From “I'm A Mess” To “We're a Mess”

(Note that button on his guitar strap!)

Wreckless Eric did it. By it, I mean have a hit, twenty years after the fact, with one of those neglected classics of the late seventies I prattle on so much about. “Whole Wide World” is a magisterial song, one that demolishes the distinctions between the bottom of the gutter and the top of the pop charts. And now, everyone from Will Ferrell to the Proclaimers to Napoleon Dynamite has contributed to the song’s 21st century ubiquity.



I could go on but this is not the place to dote on that which already suffers from lavish praise (but do go here to hear the 2006 World Cup version and others by the Monkees(!) and Die Toten Hosen). Let us rather consider the messier parts of Eric the Wreckless’ saga. After making an almost commercial album that he loathed like a self-inflicted wound, Eric was dropped by Stiff Records. This conflict was detailed in “A Pop Song” which was, ironically, a damn fine piece of song-writing.



Next, like Neil Young before him, Eric went from the middle of the road straight to the ditch. Like Neil, Eric’s raw voice and penchant for noise can make for difficult listening but there’s a rough beauty in much of it. Case in point, in 1985 Eric released A Roomful of Monkeys by his band the Captains of Industry, offering not some Randist fantasy of capitalist might but rather a bleak indictment of the mess that was Thatcher's England. It’s somber melodicism was a deliberate break with his old jolly, “I’m a Mess” personae - it’s a bit like a record Joe Strummer could’ve have made in 1985. In fact, Eric at this time was managed by former Clash road manager Johnny Green who’d brought former Clash deputies Norman Watt-Roy and Mickey Gallagher in to record the album. (Side note, Eric later recorded “The Crooked Beat", Clash bassist Paul Simonon’s contribution to Sandinista for the odd tribute album, The Sandanista Project.

Wreckless Eric - Crooked Beat

The album, his last before an alcohol-fueled nervous breakdown, is a bit subdued but grows in power with repeated and careful, listening, of particular note is the more traditionally Wreckless song, "Reputation (A Serious Case of)".
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Download A Roomfull of Monkeys

For the full low-down on the man’s messy career read this excellent interview, from which we pinched the image below.

Next: A Bright Idea

Killed By Volume: Six-Point-Three

As the seventies turned into the eighties and the initial excitement over punk's cultural year zero vanished many of the angry young men of that time dug their old skeletons - Dylan, The Stones or Brucie Springsteen (as punk-polemicist Tom Robinson used to call him) - from the musical closet.

White Heat (see here), ended their career in 1981 with these six aiming-for-the-big-league Rock songs. This 12" contains re-recorded versions of two songs from their singles and four new tracks. The punk obscurists devalue it for it's classic rock (*cough* Brucie) production and playing but most of it, the title track aside, is still punchy new wave with the occasional histrionics.


White Heat - Living in the UK


Download - In the Zero Hour

Killed By Volume: Six-Point-Two

For their next single, 1981'sThe City Beat, White Heat (see here) took aim at the mainstream.

"The City Beat" is a Springteen-esque paean to the redemptive powers of dirty streets and rock n' roll - it's the Gaslight Anthem 18 years too early.

The flip side's "It's No Use", while still attacking the disco era, is even more indebted to The Boss - it's Jungleland Night at the corner of Tenth Avenue and Thunder Road! Ye-ah!

The following video is for Bob Smeaton's wonderfully-named band, Loud Guitars, who do a good Big Country-ish song before becoming radiant when they break into a viscerally rockin' version of "City Beat".


Download The City Beat

Killed By Volume: Six-Point-One

Sometimes the real action is on the B-side. White Heat's (see here) second single from 1980, features "Finished With the Fashions" another broadside against late seventies excess (this time slamming the Eagles!) which has some fine drama and a good pop-reggae feel. Now flip the record (use your imagination, dammit!) and let "Ordinary Joe" infect your nervous system. The song's subject is not Joe Strummer, as a very cursory listen might suggest, but Jesus Christ himself. The song's narrative details a casual meeting with Jesus of the the type pioneered by John Prine and hacked out by a million alt-country wannabe's ever since. It is an odd story-line for late seventies London, as opposed to say, Austin, Texas but it's the fiery playing, full of inventive vocal and guitar inter-play that drives the song to sound like some big show tune stripped-down and then souped-up.


White Heat - Ordinary Joe

Download Finished With the Fashions b/w Ordinary Joe

Killed By Volume: Six

There in an invisible British top forty chart for the late 1970's. It features a deluge of kids with guitars, suits and a definite article who banged out brilliant pop singles that, owing to a glut of the same, never topped the real, paper charts of the time. Near the top of this invisible chart of great unknown hits is "Nervous Breakdown" by White Heat.

Formed in Newcastle 1976, White Heat, Alan Fish (Guitars), Colin Roberts (Bass), Bob Smeaton (Vocals), Bryan Younger (Guitars), and John Miller/George Waters (Drums) blew out out of the starting gate with their debut single in 1980. The A-side, "Nervous Breakdown", is a monster track that incorporates mod beats, rock n' roll guitars, a gargantuan hook, Springsteen-ish emoting and anti-pop lyrics that take dead aim at Barry Manilow. Everyone disses the Clash-lite B-side, "Sammy Sez", but it's still a pretty fair reggae-pop-punk number.

Do not miss the, more intense live version of "Nervous Breakdown" but avoid gawking at Bob's suspenders, his buffness or his propensity for dropping and giving twenty push-ups in mid-song!



Download Nervous Breakdown