Friday, 11 May 2012

sadly, not in my toilet

Sometimes I wake-up on a Tuesday morning so jealous of people who got to live in a time when music I love was first made, I start bargaining with history. "History, I'd give up all the trappings of 2012, if you'd just let me, you know..." See Johnny Marr pick out the melody to "This Charming Man". Or watch Guided by Voices in a dive bar in Milwaukee. Or be close enough in the crowd to feel Adam & the Ants's two drummers pounding out the beats on "Kings of the Wild Frontier". Sure, I've been to a few reunion tours and I've enjoyed myself, but it's never quite the same as witnessing something the first time around, when the songs haven't lost a bit of their necessity and aren't yet burdened by nostalgia.

Oddly enough, the band I most regret not being around to see in their heyday is Dexys Midnight Runners. I put on Too-Rye-Ay and I dance and--I'll be honest--I ache a little.


This clip, from their appearance on The Young Ones, takes place in the communal bathroom (spot the drummer sitting on the toilet and a fiddler in the tub) and begins with handclaps and is jiberrishy, light-flashing, nonsensical joy. A couple English friends went to see Dexys in a tiny theatre in Wales a few nights ago. They're touring their new album and they still played plenty of old hits, though they didn't appease the very drunk Welshmen who were yelling out "duh duh duh duh-DUH, duh duh duh duh-duh"even before the curtain went up.

Dexys had plenty of incarnations, and so the window for this line-up and particular strings and brass-heavy sound wasn't even very big, but logic doesn't work on this brand of musical regret. This little Youtube clip from a performance that happened a year before I was born helps more than a little, though. Even in the moment when it might be as good as it gets, they're striving, striving, striving, striving up a hill toward the next thing. Thank goodness there were cameras rolling.

(The handclap breakdown is at 4:10, and I'm sure glad the crowd gets off their rears in exultation by the end of the song)
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2 comments:

  1. Julian Owen14 May 2012 at 00:15

    Hurray! Good to see your countryfolk being made aware that Dexys weren't one-hit wonder disco fodder, like some kind of dungaree-clad Knack.
    Here, of course, 95% of people think they're a TWO-hit wonder - "They're the ones that did 'Geno' as well, right..?" Well, yes and no. Yes, they did, but no in that closer to the truth is they're the ones who did two absolutely faultless, life-affirming-like-nothing-else albums, and another very good one. And now, finally, a new one!
    I saw Kevin Rowland play Colston eight or so years ago, with a couple of Dexys in tow. Grown men cried. I was one. There's something about his sincerity that's close to heartbreaking.
    More important than all of that, hurray! to read your writing again. x

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    Replies
    1. Kristen14 May 2012 at 08:13

      Hey, Julian! I think I'm in the minority, but I consider it my mission to spread the gospel of Dexys. Good news: I've heard a rumor from a trustworthy source that they might be coming back to the Colston Hall in autumn, you lucky Bristolian!

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