Cashing in (on memories)

I note with a sort of sage like head nodding sadness the endless move towards themed Events. Parker's and the dreaded Blackpool Mecca are being revived yet again- in an attempt to do what they always did-make money out of music for people who can't make music. You pay your money drink your booze and dance your little dance-and somewhere somehow for just a few seconds you are transported back in time.... But are you really?

Time has no direction as such-entropy is it's only way marker. There is no entropy though about Blackpool Mecca- instead the opposite. I went there a few times back then and really I found it deeply disappointing, it failed to live up to my expectations.

Not that there wasn't good music played in the Venue-but there was a lot of great music that wasn't. For me the place lacked any real identity-it had too much of the white working class excluding subculture of Northern about it, even if it did from time to time takes chances and push out the boundary of the musical envelope. However it was always a compromise and thus quite flawed. I went to many places with more black faces that were better during the period. The all nighters at The Timepiece in Liverpool were a world away from Northern-playing a grittier more Urban and more contemporary style of music. Sobers in Manchester was another a good example of a scene removed from the hysteria of Northern Soul, and because of that long forgotten.

The rewriting of History with sepia ink has given places like the Mecca a special and undeserved cache. This translates into people thinking it was the ONLY place-and to a world of bottom feeders eager to turn memories of others to profit.....

CASHING IN- they certainly are