"With patience it will grow, but the mass audience has very little patience. P.S. I've got my pen and notebook ready, Kev. That's my job."
— Johnny Black
— Johnny Black
- jealous Artists
- former Bandmates
- hostile Critics
- Detractors of all stripes
- Everyone who ever happened to glance at Our Kev the wrong way
But I jest. After a modest three-week streak of SOTF's becoming sizable hits we've got our first flop since Bob Dylan's "Lenny Bruce". Indeed, as Johnny Black predicted above, the mass audience had no patience for the latest Dexys offering. And it's likely that old scamp Kevin Rowland knew it himself.
Pop stars have been railing against their critics in song for as long as there has been an axe to grind (ie forever). Artistically, these numbers seldom deliver since the inevitable invective tends to overshadow whatever creativity said artist may have at their disposal. Rowland, however, managed to build a career out of composing pop music all about his love for pop music and he put as much care and eloquence — as eloquent, that is, as one can get with such a slurred, drunkard's voice — into lambasting his detractors as he did his paeans to northern soul show stoppers and fifties heart throb crooners. In some ways his "It Ain't Me Babe", he uses the chorus to try to ward off unwanted attention by declaring himself not special enough to merit any ("But you won't want from me / Nothing else to see / So smoke on your own / And don't look at me") while offering up equal doses self-pity and self-mocking ("And good old Kevin'll be all right").
Of course as a Dexy slow song it stands in marked contrast to "Geno" and "There There My Dear" with their liberal use of horns and relentless grooves. It was simply too much of a departure from their rough soul sound to get many punters interested. But it laid the groundwork for how a string section Dexys might sound, something that would pay off a year later. Looking past the cosmetic changes — they were still hanging on to their boxer boots and pony tails look, the dirtbags in dungarees being still a few months away — Black rightly spots some vintage Dexy fare in the production. This could only be good old Kev — plus whoever hadn't quit or been sacked from the band at this point.
Johnny Black also happened to be reviewing the singles the last time a Dexy single was released and he seemed to enjoy "Show Me" almost in spite of himself. Describing them as "pretentious", he nonetheless found plenty to admire in their latest single. He seems even more well-disposed to them with "Liars". Perhaps song, singer, band, even their eccentrically revolving choice of image and gear had grown on him. A little patience and they'll do the same for you. Book it.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Tenpole Tudor: "Throwing My Baby Out with the Bathwater"
It could be that their alliterative name reminds me of Steeleye Span but there's something folksy at the heart of the Tudes. For all their punk/rockabilly tendencies, there's more than a little Celtic folk club singalong here. Had they been an late-eighties Canadian band it's easy to imagine them being a staple of university frosh week alongside Vancouver's Spirit of the West. Ahead of their time, then. A shame they didn't evolve into a full on folk outfit instead of letting the bathwater go "tepid".
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