Actually Kevin was an original 60s punter at the Squire Shop, Ivy Shop, and possibly Austin's too. He knows what he's talking about.

Each to their own, but I remember him from circa 1980, just as I do Weller and certain others.  A few chaps I knew eschewed the Fred Perry/pork pie hat/Hush Puppy thing to spend instead an hour or two wearing a leather coat, a woolly hat and making out they were The Young Soul Rebels.  Oh, how we laughed.

Truly - Spendthrift and others - we (we very few) thought DMR to be just another aspect of that rather irritating post-punk mix that threw up performers as diverse as Secret Affair, Kid Creole and Duran Duran.  There was a good deal of splintering.  We were still only eighteen or nineteen and latching onto the fact that the entire punk thing had been a bad joke, a scam.  It took us many years to appreciate Malcolm McLaren's approach to showbiz. 
We wanted something else.  I wanted - badly - to be like Montgomery Clift, wearing my clothes from Brooks Brothers.  As luck would have it, my father's best mate had relocated to Hartford CT, so the old man was able to get to Brooks and bring back two shirts - which were, then, far too big for me.  I stored them and grew into them in time and still wear their descendants to this day.  One blue, one blue-white candy stripe.

It's funny I've met a fair few number of people over the years - whether in the west midlands or London - who seem to have been pissed off in one way or another by Kevin Rowland.

Must admit I can fully understand why, but in spite of that I'm still a fan of much of his (and others!) music as an extension of a sort of shifting creativity - an almost Bowie-esque approach to cultivating a particular look for different creative moments.

Don't stand me down is a good album, for me, and I like that they don't just replay the same old Dexys songs but revision them a bit. Often seems a bit theatrical which I think im going to hate but actually quite like it!

I've never really liked the late 70s/early 80s ivy look so much - but Kevin Rowland did it quite well....I recall a lovely navy shetland and blue brooks shirt combination which worked perfectly.

Robbie - I was still buying from them up till about '69. It was a bit of an "old man's" shop though - I had to have about 3 yards of cloth taken out of a pair of trousers so they would fit me! After that we all went a bit King's Road anyway,but by the time I realised I actually preferred that 50s/60s American look, they'd closed down.

Uncle Ian must be on a retainer.