Ian Dury “New Boots and Panties!!” 1977. Stiff Records. Today May 12th is Ian Dury’s birthday (b. 1942 d. 2000). This debut album by Dury (pre-Blockheads) eventually reached #5 on the UK album charts in 1979.

This copy of “New Boots and Panties!!” (the title referring to the only two items Dury insisted upon purchasing new – everything else could be thrifted) is the 1978 US pressing with “Sex + Drugs + Rock + Roll,” leading off Side 2, which did not appear on the original UK pressing of the album.

Melody Maker described the album as “a tense, harrowing account of urban degradation, that conveys with more vocal, musical and lyrical vehemence than any so-called ‘new wave/punk’ combo has yet been able to muster, the desperation and squalor of the social conditions (and the effects of those conditions upon individual personalities) it so provocatively illustrates.”