Reasons to be cheerful

This whole thing got started with a drawing of a spectacular guy.

On 9th of september 2007 I went to see the reformed Iggy & the Stooges play at the Helsinki Ice Hall. Before the gig got started several punk/new wave-classics were blasting through the venue's sound system. A bit of The Damned, some Stranglers, the basics. Amidst all the familiar songs one particular ditty caught my attention. Over a ridiculously funky beat some bloke was singing in a magnificiently off-key, nonchalant and minimal way, and the whole song seemed to be built around a simple refrain: "Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Roll".

Now, you have probably heard or read that phrase a million times, whether it's in a biography of some old bloated rockstar or a fourth-grader's backpack. But the interesting thing is, it was not invented or popularized by the classic kind of rock star with shades, messy hair and clothes so cool they lower the temperature of any room. Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Roll was the breakthrough single of Ian Dury, one of the greatest wordsmiths and performers in rock history (in my humble opinion, at least).

Dury was a rock'n'roll underdog. 36 years old at the time of his first hit single, crippled by polio, he couldn't sing in tune to save his life. Yet, he managed to produce a brilliant body of work, several hit singles and albums in the late 70s, and become one of the most visible and legendary artists of the new wave era.

From the moment I first heard S&D&R&R, I've always held Dury's music in high esteem. Dury and his (highly talented) band the Blockheads made music that was at the same time catchy and hard to categorize, mixing funk, music hall, reggae, punk and jazz. Ian's sardonic, bitingly humorous, lewd and sometimes even *gasp* touching lyrics were a key factor as well, as was his way to express them. As a frontman Dury could be hilarious, menacing or glamorous, yet always charismatic. He walked with a limp, the left side of his body left withered by polio and his leg constantly in an iron calliper.

Another thing about mr. Dury. It's now been 30 years since the United Nations declared the year 1981 as the International Year of the Disabled. Dury was asked to write a song for the year. Dury himself considered the idea unsensitive and patronising, sarcasticly asking if "in 1982 we're gonna be allright?". Instead, he wrote Spasticus Autisticus. A song written both as a battle cry and an appeal for understanding, it contains one of my favorite lyrics by Dury:

So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin

And thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in

So long have I been languished on the shelf

I must give all proceedings to myself

So what has all this got to do with my blog? Well, I've been reading Will Birch's biography of Ian Dury lately, and a couple of days ago I had the urge to draw something again, maybe to prove to myself that I could actually sit down and draw something else than just weird, distorted faces and cartoon animals smoking cigarettes. Cause thats all I usually manage to muster up when I'm bored in class.

Well, the outcome of my creative outburst was the weird, distorted face of Ian Dury. But it's beautiful. So, from now on, I might aswell spend more time putting down my thoughts about things that inspire me, bug me, or fuck me up. And share the sketches I come up with every now and then.

And if you're wondering about the title of this post, it's another song by Ian Dury. I originally intended to christen this blog Reasons to Be Cheerful, and to concentrate on all the things I enjoy. But, you know, there's only so much things a guy can love, so it's easier to moan about stuff too. I mean, shit that irritates the hell out of you can be inspiring too.

And in case you're wondering about the title of the blog, it's rather self-explanatory really.