As an irishman myself i should look upon alex higgins as a hero but i cant say ive ever been a fan.Hitting a reporter and threatening to have a snooker player from his own country shot during the time of the northern ireland troubles does not make him much of a role model im afraid.Personal demons are no excuse for some of his behaviour over the years.Once read aswell that he tried to punch a journalist who was interviewing him some years ago.

I dont follow snooker but he seemed like the most exciting thing ever to happen the sport at the time.A wasted talent.Some people may look at this before the madness.

Its unfortunate that most famous northern irish sportsmen have had troubles – Alex Higgins, George Best, Roy carroll, Keith Gillespie.

Btw i like “geno”.Would be a 7 from me.

Their music was dynamite; literally in some cases – instead of a thrashing guitar Rowland used his three-strong horn section as his lead instrument, and Searching features some of the finest and strongest horn charts on any British record; they prowl (“I’m Just Looking”), proclaim (“Tell Me When My Light Turns Green”) and burn (“The Teams That Meet In Caffs”); they are Rowland’s living and responding alter ego. The opening “Burn It Down,” an incendiary reworking of their underwhelming (in terms of production and performance) debut single “Dance Stance,” mirrors the green/sepia cover shot of a boy (not the young Rowland), laden down with luggage, being evicted at the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the late ’60s and delivered a flurry of emotional gelignite at the dying British culture of frilly-shirted, tax-avoiding comedians telling jokes about the supposed thickness of the Irish; Rowland needed to go no further than his self-explanatory, defiant chorus: “Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan!/Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw!/Samuel Beckett! Eugene O’Neill! Edna O’Brien and Laurence Sterne,” which Rowland then shuts down with a roar of “SHUT IT!” and finally tops everything with his hissed “Shut your fucking mouth ’til you know the truth.”

His aim and candour were so sure and proud that he could even make that dreaded trap of having a go at music critics sound like a manifesto for the New (the throbbing “There, There, My Dear,” a top ten single later that summer). And his ambitions were so ambitious that Dexy’s even took on and sometimes beat Northern Soul at its own game; their barnstorming reading of “Seven Days Too Long” arguably betters the Chuck Wood original, and the 150 mph rampage through Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon’s 1968 top five smash “Breakin’ Down The Walls Of Heartache” to be found on the B-side of the single of “Geno” was an explosion of intent.

Thus, of course, “Geno” itself which, with its opening audience footstamping and heraldic brass fanfares, sets itself up to displace God, God in this case being Rowland’s childhood hero Geno Washington; like Hendrix and Walker, an American fleeing to Europe and beating the natives at his own game. Never too successful as a recording artist, his live performances were reportedly legendary in terms of vitality and grit; though to the sixteen-year-old Rowland “after a week of bunking and flunking school” he must have seemed like manna in place of the unavailable Cooke or Redding.

The song struts proudly, like an endless procedural towards the middle of the boxing ring, before the tempo doubles and the band launches into a driving stomp; and it’s here that Rowland lays his claim to a coup – “And now just look at me, I’m looking down on you,” he says with an arrogance that would be so astonishing if he didn’t convince you so firmly that it was justified, “Though I’m not being flash, it’s what…I’m built to do.” The tension releases back into the strut of the second verse, in the second half of which Rowland recognises that, to survive, he must tear down his own idol decisively, “But they never knew like we knew, me and you we’re the same” – shades of Chapman and Lennon there – “And now you’re all over, your song is so tame – BRRRRR!! – you fed me, you bred me, I’ll remember your name.”

That “BRRRR!!” is the crucial cynosure of the record, just as General Johnson’s similar exclamation is the heart of “Give Me Just A Little More Time” – Rowland doesn’t quite manage to be Johnson or Jackie Wilson; his Harrow/Birmingham vowels happily mangle and merge into their own new language – it could be construed as the crow of the conqueror, or a sudden frisson of fear at the perceived limitations of his own subsequent life (will he end up the same?) – but the song again cheerleads itself into its now celebratory chorus and more staccato horns, finally retreating into the dressing room, the cheers still audible and palpable.

Geno himself had little choice but to grin and take it; the record was directly responsible for reviving interest in his own music, and he certainly didn’t mind prospering (to a degree) from the feedback. He had to feign feeling flattered. However, the song is so mightily performed, so attuned to the hip and to 1980 hipness, so redolent of 1968 being made to matter again, that one has little choice but to slip its parent album back on and revel in its golden torches and twisted wheels of – yes – a n*w s**l v*s**n.

As for “Otis”, That’s How It Feels (When You’re In Love) and the Live In Japan version of Love Don’t Love Nobody are intense and tear-wrenching enough to make me come across like a dreadful soul snob, mumbling “What about Otis Clay?”.

The flip side of this is unromantic first names – Kevin, Phil, Martin. They all crop up, self-referentially, in New Pop classics, bordering on the ironic but totally working. Maybe New Pop died when that “Marvin” reference hit number one. A debate for a later entry, maybe…

Re 51: Stuart Cosgrove!! Thanks Mike. Anyone remember that programme he did on stabbings, around 93/94? Completely glorified them, and at one point had some shirtless Glaswegian teen slowly turning on a pedestal, showing the world his scars while Suede’s So Young played. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Re 58: I wonder if Mick Hucknall uses this line.

i like the idea that he was a soulboy AND a prog-nerd: good for him

“my favourite soul singer is bland”

And it was massive you’d have 4000+ at Caister probably double that at Bournemouth but completely underground and ignored by the mainstream…even more than Northern Soul had been.But Northern Soul’s distance from the capital and the London based music business gave it a mystique that the South-Eastern soul/funk and jazz scene never had.Although the followers of both were socio-economically pretty similar.

I suppose the soul boys had the last laugh over the media though as a high proportion of the main faces involved in Acid Housea in 1988 and 89 were products of the soul and funk scene – Danny Rampling/Nicky Holloway/Paul Oakenfold/Johnny Walker/Brandon Block/Colin Hudd etc etc

44 – ha ha, spot on with the first names overfamilarity thing. i’m totally guilty of this i fear, though in my defence (having a horror of “HENDRIX”…”STRUMMER”….”ANDRE”) i tend to refer to all pop stars by their first name. except dylan for some reason.

re the 80s soul revival – it’s worth mentioning that May 1980 saw the first publication of The Face magazine which always had a strong soul leaning.

There was also a series of cassette compilations of soul and RnB songs from the Ace/Charley labels available through NME during the 80s which opened my ears to a lot of great music. I believe Roy Carr played a large part in compiling those
I had school friends who were true soul boys with wedge cuts, peg legged trousers and jelly sandals listening to Maze, etc. but it seemed like a subculture too far for me.

Always loved Southern Soul Belles, particularly Shay Holiday’s sassy “Fight Fire With Fire”. The album was heavily referenced, with great resonance, in a short story by Adam Mars-Jones about a man living with AIDS.

“Sorry, I’m not with you. Who’s Daina?”

“You know, Daina Ross?”

He must have misread it at a formative age.