‘God’s own gift to Shepherds Bush Market threads specialists’

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‘What I tried to put into the Kilburns was the secretive aspect of sartorial elegance,’ said Ian. ‘If you talk about it, you spoil it. As Oscar Wilde said, “The greatest stylist is the one that remains the most obscure.” Once it’s public knowledge, it’s not stylish any more. I knew the New York Dolls a little bit. We’d been to their gigs at Bibas. I read somewhere that their audience used to wear safety pins through their nipples. I thought, “Lighten Up!” So I unwound the safety pin and put it through my lughole. Sartorially, I’m not a claimer, but I would say that I must have worn the first razor blade.’

A lawless brat from a council flat, a little bit of this and a little bit of that

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“They must have been a bunch of toughs assembled from the rougher end of Kilburn, used to playing the sort of pub where women fight as well as the men. The singer, using the microphone as if it was some form of surgical apparatus, sported a curious Mohican haircut and a battered drape jacket. He looks like a greased back, squat Lou Reed, but Lou Reed never looked quite as oppressive and sinister as this. One side of his body is paralysed but this never seems too overt up on the small stage. His suit is probably from Brixton Market and his shirt and tie may just as easily have soup stains on them as not. He wears black leather gloves just like Gene Vincent used to, chews gum constantly and never opens his eyes. The other members of the band appeared to be wearing sacking. One hesitated to push through the crowd in case a group of enthusiasts were comparing flick knives in the stalls.”

“Do you want to see Elvis Costello with a fucking nail through his head?”

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Relations between Lou Reed and Ian Dury’s camps were precarious over the six weeks of the tour. Surly and aloof, Reed spent the whole time in his hotel room watching old videos of himself.  “Arista thought we’d get an open-minded audience supporting this famous American lounge lizard Lou Reed,” commented Dury. “But he had a pot belly and trainers and was about as subversive as a packet of crisps.” The tour included a week of shows at a club in San Francisco and among the celebrities who came along were Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. “Rod came in and I said, ‘They’re a bunch of cunts, they think they're the bollocks and because we get a good reception, the band’s getting the hump’. He said, ‘We’ll sort them out then. Come in here Fred and watch the door’. He twisted all the knobs they tuned the guitars with and that was great because when they went on, it was an awful fucking sound. Rod had done it and Reed was fucking livid.”