The Wrong Side Of Town / The Wrong Side Of Town (Instrumental)

Northern Soul Group features X-factor winner Steve Brookstein. Ian Levine was making a documentary called ''The Strange World of Northern Soul'' & had an idea to create a new Northern Soul band to show that the scene didn't have to be just about 30 yr old records. He wanted to prove it was possible to make a new record that people would listen to and think it was an old Northern Soul 45. Plus he needed to find a good project for Steve Brookstein and his amazing voice. He called the band The Four Vandals and put the record on a purportedly obscure New Jersey label, because one of the former Temptations, Damon Harris, was originally in a group called The Vandals and their records were released by a company in New Jersey. The record not only had to sound authentic - it had to look authentic, sound like it was in mono and have a late 60's feel to it. So ''The Wrong Side of Town'' was pressed in the US and a Carolina record dealer sent just three copies to England. The 45's were made to look 30 years old, even down to soaking them in a bucket of water and rubbing talcum powder into the grooves. Some greedy people sold them for up to 1,000 pounds each (after Ian had given them away free), but no one said anything since so much effort had been taken to make them appear authentic. The record went on to become THE biggest on the Northern Soul Scene for the next five yrs, and was pictured next to Frank Wilson's 15,000 pound rarity on the cover of Kev Roberts' book, ''Northern Soul's Top 500''. In '04 Brookstein won the X-Factor; in '05 he had a #1 single and a #1 album (with Ian Levine as a producer), and the secret of The Four Vandals came out. The Northern Soul Scene hounded Levine but he was unrepentant: ''The Wrong Side of Town is one of the highlights of my career.''