Wreckless Eric News Page April 2002

THE ROSS REPORT

I think that went all right. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon now and I’m sitting on a train which is just about to leave Liverpool Street Station bound for Norfolk. I haven’t had any feedback whatsoever because I left my mobile behind in the rush to leave the house in time to catch the eight o’clock train this morning. Trouble was we went to see Wilko Johnson last night. It was great – Wilko with Norman Watt Roy on bass and Monti on drums. Wilko’s always been a hero of mine - I use to go and see the Feelgoods and gaze at him in astonishment with my friend Stuart Ross who was the guitar player in Addis & The Fliptops. We couldn’t figure out how he did it, and I still can’t even now. What comes out of the speakers just doesn’t match up with what he appears to be doing on the guitar. His left hand hardly moves while the right hand is just a blur. It’s a miracle, Wilko is possibly the eighth wonder of the world, and a shamen too. He’s changed over the years, and now with the advent of hair loss he’s developed a persona which is part punch drunk boxer and part gun toting psycho.

Anyway, I expect you all want to know how I got on with Jonathan. Andy Davies briefed me on Wednesday at the Minx Club, and from what he said I was expecting a complete monster. I was expecting to be torn to shreds – I was expecting it to be a little edgy at the very least. But in the event he was the nicest person you could wish to meet. He shook my hand and told me how pleased he was to have me on the show because he’s always been a big fan, and I told him that I was a fan of his – which I am, I love the radio show and the TV show is great too – he actually asked God’s best mate Cliff Richard when he last had a shag, and not just the once, he had the nerve to keep pushing the question.
Because it’s only radio, and you can’t see him, and it all happens a bit early in the morning, you might imagine that he wouldn’t make the effort. I know I’ve had a picture of him in my mind lounging around in jeans and a tee shirt, or a manky old pair of jogging bottoms, but it’s not so. He was wearing the full clobber – puce coloured jacket, shirt, tie, the works. And he didn’t slouch either, he sat upright in his chair just as though he was on the telly. Andy was looking sartorial too, in a black suit. I felt as though I’d come dressed as a janitor. (I didn’t really.)

Jonathan and Andy made me feel so at home that I sort of forgot I was on the radio. There we were having a chat and he asked me what I was up to these days and I couldn’t quite remember. I’m terrible at that sort of thing – I know what I should say is that I’m writing a book, doing loads of solo gigs, writing material for a new album, and making a film for the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, but when someone asks me, my mind goes blank and all I can generally think of is that I went to the supermarket last Tuesday and yesterday I unblocked the kitchen sink. People think I’m self-effacing, but this just isn’t true – I’ve got an ego the size of a house. Hopefully I’ve got it under control. I think you need an ego to play music, but only when you’re actually doing it. Otherwise you run the risk of turning into a show-biz arsehole.

This became apparent (not that I’m a show-biz arsehole) when it was time to play. Suddenly I was absolutely focused, decisive and in control of myself. I played Joe Meek, which was a request from Andy. In a way I wished I’d done The Golden Hour Of Harry Secombe because it’s one of my favourites, but perhaps it’s a bit quick for that time in the morning. Joe Meek went all right anyway, and I even got through the instrumental break without a hitch. Jonathan was astonished at the change in me – he said, ‘you’re almost autistic the rest of the time…’

Jonathan Ross is a lovely man. I’m thrilled that I finally got to meet him and that he lived up to expectation. If I can find a picture of him on the net I’ll paste it in round about here…

Shame about that – I had a vision of one of those large, high quality portraits but we’ll just have to make do with this because whoever’s looking after Jonathan is doing a good job, to the extent that the computer refuses to load this picture into photo shop so that I can fuck it up. It’d make a damned good postage stamp though…

That’s right – sold out! It might not be the biggest venue in the world and in fact it’s probably one of the smallest, but I’m still going to have self-obsessed moment of glory over it. I wish I’d thought to get Tony to take a photo of the board outside with ‘sold out’ chalked over the top of it. We’ll just have to make do with the crappy graphic at the top of the page.

And while we’re on the subject of Tony and crappy graphics… it occurred to us that there isn’t a picture of Tony and me together, or indeed Tony on his own, anywhere on the website. A lot of people may have their own private fantasies about Tony, and indeed I’ve tried to pass him off as one of those tall, suave characters in mirrored sunglasses and smoking a cheroot, in an attempt at some sort of displacement therapy for my own shortcomings, but the time has come to reveal the truth – Britain’s grooviest independent website is actually run by two middle-aged men. Tony’s work mates have been cut out to avoid legal complications and I’m the git on the right:

Well… that’s got that over with. The Minx Club was terrific fun. It’s very friendly and intimate – the sort of place you could go to on your own and not spend the evening alone. I’m not suggesting that it’s a good place to pull, though that might be possible too. It’s good value for money – you pay about nine quid but you get Thai food as well, and it’s really good. (As a reviewer I’m think I’m fairly lame – nice, but lame.)

I think I played quite a long set. I even included a couple of songs from A Roomful Of Monkeys, the Captains Of Industry album that I’ve always professed to being ashamed of, if anybody could even get me to admit to it. I’m not so sure about that now. It was the eighties, and everybody in the pop world seemed hellbent on having a party – glamour all the way, and there were vacuous groups like the Belle Stars and Bananarama floating about. I was on the slippery slope – something that had been pointed out to me at the time by a mouthy female fan (or possibly ex-fan) in a dressing room in Edinburgh. Britain was in the first thrall of Thatcherism – new money, yuppies, easy mortgages, all that shit. I lived in Chatham which was heavily depressed because they’d closed down the dockyards. It seemed that every day another shop got boarded up on the high street. I couldn’t equate life in the Medway Towns with what I saw on that TV programme ‘The Tube’, or Top Of The Pops. I started writing songs about what was going on around me – failure, low-life and the utterly mundane. It seemed that nobody wanted to hear it – not in the world of cocaine and party frocks. I remember one review, or slagging off rather, which talked about ‘this horrible album peopled by misfits and morons…’

I think the production let it down. I knew what I wanted but I dodn’t know how to get it. The vocals are weak and the vocal sound is bland to say the least. But Norman Watt Roy was the bass player, and Mickey Gallagher and Steve Naïve played keyboards on it, and some of my guitar playing was all right, and lyrically it was spot on. I fell in with a couple of ex-Milkshakes and formed the Len Bright Combo. None of that lot could see any good in the Captains album, principally as far as I could see because it hadn’t been recorded in a garden shed. But Combo sets always included two songs from that album – Julie and Our Neck Of The Woods. These two numbers sounded much better played by the Len Bright Combo, though sadly we never recorded them.

Recently I’ve thought a lot about this album and I started playing songs from it for my own amusement during my half-hearted attempts at rehearsing. (I do actually rehearse, or practice a bit you know.) I’ve been wondering if I could somehow frame those songs differently in a live solo set, but I haven’t quite got the nerve to pull it off yet. But I started at the Minx by playing most of Land Of The Faint At Heart before I lost my bottle, and Home & Away. It wasn’t the high point of the set but I’m working on it. I’m also working on some new stuff, but that’s coming along very slowly.

Here’s a vague run down of the Minx set for the anoraks: The Final Taxi, Lureland, Joe Meek, Reconnez Cherie, The Golden Hour Of Harry Secombe, The Laurel Tree/Denim ‘n’ Lace, Land Of The Faint At Heart, Home & Away, Flexible Friend, Someone Must’ve Nailed Us Together, Fuck By Fuck, True Happiness, Whole Wide World, Semaphore Signals, Walking On The Surface Of The Moon, Can’t See The Woods (For The Trees).

I’d like to thank everybody involved in the Minx Club for making it such a great place to play, and everyone who turned up. I felt proud to have come through everything and to still be able to do this at the tender age of forty-seven (but play younger).

APRIL 17^th – lunchtime

I ought to update things more regularly and then I wouldn’t get so behind. Last night I had to fly down to London (by car in actual fact, but I did eighty most of the way) to appear on the ‘Backstage Pass’ feature on the drive time programme on BBC Radio London, or London Live or whatever they call it now that it isn’t GLR. It isn’t half posh now – they must’ve spent a fortune on it, and the result is a cross between a new Sainsbury’s and a call centre. I was on air for about five minutes, in which time I manage to name check Herman’s Hermits and Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich and play Joe Meek live. The presenters (whose names I’ve gone and forgotten in the rush) laughed a lot which puzzled me because I didn’t think I was being particularly funny, just trying not to be too boring. They were very pleased and someone said it was the best ‘Backstage Pass’ they’d ever had. It must be a new feature.

Speeding through the London traffic at a sensible thirty miles an hour, I was alerted by my travelling companion to a message on my mobile cellular telephone thing from Andy Davies inviting me to do the Jonathan Ross show on Saturday. How unbelievably glamorous – dashing to one important publicity engagement whilst being invited to do another!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/index.shtml

I’m a big fan of the Jonathan Ross Show. I try to listen in most Saturdays. I’ve never met him before, so logically he’s never met me. I hope he doesn’t take a dislike to me or anything. I’ve met Andy Davies and he was all right. The Minx is his club (or should that be the Minx Club is his ?) I ought to rush now to get there in time for that all important soundcheck as they say in the business. Test… check… one two etc…

I haven’t got a clue what I’m going to play.

Normally I’d do something to try and jazz up the look of things, but as I haven’t got time you’ll just have to make do with a photo of me and Norman in Milton Keynes. I look a bit poofy in this one, but for once I’m the tallest person in the photo because Norman’s a bit hunched. This photo comes courtesy of Lee Harris who runs the excellent official Blockheads site: