After watching a ton of NAMM videos from this winters show my ears where in meltdown & could not take another synth/beatbox/software demo...enough already with the bleeping glitchy nonsense. Time to dig out some old school vinyl. Although I am a true electronic music lover sometimes I just need to step away from it. My escape is usually classical but this time I reached for my box of old 7" Northern Soul classic's...oh what joy
For those not familiar with this rather strange dance sub culture, read on.
It started in the 60's by a bunch of DJ's from the Northwest of England where I originally come from. These guys collected old soul & rare groove records that where never hits when they where released in the states & had a more raw & unpolished sound compared to the Staxx & Motown records of the time. They would use old ballrooms & dance halls to play 'All nighters' where people would come to literally dance all night to these rare soul tracks.
It's popularity soon spread across the country but the term Northern Soul stuck which is really weird because it was all black american music that this bunch of white people where dancing too. Non of it was made in the North of England.
It also had some influence on some 'pop' acts which the scene particularly hated. Most notably Soft Cell's cover of Gloria Jones's "Tainted Love" which gave them a #1 hit in the UK & US. They also covered another Northern Soul classic "What" by Judy Street after the success of Tainted Love. Both tracks are on my half hour Northern Soul mini mix here...
http://soundcloud.com/dj-berni-2/nor...ul-selection-3
Not the best recordings ever made but they are all over a half a decade old & made by real musicians with traditional instruments & people who could actually sing without the aid of autotune
There was no mixing records as most of the tracks only last 2-3 minutes so the DJ's would just play them back to back usually with a little round of applause in between each track if the dancefloor liked the tune. Here's a cool documentary about the whole scene if anyone is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMtaEASd2LI
Here endeth the lesson...Keep the Faith!
Cheers,
Berni.