DJ Pablo Winchester spreads northern soul in South Korea

DJ Pablo Winchester in Japan / Courtesy of Pablo Winchester

By Jon Dunbar

Paul, a British expat from Yorkshire in Northern England, moved to Korea "for a year" in 2009. Now, 14 years later, he's still here. After seven years of teaching in public schools, he moved on to a university where he's been working for eight years. By night, he goes by the name Pablo Winchester, spinning northern soul vinyl records in clubs across Seoul as well as Asia.

"Northern soul attracts lifelong devotees, of which I am one," he told The Korea Times. "I don't know what it is about this music, but it just reaches deeper than anything else I've ever heard. I have songs I've known for 30 years that still give me goosebumps when I listen to them again. The songs have an almost magical quality that I never tire of hearing."

He got his start DJing around 2012. One day, he was sitting in a bar with a friend, complaining about the quality of music heard around Korean bars.

The poster for the Get Funked DJ night at The Lounge in Hongdae / Courtesy of Pablo Winchester

"My fed-up friend, tired of me complaining, said 'do something about it then!'" Winchester said. "So I did."

They went knocking on doors around the Hongik University area in western Seoul, and managed to get a gig at a place called The Lounge. "Which is no longer there," Winchester said.

Teaming up with Matt Nunez, they DJed a variety of music, not just soul, for about a year, calling the nights "Get Funked."

Later they relocated to central Seoul's Haebangchon (HBC) area where Fix Bar became the place for another year until 2014. "Again, no longer there," Winchester said. "Maybe I'm a jinx?"

The poster for the Get Funked DJ night at Fix Bar in Haebangchon / Courtesy of Pablo Winchester

He later started DJing at HBC's Hair of the Dog. Around that time he became aware of Seoul City Stomp, a northern soul and reggae event run by other people he hadn't met yet. "I knew that I had to be involved in this so I sent them a message, got involved, and have been playing at that event since 2016, at the amazing Living Room in HBC," he said.

All the music he plays at his events is on vinyl, never CDs or mp3s, or even cassette tapes.

"It has to be vinyl. Northern soul DJs only DJ on vinyl," he said. "It's an unwritten rule in soul circles ― original vinyl only. It's not about the medium as such, it's more about the fact the there are some serious DJ-collectors out there who have been DJing and collecting for years. You can't just turn up with a bunch of mp3s on a USB stick you've gathered over the last week and say 'my turn.' It's a vinyl scene, and it always has been."

This can get quite expensive, as Winchester ― like most northern soul DJs ― must track down original vinyl, not the more recent reissues.

DJ Pablo Winchester / Courtesy of Pablo Winchester

"Northern soul is probably the most expensive vinyl in the world to buy. I've never seen any northern soul for sale in Korea, other than between a couple of DJs I know, so I have to buy it online, which pushes the price up even further, as a $20 disc can become $40 or $50 with postage charges. It's not uncommon for me to spend several hundred dollars on a single disc," he said. "Any DJ set of mine, or any decent northern soul DJ set, probably cost several thousand dollars to put together."

Northern soul can be a confusing term, as it relates to a community of music lovers that originated in Northern England, who listen to music mostly from the U.S.

"It's called northern soul as these clubs and the scene, despite being almost exclusively American music, developed in the north of England, long after the U.S. had turned its back on these discs," Winchester explained. "Northern soul is amazing music, and is mostly thousands of 1960s uptempo dancey soul records that didn't make the grade with sales/charts, mostly due to market saturation, that were dug up and rediscovered in the 1970s and 1980s by U.K. DJs."

He cautions that northern soul is not about nostalgia, unlike many other vintage music scenes. "Because the music was largely unheard at its time of release, it's just considered as a contemporary dance movement, but with older songs, many of which are still being heard for the first time," he explained.

He still plays Seoul City Stomp events at the Living Room, and he says his music is usually well-received.

"We get a great deal of positive feedback, but it's the same problem when DJing any type of music where you know the people in the room are largely not going to know the songs, or even the genre, you play," he said. "You have to choose songs carefully, that have some kind of instant appeal such as a catchy bass-line or hook, and then play them in a coherent order, read the room, see what's working and carry on. It can be difficult. As with anything, people want something they already know, so breaking down those boundaries can be challenging."

In recent years, his DJing has taken him farther afield, visiting other countries with more established followings for northern soul. Recently he visited Thailand where he played three gigs, and he stopped by Japan's Nude Restaurant which has been running a renowned northern soul event for years. He's also DJed at Shanghai Soul Club in China and the Formosa Soul Club in Taiwan.

DJ Pablo Winchester spins records at Nude Restaurant in Kobe, Japan. Courtesy of Pablo Winchester

Pablo Winchester will be one of the more than 100 acts performing at Block Party in HBC, which runs from Oct. 7 to 8. Appearing on the second night, he's one of around a dozen DJs to be appearing at the festival, but he's pretty sure he'll be the only one spinning northern soul.

"It will be nice to play some of that music to an unsuspecting crowd," he said. "Everyone knows what soul music is, but I expect that many won't have heard the discs I will be spinning. New music isn't necessarily new music. Block Party seems like a great idea, and I'm flattered to be asked to play at it."

Visit fb.com/seoulcitystomp for more information about Pablo Winchester's events or follow @seoulcitystomp on Instagram. Or visit blockpartykorea.com for more about the festival.