

I dunno what she meant tbf - she's obviously got Indian heritage herself (Kaur being a Sikh or Hindu name), and that's great, nice to see people of all sorts getting into soul. But let's not pretend that the scene was built on anything other than black music - sure, there's a bit of latin soul, and The Embers and a few others want a word as well for that matter, but to my ears she's just (possibly reflexively) importing modern bullshit politics into a place where it's not needed, nor appropriate. I'd love it if people would just give it a rest.

+1 In my younger days, NS was for me about getting off my tits and dancing all night to the greatest music ever made, and not much more. Then it became about the above + collecting and listening to the records, and then it became just about collecting and listening to the records. I don't think I ever knew anyone who saw it as 'a protest movement'.

Interesting piece though this bit sounds like a load of bollocks to me: I mean, if she wants to introduce race into it - and it does seem to have to be introduced in a lot of places these days, goodness knows why - it's built off black music, not 'black and brown music' (if brown means, as I think it does here, Asian). But either way is it likely that she'd get 'hassle and stares' an a northern event? I've never seen that.

Good to see

Top bloke, and great to deal with whether over the phone or in person. A true repository of knowledge. RIP Bob.

100% - I doubt there is anyone among us who hasn't bought a boot thinking it was real - I know I have.

😂

No offence taken - I couldn't care less what you think.

I'm with Quinvy - northern soul attended by people of my generation (early to mid 1980s Stafford/100 Club etc) and even before is no longer any kind of 'scene' I want to be involved in, and it makes me cringe. I was always more into collecting, anyway, but I did do a lot of nighters back then: when I first went to the 100 Club aged 17 there were blokes there with moustaches who already looked (and were) 15 years older than me. That was OK - they were roughly older brother age. You could (and I did) look up to them. There is no way I would have continued going if it had been mostly people in their sixties, though. Similarly, I doubt I'd have wanted to wear a parka and bowling shoes in 1980 if my granddad had been wearing them. So to me - and fair play to those who are still interested, I don't get it but it's none of my business - it's dead and buried as a going-out scene, and has been since about 2005. That said, the music is obviously amazing and lots of younger people love it, and - importantly - to most of them everything's a newie. My kids are a bit more educated in this than most, like most of the kids of people on here I'm sure, and they'll still wander into my office where I've got Spotify on for background listening and say 'What's that???' and I'll stop what I'm doing and listen and it'll be Lou Pride or Mel Britt or something else I've heard a million times before and only have on because it's been added to a '5,000 best northern soul tracks' playlist by someone. They can keep it going and even grow it, and while it will be different - they won't have cover-ups - there is a vast mine of music there for them to 'discover' in a new way. But they need to get up and start their own events, with strict door policies banning anyone over 30ish - that's certainly what I'd do in their shoes.

What's an original go for these days as a matter of interest?

I found an Imperial Cs demo the other day that I thought I'd sold to Steve Mannion in about 2006. That's a worrying level of forgetfulness!

Yep... but when you haven't looked at it for twenty years your memory tends to be somewhat unreliable

I'm very late to this (just checking my own Bobbie Smith isn't a boot as might be about to flog it and had a sudden moment where I remembered there were boots around in the early 80s, when I got my copies), but this made me think of Andy Rix and chuckle, albeit in a very sad way. If you know you know 😂

I should know this, and somewhere in my brain I do, but it's buried under a lot of rubbish. Was The Belles Words Can't Explain /Don't Pretend booted on Mirwood, and if so how do you tell right from wrong? Thanks all.

PMd you Mark - sorry for late reply on there, I was away