A Dysfunctional Life - The Wreckless Eric Manual

Description

With a new forewor by the author. In A Dysfunctional Success Eric Goulden writes with an acute eye for detail about growing up in the 60s and 70s in suburban South East England, discovering music and girls; life as an art student in the frozen north eastern town of Hull; the formation and dissolution of bands with desperate equipment, a home- made ethos and not much idea; his move to London in 1976 and subsequent recording debut on the newly formed Stiff Record label. This is an honest coming of age story from both sides of instant pop success: bands, squalid flats, menial jobs, making records, the rise to the point of fame and falling off into poverty and alcoholism in Thatcher's Britain, where Goulden ultimately survived the 1980's to achieve his own kind of success. Coming from a time when pop stars telling their own hard stories was a comparative rarity, A Dysfunctional Success rings as true today as it did when it was originally published twenty-one years ago. "I think I was hoping for insight into the early Stiff Records days, which I didn't get. What I got was much better, and a great deal more interesting: a shambling, acutely observed, very funny-sad-true-sharp autobiography..." Neil Gaiman. Eric has released albums in his many incarnations at a consistent rate since 1978. His latest album, 2023's Leisureland resulted in an appearance on BBC2's Later with Jools Holland, a new session for Marc Riley and Gideon Coe on BBC 6 Music and a string of features (The Guardian, Uncut, Record Collector, Shindig...) Eric Goulden escaped from his youthful home of Newhaven but his sympathy for those caught in the endless circle of helpless torpor and impassivity bleeds from every note. Henry Hutton - Shindig