The Endless List

As we rolled on down the road towards Suffolk, Amy wondered why an open top car is cool, whereas driving a car with all the windows down marks you out as a loser. Could be the broken air conditioning. It’s on the endless list of stuff I’ve been meaning to get around to.

I often feel like my life is an obstacle course of stuff that needs doing. We were rolling towards Suffolk because the Latitude Festival needed doing.

I’ve been busy finishing up a new album - first the recording, then the mixing - day after day of it. I love it all but it moves at a very slow pace. You can’t rush it - that is, you can, but I prefer not to - the simple truth with anything creative is that it takes as long as it takes.

And then there’s the packaging - I always think this time it’s going to be simple but it’s always more complicated than I thought it was going to be. In this case the problem was copious sleeve notes. I got it all together with our very good friend, Karen Hall, an artist, designer and visionary who has even more loose screws than I do.

Karen lives nearby so it’s no problem to drive over with pages and pages of handwritten notes, sketches, diagrams, pieces of wood with stuff painted on them…

And back home to face the chaos ahead of an imminent invasion of builders. The house is suddenly overrun by men who wear shorts all year round. Big men following the progress of electrical cables from fusebox to outhouse, cutting holes through walls for wastepipes and extracter fans. It’ll be nice when it’s finished.

And on to Suffolk in an old car with a brand new MOT. It was wet, getting muddy. Amy was incredulous: ‘Do people actually pay money to do this?’

We drove to a far-flung field - the artist’s parking - following a large, red utility vehicle driven by a man called Stuart. The artist’s parking was full of small, sensible cars - Ford Focus, Volkswagen Polo, the odd Yaris or Ka, and the occasional rental van. Once it would have been Rolls Royces and Bentleys, tour buses and Aston Martins. I wondered what Sting showed up in - a Subaru Forester, a Tesla perhaps. The Tesla would have suited him, him being the wanker that he is.

Stuart loaded us and all our equipment into the utility vehicle and we made the long trip to the Trailer Park stage in slow, sardine-like intimacy. We arrived shellshocked and squashed, and stood around ineffectually as big, capable men carried our equipment across the mud through dripping trees, stacked it in a dank storage container and labelled everything with fluorescent gaffa tape.

Mark Kermode and his band the Dodge Brothers were playing before us. It was good to see him - I like his film reviews and I like him, but since I got kicked off Twitter and Twitter became X I’ve missed him.

We all hung out in a portacabin. I made a cup of tea, more for something to do - it was quite a project. The Dodge Brothers played, we carried on hanging out in the portacabin while the rain kept coming and going, and then it was time for us.

The stage was a trailer, a semi-derelict, post-psychedelic, seventies trip. The monitor man was in the living room, the drums were in a dining alcove, and there was an avocado toilet on a plynth between the drums, the kitchen and the bass amp. It was undoubtedly the best toilet on the festival site, but very public and thankfully decommissioned.

Eric at the Latitude Festival with Morris Windsor on drums plus (not pictured) Amy Rigby guitar and Graham (Graham) Beck keyboards and keyboard bass. Thanks to Sue Butler for the photo.

We were quite nervous, it being our first show together. The sound was a bit blurry with the drums in the dining alcove and the bass amp in the corner behind a partition but I could hear the vocals and our amps were loud, and it felt like there was some intention and forward propulsion. We were alloted an hour but we did a succinct thirty five minutes, ten minutes less than what I’d calculated it might be. We finished with Standing Water from the Leisureland album with it’s psychedelic interlude before the end chorus. The interlude went on a bit too long and perhaps didn’t float in the way I would have liked, but it was okay. We should have played another song or two but I was worried we might have outstayed our welcome so we left it at that.

I’d told the promoter I wasn’t sure what everyone was expecting and he said ‘You’re Wreckless Eric, you can do anything you want!’ So I suppose that’s what I did.

As I came off stage a woman accosted me: ‘Excuse me, I’m Fat Boy Slim’s sister - I knew your mother when I was at Sussex University.’

We’re doing it all again this coming weekend - Saturday night in Hebden Bridge at the Trades Club and then Sunday at the Blackpool Opera House as the final act at the Rebellion Festival. I’ve resisted offers to do Rebellion for years but the offers kept on coming. They need me, I’m one of the last men standing. I’ll probably disappoint - disappointment usually ensues when I intersect with the punk masses, but as one of the few remaining un-bricked-up portals into the heady days of punk, new wave, anarchy, freedom and Stiff Records I have a duty to perform. We’re even working up a version of Take The Cash. And is it too late to mention that I once had my photo taken with Rat Scabies, Captain Sensible and Cat Woman from the Bromley Contingent?

I think it probably is.

August
09 HEBDEN BRIDGE Trades Club
10 BLACKPOOL Rebellion Festival, Opera House
16 BEDFORD Esquires
30 SUFFIELD, NORFOLK Suffield Summer Fiesta

September
11-14 KUFSTEIN, AUSTRIA Sprachslaz Literary Festival

October
19 CHELMSFORD Hot Box

November
23 CHICHESTER The Havana

more dates being added - new album November 21st - details to follow