Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp play Green Day's Basket Case

Robert Fripp and Toyah in their kitchen — (Image credit: Toyah Willcox/YouTube)

Light entertainment icons Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp have completed their latest broadcast to the nation, covering Green Day's 1984 punk banger Basket Case with the aid of two aubergines.

The frisky duo enlivened this week's Sunday lunch performance with the help of an actual basket – one that Toyah dons at the beginning of the song, rendering her voice somewhat muffled – and two aubergines (or eggplants, as they're known in North America), which she uses to beat out a chaotic rhythm on a drum hanging from the ceiling.

It's all over in less than two minutes, with the final words coming from Fripp, who says, "may your basket overflow with love," a message of hope and conciliation at odds with the song's original themes of anxiety and disorder.

“Basket Case is about anxiety attacks and feeling like you’re about to go crazy,” Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong once said of the song. “At times, I probably was. I’ve suffered from panic disorders my entire life. I thought I was just losing my mind. The only way I could know what the hell was going on was to write a song about it. It was only years later that I figured out I had a panic disorder."

Earlier this month Robert Fripp announced the second Guitar Circle, a four-day event to be held at Glen Cove Mansion on Long Island, New York. It'll run August 22-26.

"For the next Guitar Circle at Glen Cove, I am hoping audients will arrive in great number and perhaps even crowd out the guitarists," says Fripp. "No interest in playing guitar? Great! Ears? Even better. Innocent ears? Audients are most welcome to join the guitarists, strap on their ears, and rock out!"

A typical day at the event will include "breakfast and Q&A" and "multiple small group meetings", while polyrhythms are anticipated.

For more details, visit the Robert Fripp Guitar Circle website.

Artists

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.