Andrew McGibbon

Andrew McGibbon (a.k.a. Andrew Paresi; born 1961 in Chiswick), is an English comedian, actor, writer, musician and composer.

He has also produced and directed extensively, chiefly for radio.

The son of James, a prominent educationalist and child psychologist, McGibbon studied at St Edmund's Primary, Whitton and Salesian College.

He learnt to play the drums, his chief instrument, during his time at Richmond Tertiary College.

In 1980, despite serious thoughts about attending Berklee School of Music, he left college to forge a career as a working musician.

McGibbon initially associated himself closely with the London jazz scene, often rehearsing with Django Bates.

Its creators have freely admitted on Front Row that Bull's show was in their minds when making the series, having been regular listeners during the late 1980s.

Shortly after ending his period in the Morrissey band, Andrew McGibbon released two records of his own.

The first was '"Princess" by Blu Gene featuring Spider Johnson, a ragga single which used extracts from the Princess Diana Squidgygate tape as answering phrases in a love song.

Annie Nightingale played it heavily but the record was otherwise outlawed by Radio 1, despite the creation of a toned-down radio edit.

This was followed by "I Live in a Giant Mushroom", a novelty trance single by McGibbon disguised as LBC character Eric the Gardener.

The record secured daytime play on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 1, where the presenter predicted it would be a Christmas hit.

In the event, it failed to chart.

Issued on Mental Temple, McGibbon's own label, it was mixed and produced by Danton Supple who would later produce Coldplay.

A song on the Divine Comedy album Fin de Siecle was named in tribute to Eric.

However, he failed to make a significant impact, peaking with a performance alongside Lou Donaldson at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club on 22 March 1982.

The name Paresi was adopted around this time on the advice of his then girlfriend, who had found that it was an Italian medical term for embolism.

"There was something appealing about naming myself after a heart attack", he remembers.

"Some sort of post-punk bollocks, I guess, which meant a lot to me back in 1982".

His first big break came on 7 November 1984 with an appearance on Tyne Tees children's pop show Razzamatazz as the drummer in Jim Diamond's band.

Given the success of his number one hit I Should Have Known Better, a subsequent appearance by Paresi on Top of the Pops was expected, but Diamond's regular drummer Simon Kirke resumed his place in the band.

Paresi soon built a reputation for his drum programming work, and working relationships with a number of record producers developed.

David Motion secured Paresi's percussive abilities for Love in a World Gone Mad and I Used to Love the Radio, recorded during the sessions for Bucks Fizz's 1986 album Writing on the Wall.

He also worked with Motion on One Way, an album by europopglam band Rok-Etz recently augmented by Sal Solo of Classix Nouveaux.

That same year the drummer encountered Stephen Street, who mixed a single by A Pair of Blue Eyes, a short-lived CBS band to whom Paresi was assigned.

In parallel to his music career, McGibbon maintained a keen interest in performing comedy and found regular work as a fake caller on Clive Bull's late-night LBC show, beginning in 1986.

There, he developed the character of Ned Sherrin soundalike Rodway of Belgravia, a man trapped with his mother and in unrequited love with the girl at his local gardening shop.

The Street connection would lead to regular work with Morrissey, immediately following the demise of The Smiths in 1987.

Shortly before Christmas 1987 he faked the murder of a turkey live on air, provoking several complaints.

Another character was Eric the Gardener, a Wiltshireman inclined to speak in gnomic, poetic utterances and non-sequiturs.

There was also Vini of Vauxhall (based on musician Vini Reilly) and Ron, an estate dweller constantly having to calm his dogs – Sultan and Khan – during calls to the show.

The last of these was a direct influence on a character in BBC Radio 4's phone-in parody Down the Line with Gary Bellamy.

Paresi was regular drummer on albums Viva Hate and Kill Uncle as well as the Bona Drag sessions, lasting until the singer songwriter's sharp change of direction into rockabilly in 1992.

A significant working relationship was forged between McGibbon and GLR disc jockey Kevin Greening around the time that he moved to Virgin Radio in April 1993.

Greening's interest was piqued by the Eric the Gardener record, desperate to know if the character was real or make believe.

Paresi joined Bleed in 1994, an agitating feminist group famed for their anti-pornography single It Makes Money, for which they sent "faxes to various music and mainstream press publications plus top-shelf sex magazines" highlighting the industry's abuses of women.

Despite an association with Stephen Street, by then producing Blur, the group struggled to find an audience and split in 1997.

This period of Paresi's career would later be chronicled in a BBC Radio 4 documentary, I Was Morrissey's Drummer (2005), as well as a number of related articles.

More recent musical activities include drum duties on the 2010 album by Franc Cinelli, who performs under the Good Times, Good Times moniker.

The record, also called Good Times, Good Times, was produced by Danton Supple and released on his label, Definition Sounds.