The
last time Wreckless Eric, aka Eric Goulden, sang his 1977 should've-been
hit single,
(I'd Go The) Whole Wide World, in these parts was last
summer at Edinburgh Castle, when he joined The Proclaimers in their
rendition. Henry's may not be quite so grand, but given that the former
Stiff Records recording artist let slip that Edinburgh is where he
and new wife Amy Rigby had their first date, it's a homecoming of sorts.
This joint low-key tour on the back of the pair's eponymously named
album is a perfect match of English punk troubadour spirit and Nashville
garage band sentiment that Goulden dubs Home Counties and western.
With only a couple of guitars, a keyboard and a laptop onstage with
them, it's this veteran sense of self-deprecation that wins out over
any accusations of old-lag nostalgia.
As each accompanies the other's material, there's a melancholy to newer
songs such as Another Drive on Saturday that's clearly come with experience,
but any leanings towards the maudlin are pricked by the comedy of Rigby's
Men In Sandals and Goulden's shaggy-dog stories about how Nellie Olsen
(or Little Nell as he calls her) from Little House on the Prairie is
a fan. Both have impeccable back catalogues, and it's clearly an equal
partnership.
"I'm a lucky man" says Goulden introducing (I'd Go The) Whole
Wide World. "This is how we met." Thirty-one years on, it
sounds like vindication has come at last.
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This
is such a kind and obviously well meant review that it would be churlish
of me to give it the usual hatchet treatment. But fuck it - my public
awaits, I've got a job to do.
It's true - I was with the Damned, Amy was with an English backing
band and our Scottish dates coincided. It looked to me like Amy's
guitar player was sweet on Amy. He was also a vegan so in an attempt
to get him out of the picture I proposed taking Amy for a deep fried
Mars Bar. We still haven't done that but the guitar player (Tony
Thewlis of The Scientists) is happy with someone else now so I suppose
we don't need to. Which is a blessing because I wasn't really looking
forward to it.
Nashville garage band sentiment seems a trifle strange when
I think of Amy's Nashville recordings, but punk troubadour spirit takes
the biscuit.Or should that be deep fried Mars Bar? I thought it was
me that did garage band - Amy's much more the punk troubadour than
I
am.
That
is if
anything
has
to be
a punk
troubadour and please God they don't.
At the risk of sounding pedantic (though pedantic is quite
the word I would have chosen) it was only my song School
from The Donovan Of Trash that I said was
(not dubbed) Home Counties 'n' Western. And while I'm about it there
were four guitars and a bass. Why does my bass playing never get
a mention?
I thought Another Drive-In Saturday (not Another Drive on Saturday,
it's not a car ferry) was decidedly un-melancholic, much more a celebration
of youth after the fact.
I hope Allison whatnot doesn't read this!
I am a lucky man - I can't go on with this hatchet job!
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