I don't regard the drug culture as the defining mode of scene expression. It is correct to say that the music and the particular feeling of communally experiencing something a long way from the mainstream are the totems of which the scene can be rightly proud.

The allure, use and misuse of drugs created the infrastructure though. An important distinction. I don't agree with your assertion that those on amphetamine were a minority. That is nowhere near the truth. I would say that the vast majority of regular allnighter goers were what we would call today recreational drug users. They didn't have habits, but dropped gear to enjoy the weekend. Those who maintain they never saw drug use on a wide scale are deluded or simply never went anywhere for long enough.

The profile of drug use and custom changed over time. Attempts by the authorities to criminalise possession of amphetamine and reclassify the drug had the unwanted payoff of bringing speed users into contact with Class A opiates via chemist robberies of DDA cabinets. It also created a gap in the market for criminals to go from minting back street blues and selling stolen pills to building whizz factories on an industrial scale. At the same time this was happening Britain's cities were beginning to be flooded with cheap heroin. A lot of the more reckless 'nighter goers got sucked into that world and more than a few paid a high price.

Also it's a huge mistake to characterise this as merely the province of those in the North West. The soul scene drew its fans from a wide geographical base—I think of strongholds in the west midlands, Gloucestershire, Cambridgeshire, Herfordshire, Derbyshire and so on and think that you're actually less likely to get a rounded view of what went on from citizens of Wigan and neighbouring towns. A lot of those people went to the Casino for a few months because it was on their doorstep and never went anywhere else after the night it closed.

As for Winstanley I think the real scene has always regarded him as something of a joke. Wigan worked in spite of him, not because of him. Never played records anywhere meaningful either before or after the Casino. Wouldn't know a good record if it landed on him. Sought to cash in via the execrable folly of Wigan's Ovation, Casino Classics etc. Presided over the scene's nadir really.

Last edited by NaturalSoleReprise (2014-10-25 17:01:43)

So yours is a considered opinion? An extremely limited anecdotal sample gives you the legitimacy to pontificate on something which by your own admission you don't even like on internet message boards.

I think this is one instance where there is a requirement to have directly experienced some of the topic under consideration.

Northern Soul was and is all about the sensory, the euphoric. Taken out of that context it's very easy to sneer at its rituals and lore. It's those aspects which—when grafted on to the prosaic nuts and bolts of travelling to a club and listening to a record—give any of it a sense that it is not ordinary. The audience sharing that very particular experience becomes the phenomenon.

That's why Northern Soul continues to be culturally undervalued. It's why the music industry couldn't sell it and why much of the writing, even to this day surrounding the release of the film, cannot get a handle on it.

Last edited by Yuca (2014-10-26 03:57:02)