‘I began promoting music in Hull in 1997 with the world music collective Hot City Beats. Our first gig was the Ghanaian band Ifang Bondi at the Adelphi Club, about four weeks into the bright dawn of New Labour. I was hooked and have spent the last seventeen years as a promoter and agent working locally regionally nationally and internationally.

 During that period there has been, since 1999, one constant factor – Wreckless Eric, my teenage hero. We have done four national tours together over the years and today we come together again to launch the Hull Music Archive – a project close to my heart. So how has Hull changed over this period? I didn’t think the Blairite years were a great time for the arts in Hull – maybe the ready availability of public funding weakened what to me is Hull’s artistic strength – the underground.

The coalition cuts have wreaked great damage on the people of Hull but in the arts I sense a renaissance: new venues & promoters, galleries, radio stations, record labels, collaborations and people pulling together to make things happen – with or without funding. My hope in the run up to 2017, and beyond, is that there will be thriving underground scene once more in place – inspiring, leading and taking chances. And once more ‘it will never be dull in Hull’.

Wreckless Eric is playing at the Adelphi Club in Hull tonight. (10-12-2014)

And just for fun a contact sheet from the shoot …

You can actually see the point at which I say to Andy ‘So tell me about Eric?’