Occasional Albums Thing 048 - Ian Dury “New Boots And Panties!!”

It’s funny now looking back at the year Punk hit, 1977 (yes some would say 1976 but it didn’t hit us until ‘77). Of course we had the Pistols, The Jam, The Clash, The Damned and so many others that fit what people think of as the thrashy, speeding Punk sound (it was much more varied and refined than that), but we were, hand in hand with that amphetamine rush, also quite happily on board with music that sounded nothing like that, Elvis Costello, Blondie, Television and Ian Dury…the New Wave if you gotta give it a name.

Dury had been around for years, he was no disaffected urban youth. When he released his debut solo single, “Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll”, in August of 1977 he was already 35 (he was closer in age to my Dad (20 months) than I was to Johnny Rotten (6 years)) he was an old man to us. He was known to some as the singer with pub rockers Kilburn & The High Roads (along with Keith Lucas who later changed his name to Nick Cash and formed 999) so he’d been around the block a bit. As had much of his band on this record, and make no mistake, although this album is credited to Ian Dury alone, here he is with a fledgling Blockheads in tow. Keyboardist and co-songwriter Chaz Jankel had written songs for Long John Baldry and been in early 70’s rock band Byzantium, Bassist Norman Watt-Roy had been gigging and recording since the late 60’s, drummer Charley Charles likewise and saxophonist Davey Payne first met Dury in 1970, “He thought I was a junkie, I thought he was an idiot”. They are imperious throughout this record switching styles with ease and are, to this day, one of the greatest live bands I’ve ever seen.

The music within runs the gamut from jazzy soul, rock ‘n’ roll, pub singalong to classic pub rock. Dury’s lyrics are an absolute delight, the man was a poet and a comedian all wrapped up in the guise of a music hall compere, able to paint a vivid picture in two lines “You must have seen lines of Blockheads, With blotched and lagered skin”, you can see ‘em. But there was no malice in those lines as toward the end of the same song he tells us “Cos after all is said and done, You’re all Blockheads too”.

Side 1 features a couple of tributes to heroes of one kind or another. “Sweet Gene Vincent” with its opening barrage of “White face, black shirt, White socks, black shoes, Black hair, white strat, Bled white, died black” leaves you breathless. “My Old Man” is a beautiful, gentle tribute to just that, “All the while we thought about each other, all the best, mate, from your son, all the best, mate, from your son”. This copy I have is a later pressing as it also includes, unlisted at the start of Side 2, Mr Dury’s debut solo single “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”. Contrary to urban legend the phrase had been around since the ‘60’s and he didn’t invent it. 

Following that is “Clevor Trever” and I now admit it has taken me 48 years (i.e. as I wrote this !) to clock the purposeful misspellings in that title ! After the already noted “Blockheads” comes an intro that delighted us as 14 year olds but now, owning a record shop in delicate (Tory) Shrewsbury, I have to be real careful about who is around if I’m playing this in said shop. “Plaistow Patricia”s opening salvo of “Arseholes, bastards, fucking cunts and pricks” can still upset the blue rinse brigade (I tend to refer to them as the Shrewsbury corpses) if they’re passing as much as its boldness can still make me giggle like a kid.

Ian Dury went on to #1 hit singles and to become regarded as one of Britain’s great wordsmiths. How lucky were we that, in that period of time, not only did we grow up with some genuinely incendiary and life changing music but in the likes of Dury, John Cooper Clarke and Linton Kwesi Johnson some incredible poets too…we were very lucky.

Plaistow Patricia - https://youtu.be/BWikqdb6mGA?si=xZHKf_WjgPKd0Vnv