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''Do It Yourself'' is a 1979 album by Ian Dury & the Blockheads. It was the first album to be credited to Ian Dury & the Blockheads rather than Ian Dury alone, although Dury had used the full band name for the "What A Waste" 7" single of 1978. The album was released in the wake of the chart-topping hit single "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick", and reached number two in the charts, behind ABBA's ''Voulez-Vous''. ''Do It Yourself'' sold around 200,000 copies, and was Dury's second Platinum album (after its predecessor ''New Boots and Panties!!''). ==Background and recording== Like ''New Boots and Panties!!'' before it, much of ''Do It Yourself'' was written at Dury's home, no longer a flat near the Oval cricket ground, but now a rented home in Rolvenden, Kent. Even though he declined point blank his management's attempts to get him to dust off and re-record old Kilburn & the High Roads songs like "England's Glory" Dury did resurrect one old song, "Sink My Boats", the very first song he and Chas Jankel wrote together. In fact a number of other songs pre-date the rehearsal and song-writing sessions for ''Do It Yourself''; the instrumentals for "Quiet", "This Is What We Find" and "Uneasy Sunny Day Hotsy Totsy" were all arranged by Blockheads members while they were still in their band Loving Awareness. ''Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll: The Life Of Ian Dury'' and Demon's CD re-issues of the album mistakenly credit the album as being composed entirely by Dury and Chas Jankel; in fact this was the first time Dury involved all of the band in the writing process and barely half of the tracks were Dury/Jankel compositions. The recording session at Dury's house that also produced "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" was used to demo some of the new songs. These demos, later released on Edsel Record's 2-CD re-issue of the album, were for "This Is What We Find", "Inbetweenies", "Quiet" and "Uneasy Sunny Day Hotsy Totsy", along with the first version of "Duff 'Em Up And Do 'Em Over (Boogie Woogie)", a song that would remain unreleased but would eventually become the song "Oh Mr. Peanut" on the next album, ''Laughter''. ''Do It Yourself'' was recorded in The Workhouse Studios on the Old Kent Road, the same place where ''New Boots and Panties!!'' had been recorded two years earlier, under the production of Chas Jankel and Laurie Latham, though Latham's credit was downplayed to 'recording engineer' apparently because of Dury's feelings about producers' influence being overplayed. This was Jankel's first time producing and much of the album's 'softness' is usually attributed to his production along with a number of other things, including the 'echo-y' sound of "Don't Ask Me". The ''Do It Yourself'' sessions were notably the beginning of Ian Dury becoming nightmare-ish to record with. Success went to Dury's head and during the ''Do It Yourself'' sessions he began to exhibit control-freakery and took to being cantankerous, contrary, confrontational and argumentative, as well as performing a number of bizarre 'wind-ups' (including crushing a whole packet of McVitie's Digestive Biscuits and throwing them over Laurie Latham). His behaviour worsened and Jankel was forced to phone him and politely ask he stay away from the final weeks of sessions, which he did. In keeping with Dury's policy of not including singles on albums, "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" was omitted, and no singles were released from the album either (his next British single would be "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3"). Most retrospective interviews with band and management bemoan this and nearly all suggest the opening track "Inbetweenies" as the ideal choice of single; "Inbetweenies" was released in Europe, backed with "Dance Of The Screamers". The lack of singles on the album did not greatly affect its chart performance. However, the European tour that followed managed to cancel out most, if not all, of the album's profit. The tour lost an estimated £40,000 because of various extravagances including entourage and Dury's insistence on all his road crew and band staying in top hotels. The tour was so stressful it caused Chas Jankel to leave the band. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Do It Yourself (Ian Dury & the Blockheads album)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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