Denim 'N' Lace

DENIM ‘N’ LACE

It is a downright adorable story, and Wreckless Eric beams when telling it.  It goes like this:  he returns to Hull after years of the rock’n’roll lifestyle, goes back to the bar where he first played his wonderful one hit, “Whole Wide World”, and finds there, playing his song, Amy Rigby.

Amy looks bashful as he tells the story, looking still a little blushy about being talked about, laughing sincerely though she obviously already knows every part that’s coming, yet still tickled by the small details and variations Eric throws in.  Like how he told her she was playing the wrong chords and she tried to explain unsuccessfully that she was playing it in a different key, or the way he describes the hulking bo-hunk boyfriend he imagined Amy, on tour in England from Nashville, having, or how he tried to get her out of his mind for years after, but never could.  So they got married.  And here they are.

Then Eric starts into the song, his voice still aching teenage feelings at 56, and as the chorus comes on Amy joins in, adding her acoustic to his hollow body, belting out the words, no longer bashful, and it is fantastic, a sound that hits you in the chest.  It sounds just how the song should, or even better.  They are clearly in tune with each other.

The moment is lovely through and through, spoiled only by the fact that I’ve already heard the story, having seen the same routine in a video I watched in anticipation of their performance in Bloomsburg.  It is likely he tells this story every time he plays a show, because every time he plays a show he is expected to sing “Whole Wide World”, his self-fulfilling prophecy, and besides, it makes for a great act.  And what’s more, no matter how many times the story is repeated, the sentiment still rings true.  They glance at each other as they go through the routine, and in those looks there is still some of the magic of the real moment, of the actual behind the act. 

I watched at least a dozen videos of Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby in the two months leading up to their Bloomsburg show.  I only vaguely knew who Wreckless Eric was when my brother Nick first told me he was going to book him for a show, and I knew nothing of Amy.  It was Nick’s first foray into organizing a show that was not just us and friends entertaining ourselves.  He found out that Eric and Amy were going to be doing a brief East Coast tour in November, and contacted them through Facebook to arrange a local stop at the Moose Exchange, a former Moose lodge, now turned into a community art space, as well as the home of Nick’s store, Endless Records.  I’m not sure how Nick first learned of Wreckless Eric, but he was a big fan.  I knew “Whole Wide World” from the movie Stranger Than Fiction, in which Will Ferrell sings the song to woo a darling baker played by Maggie Gyllenhaal.  I knew the part well because I used the movie one year to teach metafiction to high school kids who didn’t read, the year I taught the same thing seven times in a row each day, repeating every joke and gimmick that may have worked the class before, honing my act.  By the seventh viewing the scene and the song had rooted deep in my brain.  I even made my last class sit through the credits so I could see whose song it was.  So when Nick told me about the show, I understood why he was excited.  What Nick didn’t get, though, is that few others would.  Nick just assumed that, because of the song’s vaguely mainstream exposure in a far from popular Will Farrell movie, coupled with the song’s initial underground success, everyone in and around Bloomsburg would know who Wreckless Eric was, and would flock to see him if given a chance. 

Nick even sold tickets in advance, a formality unfamiliar to the local music scene, which typically consists of a few hippie jam bands, bar folk cover duos, and some high school punk and metal.  By the time the show was rolling around, only twenty tickets had been sold, most to family.  I bought one, even though I was part of the opening act, along with Nick and Quinn Collins.  Nick probably bought a ticket himself just to boost sales numbers.   He even made his own Wreckless Eric compilation, a career retrospective, from his first Stiff Records releases through projects like Captains of Industry, The Len Bright Combo, Le Beat Group Electrique, and his most recent work alongside Amy Rigby, but still no one was buying.  Nick had a guy come in the store and drop 30 bucks on the Wreckless Eric Big Smash! record, but when Nick told him that Wreckless Eric would be playing right there live the following week, the guy just gave a disinterested shrug.

I guess fickleness is just a part of entertaining for a living.  It is something Wreckless Eric is familiar with, having eked out a rock life that began at its peak, with decades of diminishing returns to follow, of playing where he could to whom he could, playing the one big hit more times than he had ever dreamed.  It is a tough thing, trying to age gracefully in rock’n’roll, something Eric takes the piss out of on his song “Denim ‘n’ Lace”, one he released in 1997 under his real name, Eric Gouldon.  It is a drum loop driven spoken word story song, uncomfortably alternative, but there is something unique and bizarrely brilliant about it.  It begins:

The only trouble was I didn’t know anyone in Chatham who had even the faintest idea how to be a bizarre little group- everybody I knew round there was stupid, especially the musicians- they all seemed to play in old pop groups like Vanity Fayre and Edison Lighthouse, reformed using none of the original members.

From there he launches into the story of Denim ‘n’ Lace, a “sort of grotesque lounge-bar-of-the-pub cabaret duo”, who after years of slumming it in the entertainment business, come upon the perfect solution. 

“…their hard times were about to end – they were going to buy a name.  They’d been offered a chart-topping pop group name – for fifteen hundred pounds they were going to become Picketty Witch and earn a living playing “I Still Get That Same Old Feeling” every night for the rest of their lives”.

There is an unmistakable disdain in the way he delivers that last part, one which I can’t help but imagine comes from somewhere personal, likely from playing “Whole Wide World” night after night for the rest of his life.  What’s worse, the hard times never do end for Denim ‘n’ Lace cum Picketty Witch.  One of the members gets busted for trafficking grass while on a lounge tour in the Middle East and is sentenced to death, and it is revealed that the point has been to say it is tough to find musicians in Chatham to start a band with.  As for Wreckless Eric Gouldon, he seems to be finding a much better end for his story, or at least the perfect person for his cool little combo.

Amy Rigby is as formidable a talent as her husband.  She was named Songwriter of the Year by Spin in 1996 for her album Diary of a Mod Housewife, recorded following divorce from dB’s drummer Will Rigby.  Robert Christgau declared it 1996’s “Concept Album of the Year”.  She followed it with five more solo albums over the next decade.  While performing, Eric makes a joke about her resemblance to Chrissie Hynde, but the comparison sort of fits, as does the one Nick makes when advertising the show, calling her a girl version of Loudon Wainwright.  And though Nick in his nervousness forgets to mention her when introducing Wreckless Eric and thanking him for coming, Amy is as much a headliner as her husband, as they take turns playing each other’s songs, and the songs and covers they have been working on together. 

They are touring in support of their album Two-way Family Favourites, their second album together and first made entirely of covers.  Their debut included a Johnny Cash cover, and an achingly great song called “Another Drive-In Saturday” which cleverly lifts lyrics from popular favorites in the same sort of way Built to Spill did on “You Were Right”.  Their newest album features covers as far reaching as Jackie DeShannon, Brian Wilson, ABBA, and 90’s Tom Petty, all of which they reinvent with subtle skill.  They’ve also put out a 7” of new material, Teflon Wok / Bobblehead Doll, which is fuzzy, noisy power pop that feels fresh, lively, and among the finest work either of them has done.  The best may be yet to come. 

Eric and Amy arrive at the Moose Exchange in a rental car, some kind of sedan.  They rent the same kind of car every time they go on tour, because they have figured out how to perfectly fit all their equipment in it.  Eric pops the trunk so we can help them carry everything inside, and there it is, looking like a Tetris player’s Master’s class—two guitars, bass, keyboard, amps, laptop, and some other miscellaneous gear.  Bloomsburg is the fourth stop on their month-long US tour, a why not between nights at the Bowery in NYC and the 400 Bar in Minneapolis.  Despite both nursing the remnants of a cold, they were able to fit in another show the night before, playing someone’s house somewhere near State College.  When they arrived at the Moose, Nick, Quinn, and I had been rehearsing our opening act, which was to be acoustic and toned down since Eric and Amy were playing without a full band and didn’t want to be out rocked.  Once we got them and their things inside, Eric was immediately worried about the size of the room, which is gargantuan compared to the size of most city clubs, but in a small town like Bloomsburg there is more space than there are things to do with it.  He asks about a smaller room to play in, and Nick shows him a small room that was until recently the office of an architectural firm, and the bowling alley basement as well.  It is decided that they will play in the Grille Room, as it is called, after all, but they are going to play in front of the stage instead of on it. 

We spread a rug out and start moving everything down to the floor.  Eric and Amy set up their equipment around the edges of the rug, which leaves Nick and Quinn a cozy 5 foot diameter to fit themselves in when we play, while I set my drums up off to the side of the rug, a part of the crowd Nick is still afraid will not show up.  Eric and Amy still need to sound check, which I am no help for, so I leave to grab a drink and something to eat.  I make it back to the Moose with only ten minutes before the show is to begin, and they are still sound checking, which in this case is okay, since no one is there yet, aside from my mom and a few others.  It is not looking good.  The PA system is too weak for the speakers, and for the room, and there is a buzzing noise they are trying to get rid of, one which will come in and out throughout the show.  As a sort of apology for the demands he’s making of the sound guy, Eric makes a joke about how, if it were 1964 and they were the Small Faces, they’d be playing through those, gesturing to the dingy old auditorium speakers built into the wall behind the stage. 

Soon the sound is deemed good enough, and more people start to show up, enough to fill most of the tables and chairs that have been set up in the room, but far fewer than Nick needs to break even with the night’s expenses.  But the show is worth every lost penny, especially since I wasn’t the one losing it.  They start things off with “Put a Little Love in Your Heart”, which they sing together with unabashed, convincing feeling, setting the mood for what would turn out to be a warm little love fest of a night.  They make an adorable couple, playing together, messing up and laughing it off, trading off songs and stories and adoring little quips.  They mostly play songs from their two albums together, though a few songs reach farther back, such as the Amy fav “Dancing With Joey Ramone” and “Just For You”, which Eric dusts off at Nick’s request.  And as much as every story they share may be practiced, part of the act, the night feels sincere and special, a moment loaded with magic of a feeling shared by former strangers.

They both seem incredibly happy, despite being a little under the weather, and they should be, having found a way to keep love and art alive in the face of the doldrums of time passing.  Eric keeps mentioning, enthusiastically, how young the crowd is, making old man jokes and talking about all the pee breaks his usual geezer crowd needs.  They even joke about wanting to move to Bloomsburg from France where they live now, everyone in the crowd ready to welcome them with open arms.  Seeing it all, being part of it, I feel a relief, a lightening, having gone through a wretched year of losing, of people hurt, and sense of place and purpose and direction all upended.  The songs, the charm, the love is not just for me, but it is there for me to share in, and it is just what I need.