dexys week: new material

last year, kevin posted a demo of a new song, 'it's OK joanna' on his myspace. it's brilliant. who knows what'll come of it? watch his space ...

in the meantime, looks like he's keeping busy. children, avert your eyes:

dexys week: the 2003 comeback

in 2003, dexys returned to the stage. GMS caught them in sunny basingstoke, and it was fine as fuck, if you'll pardon the expression. kevin's voice wasn't what it once was, but he was ably backed up by pete williams, re-creating billy adams' side-man role from don't stand me down. the lounge sound and theatrical interludes had a lot of the audience heading for the doors. for my money, it was the best reunion gig i've ever seen.

you don't see my bloody valentine or the pixies in pinstripe suits, after all.

'c'mon eileen'

'geno'

dexys week: reanimation

a new century saw a new generation of british tv comedians finding humour in dexys. this is from series two of the underrated big train. that's simon pegg as igor, and 'the artist' kevin eldon as kevin rowland. and here's the mighty boosh, doing what they do:

dexys week: thong edition

in 1996 kevin signed with creation records. three years later, he released the lush covers album my beauty. that year, the open-minded reading festival crowd bottled off our kev and his cross-dressing strippers. funnily enough, they seemed to dislike rowland's gender-bending karaoke even more than they disliked 50 cent's commercially-oriented homophobia.

GMS readers are a tolerant bunch, or at least i hope so. here's the thong-tastic video for his cover of unit 4+2's 'concrete and clay'.

service announcement

GMS interrupts dexys week to direct you to the consistently high-quality mixing desk blog, who have a dutch bootleg (so to speak), of dexys from 1981.

it's mostly young soul rebels-era high-octane northern soul, with a couple of handy non-album songs - 'breaking down the walls of heartache' and 'show me'. but the inclusion of 'soon' and 'plan b' shows the way to the incredible five-songs-in-one second side of too rye ay.

while i'm at it, here's a clean-shaven dexys performing the irish-american traditional 'kathleen mavourneen'. this sort of thing used to happen on telly, you know.

dexys week: the four-minute comeback

in 1993, an ill-looking kevin re-surfaced with a new dexys song, 'if i ever', on jonathan woss' saturday zoo. and, just like that, he was gone again.

dexys week: kevin goes solo, re-grows moustache

kevin's 1988 solo album the wanderer wasn't as passionate as searching for the young soul rebels, as accessible as too-rye-aye, or as imaginative as don't stand me down. its dabbling in lounge pop and country was deliberately anti-fashion, as was kevin's new look, which fans of the league of gentlemen will recognise as the model for embittered businessman geoff tipps.

the video for 'young man' embraces the unfashionable aspects of british working class popular entertainment in a manner recently revived by GMS-favourite richard hawley.

dexys week: another comedy connection

following the disastrous reception of don't stand me down, dexys tasted one last piece of commercial success: a top-twenty hit with 'because of you', a mediocre theme tune for the unfunny window-cleaning sitcom brush strokes. hey - another comedy connection! 'becuase of you' (1986)

dexys week: pre-empting the pogues

like kevin rowland, shane macgowan is a displaced irishman with a background in punk who found success in the eighties playing big-band folk-influenced barnstormers, until addiction caught up with him and clouded his muse. macgowan's biggest hit, 'fairytale of new york', is as ubiquitous on both sides of the atlantic as dexys' celtic-influenced 'c'mon eileen'. but rowland was the first to try the anglo-irishman-in-new-york idea with 'this is what she's like' from the final dexys album, 1985's don't stand me down.

a critical and commercial disaster, don't stand me down mixed marvin gaye, 70s AM rock, conversational interludes and preppy clobber. the accompanying live show, 'coming to town ... park street south', interspersed songs with dramatic set pieces. the full version of 'this is what she's like' features a rambling monologue about the italian word for 'thunderbolt', a spectacular beach boys-style middle section, and a cagey, nonchalant chat between kevin and billy adams. the hostility with which this record was received is baffling. look out for the hipster on drums.

'this is what she's like' (1985)

dexys week: merry xmas everybody!

dexys were to the eighties what slade were to the seventies: eccentrically-attired top of the pops mainstays singing oddball pop masterpieces in thick regional accents. in both cases, their reputation as novelty acts, but their albums revealed much greater depth. both bands made minor inroads into the US, but remained essentially, parochially, defiantly, british. here's the sort of thing that doesn't happen any more: dexys covering slade's inescapable 'merry xmas everybody', beamed into millions of living rooms on christmas day, 1982.