The Reflections at The Halfway House Barnes - again.

The

Reflections

Oh, that’s no good. It’s just not right.

I went to The Halfway House in Barnes because it’s just one month since The Reflections last appeared there and they were back again – public demand.

I’d planned to do a really in depth review this time; photos, a set list and some helpful tips and comments on each number.

I was nicely set up with a clipboard, a sound meter, my protractor set and some nice new pens as well.

Then this happened;

And then this;

 

And while I was standing quietly at the back of the crowd observing, my friend dragged me on the dance floor.

It’s not right; I’m weak– I’ve got a condition.

 

I was lucky, these poor people on the back row were forced to stand on their chairs;

 

The Reflections have chosen to play all the great Soul classics of the 1960’s but this isn’t pub singing.

No club singers here.

No tired, shortcutting vocals. Karaoke it ain’t.

It’s that really great sound; the hard ,tight vocals of Detroit 1965. Clipped and economical, the sound of young, black America.

It’s the sound of Soul.

Rehearsed.

The business.

The Reflections

I’ve nothing against The Halfway House but you aren’t going to be seeing this band there much longer – there are bigger venues crying out for this and the word is getting out.

Me?

I was at the far side which is why the photos aren’t any good. Or maybe it’s because my camera was bobbing up and down at about 120 bpm – Northern Soul time.

Certainly, around me was a definite Soulboy contingent. Where else would I want to be?

Still haven’t found those white sox.

Click on any picture for a slideshow.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

The Reflections at The Halfway House, Barnes.

jThe

Reflections

Oh that was good – just about the best Wednesday night you can have. So good it means I’m late with my Blog.

Where did I go?

MOTOWNdetroit

That’s where.

Cut open a mod and what do you find?

Soul, that’s what.

I went off to see The Reflections at The Halfway House in Barnes – that’s an 8 piece band playing the very best of Motown and a just little Northern Soul. Here’s most of them, packed into the smallest space possible right at the start of the evening before it all kicked off.

 

 

After that, I'm afraid, there was some dancing.

I have only the haziest recollection of what they played but I know I heard Otis Redding, Diana Ross, little Stevie Wonder and much, much more;

There was ‘Heatwave’ from Martha and the Vandelas, there was ‘Dancing in the Streets’, and there was Gloria Jones with ‘Tainted Love’ –that’s the Northern Soul favourite.

How about ‘Take me to the river’?

Oh dear, I’m swaying again. There was ‘Baby Love’, 'Jimmy Mack', 'Needle in a haystack' and then ‘On the Floor’ – another Northern Soul favourite.

When you are crazy enough to put together 8 musicians it’s never going to be about the money – it’s all about the soul. There was Drums and percussion, keyboards, Bass and lead guitar.

Then how about these three great vocalists;

 

I’ve seen Pippa in the middle and Sandy nearest the camera because I watched them guest with the mod band ‘Lord John’ back in February and they are the reason I had to make it up to Barnes tonight. Stephan is at the far end.

Each one of these three big voices took it in turns covering some of the soul classics, with the backing of the other two.

It all added up to a great night in a very small pub – this is a young band that’s crying out for a large hall and the dance floor to go with it. I don’t think it will be long before they get there either.

And then I just had to sneak a photo of those boots from one of the dancers – aren’t they great?

 

About four inches of attitude, I’d say.

Now where did I put my white sox?

J

HITSVILLE U.S.A.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact:  neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Lord John and SK7.

Friday night and I was making a journey out into the middle of nowhere (Bagshot – honestly) to see a local Mod band I’ve been meaning to catch for some time;

  LORDlJOHN

who were playing at The Three Mariners on Bagshot High Street.  I’ve been missing them forever and I wasn’t going to this time.

 

But first a word from our sponsors;

 (Sk7-unisex_HairSalon)

Who were kind enough to put up the money for the gig - catch them at 7 High Street, Bagshot or on

www.facebook.com/sk7bagshot

Me, I can’t cope with facebook and don't use it – the page for this campaign is dead because I can’t get used to the format and I don’t even like my own page. It's an age thing.

But SK7 were celebrating reaching 3000 likes which is a real achievement and as a treat they put on this show just for us.

They are also on;

www.sk7hairsalon.co.uk and seem very reasonably priced although after they took one look at my hair they moved on fairly quickly.

Certainly there were some very glamorous ladies out to celebrate:

 

And if anyone tries to blackmail me with any of their photos I will deny everything. I rarely go out and how do you know I don’t have a twin brother anyway?

I also think there is a Tattoo joint connected with SK7, certainly there were some impressive ‘Tats’ on display. For a moment I was daydreaming about having the ‘Trojan Records’ logo done on my chest……...no I think I may have left that a bit late.

 

Lord John are Paul on lead Vocals (off with a bad throat), Darren vocals, Martin lead Guitar, Steve on Bass and Jeff on drums. The name comes from the famous clothes shop which used to be on Carnaby Street and which provided the wardrobe for the 1960’s.

Their music ranged from the classic mod bands of the 60’s, through to The Jam and even a bit of 90’s Britpop and some classic soul along the way. Do you see why I drove all that way out into the middle of the country just to see them?

The pub had a clock that went backwards above the bar – it didn’t work for me. The time flew.

There was a hard and heavy R ‘n B beat running through the evening which really worked and came up from the drums and bass. It spiced up ‘Parklife’ for me – I always liked it anyway.

When I got home I caught a late night compilation of BBC clips from the 1960’s and Lord John had captured the urgency of the live performances of bands like the Small Faces and The Kinks, which is usually missing on their records.

The Jam they can’t do and that’s no criticism at all; I enjoyed ‘Start’, ‘A Town Called Malice’ and especially ‘The Butterfly Collector’- the ‘B’ side to ‘Strange Town’. It’s just that The Jam were Punks as well as Mods and that gave it an anger and an energy you can’t come up with today. I know, I was there and it won’t come back.

I do like ‘The Butterfly Collector’ and they did it well. I may get a chance to hear it again tomorrow if I’m very lucky. Written about Soo Catwoman, it was an attack on the Art-school punks of 76/77 and was a cry from the suburbs as well as the first sign that Weller was moving towards ‘The Style Council’ in sound and ideas.

I really liked Booker T’s ‘Green Onions’ – which I heard a month ago on a real Hammond organ thanks to  ‘The James Taylor Quartet’. Last night it was all lead guitar which gave the old tune a harder edge, a tougher feel.

 

Boom Boom’ was great as was ‘High heeled Sneakers’.

"Put on your red dress baby and your high heeled sneakers too"…….now what does that remind me of?

 

Martha and the Vandelas ‘Heatwave’ and the original version of ‘Tainted love’ were the Soul element. They ended with a Who medley which included ‘Won’t get Fooled again’ which was also one of the BBC clips. You know, I actually preferred it harder and faster!

You know, maybe I could still get that tattoo……..No I mustn’t.

That was a good night.  The band is on lemonrock and the dreaded facebook - you have no excuses now.

 

A

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Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:    helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

This is Northern Soul

 

 

 

Northern Soul, now that’s a difficult one to explain.

     p

The Mods started at some point in the fifties to early 1960’s and petered out in about 1966. A big chunk became hippies and a minority became skinheads. Some just got old and walked away or gave up because the music died.

But not everyone did that and not everywhere. Rather like a tribe hidden in the Amazon rainforest, people who loved the music kept listening to it, mainly up there in Northern England. They just went on dancing.

   z

Except, even when people want to keep things the same forever, subtle changes happen all the same. As time passes the changes get more obvious.

Gradually, they got a bit bored with the same old Motown and Stax stuff and started hunting out the rare grooves, soul records with a hard R ‘n B Beat, records no one had ever heard before, hard to find imports.

      k

In fact it became a mania, a search for the ever more obscure record. Some rare singles were worth thousands.

It became insular and competitive, a world of its own. Very athletic and fanatical. It also, by the late 1970’s had become very popular, if only in a limited area. Retired and long forgotten minor American soul stars were dragged back on the road by their agents and flown off to Northern England, where to their surprise they found themselves mobbed by thousands at concerts in old industrial towns.

                                    j

Record company executives were puzzled by requests from England for licenses to reissue obscure singles from the 1960’s that no one in the record company had ever heard of.

By the 1980’s it was really big, have a look at ‘Northern Soul’ on Wikipedia or YouTube to get an idea.

By then they were wearing flared trousers and baggy clothes, moving towards sports and casual wear – far from the classic 1960’s MOD clothes I tend to choose. The dancing was hard and athletic rather than what I like to think of as cool. But each to their own and they are dancing to really great sounds.

I remember being in Charity shops in London and the South in the 80’s hunting for 1960’s clothes while the staff were frantically trying to find unwanted flared trousers to send in bulk to their Northern Branches.

In the 1970’s, down in the South, Paul Weller and The Jam had rekindled the old MOD thing, first as a re-creation and then by taking it somewhere new as part of Punk. That’s where I came in. By the end of the 70’s there was a whole revival scene which petered out in the 1980’s. Unlike them, Paul Weller developed and changed – creating The Style Council, which was perhaps the most perfect Mod band ever. There was a definite move from the hard punk of The Jam towards Soul and a tinge of Jazz, which is why The Jam had to come to an end.

But Northern Soul just kept on dancing and ‘Kept The Faith’, which is why it still goes on today on vinyl, at high speed and with its own particular style.

By the late 1990’s, the people into Northern Soul and the Mods had all kind of ended up in the same place although it had taken 30 years and about 300 miles to get there.

And Me? Well I stick out a bit, a Mod amongst the Soulies. I dance differently, dress different. They don’t seem to mind too much and neither do I.

 
Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)
Home:      helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact:   neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Friday night is Soulnite.

It would take forever to explain but one day I really will do the history of the MOD movement and Northern Soul as I promised. Anyway, Friday night found me in Teddington at the Northern Soul Night organised by ‘Soulnites’, who ‘Keep The Faith’ in London.

                                   www.soulnites.com

 

 

It was a room full of Northern Soul fanatics (nothing wrong with that) and one MOD, that’s me. Different clothes, different styles, different dances, the different types of music meeting in the middle; it's the same soul.

They were remarkably tolerant of the ill old geezer in the corner with the Ian Dury walking stick. A lot more tolerant than I would ever have been in the 70’s when I was nearer their ages and watching The Jam or Paul Weller’s Style Council a few years later.

It was a night of some really great sounds.

Here’s Ann Taylor the Soulnites resident;

 

I really like her habit of sneaking in the odd instrumental – they always have a tinge of jazz about them and bring back memories of the whole 80’s jazz dance scene (all right, all right, I know nobody cares about it except me, I won’t go on about it again).

This is Jim Watson guesting from ‘Soul on the Square’, which I may well have to check out myself.

 

A harder, dancier run of music from him, more R ‘n B influenced.

The whole MOD scene – the soul clubs, the MOD bands, the Ska revival is really vibrant right now, well hidden under the radar and as far as I can see growing.

The style is pretty much shorthand for cool these days.

I’m very lucky to still be around at this time, to ride the wave for just as long as I can get away with it

 

 

 

 

 

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Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

 

Sorry folks, absolutely no Talc.

I must admit it was a blow not to be going to Brighton to see The James Taylor Quartet on Saturday. It left me  with a choice - sit at home sulking or do something foolish instead?

Well, of course foolish won and as a result I’m sat here feeling very sorry for myself. Heck, who goes out for the night armed with a bottle of water, spare shoes,  some heavy medication, a wide range of nasty side effects, a walking stick and a pair of crutches in the car just in case I needed them, a Ben Sherman Shirt with a 1960’s straight Tie, tie clip, black jacket and Levi’s 501’s. Oh and did I mention my special dancing shoes?

Here’s a clue for you;

 

Otherwise known as

Murder on the dance floor

By accident I discovered I had a local Northern Soul Club; The Hoodoo Rhythm and Soul Club, just up the road and only a year old, holding their second ‘Alldayer’ on Sunday, that’s a whole day of Northern Soul. This is the world of the MODS, of wild dancing and long, long wonderful nights.

And no, I was never going to be able to manage 2pm till 10pm, I have to look after someone. Also I’m not in the market for wild dancing anymore but I still got there at 6pm and had a good 4 hours of dancing to some of the best dance music in the world.  That's Soul, all on vinyl of course.

And this is the Hoodoo Club;

 

And here’s Soulnites, the joint organisers;

 

It was a great night, really nice people – as one person said to me “The music never leaves you” and he's right.
Only now as a result I’ve got a swollen ankle, a swollen knee, lots of pains in really worrying places and I seem to have broken a few things, some of which don’t feel as though they will ever heal.

Strangely there were a number of people I thought I recognised - it's a very small world.

What a night – when I have time I’ll give you an inside history of the MODS, Northern Soul and everything. In the meantime you’ll just have to make do with Wikipedia.

The Talc? Soulboys put it on the soles of their shoes to make it easier to do their special moves.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)