THE IRISH CLUB NORTHERN SOUL CLUB
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
We emigrated to Perth in May 1992 having already been retired from the Northern Soul scene for 11 years since the closure of Wigan. Although some invisible force told me I had to include my 8 boxes of records in the luggage inventory, the notion of getting back onto the scene in Australia couldn't have been farther from my mind. So for 3 years I was in a kind of musical wilderness, occasionally picking up Stax or Atlantic compilation CDs or The Best of Ramsey Lewis or Wilson Pickett or anyone else whose name rang a bell.
This all changed in 1994 when a mate returned from a trip to UK with a CD called “The Wigan Casino Story” and would I like to borrow it because you were into all that weird stuff weren’t you? One look at the tracklist and my jaw dropped. Probably suffering from burn-out after 7 years worth of weekly allnighters, the “wife, kids & career” impulse kicked in and I assumed that the entire scene had died, never once thinking it might just have gone further underground for a while. So the fact that somebody in England called Goldmine was producing “proper” Northern Soul compilations 13 years on took me completely by surprise. However a nanosecond later I knew for sure that my Northern Soul career was about to resume.
The next 12 months saw a flurry of CD deliveries as I tried to make up for lost time. A subscription to Manifesto followed which gave me another surprise, the scene didn’t die after Wigan and people were actually still promoting allnighters up and down the UK! And you could still buy records! Towards the middle of 1996 another mate from Chorley, Roy Rothwell, witnessing the healthy obsession I was developing, suggested I look for a venue in Perth and have a regular soul night. My immediate reaction was don’t be so fucking daft, there’s only me, you and the wife & kids who’ve ever heard of it. Its easy 10 years later to understand how naive that reaction was, considering the number of UK expats living in Perth who were of the right vintage and stock.
Still feeling like it was a mental idea, I did as suggested and started to put feelers out. Believing that the scootering scene had some kind of vague connection to Northern Soul, the first call was to anybody that stocked spare parts for either Vespas or Lambrettas. Surprisingly the first number I dialled scored a hit, a bloke called Bruce Fraser knew what I was talking about and he knew some other blokes called Ray Wishart and Adrian Ridgeway who also had appropriate credentials. A couple of months later me and Bruce teamed up and found a venue called Henry Afrikas in Subiaco who were prepared to host a monthly “disco”, not realising how filthy a word that was to us. Some flashy flyers were produced (actually just text on blue paper with a silhouette of a sax player) announcing that the inaugural night on 14th September 1996 promised a nostalgic evening of Tamla Motown and Northern Soul, the logic being that Motown had to appear somewhere in the advertising in order to attract more than 10 people.
This worked to a degree as we held 6 monthly nights which at the time seemed to be successful but now feel amateurish. The dancefloor at Henry Afrikas was one of those rented things made from tiles pieced together with uneven slates as the secondary floor. Because virtually all of the (average 35) punters were experiencing Northern at a venue other than their bedroom for the first time in decades, requests were for what we would these days be reluctant to touch with a bargepole, ie Muriel Day “Nine Times Out Of Ten”, Donnie Elbert “A Little Piece Of Leather” and yes even the Chosen Few “Footsie”. Understandable I suppose because that was the last memory they had access to.
I think it was the crap dancefloor that led us to look for an alternative venue and that quickly came in the shape of the Irish Club just round the corner. A much better dancefloor, a proper stage and a cosy “scout hut” type of feel to it so the first gig at the new venue was arranged for 1st March 1997. The Motown/Northern policy was still in force and for the first 6 months we averaged about 30 to 40 with a couple of bumper months when soccer clubs came for a night out. This soccer club thing in fact became the catalyst for change because, whilst pleased to see a full floor and 70 happy punters, I was feeling more and more like the plot was evaporating before my eyes. Watching shitfaced slappers wobbling about to “Please Mr Postman” wasn’t what I had originally envisaged even though beer sales were at an all-time high at the Club. I think it was around July or August 1997 that I therefore took the decision to go solo with a pure Northern Soul night.
Numbers dropped quite dramatically during the remainder of 1997 but some intensive flyer distribution, coupled with some uncanny recruitment by the small hard core group that had formed, found more enthusiasts to the extent that the first anniversary on 7th March 1998 attracted 70 guests. Not a massive number but virtually all of them were UK expats with pedigree. One such enthusiast, Nigel Loveless, I discovered was spinning Northern Soul in Perth as early as 1973 and still hosted occasional gigs.
The task from then on was to consolidate the hard core and at the same time find new punters so it was simply a case of putting in the hard yards with newspaper ads, flyer posting, internet mailouts etc. 1998 must have been the period when more people were found than any other because there were over 160 people through the door at the 2nd anniversary on 6th March 1999. This remains the Irish Club record.
The rest is history, to the point that we’re now into the 9th year and have assembled a hard core of around 60 and take between 40 and 50 to the National every year. Visitors to the Irish Club can expect to hear 90% 1960’s “proper” Northern Soul with a good helping of newies, courtesy of several excellent collections either hauled halfway around the world or started from scratch. Here’s a cross-section of the floorfillers over the years to give you an idea of how the music policy has progressed:-
1997/8 Eddie Parker “I’m Gone”
Frank Wilson “Yes That One”
Dana Valery “You Don’t Know Where Your Interest Lies”
1998/9 Holly St James “That’s Not Love”
Gladys Knight “No One Could Love You More”
Edward Hamilton “Baby Don’t You Weep”
1999/0 Charades “The Key To My Happiness”
Trends “Thanks For A Little Lovin”
Rita & The Tiaras “Gone With The Wind Is My Love”
2000/1 Lenny Curtis “Nothing Can Help You Now”
Satisfactions “Take It Or Leave It”
Ronnie Forte “That Was Whiskey Talkin”
2001/2 Wade Flemons “Jeanette”
A C Reed “My Baby’s Been Cheatin”
Otis Redding “Lovin’ By The Pound”
2002/3 Masqueraders “Do You Love Me Baby”
Vontastics “Never Let Your Love Grow Cold”
Jesse Johnson “Left Out”
2003/4 Larry Davis “I’ve Been Hurt So Many Times”
United Four “She’s Puttin’ You On”
Gene Toones “What More Do You Want”
2004/5 Dee Dee Sharp “Deep Dark Secret”
Contours “Jealousy”
Reatha Reese “Only Lies”
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