Ian Dury

by Will Birch

  On 9 December, Ian and the Music Students appeared alongside Simple Minds on Channel 4’s The Tube, performing three songs from the imminent album, from which ‘Noddy Harris’ had been deleted following Ian’s capitulation. Co-presenter of The Tube Jools Holland managed to displease Ian in some small way, and a lively altercation took place off screen, reportedly placing Holland in Ian’s ‘bad books’ for some years.

  The music press was still generally supportive of Ian, but were less than kind about 4,000 Weeks’ Holiday in the advance reviews. Ian had told the NME’s Gavin Martin that 4,000 Weeks was the only LP he’d made that he was happy with and that he no longer liked New Boots and Panties!!. Unfortunately, the record-buying public begged to differ. Only one track, ‘Peter the Painter’ (a tribute to Peter Blake), was really up to par, containing the inspired lyric: ‘It’s not a fake it’s a Peter Blake, it takes the cake make no mistake!’

  Compared with New Boots, the new album was a lifeless platter, destined to gather dust on even the most ardent fan’s shelf. Mike McEvoy took much of the stick. ‘When we were recording, it was all hopeful,’ he says. ‘There were going to be hits. There was never any talk of Ian’s sound being worn away by this American influence, but when 4,000 Weeks wasn’t successful, it was down to this American who didn’t get it, right? Who’s gonna carry the can? The one you can pass it to who’s not gonna be able to get rid of it. Ian didn’t want to take responsibility because ultimately he had a career. I wasn’t the one making the decisions, I was just jamming along, but to this day, it’s all my fault.’

  When Chaz Jankel played London’s Electric Ballroom in support of his Chazablanca album Ian made a brief appearance on stage as Chaz’s ‘special guest’. After the show he met a girl named Belinda Leith, whom he invited to sit on his knee when she came into the dressing room. Ian was immediately attracted to the twenty-one-year-old Belinda, a fashion designer who specialized in machine knitwear and marketed her designs around London. Within days they were living together at Digby Mansions, where Belinda installed her knitting machine in the now infrequently used music room.

  Belinda was taken with Ian’s cheeky grin and boyish charm and he no doubt fell for her big eyes and hourglass figure. Her striking appearance turned heads and it would certainly help to deflect attention away from Ian when they were out, which was a welcome side benefit. They had both been art students and despite the twenty-year age gap had much in common including a love of clothes and design. ‘Ian was quite intellectual,’ says Belinda. ‘Rock ’n’ roll was his true love, but he had another side to him and a unique character and voice. He was able to draw you in.’

  But Ian was now besieged by writer’s block. He was back on the booze and every morning, after a champagne breakfast and a little spliff, he would sit down at his desk with a blank sheet of paper that remained blank all day. Thankfully, the road beckoned, but Ian’s musical director, Mike McEvoy, was fretting about deserting his own band, the relatively unknown MP Giants. McEvoy thought that a solution might be to get the Giants some work as Ian’s support group. On 16 February 1984, when Ian and the Music Students commenced a series of four warm-up gigs at the Hope and Anchor, billed as ‘Wanker and Son’, the MP Giants opened the show, with McEvoy and drummer Tag Lamche appearing in both bands.

  The following week Ian and his group, now augmented by guitarist Ed Speight, departed for Israel, where they would play a short season at the Kolnoa Dan, a converted cinema in Tel Aviv. Jenny Cotton, now co-managing Ian with Andrew King and trading as Cotton and Carruthers following the dissolution of Blackhill, went along as tour manager. On the opening night, Jenny was stationed at the back of the venue, preparing to operate the spotlight, when word reached her that Ian was refusing to go on stage until somebody produced a pair of gloves. ‘Can you imagine the difficulty in obtaining gloves in Israel in the middle of the night?’ asks Jenny. ‘The poor promoter’s girlfriend said she had a pair at home, and the show was delayed for ages whilst they were located. When Ian got the gloves, he went on stage. I just wanted to kill him.’

  ‘The whole concept of “F Troop” was born in Israel,’ says Ed Speight. ‘If there was one lady in the place, who you or I wouldn’t even contemplate chatting to – the big girl with the chain round her neck, who’s a sergeant major in the reserve army, been married, a couple of kids, works behind the bar – “Eva” – you know her . . . Ian would be there in a big way! One night he went off with just such a woman in a cab, to the suburbs of Tel Aviv, the equivalent of Northolt or Perivale. We got the anguished phone call from someone. They were saying: “He’s outside the house now, she’s throwing things at him, his trousers are down round his ankles and he’s mouthing off. You’ve got to come and get him.” Mickey, Merlin and myself – F Troop – jumped in a cab at half four in the morning. Ian’s standing in the middle of the road as the milk float comes round the corner and the neighbours are saying, “This is a quiet neighbourhood, can’t you please do something?” She’d kicked him out, but she was too much of a challenge for Ian to turn down.’

  Returning to the UK at the end of February 1984, Ian and the Music Students readied themselves for ‘The Lecture Tour’, in support of 4,000 Weeks’ Holiday. The new young band provided Ian with a fresh audience for his golden verbal. Merlin Rhys-Jones remembers: ‘There was a blokeish, almost militaristic atmosphere backstage, with lots of rhyming slang, prison stories and minicab scenarios. Second World War army phrases were regular features of Ian’s high-volume exchanges. I was “cashiered” one evening for failing in my new duties as his “libations officer”. It was all very amusing, but Ian hated it if wives and girlfriends stopped mates from hanging out. Ian’s attitude towards women was extreme in both his contempt and his adoration.’

  For one of the Music Students, the tour would end in tears. Mike McEvoy had been Ian’s musical collaborator for nearly two years, but his job was hanging in the balance. The seed of the problem – and a key factor in McEvoy’s eventual nervous breakdown – was the responsibility he felt towards his fellow musicians from the MP Giants. Even though some of them had been hired to play on Ian’s album, McEvoy shouldered a massive burden of guilt. ‘I made a selfish decision to go with Ian,’ he says, ‘and I left behind people who had been loyal to me. I tried to make amends by getting them involved in the tour. Ian was concerned that maybe I didn’t have the energy and that it would detract from him. I was his boy, and he wanted me to be fully focused on his set, but there I was saying I also wanted to open the show with my band. Not many gigs into the tour I was getting really tired, trying to manage relationships with the Giants and keep everyone, including Ian, happy.’

  McEvoy’s time with Ian ended on a tour bus as it raced down the M1 in the early hours of 4 March. That evening Ian and the Music Students had played to a half-full house at Manchester Polytechnic, where McEvoy had walked on stage draped in a large overcoat and scarf and intermittently placed his head inside the bass drum. Halfway through the set, he started shouting abuse at Ian, then walked off stage, leaving the MP Giants’ Joe Cang to take over on bass. The minute the show finished, McEvoy was grabbed by Ian’s minder, ‘The Sulphate Strangler’, and marched to the back of the hall, where he was taken into a quiet corridor. ‘You don’t ever talk to Ian in that way!’ roared the Strangler. Mercifully, McEvoy’s dressing-down stopped at a verbal warning, but once on the bus he flew into a rage, shouting and screaming at Ian, who was sat up front with the Strangler. ‘You wanker!’ shouted McEvoy. ‘You need that big ugly cunt to protect you, you cowardly little shit!’

  When the bus reached London, McEvoy was dropped off in the Finchley Road. It would be another five years before he heard from Ian again. ‘People like to remember Ian as a cultural icon,’ says McEvoy, ‘but he was also a clever and talented businessman and very good at manipulating people. He knew how to wind you up. If you are being wound up by someone with a disability, what are you going to do? Punch him? He knew that. If you couldn’t match his verbal – and he
was an expert – he had you. I wasn’t that articulate, and he was winding me up in subtle ways. A year down the line, I was not the favoured son. Things were going on with the record company, tracks were being pulled, the album wasn’t getting any promotion. Ian was under a lot of pressure, maybe he was questioning all of his decisions, who knows? But I do know that I felt psychologically bullied.’

  Mike McEvoy had come into Ian’s life at a time when his musical talent was sorely needed, but he became the classic victim. For a while, he’d been the blue-eyed boy, but his ‘mistake’ was to not retaliate when Ian started dishing it out, if indeed Mike’s personality would have allowed it. ‘Ian knew he could push people with the verbal,’ says Jock Scot. ‘If something annoyed him, he could destroy you. He could be quite cruel.’ Merlin Rhys-Jones adds, ‘Some people stood up to Ian, some didn’t. Others just kept quiet. Joe Cang got the “you middle-class cunt” thing from Ian out of the hotel window on a few occasions. I didn’t want to appear obsequious. I thought I would just do the gig and see how it evolved. Ian came up to me halfway through the tour and said, “We never talk – do you know why that is? It’s because we don’t have to.” It was a warm, reassuring remark. Other people approached Ian in an obsequious way and got the full cockney geezer in return.’

  ‘The Lecture Tour’ continued without McEvoy and on 19 March 1984 arrived in the Wiltshire town of Chippenham. At Gold Diggers night club – about a mile-and-a-half from Rowden Hill, where in 1960 Gene Vincent survived the auto wreck that killed his pal and fellow legend Eddie Cochran as they headed back to London from Bristol – Ian would meet his wife-to-be.

  18

  Equity

  Chippenham, Wiltshire, March 1984. The Strangler was guarding the dressing room door at Gold Diggers when the young woman from the nearby village of Christian Malford explained her credentials. ‘My dad taught Ian at art school,’ she said, hoping it would passport her to the inner sanctum. The Strangler was unsure but thought it best to relay the message to his boss, just in case. The girl was then ushered into the dressing room, where the star was holding court. Within moments, they were face to face. ‘Your dad never taught me,’ growled Ian. ‘Peter Blake taught me.’

  Dark-haired Sophy Tilson was a nineteen-year-old art student, the daughter of fêted painter Joe Tilson. She’d been a huge fan of Ian’s since the age of twelve, when she made a cassette copy of New Boots and Panties!! from her older sister’s LP. A live appearance by Ian Dury at Gold Diggers was a big local event, and she had edged her way towards the backstage area in the hope of meeting him. Later that evening, she found herself hanging out with Ian and the Music Students at the nearby Bear Hotel, where the tour party feasted on a supper of egg and onion sandwiches. ‘I told Ian I thought he was brilliant,’ recalls Sophy. ‘He replied, “You’re not too bad yourself!”’

  Ian tried to persuade Sophy to join him on the rest of the tour, but she knew her college studies had to come first. Some weeks later, however, Sophy caught up with her idol at a gig in Bristol. ‘Ian got a bit fruity, but he was really sweet,’ says Sophy. ‘We obviously really liked each other, but I was aware of his girlfriend, Belinda, and I didn’t want to cause trouble.’ Instead, Sophy kept in touch with the Strangler and occasionally contacted Ian throughout her time at college in Swindon and, later, the Chelsea School of Art. ‘Ian was totally in my heart,’ she says, ‘but I really wanted to get on with my work, even though we were deeply attracted to each other.’

  Weariness with Ian’s outrageous behaviour had set in long ago amongst those he needed to be onside, and his musical career was now precarious. It was four years since he’d enjoyed the sniff of a hit, and it was unlikely that Polydor would exercise its option for a third album. Forced to tour, Ian and the Music Students undertook a series of European dates. One of co-manager Jenny Cotton’s abiding memories of the jaunt was Ian’s request one afternoon for a bowl of soup, something he insisted upon having before giving an interview that had been set up. The hotel kitchen was closed, but, after a lot of fuss, a huge tureen of delicious soup arrived. Ian then did the interview, but didn’t touch the soup! His prima donna behaviour was wearing thin, and the Music Students, who a year earlier had had nothing but admiration for Ian, were displaying signs of unrest. Mike McEvoy had already quit, and now, as with the Blockheads, money had become an issue.

  Between the various members of the Music Students there was the usual financial disparity. Bassist Joe Cang, one of the more poorly paid, asked for a raise halfway through the French leg of the tour. ‘I was sharing a hotel room with the drummer,’ recalls Cang. ‘We had retired for the night when there was a knock on the door. It was Ian, really hammered on brandy and accompanied by the Strangler. Ian sat on the end of my bed – I was in it – and he started on me, saying, “You don’t fucking deserve any money.”After a while, I told him to fuck off, and he said, “You’re sacked!” He would do this thing where he would keep riling you, then challenge you. “What you gonna do? Hit me? Knock me out?” I told him I was going to leave the tour – they had a live TV show in Spain the next day. Ian said, “I’ll fly Norman [Watt-Roy] in . . .” It escalated. He got Strangler, who threatened to beat me up. Then he started following me around the hotel at 4 a.m., but my bags were packed. I said, “If you think I’m being paid too much and you can do without me, I’m off.” Andrew and Jenny ironed it out, but Ian was never the same with me after that. He was a bit embarrassed.’

  Despite a well-received set at Glastonbury that June and an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival in August, touring to make ends meet was no longer viable, as the Music Students were disintegrating, and all contact with the Blockheads had ceased. Royalties continued to dribble in, but songwriting was no longer a pleasure. At forty-two, Ian was disillusioned with the music business. Seeking a new creative outlet and an alternative source of income, he decided he would reinvent himself – as an actor.

  ‘I think I’m probably better in films than I’ve appeared to be because I’ve never really been given a chance to act,’ Ian told me. ‘The only film I’ve played a big part in was Burning Beds. I played the lead, a bit of German, a bit of English. That was a worthwhile project. I earned a lot of money and when I got back I had a tax bill that gobbled up the whole lot. I enjoy acting, but not to the exclusion of rock ’n’ roll.’

  Ian had hankered after an acting career ever since the night in 1981 when he rubbed shoulders with theatrical aristocracy. Landing a part in a London charity production of Tom Stoppard’s Dogg’s Troupe 15-Minute Hamlet, at Stockwell Manor School, he shared the stage with Vanessa Redgrave and Derek Jacobi. After the performance, he wangled a lift home from Dame Vanessa and, true to form, couldn’t resist flirting with the legendary actress. ‘How do you do this acting lark, then, Vanessa?’ he enquired in his finest cockney accent, hoping his wry humour would break the ice. ‘Doing a spot of mini-cabbing on the side, are we?’ Ian’s chat-up lines may have amused an impressionable fan, but not the redoubtable Ms Redgrave. As she drove on in silence, Ian began to cringe at his own gauche remarks, but he would drop the actress’s name at every opportunity in the coming weeks.

  The following year, Ian was put forward for a part in And the Ship Sails On, a film to be directed by the great Federico Fellini. Ian failed the audition, but years later, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, he proudly recalled, ‘Fellini had a great pile of photographs in front of him and said, “Mr Dury, you have a beard.” I stammered that it was no problem to shave it off immediately. He said, “Film to me is faces, and I like your face.” I didn’t get the part, but it was a great moment.’

  Although he was not an outstanding thespian, Ian was well equipped for character roles and cameos on the strength of his quirky appearance and undoubted charisma. His ‘dark brown voice’ was also an asset, which he put to good effect in a voice-over job as ‘The Fertilizer’ on the audio cassette accompanying an early computer game, Deus Ex Machina. The fact that he’d been a successful pop singer didn’t hur
t either: many a luvvie would claim to be an ‘Ian Dury fan’.

  Pippa Markham, the theatrical agent who would become a key factor in Ian’s acting career, had first witnessed the individuality of his live performance when she’d worked as an usherette at the Victoria Palace in 1974. Ten years later, Ian sprang into Pippa’s mind as she took a call from Mary Selway, the eminent casting director who was working on Roman Polanski’s Pirates, a film starring Walter Matthau. ‘Mary was having trouble finding someone to play a sort of hunchback, gnome-like character,’ recalls Pippa. ‘I didn’t have anybody on my books who was right, but as I always like to suggest ideas, I said, “The person who seems obvious to me is Ian Dury.” Mary thought it was brilliant idea. I knew Ian’s manager, Andrew King, because he was the manager of Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias, who once did a show at the Royal Court with one of my actors [Gorden Kaye]. Polanski always casts on tape as he can’t come into the country so Ian went over to Twickenham to record his audition. He got it, his first real acting job.’

  A list of some of the offbeat characters Ian would go on to portray in various film and stage productions illustrates Markham’s adroit marketing of her client, not to mention Ian’s image in the eyes of various directors. At the risk of becoming typecast, Ian accepted roles such as: ‘The Devil’, ‘Bones’, ‘Weazel’, ‘The Plughole Man’, ‘The Boot Black’ and ‘Rat’s Dad’. When given the part of a named character, it would be of the ‘Terry Fitch’ variety. ‘Ian never hassled me for work,’ adds Pippa. ‘He always responded to messages, and we’d discuss stuff, but he didn’t view it in the same way as somebody who was exclusively an actor would. It was just one part of his life.’