wreckless eric collection complete. or is it?

Somehow, during the mid 1980's, despite being really interested in music, I kind of lost track of some of my favorite artists. Especially if they were recording for small labels.

Case in point: Wreckless Eric.

Despite being a big fan of his (on the strength of his recordings for Stiff Records. But in the years when I did all of my record shopping at record stores (and didn't know to look at the internet to see what was out there), I often missed things that would have interested me. So, when Eric released solo albums on small labels, and when a band he played with released albums on small labels, I totally missed it. Well, not quite. I remember hearing about it when he put out Le Beat Group Electrique. And somehow I heard about At the Shop. But until I started looking things up on the internet I kind of assumed that that was the extent of his post-Stiff albums.

But I was wrong. There was the album he did with the Hitsville House Band, the two albums with the Len Bright Combo. and some other solo work, including one album released under his given name, Eric Goulden. It wasn't easy to track down the albums, but I managed to find them all on CD* except for one. That one is A Roomful of Monkeys, which was the only album released by Captains of Industry (Eric, Norman Watt-Roy, Dick Adland and Mickey Gallagher).

Of course, my quest to get all of Eric's albums on CD was aided by various rereleases that seemed fortuitously timed.

But there was that nagging issue of that Captains of Industry album. Eventually, I found out -- at a concert a few years ago, Eric explained to me that Go! Discs, the company that released the album, had gone out of business and at this point no one knows who owns the rights to the recordings. So, with  no CD forthcoming, I set out to get the next best thing -- the record. And that was difficult -- frequent searches on Amazon (the UK version) eventually rewarded me with a very highly-priced used copy. And some years after that, I paid someone to copy it onto CD. Yeah, in theory I could have transferred it myself. But I never did, so WTH. I just got the CD a couple days ago.

So, how does it sound?

Generally, it's a good new wave album. Despite being from 1975, it has an early new wave sound, propelled by guitars rather than synthesizers. The sound is reminiscent of Eric's Big Smash! album, though it's not as highly commercial in its sound. Highlights are "Food Factory" and "The Lucky Ones." The weakness is in the production which sounds a bit muddy, and I would have preferred it if they had mixed the vocals a bit more prominently. Eric's unique rasp is a strong part of his recordings, and this would have been better if it had been easier to hear that rasp.

The video below is all I could find on Youtube for the Captains. The song is "Julie," which is from the album.

*Or did I? In looking things up to write this blogpost, I see reference to an album, The Sound of Your Living Room, by Southern Domestic. Does such a thing exist? If so, how do I find it?