IAN DURY & THE BLOCKHEADS Band Description:
Ian Dury never “fit” the late-’70s UK scene so much as he barged into it sideways, grinning. Punk was busy burning down the furniture, new wave was polishing the smoke damage, and Dury just rocked up with funk in his pockets, pub sweat on his collar, and that voice that sounded like it had opinions about your haircut.
He was born in Harrow in 1942 and got hit with polio as a kid, the kind of detail polite bios mention softly and move on from. The thing is: you can hear the refusal in him later — not “inspiring,” not “brave,” just stubborn, sharp, and allergic to being patronised.
Before the charts ever bothered to notice, he’d already done the pub-rock grind with Kilburn and the High Roads, playing to rooms that smelled like warm beer and wet coats. The glamour level was basically zero. But it taught him timing — not drummer timing, people timing. When to shove a line in, when to let the band breathe, when to make the audience laugh at something they probably shouldn’t.
“New Boots and Panties!!” lands in September 1977 on Stiff Records, and it doesn’t sound like a manifesto. It sounds like a bloke who actually watches other humans. The jokes are rude, the characters feel real, and the music swings when it feels like swinging. And yeah, the famous single “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” was already out there — and (at least at first) he didn’t even want it stapled onto the album like some marketing badge. That kind of contrariness is basically a theme.
Then the Blockheads really lock in and everything starts moving faster. “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick” becomes the big, gleeful shove into the mainstream, and it belongs to the “Do It Yourself” era (1979), not some neat little debut-album fairytale. The track is ridiculous and tight at the same time — like the band’s showing off but also having the time of their lives.
The “Spasticus Autisticus” moment in 1981 is where you see his temper, not just his wit. He wrote it as a protest, not a cuddle, and the BBC put restrictions on it (no-before-6pm territory). Good. It wasn’t meant to be comfortable. Dury didn’t do “awareness” if it came wrapped in condescension.
My own first real memory is embarrassingly ordinary: a tinny radio somewhere (kitchen, car, who even knows), “Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3” popping up like a cheeky hand on your shoulder. Not a sacred anthem. More like a reminder that cynicism isn’t the only fuel you can run on — even if you still prefer your humour with teeth.
He acted too — “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover” (1989) and later “Judge Dredd” (1995), where he shows up as Geiger — but music stayed the pointy end of the spear. Cancer shows up in the mid-’90s, turns terminal, and he dies on 27 March 2000 at 57. And if you’re looking for a tidy “legacy” bow to tie on it: nah. Put the record on and he’s still there, raising an eyebrow like you’re the one who needs explaining.
