One of the glorious things about Punk Rock is how it can appropriate anything from Elvis and beyond to any misfit with some vaguely punky attitude who was part of the zeitgeist of 1977... and quite rightly so!

And so we arrive at the legend that was and is Wreckless Eric. Diminutive in stature the Norman Wisdom of punk/new wave/power pop/Find yer own label, Wreckless Eric AKA Eric Goulden arrived on Stiff Records doorstop at the fag end of Pub Rock and secured a contract on the strength of a cassette he had banged out. While he buggered off on holiday Nick Lowe picked up on the tape and the 'Whole Wide World' single was on its way.
   
More Punk by association his drunken, shambolic performances may have shared some common ground but you'd be pushing it to say his sound was Punk. Like Ian Dury (Wreckless loved the Kilburns and even covered one of their songs Rough Kids on a later album) he was a sharp idiosyncratic bitter sweet songwriter and a master of the portraying the normal and gritty side of life. And his songs like Dury's, Costello's and others on the fashionable Stiff label fitted the punk zeitgeist

The infamous Live Stiffs in October 1977 saw him stepping out on the road with Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Larry Wallis and Ian Dury.
   
One of Erics gems he gave the world was the sublime 'Whole Wide World.' It was also to be his albatross as even as early as 1978 he would leave the track till the end joking (or perhaps knowingly) that that way the audience wouldn't walk out!

He managed 2 albums land a handful of singles and he was dropped by Stiff. Unfortunately everything he released wasn't a hit despite massive full page ad advertising campaigns by Stiff at the beginning and it was a slow slide into obscurity and legend. Falling out with Stiff he left the label and the music business. The seventies went by and the Eighties effectively sidelined him.

Relocating to France He returned with the Captains Of Industry Len Bright Como (but people wanted to see Wreckless Eric) before effectively resurfacing with his successful and excellent autobiography "A Dysfunctional Success: The Wreckless Eric Manual". As we speak in 2008 Wreckless is back with just himself and a guita and with the same wags still shouting out for 'Whole Wide World' and him playing it last! Good on yer Eric!!

 

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