by Will Birch
Ten minutes later, as the Blockheads commenced the opening chords of ‘Wake Up and Make Love with Me’, Ian made his entrance, wearing Scot’s headgear. ‘With his limp, he looked like one of those war veterans, an old soldier!’ recalls Jock. ‘I was completely knocked out, screaming, “He’s wearing my hat!”’ After the show, Jock returned backstage, where he was introduced to the Blockheads. It was quite normal for Ian to allow fans into his dressing room so he could meet ‘his people’. ‘It was exciting for a country boy like me,’ continues Jock. ‘We drank all the beer and Ian said, “Come back to the hotel and have a drink.” We stayed up all night, and Ian invited me to the next gig, which was in Glasgow. Again we sat up all night, this time drinking whisky with Peter Blake. The next day I hitched a lift to Newcastle City Hall, went straight to the stage door and was greeted by Spider. I was on the whole tour after that.’
Ian invited Jock to join his crew, but the kilted Scot was not sure if he should leave the relative security of the building trade. To help sway matters, Ian deployed his notorious money-burning routine. ‘So, Jock, how much money do you make on the building site?’ Ian asked. ‘Thirty-six pounds a week,’ replied Jock. Ian summoned one of his road crew, ‘Roadent! Come ’ere! Have you got thirty-six quid?’ ‘Roadent’ (born Steve Connelly) pulled out a wad of bank notes and handed it over. ‘Watch this,’ said Ian, producing a box of matches. ‘He set fire to the money!’ recalls Jock. ‘He said, “The money’s got fuck all to do with it! You’re wasting your time digging that hole. Come with us, we’ll find you something to do.”’
Ian’s offer to Jock typified his attitude towards those he considered uniquely talented, but who were, in his opinion, wasting their life. It frustrated Ian if able-bodied men were ‘copping out’ when he had worked so hard to overcome his own adversity. In much the same way as he operated in his teaching career, he would often provoke such individuals into ‘owning up’ while remarking: ‘It’s good for people to have at least one nervous breakdown.’ He had no time for tiresome bores, but those he liked he goaded until they showed their true selves or, as he put it, their ‘spirit’, whereas, if you cowered in fear, you were ‘asking for it’!
Ian had by now moved from the Montcalm to the Dorchester. When staying on Park Lane started to decimate his finances, he announced that he was tired of hotel life and began a search of the surrounding area for a suitable apartment. He found the ideal place over an antiques shop in Mount Street, Mayfair. ‘Come and see what a hundred grand gets you,’ Kosmo Vinyl exclaimed to Jock Scot, now on the road crew. Not that Ian was buying – Mount Street was the first of several West End service flats he would rent at the height of his fame, but none of them was conducive to songwriting. Seeking a little solitude, he searched for a home in the countryside, ideally one with a swimming pool so that he could enjoy his favourite form of exercise. In July 1978 he moved into the curiously named Toad Hall in Sandhurst Lane, Rolvenden, Kent, a luxurious property with endless rooms and grounds. The Blockheads were invited down to work on songs, including ‘Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick’, the words of which Ian had been honing for two years.
Chaz Jankel was quite pleased with the little accented piano riff he had created for ‘Wake Up and Make Love with Me’ and sought to emulate the effect for ‘Rhythm Stick’, toiling for hours over his keyboard set-up in the garage at Toad Hall. Ian, meanwhile, was in the house, supposedly working on the words. ‘I had “Rhythm Stick” for about three years on a bit of paper,’ said Ian. ‘I did a little demo of it with a drum machine and I gave it to Chaz.’ The Blockheads remember walking along with Ian chanting ‘Hit Me’ in the States, noting that it came from James Brown.11 When the song was finished, Chaz phoned his mother and excitedly announced he had just composed his ‘first number one’.
In the deserts, of Sudan
And the gardens, of Japan,
From Milan, to Yucatan,
Every woman’s every man,
Hit me with your rhythm stick
Hit me! Hit me!
Je t’adore, ich liebe dich
Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!
Hit me with your rhythm stick
Hit me slowly, hit me quick
Hit me! Hit me! Hit me
Ian knew that the b-side of ‘Rhythm Stick’ would generate cash for its writers and music publishers, as each side of a single earned an equal royalty from record sales (although the a-side made additional royalties from radio play, television and live performance). With this in mind, Ian chose ‘There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards’, a song that he’d co-written with Russell Hardy, his songwriting partner from Kilburn and the High Roads, that was part published by his former managers, Charlie Gillett and Gordon Nelki, through their company, Oval Music. It was Ian’s way of recognizing the crucial part they had all played in the early days.
‘Clever Bastards’ was one of Ian’s sharpest lyrics, extolling the virtues of a handful of history’s great geniuses, his East End rasp making the song’s irreverent observations all the more poignant. ‘Yeah, that was a good one,’ Ian conceded.
Noël Coward was a charmer,
As a writer he was Brahma,
Velvet jacket and pyjamas,
The Gay Divorce and other dramas . . .
‘The Gay Divorce was a Fred Astaire movie!’ admitted Ian, as he recited the words to me in his work den two decades later. ‘It had nothing to do with Noël Coward! Plus, I did:
Van Gogh was an eyeball pleaser,
He must have been a pencil squeezer,
He didn’t do the Mona Lisa,
That was an Italian geezer!
‘I’d already used that [Mona Lisa line] in a song I did with Rod Melvin, called “I’ve Left the Rag Trade to Join the Drag Trade”, but I didn’t let that stop me, I carried on. You can eat your own foot if you want, can’t you?’ Rod Melvin recalls, ‘The origins of “Rag Trade” came about because we were looking out of Ian’s window at Oval Mansions and there was a guy getting out of a car. Ian said, “That’s my neighbour, he’s been in the rag trade but now he’s a drag artiste”.’
‘As a wordsmith, I felt I was in a unique position really,’ Ian told me. ‘Noël Coward’s all right, Cole Porter’s all right. OK, he wrote four good songs. He did his best work when he was very rich, swanning around Venice, cocaine and champagne to order and a bloke sharpening his pencils for him. Then he fell off his horse and never wrote another decent song. You’d think it would be the other way round, wouldn’t you? I think I’ve written maybe three good songs. A good song will get off the table and go out in the street and get a minicab down to Tin Pan Alley. It’ll look after you.’
Listening to Ian comparing himself with Coward and Porter, I felt compelled to ask him what his ‘three good songs’ were. ‘Sweet Gene Vincent’ was at the top of his list. ‘It’s a bit ponderous,’ he said, ‘a bit poetic, but I quite like it . . . it’s well written, although the genre isn’t exactly where I’d want to hang my hat. Rock ’n’ roll is great, but it’s slightly predictable. I’d much rather be noted for something like “Wake Up and Make Love with Me” or “Sex and Drugs”, something more interesting rhythmically. I get a real buzz knowing that Bootsy Collins has sampled one of our tracks. Chaz and the Blockheads are top-quality musicians. As soon as I heard Chaz play, I wanted to work with him because he’s a funky musician. That’s what I always wanted to do – all through the Kilburns – music that had that dancing element, but still be English, not just slavishly American stuff. So if it’s a rock ’n’ roll track like “Sweet Gene Vincent” or “Blockheads”, it’s got the “Nutbush” element.’
Although Ian was undoubtedly a great lyricist and received plaudits in the press, he often sought approval from friends. ‘Wreckless’ Eric Goulden recalls him taking his lyrics into Blackhill Music in a shopping bag and asking his managers if his work was good enough. Charlie Gillett remembers, ‘He was full of self-doubt, more insecure than most people ever understood. I told him that he was a songwriter in th
e calibre of Cole Porter or Leiber and Stoller, but he had very little confidence in his own ability to deliver what he knew were pretty clever words.’
Whatever Ian’s insecurities, his lyrics were frequently brilliant and kept him aloft in the eyes of the Blockheads, who were still in awe of his genius. Released by Stiff in November 1978, ‘Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick’ was an unstoppable hit. Returning from a three-week European tour on 7 December, Ian learnt that it had entered the UK charts. On Top of the Pops he was resplendent in black tie and shades, fronting his tuxedoed Blockheads with innate cool and concealing his disability well. Seven weeks later ‘Rhythm Stick’ would be at number one, having sold nearly a million copies. This would be the priceless moment; a number one record was the reward he had been dreaming about since he had first heard Elvis Presley’s echo-laden voice ring out from the end of lonely street.
The final show of 1978 was a landmark event for Ian’s fans on the Essex/East London border. Few major artistes had bothered to play on their doorstep, but earlier in the year Kosmo Vinyl had become convinced that, if a suitable auditorium could be found, the show would sell out immediately. The 1,700-capacity Gants Hill Odeon near Ilford was identified as being ‘on Ian’s manor’. He had appeared there in the summer in what was billed as ‘the first rock show ever’ at the venue and returned on 23 December for a historic concert. The theatre had not been designed for rock ’n’ roll and the organ pit, which was immediately in front of the stage, had been boarded over and carpeted for the evening. During a souped-up ‘Billericay Dickie’, the floor gave way beneath the weight of a hundred pogoing fans. ‘It looked like the whole audience had dropped about eighteen inches,’ recalls Kosmo. ‘It was one of Ian’s proudest moments.’
Stiff Records, delighted with Ian’s richly deserved number one hit, had high hopes of his next album repeating the success of New Boots, but the label had not heard much new material, partly because Ian had found touring to be less than conducive to his writing. The previous autumn the band had repaired to Toad Hall, where Ian put each Blockhead in a different room and gave him a lyric to set music to. ‘Ian walked round like a school teacher,’ recalls Mickey, who received a draft of ‘This Is What We Find’, the funniest of Ian’s new lyrics.
Home improvement expert Harold Hill of Harold Hill
Of do-it-yourself dexterity and double-glazing skill
Came home to find another gentleman’s kippers in the grill
So he sanded off his winkle with his Black and Decker drill
‘It’s the only good verse though,’ said Ian. ‘I had a problem because I couldn’t do a funnier one than that. It’s the only funny verse. Did I put it first to grab the attention or third to provide a climax? I put it first, it had to be.’ (It is actually the third verse on the record.) Guitarist Johnny Turnbull was asked to put music to ‘Uneasy Sunny Day Hotsy Totsy’, a lyric that contained some vague political sloganeering and an assortment of vulgar phrases, causing Johnny to caustically comment, ‘I knew I wouldn’t get double-glazing out of that one.’ There were ‘swear words galore’ in the lyrics Ian gave Mickey and Johnny, whereas Chaz appeared to get all the clean ones. ‘I mentioned this to Chaz,’ says Mickey, ‘and he said, “I just told Ian to take the swear words out.” I never fucking thought of that!’
Ian and the Blockheads were due to enter the Workhouse studio in February 1979, but there was barely enough material for a forty-minute disc. ‘After New Boots, there wasn’t a lot more left in the cupboard,’ confesses Chaz Jankel, who was tasked with eking more songs out of Ian. The duo had recently flown out to Barbados with the aim of writing songs at Bluff Cottage, but they returned with little. As well as co-writing, Chaz was also charged with producing the record. For this he would earn the cryptic credit: ‘Chaz Jankel is musically direct.’ This was easier than announcing to the other Blockheads that Chaz was, in fact, their producer.
Another difficulty that had to be overcome before recording could start was reaching an agreement on the division of artiste royalties. Up until that point, the Blockheads had been on a wage of £75 a week, largely sustained by interminable touring. Ian and Chaz additionally enjoyed writer’s royalties. A meeting was held, with Ian’s accountant, Ronnie Harris, in attendance, at which the Blockheads put forward their case for a share of the recording cake. Ian opened the proceedings by announcing: ‘I want two and a half points [per cent],’ to which Chaz responded, ‘Well I’m not taking less than Ian.’ Blackhill, as managers, also considered themselves to be worthy of the same. ‘After seven-and-a-half points, there wasn’t much left,’ says Mickey Gallagher. ‘It left us with a point each. We were happy with that, but then Ian announced that he wanted to give points to the roadies!’
Peter Jenner confirms Ian’s support for the road crew: ‘He liked to line up with them. They were the “working classes”, not poncey musicians.’ The Blockheads were left with a tiny royalty, and Mickey Gallagher, who called Ian’s bluff by offering to take nothing if it meant the other Blockheads could each have one per cent, walked out in disgust. ‘Then Ian said he wouldn’t sign anything,’ says Davey Payne, who was becoming angered by the situation. ‘He wanted to do a handshake agreement, “like the Red Indians do!” Chaz Jankel didn’t do handshake deals – he’d come in with a lawyer – but the rest of us shook on it and got a really bad deal.’
With the royalties issue more or less resolved, the recording of the masterwork commenced. On their first long-play outing with Ian, the Blockheads were eager to demonstrate their musical prowess. The lack of ideas emanating from their leader allowed the various group members to submit pieces of music that might have lyrics added later. What largely emerged was a work in which the songs’ words – that is to say Ian’s raison d'être – were subservient to the musical settings, many of which bordered on gratuitous ‘jazz-funk’. Interestingly, Ian would never allow his lyrics to be reproduced on the record sleeves, saying: ‘My words have got to be audible. People have got to be able to hear them, that’s what it’s about.’
After the album’s backing tracks had been captured and lyrics found, the Blockheads stayed away from the studio until called in to record their various overdubs, a process that ate up a good deal of the budget. Ian would usually stick around, until the day Chaz sent him home for being disruptive. ‘It was getting so protracted,’ says Chaz. ‘The music was taking second place to whatever Ian wanted to chat about. He loved to have an audience. If he were here now with us, we would both be listening to Ian. When I told him to go home, there was the longest pause in the history of recording. He said, “I don’t fucking believe it! I’ve just been asked to stay away from my own album!”’
In the spring of 1979, Ian was at the top of his game. With Do It Yourself complete and a big promotional tour booked for the summer, he was planning on taking a break, but on 16 April – Easter Monday – he received some sad news from Peggy His aunt, Elisabeth Walker, had died. Ian was devastated by the death of his ‘auntie nice’ and asked Martin Cole if he would drive Betty and himself to Barnstaple for the funeral. Following the loss of her sister, Peggy decided to vacate the National Trust cottage they had shared and talked about moving back to London. Ian was quick to assist with her relocation, paying £48,000 in cash for a flat in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead, an area Peggy loved and knew well.
Returning from Devon, Ian was focused on the sleeve concept for Do It Yourself. Attempting to repeat the shop-front gag of New Boots and Panties!! he found a wig shop near Baker Street, with pictures in the window of six unhappy-looking bald men and, below, pictures of the same models wearing toupees and looking cheerful. Along with photographer Chris Gabrin, Ian and the Blockheads crept up to the shop at 3 a.m. after an intense mixing session at Workhouse Studios. Ian lined the Blockheads up, all wearing sailors’ hats and placed Fred Rowe, who was bald, at the end of the queue, face on, smiling. The resulting photo appeared on the back of some early pressings of Do It Yourself but Ian received an injunction from the wig shop, an
d Gabrin had to give a written undertaking to destroy the negatives.
Expanding on the ‘home improvement’ theme of the album’s title, Blockheads logo designer Barney Bubbles ordered a selection of Crown wallpaper samples from which he chose twelve different patterns for the front sleeve. This would result in at least a dozen variations hitting the shops simultaneously, thus creating instant collectors’ items. To help promote the album, Stiff Records rolled out one of its most inspired campaigns, despatching record company minions to provincial record shops with point-of-sale material and buckets of emulsion paint, offering to ‘tosh up’ the premises.
Despite the odd filler track, such as ‘Waiting for Your Taxi’, Do It Yourself was a fairly listenable record, with ‘Don’t Ask Me’ and ‘Lullaby for Frances’ being standouts, but it was nowhere near as entertaining as its predecessor. New Boots and Panties!! contained a wealth of tales of Essex boys and East End girls, whereas the new subject matter was less direct and, in truth, a disappointment. But it was unfair to expect Ian to dream up another ‘Billericay Dickie’ simply to repeat a successful formula. Do It Yourself at least kept the cash flowing for Stiff Records, but ultimately sold far less than New Boots. Another factor in the album’s under-achievement was Ian’s refusal to include one or two of his recent hit singles. Had Do It Yourself kicked off with ‘What a Waste’ or ‘Rhythm Stick’, another 100,000 or so sales might easily have been achieved, but Ian refused to compromise. ‘He would not put his singles on albums,’ says Mickey Gallagher, ‘and it would cost him dearly. He would always argue that it was his artistic licence.’
