...it suffers by the mix? Vocals too high, whole band mixed quite quite densely together in the middle distance? If it was being produced now it would - could - sound very different: wider, deeper, richer, fuller.

Anyone else agree?

certainly is

Ay

That's all

that lifts my heart until I believe in my soul, which is still burning. the italians have a word for it, like the Italian word for thunderbolt.....

Bought time he bought out another CD edition of it, I've only got three

He's right. I love that album so so much.

I think it is a fantastic album and one of my favourites by anybody. It's certainly my favourite Dexys album, though the first one runs it close.

I remember buying a copy of the first CD release in a sale for a quid and then giving it, that very same day, to a woman I got chatting to on the coach from Manchester to Liverpool; My Mate Mark moaned mightily at me about that, as it was The Original Cover, which he prefers to the rerelease.

The question in my subject line is not rhetorical. I'd be fascinated to know if anybody can think of another album, not necessarily as good as it, but similar in tone and structure. For some reason, which I might detail one day, I connect it with Van Morrison's Common One (Van Morrison seems to come in for a lot of stick on here, and he does seem to be a curmudgeon, by all accounts, but he has also made some incredible music, which is more than you can say for most curmudgeons).

Worth the money for "This is what she's like" and "I love you (Listen to this)" alone.

Just remind me - since it's a while since I played it - The Directors Cut has an extra track on it doesn't it? And also several of the tracks have changed titles (along the lines of Dance Stance/Burn It Down).

I got the issue with the dvd a few years ago. I'd previously never heard anything at all off it. This Is What She's Like is wonderful. A great song idea, wonderfully executed. Full marks.

Knowledge of Beauty turned into My National Pride. Listen To This is now I Love You (Listen To This).

The first song on the cd I own is, Kevin Rowland's 13th time (getting arrested).

And now that it's going for over £100 on Amazon and eBay I doubt I ever will.

Love the viseos too.

Back in 1986 for the princely sum of £1 from Our Price on Oxford Street, the racks were full of them thanks to it being a huge flop.

Subsequently bought it on CD in it's original mix/version and when Creation released it and the Directors Cut.

I love it, it's one of my all time favourite albums. It's also probably the only album I own where I prefer the sound of it on vinyl. Everything just sounds..bigger, fatter. I don't really notice the difference for most other music, apart from when I compare 7" singles to digital. But Don't Stand Me Down it really does make a difference.

Can be found here...

http://www.davehaslam.com/control.php?_command=/DISPLAY/170/42//6000&_pa...

'This Is What She's Like' from the album.

Didn't get it when it first came out (not many people did) - anyone know where I can get a copy for less than £35?

(cheapest used price on Amazon = £29.87)

I'm not sure it is all that to be honest. Lots of daft talking. My National Pride is great but I can leave the rest.

...is Vincent Crane. Seen here on Belgian TV in 1972 with Ric Parnell (who would go on to be the exploding drummer in Spinal Tap), Steve Bolton (who would go on to be lead guitarist with the Who on their 1989 tour) and Chris Farlowe (who would go on to be a player on the Nazi memorabilia scene):

If anyone's interested, here's a 2004 interview with Kevin Rowland on Vince/DSMD, part of which appeared in a CD note for a Vince 2CD collection:

Were you a Rooster fan in the 70s?

No, I didn’t know much about them. I heard the singles on TOTP…

Vince’s vision for fusing British rock & US funk - particularly keen on finding the right drummer:

Well, he was very good like that. I mean, my experience of him was that he knew - I still don’t know how to put it - a drummer who ‘had the feel’. Most of them didn’t - certainly in those days in England most of them didn’t have what we were trying to get. He knew what I was looking for - a great musician.

Was he on the same wavelength as you?

He was, he was.

He had a strong work ethic - but you’re a strong personality, and Vince was used to running his own show. How did you find working with him?

When you start working with people like Vince… The higher you go - quality players, the same with Tim Dancey - those guys who’ve got the work ethic get the job done. It’s usually guys who are a bit half-arsed, who don’t have half the talent of Vince, who winge and complain and don’t get the job done.

With Vince, I found him incredibly humble actually, and I must admit I was quite in awe of him. Jean told me that either two years or a year previous Vince had had a crisis of confidence - and he came to us in probably autumn ‘83 - and he’d said, ‘I don’t think I’m a good musician, I don’t think I can play very well’. And apparently he stayed in all day long and practised and practised playing ther piano. I was completely disillusioned with what we’d achieved, our pop success, in 1983 and just so much wanted to make a really good album - we’d nothing to lose, half the band had left and I just thought ‘Let’s get some great players in’ so we put an advert in the MM. Jean told me later on that she’d seen the ad and told Vince, ‘Phone that number - that’ll be Dexy’s’. We just said, ‘chart band’ or ‘name band’ in the ad, wanting ‘soulful players’, something like that. Anyway, Vince phoned and by that stage Helen was conducting [the auditions], we’d seen a lot of people - and they all had a little bit of soul, a little spark but just couldn’t go to that extra [level]. It was really tough. In some areas, not going into names, we did compromise with that band and later had to replace people. It was very hard then to get good people. Anyway, Helen phoned me - I was in the flat, they were in a little rehearsal studio in Birmingham. I lived about a mile away. A skeleton band were in there rehearsing keyboard players and she said, ‘I think you should see this guy.’ And I went down and I was just taken by him, immediately.

And yet a lot of people in that era would have been put off by his outrageously unfashionable appearance:

Well, there you go. To be honest, and especially the more I got to know him, I totally applauded him for it - and I’m a fashion victim to the core. After about six months I said to him, ‘Vince, how the fucking hell do you find cheesecloth shirts in 1983?’ And flared trousers. You just could not find them - and I know about clothes and what you can and can’t get. I’m always looking at shops, looking for ideas. And he said, ‘I have to go to Balham - there’s one shop that still sells ‘em’. Now, I respected him for that - ‘This is me’. What he was wearing when I first saw him was a denim waistcoat, cheesecloth shirt, tight jeans, flared from the knee, thick belt.

I was struck by his gentleness from the off - he was just so pure, especially when he played his music. We played ‘The Waltz’, which was the last song on the album and it was just so sensitive, so perfect.

Was he on ‘Because Of You’?

Er, I think so - did he play piano or organ on that?

He never went down the synthesiser route - presumably that appealed to you?

Well, we used a little bit of synth on ‘DSMD’ - I’m not anti synth, but in the early 80s they all sounded plinkety-plonkety to me. If I heard a good sound, I was up for it. We tried to use ‘em on DSMD but it didn’t really work.

More or less a live recording isn’t it, DSMD?

It is - so you need the best. We undertook a massive task and halfway through we thought ‘What have we done?’ cos it was so big, so hard to do. You’d have eight players - seven would play well and one would be out of sync. Usually it was the drums - the real problem was getting the drums to sound good live. Getting the right drummer was the real thing and once we got Tim Dancey over, who was Al Green’s drummer, the whole thing took off - and Vince with him live and we got the main bulk of the album done: ‘This Is What She’s Like’, ‘One Of Those Things’, ‘Knowledge Of Beauty’ and another track - done in two days. You’ve got to get the right people.

Any in concert recordings made?

Not official ones, but we did tour in 1985 and we had Vince right at the front as well.

A good experience, those shows?

It was difficult. A difficult time. We hadn’t had a record out for nearly three years, which was a hell of a long time in those days.

At war with the label?

At war with the label - started doing the album with the record label being into what we were doing, trying to do this great album that wouldn’t really be about singles. The MD there in 83 said, ‘Fantastic idea Kevin, go for it!’ He left about 6 months later, a new guy came in saying, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I got all uppity about it, started making stands all over the place - I just thought it was the best album and all they had to do was release it - but it wasn’t like that. ‘The business’.

We were over in Montreaux, the day before we started recording and Vince said, ‘This has got to be right hasn’t it, Kevin? This album has got to be so right.’ And I said, ‘Oh yeah, Vince’, and he said, ‘This could be another Dark Side Of The Moon couldn’t it?’ And to be honest I knew that it could. He really, really understood it. He’d come to me during rehearsals sometimes saying, ‘Fuck, Kevin - I wish we’d recorded that one, that was a great take…’ He felt as responsible for the album as I did in some ways - beautiful guy, he just got it, he really got it. You didn’t have to tell him anything about what to play - he heard the song and just got inside it. A great musician.

In a general sense were you aware of his underlying mental problems?

Not to the extent it was, no.

It never affected his ability to work with the band?

I don’t think it did. To be honest we were all going a bit crazy out there [in Montreaux], the pressure was really on. We had a producer, Tom Dowd, who I don’t know if he really got what we were about.

Was Vince involved in arrangements on DSMD?

Well, some of his lines may have inspired arrangements, if you like.

Were you aware of his background in arrangements - his degrees and so on?

I was very tunnel-visioned really, around that time, and I was a little bit intimidated by Vince’s history and sort of ignored it, in a funny sort of way. I knew about it, but never asked him about it - although sometimes he’d talk about it, and sometimes play me stuff and some of it I did like… But it was never an issue with Vince - I knew I had to be true to my vision.

Interesting to know that Vince could slot into that:

He completely got the vision, from the off. He was one of the guys you didn‘t have to worry about - they hear something and they understand, and he was like that. I never said to him, ‘Vince, how about playing this…’ - never once. He just knew how to play it. A genius.

Do you think he gets enough respect as a musician?

Nowhere near, nowhere near. I just consider myself so lucky to have met him, especially at that point. He was mostly known as a Hammond player but we got him at the end of that period where he had rehearsed [on piano] hours and hours every day - like eight hours a day. He was just exquisite, just perfect.

Can you imagine co-writing with Vince, had things moved along positively after DSMD?

I don’t know, I haven’t really considered it cos I had such a close relationship writing with Helen and Billy for DSMD. After that, on my solo album, I got into writing these very simple songs…

What kind of state was Vince in when you last saw him?

Last time I saw him was in the undertakers, but the last time I saw him before he died was - not long before… I didn’t really know he was in a bad state. I mean, some of his behaviour was somewhat erratic - definitely in Montreux… But it never kicked off between me and him - which is quite incredible, considering I can be pretty headstrong…

Well, I don’t think Vince had a problem with people who were giving 100% musically…

And neither did I! That’s true… You spend a lot of your time banging your head against a wall and I think Vince did a lot of that as well - working with people who are probably not right for you in the first place, and that’s where we go wrong sometimes… I guess we related to each other on that level. I had a little bit of reluctance to get into his music too much because I was very singular.

The DSMD tour - I remember I was very nervous of the audience, my confidence was at a low - there was heckling, but I don’t remember any Rooster fans heckling…

What did Vince bring to the band and the record in particular - that was his last significant recording?

I think he might have done some stuff with Kevin Archer afterwards… If I can come back to this… you asked about the end: One night - I don’t know who phoned who - we decided we’d go out for a drink together, not long before he died. So we went out, I think to the Zanzibar in Covent Garden, and I dropped him off on the way home and as he was getting out of the car he says to me, ‘Oh, thanks a lot for that drink, Kev - that really cheered me up no end’. And I thought, ‘Oh - I hadn’t realised you were fed up…’ Cos the whole evening he hadn’t seemed like he was fed up. And then not long after he committed suicide.

But I do remember him getting into these arguments, these obsessive arguments with people. And I can identify with that kind of thinking, a little bit.

I think Vince was on a wage with us, as most of the band were.

How long was Vince with you - two years, three?

Well, all the way through the making of DSMD - it started in ‘83 and we went out to Montreaux in, I think maybe March, April ‘84 and we’d done a lot of rehearsing up till then. We wouldn’t have even booked a studio till we got the band together. So we finished the album… and Kevin did some piano overdubs, then we mixed it and then we did the tour and Vince came back for the tour - he wasn’t around for the mixing - in the Autumn of ‘85. There were a few other bits we did - extra tracks for singles, like in late ‘85 we did a single eventually for DSMD and did a cover of the Status Quo track ‘Marguerita Time’ in a country’n’western style and Vince played great on it…

[discussion of Dexy’s look and the role of irony in it]

Because Vince’s look was very extreme at that time - a lot more extreme then than it is now - that was far more preferable, to me, than somebody who was wearing clothes that I would consider being a couple of years out of date or generally a bit square. But he was of another era, and had every detail right - and that was good. Helen and Billy and I had this Ivy League look going and then we had a couple of yanks come over and one of them was into spandex trousers - ‘Can I wear these? - ‘Yeah, great!’ It was good to do that - because in the 80s fashion had become so mainstream and overground it had become boring! I don’t know how cohesive our ‘statement’ was but Vince just looked great.

What might Vince be doing today if he’d kept his illness under control?

I don’t know but something creative - the guy was an artist, a totally creative guy. I don’t know what form it would be taking. I can’t imagine…

To meet Vince he was the most charming guy - absolutely charming, absolutely lovely to be around. He was gentle. I wasn’t really aware of his problems. He did start to get a bit erratic in Montreux and I think Jean had told me he’d had four nervous breakdowns prior to that… I wasn’t aware of that.

He was rejecting a lot of medication and treatment which might have stabilised him:

I’m just remembering now - he went back in [to an institution] when he came back from Montreux. He said he was finding it hard to know what to do… He told me once he’d started acting nuts cos that’s what the doctors wanted. He was such a sweet guy. Helen got on really well with Vince - she was a great player and she really understood his playing… He seemed to fall exactly into the ensemble approach [to DSMD], to completely understand it from the off.

First heard it when I borrowed it from the library when I was at college back in 1986 ... the tape I made of that vinyl copy was practically glued into my Walkman and accompanied me everywhere I went for months.

It's one of the few records from that time that's grown richer over the years. It's such a dense record, in the best possible sense - it's packed with lines and twists and oddities, as well as phenomenal tunes and great musicianship.

It's the kind of record you can go back to again and again - and I have, via my first CD copy, then the Creation version, then the Director's Cut - and still find something new and surprising. It's flawed, but utterly unique and quite brilliant.

It's just a shame that, if you mention Dexys, people instantly think of 'Eileen' and not this stuff. It's hard to explain to the uninitiated just how magnificent this thing is.