Wreckless Eric News Page August 2001

August 7th - can't remember where I'm up to without going on the site myself and I haven't got time. Besides, it's pissing with rain outside. The latest surprise is two nights with the Blockheads at the Jazz Café next Monday and Tuesday. Sorry it's such short notice, apparently Phill's on holiday. I only just got the call at the end of last week and Uncle Tony's been off on his second honeymoon (Paris), so we couldn't post it on the site because I don't know how to do that sort of thing - Tony's the Site Manager. It's a responsible job but somebody's got to do it. The Jazz Café isn't the sort of venue where you misbehave. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. The Blockheads have never seen my solo "work". Anyone who has knows it can be a chaotic affair - but rewarding nonetheless etc…
This week I've been recording a track for a CD celebrating fifty years or ten years or twenty-five years or something of a club called La Zone in Liege, which is in Belgium. It was a bit of a rush job but I've come up with a poppy, punky, bubblegummy sort of thing called Barry Wilson Sings 'Indie'. I wasn't allowed to write it due to the pedantic ins and outs of European copyright law, so I got my friend Amanda Huggenkiss to write it for me. I'd like to thank Becci for putting me in touch with this non-copyright-protected composer of utter drivel…
We're going on holiday tomorrow. We're going to the North Humberside Riviera (Hull) for a few days. I'm going to get back in touch with my beery, amphetemine-fuelled art school roots - which is a piss-take of the writing style of that semi-literate Joe Cushley who thinks we're collaborating on a book about Stiff Records. He's so fucking sure of it that he's announced it in the sleevenotes of the latest Stiff re-releases. I'd said I'd think about it - and I did consider it for a short while, but to be honest, if I was going to collaborate on a book, I'd at least do it with someone who can actually write - not a goon who describes Dave Edmunds as 'a pub-rock odd-job man who also performed session and production chores for Stiff'. People like Joe Cushley always put these things into a matey, workaday context because they can't even envisage a world of creativity, let alone take part in it. For the record, Dave Edmunds 'production and session chores' were limited to a couple of tracks on A Bunch of Stiffs, England's Glory by Max Wall, and an appearance on Stiff's Live Stiffs. When Jake Riviera left Stiff Records, Edmunds placed himself firmly in the Riviera camp, and Jake's artists never performed chores for Stiff Records. But Cushley wouldn't know that, because he wasn't there. I could think of a million ways to describe Dave Edmunds in one sentence for the purposes of a sleeve note, and all of them would be more interesting - and I wouldn't have to resort to a thesaurus to do it. You'd better stay out of my way Joe Cushley.

I bet you all thought I'd forgotten how to upset people. If there's anybody left I see you at the Jazz Café next week. I'm off to polish up my Django Reinhardt licks.

August 14th The Jazz Cafe
That was a bit of a laugh last night. I heard that some of the jazz aficionados took exception to my guitar playing. What a shame, I put in the discords especially for them. Afterwards I met Keith West who was in the group Tomorrow in the sixties. He wrote My White Bicycle and Excerpt From A Teenage Opera if anyone remembers them. I do, so I was thrilled to bits. It turns out that he's Dylan Howe's step-father. (Dylan Howe plays drums with the Blockheads, his dad is Steve Howe who was the guitar player in Yes.) Keith told me that nobody knew who I was because I didn't play Whole Wide World. I was going to but it slipped my mind. For the anoraks the set consisted of Joe Meek, Reconnez Cherie, The Golden Hour Of Harry Secombe, Harry's Flat, Someone Must've Nailed Us Together and True Happiness. I related a couple of stories too, and used my right to exercise crowd control - like make sure everyone shut up and listened, which they did. They were a lovely audience and I would've liked to have taken them all home with me but they wouldn't fit in the Volvo.

Clevor Trever went OK but I had a bit of trouble with my fuzz box. I'm going to try a different one tonight - I'm taking the Big Muff. I fucked up the second verse by taking a wrong turn on the second line. I don't think anyone noticed. When the Blockheads did Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick I really missed Ian and I felt very sad. Apart from that I had a good time. If Ian's looking on from somewhere I think he'd feel I was doing it right. I've got to get ready to drive up to London for tonight's fiasco. Apparently Courtney Pine's going to play. I'll be on about half past eight I should think.

August 21st -Tuesday night at the Jazz Café went off all right - in fact I was slightly disconcerted at how well I seemed to be going down. It was almost as if me and the audience had rehearsed it in private beforehand. I really enjoyed it both nights. The Blockheads liked it too - none of them had ever seen my solo thing before, now they're very keen to have me do more with them - which suits me. I hope we can make it happen.

To my mind the Blockheads themselves were a bit lack-lustre on Monday night, they didn't quite engage with the audience. It was OK, but on Tuesday they really got it on. I think they could drop a lot of the old stuff and park the guest singers. There's enough substance for them to exist now as a band rather than an ex backing band. I hope that in the future when I go and see them I'll think they're great and wonder if one day they might ask me to come up and do my version of Clevor Trever with them - if they can still remember it.

August 23rd - that Joe Cushley seems to be upset - well, I suppose he would be. He keeps issuing ultimatums - I think I'm supposed to retract what I've said and apologise. If not he's going to post a lot of home truths about my behaviour in the past few months on the egroup thing. It's a kind of blackmail really, but as I've done nothing that I'm ashamed of he can go ahead. Really I wish he'd just fuck off and be boring somewhere else but who am I to try and inhibit freedom of speech?

Fifteen people in a field… the Thetford solstice is definitely on. There's been some trouble with the entertainments licence but as it's just me on my own they can't touch us, so the event's moved out of the field and back into the pub, so we can all wear designer clothes or some of that other shit I've been reading about like jeans with insets that didn't flare, evening suits with whatever the plural of phallus is (is it phallae?) painted on the back or ex-army garments adorned with the slogan Jimi Hendrix Man. Oh yes, I keep my ear to the ground - I know what you've been wearing because I was there. (And I'm keeping very quiet about it myself…)

An uncanny thing has happened… The other weekend my friend Karen Hibberd who makes films was filming a sequence from a film about a washing machine that falls in love with a tumble dryer. They were doing this in a remote spot on the East Coast, a place called Heads Cove I think. Just as they were about to start filming (or should that be rolling?) a man walked past wearing a Wrecklesseric.com t-shirt. We think this man should win a small prize if he'd like to step forward and can prove that he was the man in question.