The Soul Cellar Nighter in The FZW Club of Dortmund
By Simon Cuerden
There seams be two kinds of Northernsoul venues
here in Germany. The scooter club nighters, and The “Soulie Nighters”
Scooter Club nighters generally consist of a, ruff and ready affair with a safe,
middle of the road music policy that is aimed at the party going scooterists.
Yes you will find rare soul, but play too many unknown tracks, and you will see
the dance floor thin, as Terry Davis did during his recent trip to Gutersloh.
Not a pretty site for any DJ!
Then there are the serious “Soulie Nighters” organised be the German Soulies.
Here you will find a more, discerning punter, demanding the same quality sounds
that are spinning in the UK. At these venues you will also recognised a lot of
the familiar faces who crop up from time to time at venues such as The 100 Club,
Cleethorpes, Keele and Blackburn.
The Soul Cellar in the FZW Club of Dortmund is a “Soulie Nighter” and it had its
good points and bad points. Bad points first …………………
Finding the venue, for me was a nightmare! I’m not convinced that it was
entirely my fault that I got lost? I can only speak enough German to order a
large beer and get my face slapped! But the information given on the flyer only
seemed to make sense to those who lived in the same street as the venue! Having
said that I did find the place, all be it after driving around Dortmund city
centre for an hour and a half!
Paying your money and entering the venue you are greeted with the promise of
three rooms, exellent value for five quid! Then after you realise that the third
room consists of speakers in the toilet area, and that this is some strange
German attempt at humour, you are left scratching your head as to whether it is
funny, a rip off or just bizarre?
I settled for bizarrely funny. The FZW Club consists of two floors, a main room
on the ground floor and a small but sufficient sized cellar room. There are two
large bars that served alcohol all night, (could you see that working in the
UK?) these bars seamed to be extremely busy all night and the place was full to
the brim.
I have two criticisms of the German soul scene, the first is that they take
their drinks onto the dance floor, the second is that some are quite fond of
standing in the middle of the floor whilst people dance around them. Now this,
if you are a visitor, or new to Germany, really freaks you out! The dance floor
at The FZW was a stainless steel floor that when wet with beer became like a
scene from a seventies “winter driving video!” The floor when dry then became
like evo stick! “How do you dance?” I hear you ask? “With great bloody
difficulty!” I reply, I saw more than a couple of eager dancers almost fall flat
on their arses during the night! My self included!!
Now the good points……………
The saving grace for the club has to be the music and atmosphere, and this was
largely due to the three Disk Jockeys: Carsten Fox, Stephan, and Martin. These
three, modest, DJ’s are what I can only describe as “Top Blokes” between them
they played all the usual floor fillers and then some!
They created an atmosphere of excitement as each DJ blended in all the up and
coming, or dusted off spins that seam to be dazzling the UK at the moment. To
top this you find that the crowd responded to some of their favourites that
differ some what from our own “same old same old” Don’t get me wrong there were
no new ground breaking sounds that were heard for the firs time, but there was
never any promise of that. Instead you got danceable Northern and not a handbag
in sight!
Each of the three DJ’s bought some thing to the table but the main flavour for
the evening was oldies. I couldn’t but be impressed when I have just returned
from England and I am now listening to I'm slowly molding - Cody Black at a
German Nighter! Requests were flying in to the Jocks and the crowd responded by
going mental to tracks such as Junior Walker & All Stars – Shotgun, Sammy
Ambrose - Welcome to dreamsville, Love is alright - Jesse James and Accents -
New Girl.
Upstairs in the main room it was crammed full of German Scooter Boys & Girls who
were lapping up the entire play list normally found on Scooter Rallies. It was a
mixture of seventies soul, Ska, two tone and Northernsoul. I loved every minute
of it and the only down side was that I felt a little old and out of place? The
up stairs room was a little, “middle of the road” but this coupled with a party
atmosphere worked extremely well!
One minute you could see the crowd dancing to The Jam – Going Underground then
Northernsoul would explode from the speakers sending the floor into frenzy!
Barbara Lewis – Stars, Bobby Hebb - Love love love, Kim Weston - I'm still
loving you, Four Below Zero - My Baby's Got Esp, George Pepp - The Feeling Is
Real and Herb Ward - Honest to goodness added to a strange mix that kept the
dancers on their feet.
I left Dortmund with my NorthernSoul batteries well and truly re – charged, I
think that some times we take for granted the sheer volume of choice there is
back in the UK. I wouldn’t expect any one to make a special trip over to this
Nighter but if you’re in the neighbourhood it is well worth a look! I’m now
left, panting and waiting for The Soul Bowl at Dusseldorf!