King Blank
The Real Dirt

If someone - but I presume there are few - were to ask me what I think of the late Ian Lowery, I would respond that I believe he was a freaking legend. An underground legend. An artist endowed with great talent who deserved much more success than he had.

It was 1988, and I was working (or rather, I was a labor donor) for Radio Città Futura (in case anyone remembers it) while trying to pass some exams at the University.

The radio station was located on a street in the city center, on the top floor of a dilapidated building with no elevator. I was almost an hour early compared to the time I was supposed to go on air. The stairs were steep and poorly lit. I arrived at the top out of breath. Upon entering, I greeted the guys from the GR who were editing the evening edition. On one of the desks, there was a cardboard package that, judging by its shape, could only contain vinyl records. It wasn’t unusual; similar packages were often seen. It was usually promotional material sent by record labels (ah... those were different times), especially by Italian independent labels like Electric Eye, I.R.A., Hiara Records, Toast Records, but also by foreign labels distributed in Italy by Ricordi. The package had already been opened. Inside were about a dozen LPs, but I distinctly remember only one. The name of the group or artist didn’t ring a bell, but the cover image struck me as strangely familiar. I looked at it closely and had an epiphany. The cover incredibly resembled that of Bringing it All Back Home by Bob Dylan. The glimpse of a room with two people sitting; a man in a white shirt and black jacket (Dylan, in the first case, and an unknown man with a serious expression in the second) and, slightly in the background, a woman with black hair in a red dress and a cigarette between the fingers of her right hand. Dylan’s album photo, however, was framed by a white border, while the record I was holding was framed by a black border, with the words KING BLANK THE REAL DIRT standing out at the top. KING BLANK and then the album title, THE REAL DIRT (or perhaps the real filth, who knows...). The whole context piqued my curiosity. Taking advantage of the fact that we were not broadcasting live at that moment, I went into the studio and put the record on the turntable. The album was accompanied by a note with a few lines typed on Ricordi letterhead, but I don’t remember what it said. The inner sleeve had the lyrics and very little other information printed on it. I put on the headphones and placed the needle on the initial track of the shiny, black vinyl.

Ian Lowery (1956-2001), born in Hartlepool in the northeast of England (previously a founding member and singer of The Wall and Ski Patrol), in 1987, following the dissolution of the Folk Devils, found himself with a recording contract with Beggars Banquet but no band. Lowery decided to enlist the Welsh multi-instrumentalist Nigel Pulsford, former Folk Devils guitarist Kris Jozajtis, bassist Hugh Garrety, and Australian drummer Kevin Rooney to play the material he had written and composed. Thus, King Blank was born, who the following year released The Real Dirt, and I assure you that the title does not describe the album's content.

The opening track is "Howl Upside Down," which Lowery describes as a plagiarism of Jim Thompson's novel, Savage Night. Fast-crossing acoustic and electric guitars in a psychobilly that could make Gun Club envious. It is followed by "Blind Box," an engaging track, one of the best of the bunch, where the Garage dresses up as new wave. "The Real Dirt," the masterpiece of the album, fascinating and mysterious, unfolds sinuously on an organ carpet following the melodic line of the guitar, while Ian's romantically ironic (or ironically romantic, as you wish) voice guides us on a tour of his “perfect hell, desperate paradise”. The subsequent "Big Pink Bang" is a schizophrenic and syncopated ballad, characterized by the contrast between rhythm section and guitars. "Guilty as hell" could be an apocryphal song of Johnny Thunder in which the Stooges accompanied by Steven Mackay on sax make an entrance. "Map of Pain" is a Blues shuffle sung with a new wave attitude. "Shot Full of Holes" is pure and overwhelming Garage-punk. "Killer In The Rain" is a murder ballad with a hypnotic and menacing Blues riff, made even more haunting by Lowery's deep and detached voice, who described it as "a horrible song” and explained it is inspired by the case of the Green River Killer (a serial killer sentenced to life imprisonment for killing at least 49 prostitutes between 1982 and 1998. Ergo in 1988, he was still active!). Conversely, "Uptight" is extremely catchy. It's a song "on the total waste of a hedonistic lifestyle”, built on a melody reminiscent of the Velvet Underground of “I’m Waiting for my Man” (but who in the eighties is not an illegitimate child of the Velvet?!). The concluding and beautiful “Bullett proof crucifix” has the alcohol level of the Pogues caught in an attack of blasphemy at a Country & Western gathering.

On that evening in 1988, the clack of the end of the turntable arm's run informed me that side B had ended. The orange strobe light went out, leaving me a bit stunned. “What a great record!” I thought, taking off the headphones. “But who are these King Blank?”. Sifting through the liner notes, I saw that the singer, Ian Lowery, was also the author of all the tracks. But more questions crowded in. Why did King Blank imitate Dylan's album cover? Was it a tribute or a mockery? The music had little to do with Dylan...or perhaps among those songs, despite the Post-punk matrix, the shadow of old Bob was really hovering? In a way, post-electric Dylan had been a proto-punk, and then Dylan always had something to do with it because, as a friend of mine said, Dylan is God.

I looked at the clock and realized it was almost time to go on air. I left the vinyl on the turntable. “Tonight I will start with King Blank!”, I thought as Ian Lowery looked at me, serious, from the cover photo.