Barry

In tonights reportage, Derren goes deep. After years of surrogacy, my life has touched many scenes and I have given myself over to understanding many musical form(at)s. I have been involved with a great deal of all encompassing music. Now, in the real world (the non-NS world that is), music appears to have it's place, or more to the point, be given it's place; for example: Motown; The Temps, Four Tops, Marvin, Stevie etc, we all like a bit of Motown at a wedding don't we? "It's a bit poppy all that shit that charted, we know" - "but have you heard Marvins 'Lonely Lover?" When will the wedding floor be full? Not to 'Lonely Lover', 'Jimmy Mack' will piss all over it I guarantee you. Charted BA groups/artists - were loved by a white UK audience. Why? Because they were commercial and poppy at the time, they appealed to the masses, BA had no stick up it's ass, they were - as they still are today - Cooler - you can't argue that Again, at weddings, it's cool to 'Kool & The Gang' your tits off on the dancefloor at this specific tribal ritual - Any K & TG track that warrants a play at a wedding (you know 'em - 'Celebrate', 'Get Down On It)' etc is seen as a slightly ironic track. For Why? I swear at heart you all love 'em and have a love for these given productions - in their 'comedy' place. We seem to deem it okay to forget, as N Soulies, the input that K &TG, and their ilk, had on the black music scene during their extensive repertoire. Is Willi J & Co cooler than 'Get Down On It'? Maybe not. Why were the commercial K & TG/wedding-type Barry White productions ridiculed? Because N Soulies and the anoraky types around them had little or no understanding of black music outside the sphere's that were presented to them by people seen as leaders on the scene that they, the sheep gathered at. I'll take a check here now. Are you following me? I think that followers of the mantle 'Northern Soul' - which meant something once (when we were all too young and inexperienced to actually know what we meant) - should redress the balance of their years of 'one-upmanship' and accept that if they were doing a 'True' Top 100 of their lives, the likes of Candi Statons - 'Young Hearts Run Free' would in reality be at least ten places above Eddie Parkers heartbreaker - 'I'm Gone. You know I'm right don't you? Scene's revolve around shepherds and sheep. I too was a sheep for years, shepherded up and down this country. And the shepherds taught me my musical life, and for that I will be eternally grateful. They also taught me how to shepherd others - I'm at it right now, how's it feel? The sheep realises he has his own crook - be it an invisible one when the lights go down. Get me? (He he - yes I have been out and I wish I hadn't because somewhere in that pile of twaddle is a very sincere point...be gentle with me.) All my love BAZZA

Look forward to it Rob. I've remembered a quickie about a train journey to the 100's Club that I'll bang down when I get a minute too.

Nice one Phil and Rob, they're deffo Dangerous & Comic Nighter exploits. All in a nights work wunnit lads?

More like a 'donkey punch' line ay Phil?

Don't worry about it mate, if double posting makes you a bad lad then I'm Ian Lev....er Ronnie Kray. (Kidding Ian, only kidding.)

See 'em fairly regularly - and for nowt like that money. He's had that one for months - and 'til the day he dies at that price.

He-HAAAY!! Well in Russ. Come on Naughty Boy, knock one out for the board son. Should I edit that last statement? Phil - have a good long think about this one mate - it sounds dangerous ha ha.

That'd be cool Gilly. I know I go on a bit with my posts but I'm quite sure there are more than a fair few tales of danger and mis-deed that are worthy of sticking on this thread.

I've just bought me Ma's as it happens Phil (she's on holiday - she'll see me off I tell you) and the bridge you so fondly remember was pulled down a year ago apparently but I didn't realise 'til last week. It appears that I've not been walking under that bridge now for ages without me knowing.

I remember I was generally very much a 'bus home' type kid after Wigan. It was cheaper, dropped me off virtually outside my house and didn't involve dealing with too many people the morning after. The problem with living in Warrington and being in Wigan that early on a Sunday morning was that there was a only a single bus that left Wigan Bus Station at 6.30am, then none 'til 12.30pm, which generally pre-empted the (bugger of a) walk home. It wasn't too bad as I'm sure it was all fields then and eternally sunny . The bonuses of leaving for the early bus were liberating a pint of milk and a paper from the knotted packages left outside the newsagents in the Arcade - anyway I digress. This particular morning I had no money left at all and was in a bit of a state as the preceding night I had been at the contents of a small enevelope I had taken with me to sell - I seem to remember up around 3am as Searling announced that M's would be open in five minutes, then nothing til the moment I was outside The Casino in the daylight. Having no money and being in a state left me with one option - jumping the train, as there was no way I was going to be able to walk the nine mile home this morning and there was no obvious way past the single decker bus driver without my fare home. I recall wobbling down Fishergate in me long leather and bag and upon arrival at the train station, after a little recce, working out that I could get up to the platform by scaling, Spiderman-like, a massive piece of corrugated sheeting that was leaning from the base of a small wall up to platfrom-heaven. This had no doubt been placed there by some other gimp for that exact same reason. There's a blank again here but I must have alighted the train as the next thing I recall is being near the toilet inbetween carriages, arms leaning out of the window and approaching Winwick Junction (Winwick being the village just outside Warrington where I lived) - all with an amount of dread within me, as I knew what I was about to have to do. Now Winwick Junction is a place where the Wigan-Warrington train slowed down to about 10-15 miles an hour as it was crossing a junction/tracks and was the only point on this hairy-journey that would be forgiving enough for me to attempt some kind of parachute jump-like exit from the train. Not good. Anyway, there was no way round it, I'd come this far. I remember biting my lip, grasping the 'Communication Cord' (the 'Use Only In Emergency' brake cord that ran the length of the train)....and pulling!? F*ck me, I don't know if you've ever been on a train when a 'Communication Cord' has been pulled but it's a pretty violent way to stop a 107 tonne, quarter mile long of rampant iron and steel. "SCREEEEEEECH!" - "BANG!" I got threw against the bog door - and then the other way - and then back again....as the train attempted it's non-standard Winwick Junction stop. Now fully alert, as the fear and the thoughts of the possible consequences of my actions had seemed to morph into an imaginary hand that dove right down the front of my early 80's underpants, grasped my knackers and shoved them up my a*se. Thetrain was almost at a stop now so I grabbed my bag, leant out the carriage, opened the train door and jumped. I landed like a sack of sh*t and rolled through a load of gravel and weeds into a wire fence. I stood up, looked down the length of the train toward the engine and to my horror saw about three or four guards hopping off the now stationary train and heading, rather noisily, my way. I jumped the fence into a very dewy cornfield. It was as I was wading red-faced and fear fraught through this wet cornfield with my bag held above elbow height and a number of pissed of British Rail workers in tow, that I realised how badly the lining in long leathers handle the addition of water to their make-up. It was like playing that bloody game on Crackerjack whereby when you answered a question wrong they stuffed cabbage upon cabbage on your already straining person (don't now if that makes sense? but anyhow.) I could see in my immediate view on the other side of a fence an upcoming copse, a small wood and, the irate voices behind me getting nearer and (GET HERE YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!) louder, I began to think I may have an escape route of sorts. In the distance I heard a BANG!!!, then another but in my present predicament it didn't register as anything life threatening at the time. I jumped the fence and (BANG!!! again??) dragged my sorry wet arse into the first hiding of trees, there was enough cover for it to mask the sunlight and it became a little twilighty in there. "Great!" I thought as I headed a bit deeper in and looking around (BANG!!! again, louder this time - wtf) I could see our hi-vis wearing be-capped fiends (no spelling mistake, I was scared rigid) beginning to realise this may not be working out in their favour - and they began to bluster and swear at me as they gave up the chase. I was now in a wood. And the wood went BANG!!! a lot. It was at this point I saw my first farmer, out with his mates on a Sunday am hunt!! BANG!!! F*ck me, I'm gonna get shot now. So, adopting a pose somewhere between a Ninja, an SAS infantry man on a mission to nowhere and a piss wet, drugged up teenager in ridiculous coat -with a bag - I set off deeper into the wood, my aim to somehow traverse the local pig-pickers out on their shoot, without getting a hole in my ass. BANG!!! "Hey you!?" I was spotted - "Arse!". My mind had forgotten the little triumph that was losing our friendly BR div-jumping team and I was back to square one - exept these f*ckers had guns. What I would have given for the fear of a hi-vis jacket now!? With a group of unhappy farmers on my heels ("Get Orf My Land" an' all that) I went tree to tree, skulking, dipping and diving until I could see the light getting brighter - I must be approaching the other side of the wood at last. Then ahead of me I could see the white painted wooden fence that I knew to be the fence that skirted the road opposite the old Winwick (Mental) Hospital (read into that what you will. I WORKED there, alright!), a mile or so from my house and with the voices of my irate hunters tailing off in the darkness behind me, I reached the fence. "Thank f*ck for that!" I breathed deeply, cobbed me bag over it, steadied myself and with a final mighty effort jumped over the fence and onto the main road. Then I got knocked down by a car. Suffering for your art? David Blaine don't know the half of it.

Bang on.

I still have a piece of Wigan dancefloor, liberated the morning of the semi demolished 'piano in the sky' stage shot.

The thought of fucking your afflictions has just put me off me tea Phil. Off to pick the missus up. Later mate.

From the 70's and 80's I feel, after the mention of centre-folds that Phyllis Hyman desereves an honourable mention.

Not been near the studio in years Imber. There's so many you never know where to start. You're right like.

Your signature kinds sums it all up Mike.

I multi task too don't you know Malcolm?

Phil. Have you been at anything this afternoon mate?

That's a cracking pic mate.

The Fellas Ace Spectrum - Mecca Erupts (Space Rectum) Frank Wilson - Snarl If Know Dean Parrish - Rear Dishpan James Brown - Jaw Robs Men Jackie Wilson - A Jock Lie Wins Edwin Starr - Rarest Wind Gil Scott Heron - Retching Tools Archie Bell - Herbal Lice Darrell Banks - Ball Darkeners Brian Rae - Brain Ear The Ladies Gloria Jones - Ear Jogs Loin Ruby Andrews - Drawn Buyers April Stevens - Relevant Piss (Penis Travels) Bettye Swann - Twenty Beans Tobi Legend - Bleeding To Brenda Holloway - Honey Lard Bowel Barbara McNair - Marina Crab Bar Mitty Collier - I Melt To Lyric Laura Greene - Earn Ear Glue Dee Dee Warwick - Weed Weak Cider Rose Valentine - So, Rent A Levine

You've not changed lad.

Isn't that the old Osmonds myth Imber?

Try sticking it on the right thread now Phil.

Traxsource fella. www.traxsource.com

I was thinking about what tracks I would have liked to have heard sung by artists other than those that actuallyrecorded them. It can be a male singing a female track or vice versa, whatever. I'd like to have heard Chuck Jackson slinging his pipes round 'I Hurt On The Other Side' maybe or Ann Sexton having a pop at Carla Thomas' - 'Every Ounce Of Strength'. Anymore?