Searching for Dexys Midnight Runners : the last gang in town

'The inside story of one of the greatest bands of them all.

I devoured it!' GARY CROWLEY'Terrific idea, wonderfully executed' PETE PAPHIDES'An incredible feat of journalism' DAVID QUANTICKIn the early 1980s, the pop charts were dominated by musicians tarted up in Day-Glo colours, who fought it out for coverage on our TV screens and magazine pages.

Dexys Midnight Runners did things differently. They were surly. They were serious. They were ambitious, but success had to come on their terms.

They were a disciplined outfit, a gang with a defined purpose: to make music so pure that it couldn't fail to elicit a deep emotional response from anyone within earshot. And they managed it. This motley crew - in woolly hats and donkey jackets for their first coming; all dungarees and copious body hair for the second - gate-crashed the charts, scoring number-one hits around the globe.

But being in Dexys wasn't all sunshine and roses. Many members came, many members went. Some returned unexpectedly as being part of this particular gang was a way of life; it was everything. Nige Tassell, author of the Penderyn Prize-shortlisted Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids? employs his skills of detection to go off in search of the dozens of members who - for however brief a period, and to whatever level of success - have been a part of Dexys Midnight Runners.

These are the people who gave the band its sound, its soul, its substance.

But whatever happened to them?