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1985 ER OCTOBER – DECEMB fall from the nation’s charts in the week we eventually met up. Hence the Today, we just had a bit of a barney. Kevin likes that sort of thing and it interview. Hence the need to sell more records. probably helps him sell a lot more records. It would be the easiest thing in I was nervous as hell. After all, it’s not every day you get to meet the world to do a little bit of creative editing and turn it all into a first-rate somebody you used to send fan mail to, somebody who influenced the hatchet job, as he would call it, but there’s not really much point in that, way you talked, the way you fought and the way you were at a time when because it’s just what Kevin expects and it would therefore be boring and nothing else seemed to matter. He seemed relaxed enough, snatching as ugly as sin. a couple of hours in-between rehearsals for the forthcoming British tour It started off with a cup of tea, and a provisional plan to start now and on which, if this brief glimpse is anything to go by, the greatest comeback work back rapidly went from bad to worse, ending up with an attempt to since Richard Nixon will take place before your very eyes. But that’s for clear the air by talking about Catholicism and class. So here it is, or at least me to know and you to find out when the time comes. the bits we both remember. The words have not been changed, although they might have read a lot better that way. Are you surprised that the album has not been a great commercial success? MM SEPT 7 Kevin Rowland Or disappointed? A complete scenario makes “album of the year”. “I’m not incredibly surprised. Disappointed? No. I have every confidence in the LP. I think it will eventually be successful and I think Dexys Midnight Runners Most people entrust this sort of it is very early days yet. I really do.” Don’t Stand Me Down EMI information only to Mike Read and Was it a mistake not to release Compromise, as Kevin Rowland so sharply his “First Love” spot – Rowland a single? observes on the opening verse of this puts it on a bloody record! With ALBUMS “Definitely, although it remarkable album, is the devil talking. that sort of arrogance, how can depends on what you mean by An artist, then, of extremes. A man who he possibly fail? REVIEW a mistake. But yeah, I’m sure makes an art form out of overkill. A man of Ireland, too, is a recurring that if we had released this supreme arrogance. A man of… paranoia? topic. But this is not the romantic, 1985 single before the LP, then the Such are the conflicts, the contradictions, tourist-eye-view offered on the album would have been a great the confusion of the tortured pop star. But last album; Helen O’Hara’s fiddle success. I knew it wouldn’t be easy compromise? Never. playing is more discreet and mournful. this way and we are now going to And so. Gone are the dungarees, the gypsy All these aspects make an important release a single after all. It’s called “An scarves, the rebel posture, the platoon of contribution to the elegaic “Knowledge Extract From ‘What’s She Like?’”. fiddles and the search for the young soul Of Beauty”, in which Rowland sings, in That must have meant some cutting (the Ireland of Too-Rye-Ay. Instead we have classic Scott Walker style, of a sense of original clocks in at around 11 minutes). button-down shirts, three-piece suits, Stock heritage rediscovered. It also enters into “No, we’re not cutting anything. We’re taking Exchange haircuts and hearts firmly pinned “One Of Those Things”, in many ways the the first section plus a little bit either side of it to sleeves. Yet these true confessions are most successful track on the album, and then making a four-minute version for DJs laced with bizarre informal conversations, encompassing and binding all of the album’s so they can play it on the radio. There are no occasional bouts of restraint(!) and even – many qualities with its humour, its vigorous actual edits or bits joined up.” gasp – humour. This, surely, is a first. arrangement, its standard soul backdrop So you’ve changed your mind? We also have… quite the most challenging, and a sarcastic lyrical shot at the uniformity “Yeah.” absorbing, moving, uplifting and ultimately of pop music. This, in turn, develops into a And that is purely because of the commercial triumphant album of the year. full-blooded blast at the current trendiness failure of the album? Being Kevin Rowland, of course, it’s of obscure political causes while the “I had always planned to release a single not just an album. It’s a mood, an attitude, doorstep problem of Ireland is steeped in about three months after the album. It’s now a complete scenario that extends well general ignorance. two months, so it’s a bit sooner than I wanted, beyond image, and unlike Too-Rye-Ay, the After this, the Roxyesque love song “Listen but the main reason I didn’t want one originally image appears to bear little relevance to To This” seems remarkably tame, but it’s the was because I wanted the album to be seen as the music. What the record does have is only dull moment. For there is fire in the belly just that, an album, and it’s OK because it has light and shade and depth and warmth and right from the opening cut, “The Occasional been taken as that. The basic problem is that humanity. And where before Dexys have Flicker”, which starts as a heart-wrenching not enough people know that it’s actually out or wasted a lot of breath talking about passion, personal soliloquy and drifts, almost have heard it enough times to be familiar here they simply provide it… Eat your hearts imperceptibly, into a fierce rock’n’roller enough with it and go out and buy it.” out Prefab Sprout. Closing track “The before introducing the new Rowland self- Maybe that’s not helped by your reluctance Waltz” – and it is just that – is beautiful and mocking his image of martyrdom. to do interviews. poignant, a song born of a disillusioned but But if “The Occasional Flicker” displays an “I think it’s more to do with the fact that we resilient spirit… “I’ve been to the promised unexpected wryness, it’s nothing on “This Is didn’t release a single. That’s what sells albums, land, I’ve been there/I’ve also been down to What She’s Like”, which parades a rare the bottom and looked up from despair”. flair for outright comedy. Another The album ends with Rowland howling spoken intro – a dialogue between “Here’s a protest, here’s a protest” amid the Rowland and Billy Adams that could be bittersweetness; and sardonic references a sketch from Alas Smith And Jones to British “greatness” suggest the theme of which continues its comic ways as the “The Waltz” may be obliquely political. Ah, music blazes and the lyric adopts the word games, they always were his forte. pose of a Mike Leigh play. Oddly enough, some of the central themes Sour old Kevin Rowland has taken his of Too-Rye-Ay are explored more fully – mask off. The soul rebel in him has given particularly in relation to nostalgia and us lots of driving sax; the Celtic soul childhood. One short track, “Reminisce Part brother in him has given us lots of Two”, involves Rowland simply talking about evocative fiddle; the modern man in a teenage romance in 1969 over an attractive him has given us piano (Vincent Crane) piano/mandolin backing. “We decided to and steel guitar (Tommy Evans). The adopt a song that was current – she wanted combination is gripping. He’s not to it to be ‘I’ll Stay Forever My Love’ by Jimmy be trusted with your life, but he’s worth Ruffin, I wanted it to be ‘Lola’ by The Kinks.” a fiver of your money any day. Colin Irwin 140 | HISTORY OF ROCK 1985.

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