If you've read the history you'll know by now you won't
be getting yer standard sub Ramones thrash will you? What you'll be
getting is the essentially English wordsmithery and cockney delivery of
Dury set against a shit hot band playing a combination of jazz,
funk, rock, pub rock and yes punk.
Now I appreciate this may sound like a recipe for
disaster but it works...trust me!! Dip in and enjoy. Two quotes sum up
why that recipe worked and gives an insight into the man behind the
lyrics that doesn't come across in them.
EMBATTLED but not bitter, suss but not cynical, Mr. Ian Dury's
"comeback" is as remarkable as it is entirely welcome-the beauties must
not be brief this time around.
After several frustratingly thin years with the fondly remembered
Kilburn And The High Roads, Dury bounced back so fit, fat and fractious
with his Blockheads that the New Boots And Panties!! album has clung in
the charts longer than anything else this year, excepting the inevitable
Abba. Rarely has such an uncompromising work been so justly rewarded.
New Boots And Panties!! (references to the requisite Dr. Martens and a
predilection for crotchless unmentionables) places Dury's Cockney
fixations-principally women; blockheads and his father, which covers
just about everyone--and ambiguous characters like Clever Trever and
Billericay Dickie in a seductive, unique rock environment.
Duty's word-mongering, his facility with outrageous rhyme ('hyena' with
'obscener'), is lent powerful persuasion when allied to music
(particularly Chas Jankel's) which is often as redolent of decrepit
Music Hall as it is true to the spirit of rock and roll (Billericay
Dickie, Razzle In My
Pocket, the Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll anthem).
Struck down by polio when seven, Dury has such humour and strength of
character that he would be a star if he were selling squashy tomatoes.
NME Book of Modern Music 1978
"Ian... had an odd temperament; he wouldn't pander to anyone. He was
obsessed with [60s
London gangster brothers] the Krays, and if he'd had all his faculties
I've no doubt he would have been a very nasty piece of work indeed. He
made people cry because he was heavy mentally; very caustic. He'd make
groum men weep. He'd dig at your family, at your kids, and you couldn't
hit him because he was disabled. Lots of mind games ensued, especially
towards any women around the band. He hated seeing any wives or
girlfriends. He was a misogynist, so the Blockheads
became a boys' club. That wasn't pleasant:'
Evidently, to work with Duty you had to take him warts and all. What
made him so obnoxious also gave the Blockheads their edge. -
"He was a fantastic frontman in front of a very professional musical
unit," Gallagher says. "He
expounded violence, so the atmosphere at the gigs was full of
testosterone. It was fantastic to be a part of that, but later on, when
he'd had too much Guinness and Budweiser, the Devil would come out. He
used to bring people down when they wanted to be celebrating. It was a
decadent time, lots of sex and drugs coupled with an ultra-punk, fuck
everything attitude. Stiff exploited that brilliantly -they were superb
for the artist-although when they locked in with EMI they lost the
creative playground. The changing atmosphere affected Ian more than us.
At his peak he was a stimulating man, great to be around when he was on
form. I liked him, but I never loved him.
Mickey Gallagher Blockheads Keyboardist Classic Rock Feb 2008
Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll/Razzle In My Pocket (Stiff 1977)
Does it really get much better than this?
A funky aggressive number with the most quotable title in history. The B
side is an amusing ditty about porn mags!
What A Waste!/ Wake Up! (Stiff 1978)
Another jazzy funky number this time almost wistful as
Dury ruminates on being in a band or what else he could have been before
the furious headcharge at the end. Reached No.9 in the charts.
New Boots & Panties (Stiff 1977)
WHAT WE have in "New Boots And Panties!!" is a
long overdue solo album from one of Britain's most unique and
uncompromising talents. If, through circumstances beyond his
control, the "Handsome" album never fulfilled Dury's potential with
Kilburn & The Highroads then "New Boots And Panties!!" enables the
singer to vindicate himself with a vengeance after two year's
silence.
It's impossible to bag Ian Dury except to say that he has taken the
essence of the Cockney music hall and utilised rock as a
contemporary means of expression. On occasions Ray Davies has
dallied with a similar approach, but Dury has none of the
self-conscious pretensions that Davies exposed in his flawed Flash
Harry caricature. Ian Dury feels no need to adopt a transatlantic
rock voice to comply with his subject matter, preferring to deliver
ribald and bittersweet monologues in the tone of voice he Was born
with. Max Wall with a backbeat. Max Miller on mandies.
New Boots and Panties!!" is concerned with two aspects of tragi-comedy:
The first side, a mixture of earthy erotica is interspersed with two
reflective tributes in "Sweet Gene Vincent" and "My Old Man", is
offset by the second, itself almost entirely devoted to Dury's more
manic side. The album's unqualified success owes as much to Dury's
performance as to the deftness with which Charley Charles (drums),
Norman Watt-Roy (bass), Chaz Jankel (guitar, keyboards), Davey Payne
(saxes), Edward Speight (guitar) and Geoff Castle (moog) interpret
the mood of each song. Gentlemen, stand up and take a bow.
In recounting his sexual exploits, Duty deviates between the
unashamed romanticism of being an early morning riser (!) on "Wake
Up And Make Love With Me" with observations like: "You come awake me
in a horny morning mood, and have a little wriggle in the naughty
naked nude/Roll against my body, get me where you want me, what
happens next is private, it's also very rude!" By night, Duty
favours a vaudervillian wham-bang-thank-you-ma'am approach of a
public bar Casanova, winning the heart of a fair damsel. At the
other extreme, "If I Was With A Woman" reveals a kamikaze approach
to more serious 'matters of the heart: "If I was with a woman, I'd
often offer my indifference and make quite sure she never
understood. If I was with a woman, she'd have to learn to cherish
the purity and depth of my disdain".
I'd like to observe Duty and his label mate E. Costello comparing
notes. As a matter of interest, Elvis is currently performing the
Kilburn's "Roadette" on live dates.
By their very nature, records of tribute are often nauseating. The
only one that ever did any justice to an artist's memory was Mike
Berry's "Tribute To Buddy Holly". Ian Dury's musical memorial to the
late Gene Vincent is delivered with affection and accuracy. With
freeze-frame lyrical economy, he portrays Vincent's charisma with a
time-stop chant of "White face-black shin-white socks-black
shoes-black hair-white Stratbled white-died black ".
"My Old Man", one assumes, is a poignant "all the best mate from
your son," celebration of Old Man Dury. "Clever Trevor" depicts a
Dury stream, of consciousness word game set against a surreal
fairground atmosphere of swirling moog scales, whilst his last three
vignettes: "Blockheads", "Plaistow Patricia" and "Blackmail Man" are
prime-cut Brit-rock, each one faster and more psychotic than its
predecessor.
Not since George Harrison's "Piggies" has any one song numbered an
unpleasant sector of society with as much venom as Dury's
"Blockheads". While dementoid moog and sax play tag similiar to Eno
and MacKay at their most inspired, Duty remains inconsolable in his
tirade "You must have seen parties of blockheads with blotched and
larded skin, blockheads with food particles in their teeth, what a
horrible state they're in. They've got womanly breasts and permo
vests, shoes like dead pigs' noses, cornflake packet jackets,
catalogue trousers, a mouth that never closes".
Stand up and be counted! "Plaistow Patricia" is an indictment of
council estate conditions, the lure of Up West and the final
degradation of strictly-kicks drug abuse. Finally, "Blackmail Man"
is a garbled full-tilt primal cockney-slang screamer that leaves the
listener unnerved.
I really don't know if the public is ready for eccentricities of Ian
Dury. Perhaps they never will be. Whether or not you buy "New Boots
And Panties!!" at least make hearing the album a priority.
It's your loss if you pass
Roy Carr NME 1.10.77
Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" / "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever
Bastards (Stiff 1978)
Arguably the pick of the singles combining Dury's lyrical
excellence and the Block heads musical prowess. You try playing that
bass line!! Rightfully this got to number one in the charts.
Do It Yourself(Stiff 1979)
Inevitably suffered from comparisons to 'New Boots'
but as the review shows there was a lot still going for it.
"Look beyond the commonly-held image of Ian Dury and the Blockheads
as riotous, sweary and irreverent, and you'll find one of the tightest
bands that ever trod a stage, and a frontman who wrote about the whole
range of human emotion - not just Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.
"Do It Yourself" is more complex lyrically and musically than "New Boots
and Panties", but doesn't suffer by comparison. "Inbetweenies" and "Sink
My Boats" verge on introspective, but the vice-like funk of "Quiet", the
bravado of "Mischief" and the infectious energy of "Dance of the
Screamers" make sure that the album isn't downbeat at all. The band's on
top form throughout, and Ian's lyrics are never less than
thought-provoking. And in "Lullaby for Franci/es", we're given one of
the finest album-closers ever." Amazon - Shark Sandwich
Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3 / Common As Muck
(Stiff 1979)
The penultimate Chart hurrah sees the band now
entering a kind of dancey/rap vein but done Dury style - the whole lyric
is like one gigantic list! As good as anything they've ever done it once
agin shows off their versatility and Dury's refusal to be typecast.
I dare you not to dance it with smile on your face. It
reached No.3 in the charts.
I know the discography goes on but for this site and it's
timeframe it stops here.
