“...Oy! Oy!...”
Edsel of the UK
have reissued six of Ian Dury’s albums in these 2015 Deluxe Edition Hardback Casebound sets – and natty
looking things they are too. Here are the reasons to be cheerful...
UK released 2 March
2015 – “Warts 'n' Audience” by IAN DURY and THE BLOCKHEADS is a Limited
Edition 1CD Deluxe Edition in Hardback Casebound packaging on Edsel EDSK 5035 (Barcode
740155503536) and pans out as follows (78:16 minutes):
1. Intro
2. Wake Up And
Make Love To Me
3. Clevor Trevor
4. Inbetweenies
5. If I Was With
A Woman
6. Billericay
Dickie
7. Quiet
8. My Old Man
9. Spasticus
Autisticus
10. Plaistow
Patricia
11. There Ain’t
Half Been Some Clever Bastards
12. Sweet Gene
Vincent
13. What A
Waste!
14. Hit Me With
Your Rhythm Stick
15. Blockheads
16. Reasons To
Be Cheerful, Pt. 3
Tracks 1 to 16
are the LIVE LP/CD album "Warts 'N' Audience" released March 1991 on Demon Records
FIEND 777. The concert was recorded by Mick McKenna on the Rolling Stones
Mobile at the Brixton Academy in London on 22 December 1990.
The 14-page
booklet inside the hardback casebound cover features full annotation by known
expert WILL BIRCH (done in 2004), lyrics to all the songs (including the outtakes/demos),
unpublished photos, repros of his handwritten ‘5 poems’, original artwork and
so on. These are the 2004 Edsel remasters done at Alchemy Mastering and they
sound amazing while all of Disc 2 was Previously Unreleased at the time.
The glory days
of Number 1 singles (“Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick” in 1978) and Number 2 LPs
(“Do It Yourself” in 1979) were long past for IAN DURY – and wanting to forget
(by his own admission) much of what he wrote in the 80s and the disappointment
of 1992’s “The Bus Driver’s Prayer & Other Stories” not even charting
despite being such a strong album (see separate review) – it was good to see 1998’s
wonderfully upbeat “Mr. Love Pants” afford Dury see well-deserved chart action
again. Sadly it was to be his last studio recordings with the Blockheads (he
passed away in 2000) - but complete with Storm Thorgerson’s artwork intact and
new liner notes from Alan Robinson (who worked the album’s promotion in 1998) –
this 2015 CD reissue even gives us a half-decent stab at a bonus track in the
guise of a ‘remix’ of one of the album’s highlights “Mash It Up Harry”.
It opens in
suitably irreverent style with “Jack Shit George” which features a too-and-fro
lyric battle between Dury and his Blockheads (he poses a question and they
reply in a not so kind manner by being honest). Ian’s songwriting parent Chaz
Jankel trumped up co-authored winners in the shape of the acidic “The Passing
Show” (“...as we’ve grown jaded and corrupt...”) and the pretty (even sinister)
“You’re My Baby”. You also notice the superb Production values (self done) - leagues
ahead of anything that had gone before – full of warmth and quiet power – it
lifted a lot of the songs and kind of forced you to listen/hear.
“Honeysuckle
Highway” is a languid love song ala Ian Dury with lyrics like “...Evincing all
the properties of rapture with a sybaritic disarray...” – but my heart is with
“Itinerant Child” which has the most brilliantly written first-verse about a
clapped out car “a psychedelic nightmare with a million leaks...It’s
home-sweet-home to sweet arse freaks...” (if you’re interested there’s a
gorgeous outtake of it on Disc 2 of “The Bus Driver’s Prayer & Other
Stories” 2CD reissue in this 2015 series). “Geraldine” is a co-write with
Mickey Gallagher where our hero is “...in love with the person in the sandwich
centre...” (try not laughing as you listen to him going on about baguettes and
coronation chicken). The bopper “Mash It Up Harry” is a updated throwback to
the beats of old where Harry wants “...a bit of Wembley up his Rio Grande...”
The whole album feels great in a way his records hadn’t done in years.
“He’s got his
little bit of England to defend...” - our Ian sang on “Mash It Up Harry”. Well
here’s one worth fighting for. Take a chance on his genius with this wicked
looking casebound reissue...
PS: the IAN DURY
March 2015 Deluxe Edition Hardback Casebound
CD Reissues on Edsel are:
1. New Boots And
Panties!! (Edsel EDSK 7080, 2CDs – Barcode 740155708030)
2. Do It
Yourself (Edsel EDSK 7081, 2CDs – Barcode 740155708139)
3. Laughter
(Edsel EDSK 7082, 2CDs – Barcode 740155708238)
4. The Bus
Driver's Prayer (Edsel EDSK 7083, 2CDs – Barcode 740155708337)
5. Mr. Love
Pants (Edsel EDSA 5034, 1CD, Barcode 740155503437)
6. Warts 'N' Audience
[Live] (Edsel 5035, 1CD, Barcode 74015550536)
PPS: Amazon lump
all the 2004 and 2015 reviews together in the one place (a nasty habit of
theirs) – so if you want the Hardback Book Edition I’ve just reviewed from 2015
– make sure to use the Barcode I’ve provided above to get the right issue...
