Ian Dewhirst

I dunno Kev. There is a Soul do on in Ibiza at the end of September/beginning of October which looks like fun and there might be the opportunity to do a Northern set since the line-up is pretty varied. https://www.lovesoulibiza.com/ But I'm also doing a film launch there on the Friday: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHTUEHE3kA8 https://www.facebook.com/weekendermovie And a Philly International Re-Edits & Remixes album launch on the Saturday, so will be pretty tied up. It'd be nice to actually play some of those tunes in the sun since most of those tunes seldom see the daylight LOL.... Ian D

Ouch! You don't have to be quite so brutal Stevie! You mis-read me mate. My days of upfront Northern Soul deejaying are long gone and I've really no desire to go back to it. Couldn't afford it these days anyway! It was a brilliant experience to be deejaying back then but I actually left that part of the scene at the right time for me and nothing's really changed my views since. These days I far prefer to bounce around different scenes and have a bit of an overview that I otherwise wouldn't have if I was too enmeshed in any one particular scene. I quite like doing the odd oldies night and turning up at a few events to see how things are going but that's about it these days. That way it's still fun and less of an obsession LOL.... I was just thinking aloud really, partially due to some of the threads on here and wondering whether the money needed to buy records at the upper levels is actually attainable for many people. Luckily I've been out of the big ticket records game for 35 years now (apart from brokering a few deals here and there) so I'm just curious as to how aspiring new DJ's manage to finance their enthusiasm for top records that's all. With difficulty by the sound of it. How's life by the way? Ian D

Believe it or not I've never actually regretted selling any of my collections. I've gone through a few in my time and I just like building 'em up again, which was kinda possible in the 70's, 80's and some of the 90's but a bit of a stretch in the last 15 years or so. I'm just amazed at the prices really and thinking about what a huge financial commitment it must be these days to keep up in the rarified strata of big tune collecting. We go on about inflation and petrol prices all the time but this Northern Soul lark is in a whole different league innit? How's your arse by the way? Ian D

LOL, yeah but an average of, say, 3 or 4 bookings a week @ £150-£200 a pop can soon add up can't it? That's surely the way that most DJ's cover their overheads and record-buying. At least that's how it was back in the day. Mind you, maybe that's the difference between now and then Mace. Back in the day a rare record might cost a week's wages, whereas these days it's more like a month's wages and DJ fees have probably dropped like a stone because everybody's a DJ these days. I take your point about Kenny having a Groundhog day every gig though. I did a Samanthas revival in the 90's with Kenny and there was a long line of people all queuing up to get their photo with the rarest record ever LOL. Can you imagine having to go through that at every single gig? He'd have definitely made his money back quickly if he'd have charged a tenner a photo! Ian D

When I said top flight European gigs I was obviously including the UK but really talking about the UK names that I regularly see advertised at Northern gigs throughout Europe (Germany and Italy mainly) as well as the UK. I doubt very much that they'd be booked if they didn't have boxes of expensive 'to die for' tunes though. You may as well get a local Joe Blow who has a decent box of tunes at a tenth of the cost if that were the case. Far be it from me to argue about rarity and value. I think most of it is nuts personally and that was one of the points of the thread. Also, in my experience there are stacks of DJ's/Collectors out there with good taste but are they necessarily gonna pull in the crowds without some incredibly rare records? Make no mistake, I ONLY go out to have a kicking night LOL. Some of the worst nights I've been to have been where there's zero atmosphere and an empty dancefloor except for a gaggle of chin-strokers admiring impossibly rare records which isn't my idea of fun by any means. Gimme a buzzing club packed to the brim with good people plus some rare tunes and I'm a happy bunny. Long time since I've been to Burnley though. Last time was Burnley Cricket Club in the mid 70's and that was always fun on a Tuesday night! Ian D

You heartless b*stard Pete! How could you be so cruel to your home system.........? Ian D

What do you call 'within the realms of affordability' though Tezza? £1K, £5K, £10K, £50K.......? Also, we're talking top-level pan European gigs here, not the local Miners Welfare Another way to look at it, might be to assess how much you'd need to spend on amassing a box of, say, 200 OVO great records that would work across a variety of top venues, y'know, like if you had to start from scratch. Obviously you could fill a 200 count box with 200 x £10 records, but I guarantee you, that those wouldn't get you through a top venue's door, mainly because I suspect that everyone on Soul Source could do this. In order to mix it with the top guys and supply the necessary pzazz and excitement about your box, I reckon you'd need a minimum of 20-30 very expensive tunes, most of which would set you back £1K to a few grand each, which would end up around £40-50K. I doubt if I could replicate my 1975 box for much less than £50K if I re-bought them all today (certainly not when I see the prices for original Tomangoes, Del-Larks, Joe Mathews, Salvadores, Micky Farrow, Ernest Mosely, Eddie Daniels etc, etc). You'd generally need several 'talking point' records in order to seperate you from every other geezer who has a great collection, in other words, one-offs, impossibly rare stuff of which only a handful of copies exist or decent acetates and none of those would come cheap would they? So I'd say anyone who wanted to make a serious splash, would proabably need to start @ £50K but, more than likely, need to go up £100K plus in order to start attracting the level of audiences that you need at the top level. Kenny Burrell absolutely knew what he was doing when he bought Fr**k W*ls*n for £15K, because having that one record in his box probably got him hundreds of great gigs over the years because of the rarity of the record. He probably recouped the cost after a year or two I would imagine. Ian D

Well I can certainly type better than you Simon. The thing is that the 'baby boomers' from the 50's (who became teenage Northern Soulers in the late 60's and 70's) are all coming up to their 60's now. In fact there'll soon be more over 60's than under 60's, so someone will have to entertain 'em and probably on their patch since older people don't travel so well and generally don't dance their asses off 'til 8.00am. It's the future mate. Who needs kids when your core audience is 65 ay? Ian D

Out of curiosity, how much is Bearsy's arse? And is it in reasonable condition........? Ian D

'DJ Dooberry From Dewsbury' has a certain ring to it dontcha think.........? Good thinking Batman. You've got IT experience haven't you? Do you wanna be my roady? Ian D

.......great idea especially if you could do a tour of Northern Soul Retirement Communities. Mmmm. I've already got a couple of lappy's with over 50,000 tunes on 'em, I regularly give lectures to music colleges and academies, I'm an ex Northern Soul DJ from the 70's with hours and hours worth of amusing anecdotes, I did Bingo calling @ Dewsbury Bingo Hall when I was a youngster and I'm quite partial to chicken.............. This job's got my name on it Gareth! When do I start? Ian D

I'd use a staple-gun. Might come in handy if you're still touting for some rough trade down at the docks y'know......... Ian D

:lol: Your mouth's still OK though innit? Ian D

It was coming in totally blasted on Thursday that got this thread started Mace! Ian D

Yep, it's about time we started applying some financial science to this scene. I've just started a Northern Soul hedge fund to back aspiring entrepreneurs like yourself Bearsy. Wanna borrow £50K at 5% above base rate mate? You can use the records as collateral for further funding too......... Ian D

That's a nifty game-plan. Ian D

Maybe we're at a point in the evolvement of the scene where the top DJ's should offer a choice in terms of the type of set they are booked to play? For instance, had I won that bloody Euromillions lottery last night and gone on the ultimate buying spree I'd probably produce an A4 piece of paper with loads of boxes in there and promoters would then be able to tick the boxes that they wanted for the gig. For instance, in terms of percentage of a 2 hour set, it could look something like this:- Box 1 : 25% or half an hour of £2K+ big ticket monsters Box 7: 10% or 12 minutes of exclusive unknowns Box 15: 25% or half an hour of established biggies Box 22: 5% or 6 minutes of exclusive acetates Box 32: 15% or 18 minutes of big ticket oldies Box 38: 5% or 6 minutes of exclusive cover-ups Box 42: 15% or 18 minutes of cheap as chips less than a tenner goodies Job done. It's called consumer choice. You could even charge a premium for genuine one-offs on the basis that every time you play a one-off it deteriorates in value massively. Sort of, "sorry mate. If you want me to play Junior McCants that'll be another £50 due to depreciation......" Ian D

LOL, you may have hit the nail on the head there Gareth. Everyone is a DJ these days. Northern Soul collectors especially. And specifically Northern Soul collectors that have built up a solid collection of great originals. In my office alone, there are 5 people who tell me they are 'DJ's' which kinda makes me chuckle. Basically who wouldn't want to be a DJ? You get paid for playing music to a generally willing crowd which isn't exactly like working down the mines. It's a glam gig for sure. But there's a wealth of difference between someone who merely plays records and a professional DJ who knows what he or she is doing IMO. I've seen the best DJ's in the world over the last 40 years and the top ones basically play what they want to an adoring audience whlst adding a bit of pzazz to the experience. That's why they're great. We shouldn't get blind-sided by rarity for rarity's sake. A great DJ plays what he or she wants but delivers it with passion and style. But it probably helps if you have a 50K back-up of killer originals...... But how many of us have £50K spare for back-ups then? Ian D

Nope. I hated the bloody record but carried it in my box just in case I did a gig in Humberside or Lincolnshire. Credit where credit's due. I seem to remember Raw Soul breaking via Rick Scott, Chris Dalton and Poke - the Cleethorpes axis. I think most of us got the record at the same time via Soul Bowl but the local Cleethorpes guys pummelled it into popular conciousness until it became a Pier anthem. Definitely an East Coast tune that's for sure........ Hope you're well Steve. I hear the Central reunion was a killer. I'll be up for the next one for sure unless I get sidelined by the realities of life........ Ian D

Now here's a guy who has his priorities bang on! Nice one Bearsy. Off the top of my head I can't think of many Northern collectors who are prepared to peddle their arse for new records, so hats off to you! If everyone else showed your level of commitment we'd be in a whole different scenario mate. Listen, whilst you're down at the docks you could try knocking out some of those Canadian Lime and Dennis LePage 12"ers to the same audience. Y'know, kill two birds with one stone............ Ian D

Hahaha. I'd love to see a situation where, say, Butch would lend his box to a total unknown doing his or her first gig and watch what the reaction is. Then Butch would go on and play nothing but great £10 cheapies. It'd be an interesting experiment for sure. We keep reading on here that there's literally 1000's of potentially popular records that are cheapies but they really need the catalyst of someone like Butch to actually champion them. In my view there are numerous potentially HUGE cheap records that aren't taken seriously until someone with the right reputation starts championing them seriously. Sometimes I wonder if we chase rarity too much? Some of those one-offs are just badly produced average records which wouldn't be played under most circumstances but for the fact that they're impossibly rare. So are the clubs attracting lots of chin-stroking blokes whose modus operandi is to gather around the decks to gawk at a mega-rarity or one-off acetate whilst surrepticiously wanking furiously? Meanwhile the rest of the club (ie 98% of the audience) just want to hear a GREAT floor-filling good-time tune so they can dance their hearts out. It's a delicate balancing act for sure but sometimes it's more delicious to break a £10 record that anyone could buy at the time and then watch it soar to huge heights and become massive against all the odds. Quite often, they're the best ones, ie, the ones that people actually remember. Ian D

I'm so glad I got a lot of this out of my system by the mid 70's LOL....... It's an OCD sickness Bearsy. I was similarly affected for 5 years in the early 70's until an L.A. hooker showed me the righteous path to redemption which was a lot cheaper than collecting Northern Soul records........... Ian D

The eternal dillemma of the passionate DJ Kris. If everybody put as much thought into their sets as you, then surely the quality threshold would rise overall. There may actually be a new marketing angle to potential up and coming Northern Soul DJ's. How about a guy who comes along who makes a virtue of not playing anything that's worth over a tenner for his or her whole set? Whilst keeping the floor full and the place buzzing obviously. Wouldn't it be interesting if someone like Butch, who probably has the widest choice of super-rarities at his disposal, suddenly decided to play a 2 hour set of records that anyone could buy on a normal budget? Butch could get away with doing that because everybody respects his taste and knows that he has multiple mega-rarities at his disposal anyway. So let's hypothetically say, that a promoter would book Butch on the basis of his reputation and his box of to-die-for rarities, expecting to attract an audience based on Butch's incredible records. So if Butch then turned up and did a mind-numbingly brilliant floor-filling set of £10 cheapies only, would anyone feel shortchanged or would the promoter feel miffed that Butch didn't roll out the one-offs? Questions, questions......... Ian D

Yep, holding up pretty well considering the ridiculous lifestyle I live. My game-plan was basically to live fast, die young and call it a day when I got to 40 but I overshot by 16 years which is just f*ckin' typical of my lousy planning....... Fantastic post Paul. Very eloquent and heartfelt and exactly the level of response I hoped for on this thread so many thanks for contributing. By the way, can you remember what I sold you? I seem to recall us exchanging memories of killer records we pulled out of Beanos. This would have been late 80's or thereabouts? Am I right? You must have got some goodies............. Ian D

No chance. Don't have £300K spare unless I win Euromillions tonight........ Ian D