Been hearing this song on the radio this week, from some American folk-rock band called Midlake, and I don’t quite know what it is, but it has a very mid-seventies feel to it. ELO by way of Gerry Rafferty if that makes any sense.
video
Northern Soul – Keep the Faith
The BBC’s economic expert Paul Mason describes the importance of Northern Soul:
I might be the only person who’s experienced both Wigan and, say the Taksim Square occupation in Istanbul this year, so this is hard to verify: but I think these very different atmospheres shared something in common. There was something overtly rebellious and subconsciously political about Wigan. Like with a riot, or an occupation, you could tell immediately, through eye contact, who was feeling the buzz.
What we were doing, back then, was rewriting the rules of being white and working class. We knew exactly what it meant to dance to black music in the era of the National Front and the racist standup comedian. Ours was a rebellion against pub culture, shit music and leery sexist nightclubs. Our weapon was obscure vinyl, made by black kids nobody had ever heard of.
The article accompanies a documentary on Northern Soul Mason did for the BBC’s Culture Show:
Paul Mason used to be a regular at the Wigan Casino in the seventies; the reason he’s gotten back into Northern Soul is a new Elaine Constantine feature film about the scene, which features lots of lovingly shot dance scenes:
As I said in the previous post, Sandra used to go to the Wigan Casino and other Northern Soul discos too in the seventies and remained in love with the music for the rest of her life. What with the second “anniversary” of her death being, well, today, this music is much on my mind. It’s maudlin and upbeat at the same time.
Northern Soul – This England
The original television documentary that established Northern Soul in the public’s consciousness. From roughly the same time that Sandra was also going to the Wigan Casino and such like. Worth it if only for the lad selling Socialist Worker.
Fanfare
So this was a thing that happened on my street this afternoon.
Damn
I got into the Velvet Underground late and the first time I heard Heroin was at work about a decade ago, on headphones while I was concentrating on doing something fiddly and hearing it that way made me physically nauseous.