WRECKLESS ERIC – England Screaming – LP – Black Vinyl [NOV 21]

LP – Standard Edition Black Vinyl.

“That album has always been a regret to me because I think these songs mark my coming of age as a songwriter, but not, alas, as a recording artist.

In 1985 Eric Goulden released an album entitled A Roomful Of Monkeys on the Go! Discs label under the name Captains Of Industry. It was a disaster – most people didnt like it – where it wasnt roundly ignored it was critically slated. Forty years later he decided to use these songs, written in the Medway Towns between 1982 and 84, as the basis for a new album: England Screaming.

I felt liberated: my songwriting took on an entirely different tone. There was no one telling me what I should be writing any more, so I wrote about what was around me, stuff I knew about – drugs, home-ownership, bankruptcy and bridal wear; being from somewhere, keeping up appearances, delusion, failure

On the new recordings Eric played most of the instruments himself. Sam Shepherd played the drums, Amy Rigby and Marc Valentine sang backing vocals, and contributed piano along with Erics art school friend, performance artist Graham (Graham) Beck. England Screaming is a sonically savage world apart from
the insipid, half-arsed (Erics words) original album. He has succeeded in marrying a young and unrealised vision to the wisdom and experience of his older years, incidentally posing the question: how far have weactually come as a society?

As Wreckless Eric he needs little introduction – he wrote and recorded the classic Whole Wide World and had a hit with it back in 1977. Since then it’s been a hit for countless other artists including The Monkees, Cage The Elephant and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. Erics version featured in the 2022 Expedia /
Superbowl / Ewan MacGregor travel ad, and the Cage The Elephant version is the new theme tune for the podcast Smartless. As Eric Goulden it’s a little more complicated – a musician, artist, writer, recording engineer and producer, he didnt like either the music business, the mechanics of fame, or the name hed been given to hide behind, so he crawled out of the spotlight and disappeared into the underground. He
went on to release twenty something albums in forty something years under various names – The Len Bright Combo, Le Beat Group Electrique, The Donovan Of Trash, The Hitsville House Band, and with his wife as one half of Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby, finally realising he was stuck with the name Wreckless Eric.

Erics most recent album – 2023s Leisureland has all been widely praised as his best work. His albums encapsulate pop, bubblegum, garage trash and psychedelia – lyrical and sonic journeys, pop explosions, epic voyages, Polaroid snapshots

Tracklist:

A1. Lifeline
A2. Home & Away
A3. Playtime Is Over
A4. Lady Of The Manor

B1. Land Of The Faint At Heart
B2. The Lucky Ones
B3. Food Factory
B4. Our Neck Of The Woods