I\m so glad I'm not really into northern soul

william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
I've paid 2 figure ( i.e,, less than £99 but more than £10 ) sums for some psychedelic soul seven inches but the Northern Soul guys REALLY mystify me
 
william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
william_kent said:
I once read a story about a nasty breakup with a Northern soul guy where the ex took all his singles and put them in the oven and set it on full and he asked for them back and she gave him a slab of melted wax
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yeah, true story

in fact I didn't read it, I know men and women who went to THE TWISTED WHEEL and got BLOCKED on prescription SPEED so any stories about NORTHERN SOUL I tell are 99% true
 
B

blissblogger

Well-known member
it's a cult of the second-rate and the third-rate

they rejected Motown's greatest songs on the grounds that they were "commercial" meaning that ordinary people knew about them and loved them - fetishised instead the imitation-Motown labels and acts that would so loved to have had exactly the same level of commercial success as Gordy & Crew but weren't good enough

but if Motown had a single that stiffed, that then became good!

with psych and garage punk, fetishizing the marketplace failures and regional obscurities makes a certain sense cos they might have been too extreme to succeed

but the premise of Motown-type music is POP
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
blissblogger said:
with psych and garage punk, fetishizing the marketplace failures and regional obscurities makes a certain sense cos they might have been too extreme to succeed

but the premise of Motown-type music is POP
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sorry mate with all due respect this is bollocks, psych and garage punk also has the premise of pop. Both classical and Jazz were pursuing extremities which made the rockers sound like ambient music. Not to mention that any avant-garde techniques were incidental, whereas later in prog, reggae, electro, acid etc, they were at least in part consciously adopted, even if in a populist non-academic context.

all popular music has the motor of overconsumption powering it, granted, but with scenes like garage punk, northern soul and even london rare groove, this impulse to simply consume is romanticised to a pretty crazy degree.

You also seem to get this in new school hardcore and jungle.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
that being said I prefer slicker 70s soul anyway, groovier, sexier, less catered to the monocultural happy clappies, etc.

In general though the northern/southern divide in the UK has something to do with the groove. It's quite interesting even in the nuum context how the northern garage mutants such as bassline, organ house, and later jackin' are much more bosh orientated. And of course a lot of the happy hardcore ravers went down the hard trance/hard house road.
 
DLaurent

DLaurent

Well-known member
I've never heard a Northern Soul song that I thought was any good, but haven't exactly looked hard. People I speak to that are into it, played me a Dusty Springfield track and I can handle that.
 
B

bassbeyondreason

Chtonic Fatigue Syndrome
The 100MPH wigan stomper side of things definitely lends itself to celebrating mediocrity, including stuff like the Joe 90 theme tune and barrel-scraping white pop shite like this (possibly the worst record to sell for £500+):
 
B

bassbeyondreason

Chtonic Fatigue Syndrome
IMO (and obviously I'm reconstructing this historically, I wasn't there are the time) the records played on the scene got a lot better in the early 80s after the scene "died" and the Casino closed. You had venues like Top of the World in Stafford digging for slower, deeper records and playing them alongside new imports:



 
D

DannyL

Wild Horses
I think it's best experienced "live" i.e. at a Northern night to get the vibe. The aesthetics of the music are fairly boring and conservative tbh, though there are plenty of tunes I love.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
DannyL said:
I think it's best experienced "live" i.e. at a Northern night to get the vibe. The aesthetics of the music are fairly boring and conservative tbh, though there are plenty of tunes I love.
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I love that story about there being a soul weekender somewhere and one of the djs played Idris muhammed could heaven ever be like this and one of the northerner heads broke the record. I mean that just seems like the height of musicological colonial arrogance, but the story itself is funny.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Hill didn’t stop there. He waltzed onto the stage, took to the mic and slapped a record onto one of the turntables: Idris Muhammad’s “Would Heaven Ever Be Like This.” One punter, a northern soul head known as “Cockney Mick,” was so outraged that he jumped on stage and smashed up the record.
“It’s ironic, because that record became a Northern Soul scene classic,” says DJ, percussionist, author and jazz dance historian Mark Cotgrove, better known as Snowboy. “When Cockney Mick did that, the crowd all surged towards him and Chris Hill stopped them. He told Mick that he better get out because the crowd would kill him.”
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daily.redbullmusicacademy.com

Britain’s First Dance Music Boom: The Soul All-Dayer Scene, 1975-86

The scene that gave Britain the cult of the DJ, the UK’s first dedicated dance music festival and the future pioneers of rave.
daily.redbullmusicacademy.com daily.redbullmusicacademy.com
 
william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
I was REALLY drunk when I started this thread but I was appalled at an email I received with "offers" of HOLY GRAIL Northern Soul tunes and I had to sort of vent

partly inspired by the Blood and Fire forum dudes who would complain about prices of reggae tunes but then say "at least we're not like those Beatles collectors, yeah?"

but, I knew a couple of people who went to The Twisted Wheel, allegedly the birth place of "Northern Soul"

the eldest told me about how they looked like "concentration camp" survivors in their demob suits, ringworm hairdos and TB wracked amphetamine wasted bodies complete with borstal graphite pin prick tats of the logo of whatever brand of speed they were breaking into chemists for ( SKB was the number one choice ) - the film "SOUL BOY" is good IMHO because it doesn't gloss over the dark side of injecting amphetamines for the rush and energy, unlike every other fucking documentary that glorifies Northern soul, though it only really covers the Wigan era ( more later on that )

I once played him a "best of Twisted Wheel" CD and he was like "what is this shit, they never played that! we danced all night to the Who and the Faces and John Lee Hooker!"

The next eldest went to the Twisted Wheel when she was underage and she ended up going to the Torch in Stoke so she was bit more into the 'rarities' but if you asked her about Wigan casino she'd fly off the handle and rant "what the fuck are the badges and patches about! fuck that shit! baggy trousers, what the fuck is that about!" etc

she ended up going to Twisted Wheel reunions but the original ( not quite, a long story , it was the second spot ) venue was at that point occupied by a male only BDSM establishment called "CHAINS" and she laughed about how working class grandads from Wythenshawe were a little bit put off by leathermen pissing on their shoes in the gents

but @blissblogger : at least one Wigan era Northern Soul tune was a potential hit, it just needed the right production crew



soft cell - tainted love
( cover of Gloria Jones' failed pop tune "BIG IN WIGAN" )
 
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