We're having a launch party to celebrate the release of the five disc DVD set, "Northern Soul's 200 Greatest Floorfillers"
I want all my friends to come to the launch on Monday 3rd November. It would mean an awful lot to me.
The launch party on Monday 3rd November is now confirmed and we're back at the Ion Bar.
HOW FABULOUS
We have four hundred invites, by private guest list only. Anyone on here who wants to come, just send a private message to this address
[email protected]
and I will make sure you are on the guest list
From 7pm till 1am
at...
"The Ion Bar"
161- 165 Ladbroke Grove
London W10 6HJ
020 8960 1702
Next door to Ladbroke Grove Tube Station
There will be lots of press and celebrities there, and some of the artists will all be performing their classic tracks off the DVD set, live.
I'd like all the fans to come. We have four hundred invites, by private guest list only.
Anyone on here who wants to come, just send a private message to this address
[email protected] ______________
THE ACTS WILL BE STARTING LIVE AT NINE PM.
IF YOU'RE LATE, YOU MISS THEM.
The Ion Bar is where we held our wonderful launch parties for "Disco2008" and "Northern Soul 2008".
It was packed to the rafters and an amazing success.
It's the can't miss occasion of the year, by private invitation only.
Huge venue with two levels, and a great stage, and ample seating for everyone in comfort with huge couches and armchairs and tables.
The venue is right next door to Ladbroke Grove tube station, literally next door.
Plus there is tons and tons of free parking round the back of the club.
We expect four hundred at least.
It's free but by private invitation only.
Please all of you make an effort to come and make it into a night to remember for many years to come.
Warmest wishes and gratitude
Ian Levine
NORTHERN SOUL 2008 - THE OFFICIAL TRAILER
June 30th 2008
Centre City Records
THIS IS "YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW"
THE OFFICIAL TRAILER
Released on March 3rd on Centre City Records
Available from http://www.ianlevine.co.uk
------------
Now that we're up to the milestone of two million hits on YouTube, Soren Jensen and I are launching the new website
http://www.ianlevine.co.uk
This will feature Centre City Records, plus all my old productions, and will be the only place you can buy new upcoming albums from initially, starting with my long awaited "Yesterday And Tomorrow" album in early March, with hopefully another launch party in June too, for the release of "Northern Soul 2008".
I want to thank all of you for supporting my music. Two million hits proves to me that not everyone's musical taste begins and ends with the X-Factor, and not everyone only wants to hear rap and hip-hop from black artists.
There is great talent in England, and I'm doing my bit to showcase it.
Any talented and real true soul singers here in the UK, if you feel like working with me on a new track, just get in touch. I'm trying to build a sort of British Motown here with Centre City Records, and I want to make this work in a climate where less and less people are even able to release records at all. I'm determined for us to be the ones to buck the trend, to stand out as a shining beacon of music that reflects Northern Soul, Disco, High Energy, and Motown.
Two million hits.
TWO MILLION HITS !!!!!!
Not bad, eh ???
--------------------------------------------------
Hello.
My name is Ian Levine.
Please also go to my different music business pages,
Record Shack Records
and
Tropicana Productions
and
Motorcity Records
where you will hear songs, see videos, and find out about my career.
This is the first, and main page, of my several MySpace pages.
Why do you need several pages, I can hear you saying....
Well, with the vast amount of pics and videos I have been putting up, covering my thirty two year career of producing records, it seems to make more sense to spread them over four different sites.
I already discovered over on the Record Shack page, where I was putting up pics of all the classic album covers, that I could only put up 120 pics, and then it stopped.
Well with all the classic vintage album and twelve inch sleeves I wanted to post up, I ended up needing several pages.
I've discovered fans I never knew I had, old artists and co-producers I'd lost contact with, and most importantly, after digging out and editing some wonderful footage, I'm giving some of the artists I've worked with in the past, a chance to see their own performances that they've never had a chance to see before.
Plus artists like The Four Vandals and Ebony Alleyne are now reaching the audience they deserve to, with literally thousands of views of their videos in just a couple of weeks.
I'm really really enjoying my MySpace experience with all four of these pages, and I hope you do too. If you like Soul or Disco or Motown, I promise you a rare treat that you won't find anywhere else on the web.
All you have to do is keep visiting all the pages, Ian Levine, Record Shack, Tropicana, and Motorcity, and keep clicking on the "View My Videos" icon, below the main pic on each page.
You never know what you might get to see there.
But before you do head over there to take a look, please stay here on this personal Ian Levine page for a moment, and look at what's on here. If you look at the pics on the other three pages, they just have the record sleeves, but here on this main page, there are some fantastic and rare pics waiting for you, if you click on the highlighted "View My Pics" words, just below the main picture of me. Many people have missed seeing them, and they cover Northern Soul, Doctor Who, DC Comics, High Energy, Disco, DJing at Heaven, and my family The Cooklins. And they took a long long time to locate after so many years.
If any of these few subjects interest you, then trust me, the pics are worth a look.
Now as for the videos on this site
Firstly, I have recorded a special five minute video introduction to me and my career. If you'd like to see it, then click on the "View My Videos" words, which are once again located just below the main picture of me. I've tried to be honest, fully expecting to get some stick over it, but hoping that people will just accept me for who I am.
And now I've loaded in over thirty videos of my productions, over thirty songs which are particularly dear to my heart. Once again if you click on the highlighted "View My Videos" words, just below the main picture of me, you'll get the choice to play my intro video and all thirty something of these songs
THE FOUR VANDALS - THE WRONG SIDE OF TOWN
FRANCES NERO - FOOTSTEPS FOLLOWING ME
WILLIE HUTCH - LOVE RUNS OUT
EVELYN THOMAS - HIGH ENERGY
MIQUEL BROWN - SO MANY MEN SO LITTLE TIME
C.P. SPENCER - THIS MAN NEEDS YOU
THE CARSTAIRS - IT REALLY HURTS ME GIRL
VENICIA WILSON - FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD
CHUCK JACKSON - ALL OVER THE WORLD
CAROLYN CRAWFORD - TIMELESS
J.J. BARNES - TALK OF THE GRAPEVINE
BARBARA PENNINGTON - ON A CROWDED STREET
PAT LEWIS - SOMETHING NEW TO DO
FRANK WILSON - JANICE DON'T BE SO BLIND TO LOVE
IMPACT - ONE STEP AWAY
EVELYN THOMAS - STANDING AT THE CROSSROADS
EDWIN STARR - DARLING DARLING BABY
L.J. JOHNSON - YOUR MAGIC PUT A SPELL ON ME
THE VELVELETTES - IT KEEPS REMINDING ME (Of Happy Memories)
EDDIE HOLMAN - WHATEVER HAPPENED TO OUR MELODY
MARY WELLS - YOU'RE THE ANSWER TO MY DREAMS
J.J. BARNES - I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT
MARY WILSON - OOOH CHILD
TAMMI LAVETTE - SEVEN DAYS
THE MARVELETTES - HOLDING ON WITH BOTH HANDS
EBONY ALLEYNE - MY MAN
THE SUPREMES - CRAZY BOUT THE GUY
SEVENTH AVENUE - THE LOVE I LOST
KIM WESTON - SIGNAL YOUR INTENTION
MIQUEL BROWN - HE'S A SAINT HE'S A SINNER
MARC DILLON - WITHOUT THE MUSIC
JIMMY THOMAS - SECRET DOORS TO SECRET PLACES
RAY POLLARD - THE DRIFTER
SHARON DEE CLARKE - AWESOME
TOBI LEGEND - TIME WILL PASS YOU BY
SANDI SHELDON - YOU'RE GONNA MAKE ME LOVE YOU
THE THREE DEGREES - CONTACT
NOEL McKOY - DETERMINED MAN
THE ARTISTICS - HOPE WE HAVE
ALL POINTS BULLETIN - LUCKY NUMBER
MARY LOVE - LAY THIS BURDEN DOWN
VOICES WITH SOUL - LIKE A LADY
CORINE ARMSTRONG - I CAN FEEL THE LIGHTNING STRIKE
MARSHA RAVEN - SEEK AND YOU SHALL FIND
Some of these videos are really rare and have never been seen before, so I hope you watch and enjoy them.
So, now that I've made sure everyone gets to look at my rare pics and see my rare videos,and now that's all clear, lets get down to business, shall we.
For thirty two years I have been producing records. I have had my name on over eighty UK hits, over forty produced by me and forty mixed by me.
I started out as a Northern Soul DJ and was starring at Blackpool Mecca's legendary Highland Room at the tender age of seventeen, and I made my first record, "Reaching For The Best" by The Exciters (although in the end, it was the second to be released, as "Love You Baby" ended up being released first) because I was frustrated at the lack of new releases containing the sound I loved, and the lack of Northern Soul in the pop charts.
I have always been controversial, and, to my sorrow, have attracted as much venom as I have praise.
My life has been shaped by my three loves, Doctor Who, Soul and Motown music, and D.C. Comics. I have become notorious and controversial in all three.
I saved many Doctor Who episodes from destruction, located missing episodes all over the world, was the script consultant to the BBC Production Office for six years from 1980 to 1986, co-wrote a story with Eric Saward under a pseudonym, and today run the fastest growing Doctor Who forum on the internet.
I like to think that I mean well, but have little patience for people with whom I have nothing in common. If I ever appear rude it's simply because time is so precious and I never seem to have enough to achieve all I want to achieve.
I am openly Gay, but it doesn't shape my life or what makes me tick, other than simply being one aspect of my personality. I have only ever had three proper relationships, being truthfully impossible to live with, and enjoying my freedom too much. I have also spent my life varying between being slim, muscular, and physically fit, to being ridiculously overweight - my love affair with food has waxed and waned periodically.
I often feel frustration that, despite so many hits and winning a BRIT award, that old friends and work colleagues, like Simon Cowell, Robbie Williams, Take That, Boyzone, Hans Zimmer, John Reid, and my protege and cousin, Daniel Glatman, have all gone on to be far richer than I have. I put it down to my unbridled passion about what I do, and an unwillingness to be as flexible as some people might have liked.
I owe much of my musical taste to my late lamented friend, Les Cokell, and undying thanks to certain mentors who have shaped my life - Chris Hill, Nigel Grainge, the late Dave Godin, Tony Cummings, J.P. Iliesco, and most of all my two best friends Ralph Tee and Paul Savory. But even more so to my Mother, Ruth, who has financially rescued me through the darkest of times, and always supported me through thick and thin.
I started collecting every British Motown release at fourteen years old, I started collecting every D.C. Comic at ten years old, and was hooked on Doctor Who from the first episode, and was even recording the audio and transcribing the plots within the first year of the show. I think it fair to say I have always been a collector and had a collector's mentality.
The pop hits that I have enjoyed, including Take That, The Pasadenas, Boyzone, Blue, etc etc, have all still been influenced by my own personal musical tastes. It is my belief that great music never goes away, it merely cycles around. The magic of Motown and Philly and Northern Soul, those spectacular rich jazz chords laid out across a sledgehammer beat, bring a wistfulness and poignancy to a life that wouldn't be worth living without music.
As the words of my all time favourite song that I ever wrote, "Without The Music" - "I won't last a day without the music, Nothing left to say without the music, how can I ever go on".
I like to write songs and create music that make you feel good. That make you smile. Music that reminds you of a summer day and a trip down to the beach, with the sun roof down, and suddenly everything feels great in the world, and for a temporary moment in time, all your worries are forgotten
While recently browsing the web, I came across an mp3 of Barbara Mason singing "Yes I'm Ready", and it reaffirmed my faith of everything I believe in
ALL I ASK IS FOR THE CHANCE TO MAKE THE MUSIC I LOVE.
Right - so I am creating a separate page here for each aspect of my life.
IAN LEVINE'S CV
If you click on the words highlighted in blue, you can read about my entire career, year by year, from starting DJing in 1971 right up to 2007 and mixing Right Said Fred's brand new remix of "I'm Too Sexy".
The total complete unadulterated history of my profesional career.
SOUL MUSIC
The effect Soul Music has had on my life, from writing for Collectors Soul Magazine in 1969, interviewing all the Miami artists in 1973 for a ten page feature for Black Music Magazine, to the present day.
MOTOWN
From collecting Motown seriously at the age of fourteen, to creating the Motorcity reuinon between 1987 and 1992, and the glorious day on March 14th 1989 when we all gathered outside the original Motown building, Hitsville USA in Detroit and appeared on every major news report across America.
NORTHERN SOUL
My love of Motown grew into trips to America, aged sixteen, to find obscure records with a Motown-ish sound but ..s of obscure labels. A DJ ing career of notoriety from 1971 to 2003, and still making new Northern Soul albums and singles to this present day, with the 2007 launch of Centre City Records
HIGH ENERGY
From becoming the main DJ at Heaven, in London, from its opening on December 6th 1979 for ten whole years up till 1989, and pioneering the whole High Energy music scene, and writing and producing the two million selling "So Many Men So Little Time" and the seven million selling "High Energy".
DOCTOR WHO
Hooked from the very first episode, "An Unearthly Child", I spent my teenage years longing for them to be repeated one day, never knowing the BBC were busy destroying them. In 1978, when I finally got permission to buy them, there were 153 missing, and the first Dalek story was one day away from being destroyed forever. Over the years we have reduced the missing number down to 108 by searching around the world. I turned up episodes in Cyprus, Nigeria, Australia, and eventually a great classic came back from Hong Kong. I was the script consultant for six years, wrote all the Radio Times articles, organised the Longleat celebration, and am currently running the Ian Levine Doctor Who Forum, and organising teams to colour the remaining thirteen Jon Pertwee episodes which have only survived in black and white, and to do animation tests on the Hartnell and Troughton missing episodes.
BOYBANDS
All my life I'd been a soul boy, and after producing The Pasadenas, and being in the top five for seven consecutive weeks with them, the head of A&R at BMG, Korda Marshall, was discussing me producing Londonbeat, when suddenly, out of the blue. he discussed me producing Take That, and the rest is history.
So I went on to produce not only Take That, but Boyzone, Blue, EYC, Bad Boys Inc, Optimystic, Gemini, Upside Down, Over The Top, D-Side, and loads of others, and made a bit of a name for myself as the premier producer of Boybands in the UK.
D.C. COMICS.
I started collecting Superman, Batman, and the Justice League of America at the age of ten. It took over forty years but in 2005 I finally completed the entire set of every DC comic ever released from 1935 to the present day, and still keep up with the new releases every week.
DISNEY FILMS
My Mother took me to see "Fantasia" at four years old. I was hooked, and spent the next four years fascinated by Dinosaurs. Before the advent of DVD I amassed the world's largest collection of Walt Disney laserdiscs, and rare editions of rental only Disney VHS tapes. Many of the laserdiscs were released limited edition in Japan only. I find it tragic what has happened to such a wonderful company, and the lack of any more true animation.
THE COOKLINS
My Grandma Golda, who I adored, died at ninety two, in 1995. I started researching her family, the Cooklins, after her death, and traced every descendant of my Great Great Grandfather, Hatskell Cooklin, and in July 1996 we had a huge family reunion of four hundred people from all over the world, meeting in Kensington, which was shown on the BBC News. In 1998, I made a four hour ..ary of the family history, interviewing all the cousins of my Grandmother, most of whom have since passed away. But their experiences and memories are committed to videotape forever.
ARNOLD SCHOOL
On March 6th 2000, I organised a school reunion of all thirty members of my class from 1967, from Arnold School in Blackpool, which used to be a strict all-boys school, using, for reference, a picture taken at the time by our Form Master. All thirty attended, plus hundreds more from other classes, with an amzing day of lessons in school uniform, P.T. in the gymnasium, a rugger match, and a cricket match, all captured and transmitted by BBC North West.
THE STRANGE WORLD OF NORTHERN SOUL DVD
I filmed and interviewed over three hundred people and 131 artists performing their Northern Soul classic songs, for a six disc DVD box set extravaganza, with twenty four hours of footage,, including some rare footage of the Motorcity reunion. The project started in 1997, was released on VHS tape and premiered to 1300 people at the King George's Hall in Blackburn in July 1999, then took four more years to refine and re-edit into its DVD release in 2003. A life's labour of love
SAMOYEDS
I have kept and bred Samoyed dogs since 1987, and have bred a line descended from champions, with three winners of Crufts Best Of Breed within my pedigree line. The line is called Saskovitch, so any dog with Saskovitch in its name came originally from me. I appeared on TV in 1994 with all four of my dogs, including Madison, my favourite, who also appeared ..s and loads of record sleeves at the time. And she even starred with me on Damon Rochfort's BBC TV show. These original four have sadly passed on since then, as it was thirteen years ago, but their descendants remain.
THE CATALOGUES
This list is of all the Master recordings that I control through my family's company, comprising three catalogues - Motorcity, High Energy, and Northern Soul. These are available for worldwide licensing and for sample use.
LINKS
And finally, here are some important links
IAN LEVINE WIKEPEDIA PAGE
THE IAN LEVINE DOCTOR WHO FORUM
THE DISCO HALL OF FAME
BILL BREWSTER'S DJ HISTORY
MORE ASSORTED LINKS TO MY PRODUCTIONS
And finally, the world's greatest expert on Ian Levine Productions, Soren from Denmark, who knows more about what I've produced over the years than I do myself, has provided some interesting links
He says that for now, until we find time to organize my enormous discography, that he figured out something that should be useful in the meantime -
Over the past year, he has contributed tons of my stuff to the site
http://www.rateyourmusic.com
and here are some links to add on to the myspace site:
LIST OF SOME RECORD SHACK RELEASES
LIST OF SOME NIGHTMARE RECORDS RELEASES
LIST OF SOME NIGHTMARE GOLD RELEASES
LIST OF SOME MOTORCITY RECORDS RELEASES
LIST OF SOME RELEASES IN THE USA BY HOT RECORDS
LIST OF OTHER ASSORTED IAN LEVINE PRODUCTIONS
For which I'm very grateful.
