JOHNNO'S SOUL KITCHEN IN HULL

Johnno has sent me some pics of his new record shop - I can see that he's got some really good stuff, reasonably priced too, I'd love to get in there and have a root through the boxes! I just wish we lived nearer to Hull...

While I think about it - let's have a mention for the Hull Soul Club too! Plenty there to interest soul fans...

Yet another fix for a vinyl junkee!

More good news today - had an email from purveyor of fabulous music to OKay fm - thaaaat's Johnno! Johnno has opened a new record shop in Hull and it's called....JOHNNO'S SOUL KITCHEN. The vinyl specialist is located in the Newland Arcade, 1-39 Sharp Street, off Newland Avenue, Hull, HU5 2AF. Telephone numbers: 01482 575407 and 07851 439720. Rare and collectable items on sale include: FUNK, SOUL, JAZZ, RAP, SKA, 2 TONE, R&B, GOSPEL, TAMLA, REGGAE, NORTHERN SOUL, DANCE. With tons of new and used vinyl 45s, 12 inch and LPs with some low price items, this new store is well worth a visit. I tell you what: I just love being involved in this whole fabulous music, vinyl, soul, music, radio thing - and I'm an old git!! Well, not that old! Thank heavens for the internet that's what I say - definitely the future for music and the radio. One of our on-air team is here with me; a quick word from our 6pm to midnight soul sister, Pam: - 'Hope you're enjoying the funky, get down on it, soul and jazz numbers that we're playing daily for you. They really get under your skin don't they? Keep on listening there's something for everyone, if you're new to the station some of the records you may not have heard before but they grow on you like moss and you can't get them out of your head'. Well alright! That's what I say...

A good day today - the petticoat government decreed that I could accompany her to our local town, Rugeley, or as I like to say - Rugethley; I like to give it a bit of Welsh (my lovely son-in-law is Welsh, also I have to pay homage to the vinyl junkee paradise of Cob Records, Porthmadog). Anyway, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to check out our new local vinyl emporium THOSE OLD RECORDS while she attended to the extremely important business of selecting food and drink for the weekend!

What a brilliant experience this was - not only did I have the opportunity to meet Chris, the proprietor and a committed vinyl junkee with not a seedy in sight, but I managed to obtain a Marvin Gaye album with a track I've been after for ages, (soon to be heard on my Okay fm show). This track - also done by the Artistics (I'll let you guess the title) is so rare that I had almost given up on getting it on any format preferably not seedy. Seven delicious vinyl albums in all, mint condition and very reasonably priced were purchased from Chris. Thank you Chris, I look forward to seeing you again very soon.

Gig news - Junction 11 Soul Club is back!!

One of the best loved northern soul nights in England is back after a two year break! Now that the Aquarius Ballroom in Hednesford near Cannock is back in action after being taken over and re-furbished by Cannock Chase Council, Junction 11 organiser Phil Turner is bringing the soul night back on the last day of every month starting Saturday January 30th. Tickets will be available on the door at the relaunch.

Junction 11 club nights regularly entertained capacity crowds during their first stint from 2002 to 2007 when they had to close after the former owners of the Aquarius went bankrupt in 2008.

Phil says - "We had a huge response last time, too big for the former owners to handle. The Aquarius is a great venue and we're glad to be back."

I don't know who is playing on Saturday, but one thing is for certain - it will be a great night with some fabulous music all from vinyl and I, as a soul freak and vinyl junkee, will definitely be there! : -)

A Happy, Healthy and Wealthy New Year to you all!

Hi there! Well here we are into another New Year already - I must just say what a great year 2009 turned out to be! After 30 years of wishing, hoping, lobbying and pirating we finally managed to make the dream a reality - our northern soul radio station was born! After the realisation that we were never ever going to get a licence to set up a legal terrestrial minority interest music radio station playing northern soul in England we decided that the only way in our lifetime was to set up an internet soul radio station.

I must admit that initially, this seemed a 'second best' option but as things turned out the internet definitely seems to be the way forward, not only because the future of radio is digital and not necessarily DAB, but potentially you have a world wide audience and the added advantage that we can run this exactly as we want to - we don't have to be dictated to by the likes of ofcom for instance. That is not to say that we are not legal; we are - as the Drifters say 'We pay our dues'. So, after 10 months of intensive work involving the setting up of the OKay fm website after first deciding on the name, our studio equipment, sorting through and logging thousands of 45s and LPs, commissioning our station id's, deciding on codecs, streaming service providers, testing, etc, etc, we went online 3 months early, June 1st 2009 to be exact, thanks to Caro our brilliant web designer.

Incidentally, we did find it difficult to select a suitable name - first of all we went back to our original station name of the 80s - Soul City fm, but somebody else had nicked it! That was originally inspired by Soul City Records, so we thought; right let's have a look in the old record box - and the first one that we pulled out was by the Vibrations on OKeh, so we thought great! That'll do but we'll change the spelling to avoid possible litigation! Everything went well for a couple of weeks and then - our first problem; the second weekend, Saturday, 70s weekend and all that, I booted up the laptop and we weren't online! Down to the station and on checking the streaming server - oh dear! The dreaded blue screen of death! Pressing the fast forward button at this stage and advancing a couple of weeks of testing, googling and deciding that we need a new server; we were finally back on line with a reliable stream thanks to CPC.

There are 9 music lovers involved at the moment deejaying (I hate the term - presenter!) and we have 6 hour slots - not unusual with music radio stations where the dj literally just plays the music without having to attend to phone calls, interviews and facilitating news feeds etc. We do work to a playlist - basically that consists of each dj having a Schweppes drinks crate of 45s for their slot and it's up to them to select the running order.

We do speak every now and again - but this is pre-ordained by El Presidente (Marge Tubb) and we have a card with things to say. This is pretty much descended from the format of American top 40 stations of the 80s (including Laser 558, the pirate ship off the English coast), plenty of music but not much speech, we don't even announce the records! I understand that in future we may change that slightly and run 30 minutes of music back to back and then back announce the tracks. One thing is certain, with all this fabulous music, there is no way we are going to talk all over it! Anyway, that'll do for the time being - just a mention that we are now 24hrs online with 6hrs of jazz from midnight to 6.00am our time - I wish I could stay up and listen 'cos I just love jazz - I'll have to find a way to record it! : -)