We went to see the first of two of my musical heros today. I think secretly, Eric does not really want to be known as Wreckless any more, but I think he has tried changing his stage persona a few times, but when you had your biggest hit under the name of Wreckless Eric, I suppose it's better not to confuse the public and stick to your original persona. Even in his mid 50's, Eric is still Wreckless.
Eric was one of the original artists on the iconic Stiff label, was a close friend of Ian Dury and he is one of the best and most idiosyncratic songwriters I've ever had the pleasure to hear. He's also one of the genuinely funniest people I've ever met, although I think the audience in "Frisco struggled a but with the more biting aspects of Eric's humour. The dialogue on Eric's "25 years at the BBC" CD between Eric and Mark Radcliffe (who is also one of the funniest people ever in my opinion, although I don't think he has aged as well as Eric recently), when Eric did a session for Radcliffe is priceless and it always makes me smile. The dialogue between Eric and Jonathan Ross on the same CD is worth a listen too, although I don't find Jonathan Ross very funny, Eric rose to the occasion. Asked if he liked tribute bands, Eric responded that he was thinking of forming his own tribute band as a tribute to himself - brilliant.
I last saw Eric in a year like 2004 in a tiny pub in Haymarket in Edinburgh and he played to around a crowd of 20. My mate Ian and I had numerous beers whilst watching him and ended up meeting him after and found him a great guy in person, very generous of his time with his legion of fans that were there that night. We even sang the opening lines to "Whole Wide World" together, as I always had a hard time working out the second line of the chorus. I found out later that Eric did what I often do when writing songs and got the music and lyric out of synch and had to kind of squeeze his words into not quite enough music, so I think he must get fed up explaining what that second line is. He even signed a copy of his 1991 classic "Donovan of Trash" which was on sale at the venue on glorious vinyl. Although Ian wanted him to sign it "to the Pooheads" and Eric misheard him and put "to the Pinheads" and Ian made him change it. I wasn't so sure that you should correct a punk icon.
his time around Eric played another pub, this time in Protero Hill in San Francisco. I never thought I'd see Eric in the US, but he has now married an American songwriter called Amy Rigby, so hopefully he will be here more often now. As one of those amazing pieces of fate or coincidence he met his wife to be in the same pub in Hull (he went to art school in Hull) where he first played "Whole Wide World" to the general public. Amy played "Whole Wide World" as part of her set and Eric approached her afterwards and told her his one hit only had two chords and she had them both wrong. Very Eric!
Eric is now doing shows with Amy, so it's really the Eric and Amy show now, or maybe the Wreckless and Rigby show. Generous as ever with his time, Eric and Amy were happy to meet the fans after the show and I was touched that Eric even seemed to pretend to remember me from our encounter in a Haymarket pub in '04 (he can't really, can he?). Eric maintains a very caustic and funny blog in his diary section of www.wrecklesseric.com and we had time to have a chat about his latest entries where he was having a go at fat badly dressed Americans - imagine that. Amy also has a good blog, actually on blogger, that is worth a read.
Eric and Amy also seemed cool with the audience videoing parts of their show. Although due to the fact that Eric and Amy didn't come on till around 11pm and me (punctual as ever) insisted on us being there at 9 which is what the ticket said, I had a right few beers before Eric came on (which actually never seem quite as enjoyable or acceptable in America as it does in Scotland, shame about that) and started singing along, especially when he played old favorites like Reconez Cherie or Kilburn Lane and therefore spoiled another tape by singing along. Some things never change.
Eric's diary is at www.wrecklesseric.com, Amy's diary is at http://amyrigby.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment