Duo delivers real rock

A blend of influences separates rare pair from the pack

By KRISTA BJORN
Sun-Star Correspondent

Acclaimed singer-songwriters Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby perform in Merced next Thursday as part of their U.S. tour in anticipation of the early October release of their debut CD, "Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby."

"People should come see this show because it's the best rock concert we're going to see in Merced for a while," Kenny Mostern of NightLight Arts in Merced said. "When do we get international touring acts? And because Amy and Eric represent several different kinds of historic events coming together: British and American styles, an older couple with independent careers merging their styles, a Johnny Cash/June Carter type duet for people who came up on late 1970s/early 1980s new wave."

Long established as solo musicians, the two met at a pub in Hull, England and started working together in 2006.

"Eric's first album came out in 1978 in England on Stiff records, the same company that released Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Ian Dury, the Damned and other punk/new wave luminaries at that time," Mostern said. "His first American release was 1979."

His 1978 debut single "(I'd Go The) Whole Wide World," has since been covered by many bands, and enjoyed resurgent popularity when featured in the romantic comedy "Stranger Than Fiction" starring Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Amy Rigby is an accomplished American singer-songwriter with musical roots in New York during the famed CBGB heyday, and in Nashville, where she lived before moving to France.

"Punk to pop influences blend into her trademark and critically acclaimed folk sound with sarcastic and humorously-biting lyrics," Jocelynn Loebl of Howlin' Wuelf Media in New York said. "Their debut CD is a beautifully raw and touching album: vocal harmonies, crackling, buzzing atmospheres and the upbeat/downbeat lyrics of a couple that have been one too many times around the dance floor."

Only Eric and Rigby perform on the CD.

"There are no other musicians involved here," Loebl said. "Just Eric on guitars, bass guitar and organ, Amy on guitars and piano, plus the odd sample, some well placed percussion and an old bossa nova beatbox."

Eric's albums have featured an eclectic array of musical styles moving between bubblegum pop, grunge, psychedelic and techno, while Rigby's style embraces pop, country, folk-rolk, Merseybeat, psychedelia and beach music.

Having toured together for over two years now, Eric and Rigby describe themselves as "a two-piece rock 'n' roll group with vocal harmonies."

"Eric's influences are punk, pub rock, and power pop," Mostern said.

"Amy's history is in R.E.M.-style jangle rock with a major shot of straight Nashville country. Working together they sound a bit more like Eric than Amy, probably because Eric is the producer/engineer, you couldn't tell, listening to the sound, that Amy was into country, but the songwriting continues to have lots of country influence."

Mostern has been a huge fan for many years, and loves both the music and the atmosphere created by Eric and Rigby.

"They are funny," he said, "not laugh-a-minute comedians, but individually and together they write sarcastic, sardonic, witty songs about relationships, sex, jobs and (in Amy's case) raising a daughter."

Their album has been a year in the making and began when the two moved to France.

"We were doing a lot of gigs and we wanted to make a record together,"

Eric stated on their Web site. "We were a bit shell-shocked by moving -- Amy from America, me from England, but we both knew it had to be done.

"You stop existing in some way if you don't put records out."

The album was recorded and engineered entirely by Eric.

"It was a new way of working for me," Rigby said. "Where there's time to step away and then go back in and try something different, move things around, re-record stuff if it isn't happening. I've never had that kind of time before and you have to have real focus to keep at it -- Eric does. I'd wander off to pull weeds in the garden and then I'd hear some strange sound -- He's at it again. I'd better get back in there.

"He has spent years creating his own sound in the studio, using his imagination and a whole array of recording techniques picked up from studying the records he loves. He knows how things work so well that we were able to create our own world and play and record without any prescribed criteria."

While Eric did the engineering, Rigby did most of the songwriting.

"Amy is a real songwriter -- the real thing, like Jackie DeShannon or Ray Davies or John D Loudermilk." Eric said. "She's driven to write and she knows how to do it. I'm not like that -- I'll have an idea and quite often it stays that way, an idea in a notebook or on a cassette.

"Whereas Amy can take an idea and work it to completion. I'm much more interested in recording so it's a real luxury working with Amy. And I've learned so much from her about layering vocal harmonies."

Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby

WHAT: Acclaimed singer-songwriters Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby will perform

WHERE: Merced County Multicultural Arts Center, 645 W. Main St., Merced

WHEN: Sept. 4 at 8 p.m.

TICKETS: $12. For tickets and further information call (209) 390-4665 or visit www.nightlightarts.com