Music review: Wreckless Eric/Duglas T Stewart

Inimitable BMX Bandits mainstay Duglas T Stewart warmed up for the imminent launch of his band's latest album Forever with this stripped-back set of songs for romantic fools, accompanied by cohorts Chloe and Stuart on guitar, bass, keyboard and lo-tech effects.

Wreckless Eric

Glad Café, Glasgow ***

The breeziness of the Glen Campbell-style country love song So Many Colours stood out next to unabashedly twee odes It’s In Her Eyes and Girl at the Bus Stop, while Stewart’s self-deprecating wit bound the set together with an easy charm.

Veteran punk troubadour “Wreckless” Eric Goulden, a fellow romantic fool were one to go by the sentiments expressed in his biggest hit, Whole Wide World, is another of pop’s cult characters, an offbeat philosopher who probably thinks six amazing things before breakfast. Within seconds of taking the stage, he was using seat occupancy in Glad Café’s cosy back room as a comparative analogy for the US defence budget versus the cost of clean drinking water for the rest of the world.

Goulden has lived in and toured round the US for the past five years to his perennial bewilderment, channelled here through a wayward set which frequently favoured angry guitar wrangling at the expense of tunes. Deep in the distortion and fiery reverb, there were hymns to Hull and Joe Meek, before he switched to electric guitar and cranked up the volume and freewheeling still further. Having exorcised some demons along the way, he finished with some tender, cleansing chords.