I may have posted this already but wtf… some songs just make your life feel better.
Ok, this is my first time for pre-ordering, but I took delivery of this, Inferno CD, new release from Boards of Canada, first album in 14yrs.
Its a masterpiece, I only played it 5 times on the first day. Truly amazed, this is some work indeed. BOC are the standout masters of electronic music, and they’ve just reasserted that here. Get it on!
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Northern Soul - Article lifted from Liverpool Echo
One man’s mission to bring back ‘forgotten world’ to Liverpool
The dance scene was hugely popular in the north west during the 1970s
In the 1960s small towns and cities in the north of England became the epicentre for what would go on to become one of the UK’s biggest subcultures. Now decades after the high water mark of Northern Soul, one man is trying to bring it back to Liverpool.
Emerging in the late 1960s, before really taking off in the 1970s, Northern Soul became one of the UK’s biggest dance scenes and has developed a legacy that still endures to this day.
Northern Soul centred around a fascination with little-known high-energy American soul records from the 1960s usually from Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia.
While it found a home in working-class towns like Wigan, Warrington and Widnes among others, there was never a notable Northern Soul scene in Liverpool.
Many Northern Soul enthusiasts Colin Smith’s age can date their interest in the scene back to its heyday in the 1970s, but Colin, 70, who lives in Childwall, says his interest came about much more recently.
While he has been a dance teacher for years, his interest in Northern Soul only kicked in after reading a book about the history of the dance culture, he gradually became hooked and eventually went to his first Northern Soul event jus a few years ago.
After being left unimpressed by a Northern Soul event he’d been to in Liverpool city centre, it was a trip to Warrington with his friends, Glynis McCready and Steve Dyer that saw him fall in love with the subculture. He told the ECHO: "We walked in there and the atmosphere just hits you. There was about 300 people in that room and the dance floor is so big that there was ample room to dance.
"The thing with Alford Hall in Warrington, is when you actually enter there’s two staircases to climb to get up to where the big ballroom is. I can remember climbing up those stairs thinking, ‘Am I doing the right thing here?’
“But sort of the nearer and nearer that I got I could hear the music pounding out of the doors. I was thinking ‘Well the music sounds pretty good anyway so let’s get in and see what it’s like.’ I’ve never turned my back on it since.”
Looks like @Wilkored08 from TAN is giving it her all…
While there had been slight trepidation when he first went to a Northern Soul night, the scene has since become a huge part of his life and helps him to forget “everything else”.
Colin said: "When I get on the floor, everything is forgotten, I’m just focusing on enjoying myself using various different moves. I wouldn’t say it puts you into another world because you’re still in the current world, but having said that, the feeling behind getting on the floor and moving in various different shapes and patterns, I would say it’s just sheer enjoyment of the music itself.
"When I walked in that particular night [in Alford Hall in Warrington], I can remember sitting at the edge of the dance floor and watching all the people on the floor, some spinning round like ballet dancers do, some dropping down belly flops, backdrops, you name it.
"Some take it to extremes, others are just enjoying the music, because that basically is what Northern Soul is about. It’s not just about dancing.
“I mean people can go to Northern Soul nights and can sit down all night, putting the world to rights, have a drink, and tap their foot to the music. Other people get on the floor and express their joy of dancing.”
Colin said that, together with Steve and Glynis, he realised Liverpool was falling behind other towns in providing a venue for Northern Soul and decided to change that. Their first event took place last Friday at the Cheshire Lines Recreation Club in Garston.
Colin had been promised by one friend that she would be bringing a minibus full of Northern Soul fans from Warrington, while another said that they would be travelling from Stamford in Lincolnshire.
"On the actual night, the trepidation was still there and the nervousness was still there. I just stuck my head through the door, and there was a minibus parking up right in the car park and loads of people were coming out.
"I just stood there and one chap came towards me saying, ‘Are we right for the Northern Soul?’ I said, ‘Come this way, it’s good to see you,’ "
While some of the younger people to come along to the event had been in their 40s, Colin said that the majority tend to be in their 70s, the age group which started the scene in the 1960s and 70s.
He said: “It’s a way of coming out the house, getting there and enjoying themselves even if it’s only for a few hours.”
North West Soul Club’s next event will take place at Haig House in Garston on Friday, June 5.
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This is fun:
Vince Peach is a Radio DJ at a community station in Melbourne.
Scouser by birth
runs a long running radio show
if you like this Genre, dip into his radio backlogue on the PBS website. great man. great great man.
Brill… Thank you 
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Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons in for Taylor Swift and James Taylor.
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The lads from The Wirral are back with a new , heavily dub / reggae influenced , album. More sterling work which has become par for the course now.
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I noticed this article in the Guardian about the worst album covers of all time. It’s in Mansfield, but I think it is the same exhibition that was in Birkenhead last year that my sister said was quite entertaining:
I think there are enough Metal fans on the forum for us to put an exhibition of our own on. I mean who could forget this classic from Black Sabbath:
Although, the all time champions for album covers of dubious taste, has to be The Beatles:
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Love the Born Again album cover. The album itself is in my top 5 Sabbath Albums….Technical Ecstasy is a horrible album cover
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The whole Born Again period seems to be the subject of ridicule but I think it had some cracking tracks: Trashed, Disturbing the Priest, Zero The Hero, Keep It Warm.
Ultimately, I preferred it to the two preceding albums with Dio, which whilst excellent, sounded like Dio albums rather than Sabbath. Born Again sounded like Sabbath with just a hint of the Gillan band.
The cover, though, meh…
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I was only listening to Born Again last week and agree with those cracking songs.
Interesting you don’t rate the Dio albums. In complete contrast, not only is Heaven and Hell the best Sabbath album (and cover) I rate it as the best hard rock heavy album ever!!
Honourable mentions to Physical Graffiti, Powerage, Rainbow Rising, Peace of Mind and Defenders of the Faith…..etc
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Oh, I think they are superb albums, Heaven and Hell in particular. I just don’t think they sound like Sabbath. If you listen to Dio’s Holy Diver it sounds like the third part of a trilogy. Born Again does sound like Ozzy era Sabbath, just with Gillan sounding more manic that depressed.
The break ups and personnel changes was good for everyone.
Ozzy was on fire with Blizzard and Diary, Dio with Holy Diver and Last in Line. I rated Deep Purples Burn and Come Taste the Band post Gillian into Coverdale/Hughes. Great period.
And the top Sabbath album post Born Again was Headless Cross. Another hard core classic Iommi riff.
And when Deep Purple mark 2 reunited in 84 with Perfect Strangers the first concerts were in Australia. I was there as a teen and the great George Harrison appeared on stage. Highway Star was I think the opener. They returned big time.
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This is your TAN live music correspondent reporting from Castle Donington. Yesterday saw Hollywood undead, pendulum, periphery, electric Callboy, corrosion of conformity, limp.bizkit( in parts), and finished with the Cavaleras doing the entirety of chaos A.D. the way it was always meant to be played live. Iggor was the star of that show. My goodness what an incredible drummer!!
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Cavaleras did a kickass version of Sympton of the Universe last night. They’re huge Sabbath and Ozzy fans. They had a great personal relationship with the Ozz man.
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I not on the news that Tony Iommi has received an MBE in the King’s birthday honours.
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