What I said back then [NOTE: I am not responsible for the consequences of some of these links being opened where others can hear]:
A true original, a one-off, and if this were a list of my musical heroes, then a much longer entry. But memories...
I've been trying to avoid dating things too much, principally for reasons of not having the hours required to research them - it should generally be reasonably clear when things happened. But this - this was 1978. So I was 16, and just at that perfect age for clever, witty songs which weren't afraid to swear. Quite a lot. At that time, music TV in the UK was pretty much restricted to Top of the Pops, that venerable institution, filled only with singles which had gone up the charts that week, and were tasteful enough to be put before the nation in the early evening; and The Old Grey Whistle Test (which deserves a memory of its own, really) late at night. And then, slowly but surely, some other things began to appear. 'So it Goes', 'The Oxford Road Show', one or two others, including a BBC series whose name escapes me for present, but which delivered a live performance into our living rooms at teatime on a Saturday. One weekend, I flick over to see who's on, and it's Ian. My mother comes into the room, intent on whatever it is mothers do when they're really checking up on their teenage children, and is met with 'Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll' and 'There ain't half been some clever bastards'. "Charming," I hear from behind, as the door is closed. With impeccable timing, the Blockheads launch into 'Plaistow Patricia'. I'm certain I really did hear this on the BBC at teatime on a Saturday - of course, it might have been bowdlerised, but this is Ian Dury we're talking about. The shame is, that he was the kind of bloke to have utterly charmed people like my parents. I resolve not to automatically dislike whatever my children find entertaining when they're sixteen.
Oh, and if anyone knows where I can get hold of the South Bank Show edition, with the coruscating 'Fuck off Noddy' in it, please let me know...
What I think now:
Well, ‘Fuck Off Noddy’ is on YouTube, of course (WARNING – very much not safe for work link right there. Probably not really safe for home viewing, either. But bloody funny.) – no sign of the South Bank Show, though. And that first clip suggests that my memory is faulty, if it was indeed 'Sight and Sound in Vision' from 1977. But I know 'Bastards' was played, and it was 1978. Blockhead music still gets a regular airing; I generally assume that I’m the only person in Prince George listening to Ian Dury, possibly the only one in BC at times, but I like to try to educate wherever I go…
The boys know some Dury, and – of course – love the gleeful silliness and musical exuberance of it all. They even understand the accent, most of the time. I’m perilously close, of course, to being made to live up to my resolution there – only another year to go before Cam is 16. Right now, he mostly listens to the same kind of stuff I listen to, and there’s definitely an essay in that. I don’t hear him endlessly repeating stuff I can’t bear to listen to, but if I do, I hope I can make good on my promise…
Since then:
There’s a terrific Ian Dury compilation on my iTunes; I saw a documentary some years back, which featured Upminster quite heavily, and made me nostalgic for a different part of my childhood, and there’s a movie. Which I can’t decide if I want to see or not. Not that it’s easy to get hold of out here.