Cologne Soul Weekender 

A couple weekends ago Mick Holt and I did the Cologne Soul Weekender well the Saturday nighter at least. The weekender was billed like this:

DJ's: KEB DARGE (LEGENDARY DEEP FUNK, UK), TERRY JONES (SOUL24-7, UK), EDDIE PILLER (ACID JAZZ RECS, UK), MIKE THOMPSON (HOUSE OF CHOONZ, UK), ROB HOLMES (100 CLUB, LONDON, UK), JO WALLACE (THESE OLD SHOES, UK), LLOYD ATTRILL (UPTOWN DOWNSOUTH, UK), HARUHIKO IKEDA (SOUL WHIRLPOOL, TOKYO, JP), MICHAEL FUCHS (TYHU,FFM, D), OGUZHAN CELIK (RADIO Z, NBG, D), DAN D (WWW.SOUL.DE).
Saturday afternoon DJ Sessions including a big Record Fair and a live PA by Nu Soul Artist Gary des Etages

 

The Nighter was a rather strange affair that saw two rooms uncomfortably competing with each other rather than compliment, or at least offer up an alternative that gets people meandering from room to room as in the UK. Instead there were two, very much apposed camps consisting of German Soulies with a major slant towards Mod and RnB who seamed to dip rather cautious toes into the Modern room only to scamper back towards the safety of oldies.

 

Yet in the Modern Room there were an abundance of young trendy bendy people who apart from the fact that they can’t dance, seamed to be having a good time. Northernsoul weekenders in Europe sound brilliant, I wish this one was but it fell very short of brilliant.

The main hall was humongous and swallowed up the dancers; the few that ventured out onto the dance floor looked as embarrassing as the first dancers at a wedding. I may sound a little unkind but the Germans always appear as clumsy and uncomfortable whilst dancing. I know the scene should be about doing your own thing but………..damn! Northernsoul is well-known for its graceful musical expression. Germany please get some rhythm!

 

Eddie Pillar’s spot surprised me, the Northern snob in me worked very hard not to enjoy his spot (he is a Londoner after all) but he belted out some brilliantly dancefull tunes that sat well with the students and UK travellers to boot. He was to me the star of the show and gave an excellent account of him self.

Keb Darge had a well hard time wrestling with his rather expensive record box. It was sad to see an empty dance floor throughout his Oldies set. In all fairness the dance floor never filled that night, not a nice site indeed. I recon that a DJ should watch the dance floor and concentrate less on their record boxes! At the end of the day if they aint dancing to this years trendy discovery, then you have to go back to square one, we will decide what’s good and not you! Wigan and Stafford are a long time gone.

 

I found my self being pulled back into the smaller Modern room were there at least seamed as if there was still life. I do feel sorry for the organisers and especially for those who travelled. Is it worth going again? Depends what else is on I think. Yours Simon Cuerden