Spotlight on The Hideaway Club, Manchester UK

Alex M. Franquet chats with Paul Welsby, one of the founders of Manchester's near-legendary The Hideaway Club.

What made you start the club? How many members do you have now, are they mainly mods?
There are three of us involved in running The Hideaway Club, myself, Neil Henderson and Mike Warburton, all of us being long time Mods (Mike and myself go back as far as '79). We started the club because we were going to Mod clubs and rallies all over the UK and not really hearing the kind of music that we wanted to hear. All we were hearing was Northern Soul and Freakbeat - not what we would call Mod Music! So in February 1999 we started The Hideaway to play the stuff we wanted to hear; R&B, early Soul, SoulJazz, Hammond, Ska etc. Just before this, we all went to an event in Manchester where Roger Eagle - the original DJ at Manchester's famous Twisted Wheel Club between 1963 and 1965 - had come out of retirement for one last gig. Now Roger Eagle was one of our great heroes. He was reknowned for playing the best R&B to the biggest Mod crowd outside of London. Anyway, the gig was absolutely packed. Not just Mods but older "original" Mods as well. So we thought "It's obviously not just us three that want to hear this music"... so on 27 February 1999 The Hideaway Club opened its doors for the first time.

The first venue was...
Our first venue was a small room below The Mitre Hotel near to Manchester Cathedral, but we outgrew that room within a year and now we've been at our current home, The Waldorf, for over two years.

What about the members?
We have about 400 members from all across the UK and some in mainland Europe. Fortunately, they don't all show up at the same time ! Our regular crowd is between 150 to 200. They are not all Mods. In fact we get a really good mixture of young Mods, original Mods (now in their 50s), people from the Northern Soul scene who want something different and 50's people who like to hear real Black Music.

You have booked dj's from the northern soul scene like Roger Banks, who is a r'n'b lover. What do the northern soul scene dj's think about playing records to a crowd of mods?
Right from day one, we have always had the policy of having two guest DJs on every night, one from the Mod Scene and one from the Soul Scene. Occasionally we will have a 50's DJ guest for us. The main reason for this mixture is that different DJs from different scenes will bring different records and sounds into the whole Hideaway mix. Obviously, the DJs that we choose from the Northern Soul scene have to be R&B or very early Soul lovers, like Roger Banks and Carl Willingham. We don't want someone playing Wigan Casino "oldies", do we??? Interestingly the sound of The Hideaway Club changed from what we originally set out to do. We wanted to play "classic" Mod sounds, like Chess R&B, Motown, Sue etc. But because we had guest Djs from other Scenes they have introduced different elements. So now we play much more early Soul (from late 50's and very early 60's), more 50's R&B and even sounds that are played on the Belgian Popcorn Scene.

How is your relation with Ady Croasdell. Are you happy with the first Kent CD? Does Kent Records have plans for more volumes?
Obviously I knew Ady from the 100 Club and Kent Records, but he just contacted me out of the blue and said that he'd heard about The Hideaway Club and wanted to put out some kind of "tribute" CD to highlight what we had going on. His first thoughts were to do something with the Kent/Modern labels as they had an excellent reputation for R&B. However on talking further he hit on the idea of doing a series of R&B based compilations. The first volume is excellent, although not 100% representative of The Hideaway sound. Although having said that, it would be difficult to capture the sound from one record label anyway. The popular tracks at the club that are on the CD include Big Mama Thornton, The Newports and Terry & The Tyrants. The second volume, that is due out in the summer, is based on the King & Federal labels and will be more representative of The Hideaway. It will contain current popular tunes by Little Willie John, Freddy King, Johnny Guitar Watson and Bobby Byrd. No doubt as soon as this comes out, we'll be turning our attentions to volume 3!!!

What is your personal relation with the northern soul scene? Do you usually attend Northern Soul allnighters?
I don't really attend Northern Soul nights. I have been to them in the past but find them all a bit samey. You hear all the same records and meet all the same people. As far as I'm concerned, Mod and Northern Soul are two distinct separate musics. I have no problem in Mods liking Northern Soul, I like some of it myself, but I don't want to hear it at a Mod Club !

Can we compare the Hideaway Club with Sneakers, the club (where Paul Hallam dj'd) from the 80's that also played a mix of the best black music for mods?
I'm glad you drew that comparison. We would like to think that we were carrying on the tradition of Sneakers and I hope that in 15 years time people will remember The Hideaway Club with the same feeling that people now remember Sneakers. In July 2000, we started up our Manchester Modweekenders which always includes The Hideaway Club on the Saturday night. Anyway, for our first one I managed to talk Paul Hallam out of retirement to DJ for us. He was so well received that he has returned a couple more times to DJ for us (and no doubt will be back again in the near future!)

Are there any differences between the mod scene in London, where white music and freak beat seems to have more popularity, and the mod scene in Manchester, that seems more concentrated on black music?
Not really. There are probably as many Mods in London that like the kind of thing we do as there are in Manchester. The difference being that the London Mod Scene is so much bigger that the white 60's music fans tend to outnumber the black music fans. As I said earlier, we do get Mods travelling from all over the country and that includes London !

Do you see, nowadays, any other mod clubs in England with a similar music policy?
A number have tried, but don't tend to get the mix of the music right. The Hideaway Club is different because we take influences from the Mod Scene, the Northern R&B Scene, the 50's Scene and the Popcorn Scene to give us a unique sound. No-one has quite managed to produce the same sound.

Can you give us your top ten of songs that you dj now?
From my current sets I would say that these are the most popular amongst The Hideaway crowd (in no particular order) :

1. Baby Please Don't Go Jo Ann Henderson (Phonograph)
2. I Want Her Back Dick Jordan (UK Piccadilly)
3. Don't Let Her Take My Baby Mitty Collier (Chess)
4. I Ain't Givin' Up Nothin' Clyde McPhatter (Mercury)
5. What Good Am I Without You Jackie Wilson (UK Coral)
6. Tempted Brice Coefield (Madison)
7. Lonely Moon Johnny Wells (Astor)
8. Watch Over Her Wade Flemons (VeeJay)
9. All I Wanna Do Is Cry Billy Bland (Old Town)
10. 36-22-36 Bobby Bland (Duke) ...for all the OLD Mods!

About the author

Alex lives near France and usually he likes the climate there. After years of just reading the articles on Uppers he finally decided to become a contributor. We're proud to have him onboard!

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Comments:
Martin	dec 5 2003 8:13AM
Great interview! Would love to hear the Hideaway guys djing here in Germany instead of progressive rock specialists.
Richard Karström	dec 4 2003 12:47PM
As some of you will no doubt discover, this article was written a couple of years ago. We here at Uppers hope you'll find it interesting nevertheless. And since when did you lot shy away from vintage stuff anyway? :)
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