1985 ER OCTOBER – DECEMB “ We’re not a pop group” Kevin Rowland’s vision for DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS remains uncompromising – but now he seems to be leaving people behind. Has it all backfired? “Dexys are not in — MELODY MAKER NOVEMBER 2 — ET’S GET THIS straight from the start. competition with Wham!,” he Kevin Rowland invited me down to East London 10 days ago so that he might says. “I am convinced that eventually sell a few more records. So what’s new? Quite often the suspicious reporter there are people who still will get a hint that this is indeed the case and Lthat all that other clever talk about an extra insight into want to hear good music.” the latest magnum opus and the state of the world beyond is just so much dung. But this time it was definitely true. And I know because he said so. Kevin Rowland also talked a bit about Ireland (though not as much as I had hoped for), a lot about CND (more than I would have anticipated), and there was the unexpected bonus of hearing him and Billy Adams have a spontaneous chant that could have come straight off the word games on the album. That album, Don’t Stand Me Down, is, of course, one of the great mystery plays of the year, a nightmare labour of love against all the odds which has perplexed and inspired in roughly equal parts and which, if not quite up to the impossibly high standards of Searching For The Young Soul Rebels or the mish-mash commercial appeal of Too-Rye-Ay, is still head and shoulders above most of this year’s offerings to date. It has, however, stiffed out in quite remarkable style and took a spectacular » 138 | HISTORY OF ROCK 1985.