That's is a fair opinion, but I think that these guys working in their own studio for three years playing around with ideas would have a lot to do with that. I don;t necessarily think they were trying to sound clever as such, otherwise I reckon they would have taken themselves much more seriously. I think when you get locked in a studio and get into a groove or flow, it is very easy to find yourself wandering in places where you weren't expecting to go. I know that my one year working in a studio with enough spare time to mess around was great and led to all sorts of weird and wonderful things.
lol ... this is kind of like therapy for me I also haven't jumped into to the post Look Hear? albums as closely as I would like to, so this will make me
Well good. Yeah I seem to stop at them with Bloody Tourists. Got the G+C box and liked it, I really like the Goodbye Cruel World album. The harmonica thing is cool and the music flows together well. I have actually listened to Consequences. I think I listened to most of it like if it were a podcast under phones while working and it was probably easier to digest that way rather than putting the album and actively listening. The music is excellent even if Peter Cook wears thin after a while. Its a lot to take in as six sides. If you get a chance check out this...
Consequences really is/was a bold project, and certainly not for everybody lol I have just recently got Goodbye Cruel World and it is, yet again, something completely different, which is one of the things I love about these guys. An Englishman in New York was a number one hit in Australia, if I remember rightly, and quite a remarkable song ... My parents actually hated it, and I was never sure why, but I tended to listen to a lot of stuff they thought was just plain weird lol. I reckon this vid may have been one of the reasons they took off as pretty huge video producers in the eighties. For some reason I only got around to getting my Godley and Creme albums in the early 2000's, but I am sure glad I did. We will be going through all those as well
On a general point I suspect 10cc fell rather between stools musically, for many they seemed to initially be something of a 'joke' band who did pastiche works like 'Donna', 'Johnny Don't Do it', 'Sand in My Face' etc they certainly could play and sing of course but it didn't seem they were that 'serious' musically at a time when album bands were the main thing for critics to delight or slag off no one took 'pop groups' that seriously it seemed and then at first you had 10cc doing 'The Dean and I' and 'Rubber Bullets' on BBC's 'Top of The Pops' and at first glance seemingly were just another 'singles pop band' which were common then as opposed to 'serious rock' album making outfits ! music had fractured oddly in the early seventies surprise then that the MUCH more serious 'Waterfall' used as a 'B' side was originally to be the 'A' side of a single on The Beatles Apple label.... 'Wall Street Shuffle' proved they were far more of a rock band when they chose to be....and it was the avant garde 'arty' style of Godley and Creme combined with the pop and more rock flavoured styles of Gouldman and Stewart that gave them a vast musical idiom perhaps best appreciated in retrospect but at the time to begin with they were difficult to pin down under any defined musical catergory and as result before 'Sheet Music' (which proved they had far more to them than some at first thought) the band were rather dismissed as little more than 'jokey lightweights' - by 1975 the situation in the UK changed as they moved upwards onto Mercury records and suddenly were a major UK band capable of straddling any musical chasms and put both singles and albums into the respective charts
The first four years, from "Donna" (single) to How Dare You (LP) I bought everything... kept a scrapbook... scoured second-hand shops for their earlier doings... they were by far my favourite band. But then... I remember being disappointed by How Dare You, - it felt as though they were trying too hard to be 10cc (and things like "Headroom" and "Rock'n'Roll Lullaby" still make me cringe), and the one new song they played at Knebworth, "Good Morning Judge," just felt so ordinary. I even stopped keeping the scrapbooks (there were now three) up to date. After the split... I liked Deceptive Bends - and appreciated Consequences. But "Dreadlock Holiday" aside, nothing else by Stewart-Gouldman really struck me, although I still bought all the albums on the off-chance.... Godley-Creme definitely entertained me more, but I found them very patchy. Ismism, their fourth, was the first album I loved all the way through - that and History Mix are the ones I play the most. The funny thing, though, is I continue collecting, both their pre- and post-10cc material. I can't say I've enjoyed a lot of the later material, but very old habits die hard!
early on Lol Creme using his er 'minnie mouse' falsetto voice was the main singer on the first UK records singles with Kevin Godley backed up by Graham Gouldman adding the deeper counter vocal (very effective on 'The Dean And I', 'Rubber Bullets' etc ) - Eric Stewart surprisingly for the ex-Mindbenders lead singer ('A Groovy Kind of Love' /' Ashes To Ashes') only sang the odd song or two like 'Headline Hustler' on the first album plus 'Waterfall' and to begin with was chiefly lead guitarist and a backup singer ! (plus their key recording engineer) group sung vocals were not uncommon either plus a few instrumentals too things change from 'Wall Street Shuffle' as Eric starts taking a major step forward as featured lead singer alongside Lol, they alternate for a time re 'Ministrone' (Lol), 'I'm Not in Love' (Eric) on singles but the massive success of 'INIL' leads to Eric then mostly doing lead voice on 'Mandy' and 'Art For Arts Sake' tho' group vocals of course still feature strongly on albums it becomes gradually more of a distinct pairing of two teams; 'Godley/Creme' and 'Gouldman/Stewart' song writing partnerships - tho' a few crossovers earlier often resulted in notable songs ! by 'Original Soundtrack' it's clear each team were moving in differing directions with the arty and even camp whimsical observations of G & C doing the more extravagant experimental works like One Night in Paris while G & S do the more straightforward tho' often more commercial rock flavoured numbers it's not a 'set in stone' thing but they do tend to differ in styles overall tho' like with later Beatles a true sense of band unity remains holding the albums firmly together as complete unified works - tho' some felt 'How Dare You' was maybe getting a bit too diverse - 'Arts Sake', 'Mandy' 'Lazy Ways' ...were perhaps a bit too far away from 'I Wanna Rule The World' ! looking back musically a split was probably inevitable - but that is easy hindsight - apparently Graham Gouldman felt G & C were crazy to depart when they did at a time they were MASSIVE in the UK, getting noticed in the USA and very popular down under and in the East ! Graham began taking more lead vocals over time from the split ...before that maybe despite his great songwriting skills he was seen as vocally the 'George Harrison' of 10cc getting one lead per album - 'Sacro Illiac', 'Film of My Love', 'Iceberg' etc the two teams both went on to enjoy considerable success, and the odd thumping great failure too ! - tho' they always courted that, both 'Johnny Don't Do it' and 'Worst Band in The World' were notable 'flop' singles early on...the latter despite being superbly witty and very self knocking was never safer commercial 'hit' material !
I also jumped in early on the 10cc bandwagon with Rubber Bullets and pretty much left when Lol and Kevin left. And I followed them. I loved L, Freeze Frame, Ismism and have an original Consequences LP box set. I listen to Godley and Creme more then 10cc these days.
I also enjoy most of Godley and Creme's music videos they directed. One of my favorites: Peter Gabriel - Biko
Deceptive Bends was the first 10cc album I owned, probably bought after I saw them live on that tour. The Godley/Creme version from 10cc to The Original Soundtrack is essential; I don’t think they made a bad album together. 10cc minus them was never as good, and I only rate Deceptive Bends by them. Bloody Tourists was poor I thought. I think their albums stand up well today, and there are some great deep cuts in there.
Always liked "Donna", it was a favorite for decades that doesn't get as many fevered listens these days compared to other 10cc/G+C stuff. I'm definitely more of a first two albums person in the case of 10cc, but I do enjoy various songs from every album and also G & C's work. "Don't Ask" from Ten Out Of 10 is one of my very favorite 10cc songs and L just got played the other night. For pre 10cc, I really enjoy the Ramases album they recorded/played on, 1971's Space Hymns. It is far out.
I actually bought it when brand new (for around $80 bucks at a local music store) and I walked out of the store and then before I got to the car I turned around and took it back. Something just kept telling me that I didn't need that box, even when paying for it, so back it went and I have no buyers remorse!
Speaking of "Deceptive Bends", by the time that one came out I was a big fan of 10cc, in fact at that time, the only other group that mattered that much to me would have been The Electric Light Orchestra. That was all prior to my real love of The Beatles, but not all that long before. At the time of "Deceptive Bends" release I was going to a private school, where I met a lot of interesting people, one of which whom I brought this album into his room as one of my latest purchases, while he was turning me onto something new to him, Gino Vannelli's "The Gist Of The Gemini". Some fun times looking back, although I was away from most of my old friends, but as always, thanks to music, I survived the changes!
Wait, starting with Donna? Wouldn't you like to start with Hotlegs first? That's 3/4 of 10cc including both Godley and Creme. The "You Didn't Like It Because You Didn't Think Of It" compilation of their album and singles has some very nice tracks on it. My favorite is the single "Today" - I like the Hotlegs version better than the one on Strawberry Bubblegum.
if I may, here's my favorite Eric Stewart led Mindbenders song "Can't Live With You, Can't Live Without You" (1966)
I guess if I was going through the various pre 10cc bands, we have the Mindbenders, The Magic Lanterns, Hotlegs and various other bands and such that the guys were involved in ... If I was going through just Hotlegs as they were the first real thing the band as a virtual whole were involved in, I would be going through Thinks:School Stinks .... If we go through "You Didn't Like It Because You Didn't Think Of It", that only comes out in 1976, so it wouldn't be on the board yet
Hotlegs - Thinks: School Stinks 1970 Studio album by Hotlegs Released 1970 Recorded 1970 Genre Rock Length 44:20 Label Philips Producer Hotlegs Thinks: School Stinks is the first album released by British pop band Hotlegs. The album, featuring the band's hit single "Neanderthal Man", was recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport near Manchester and engineered by the studio's co-owners, Eric Stewart and Peter Tattersall. The cover, designed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, depicted a scratched school desk, a concept that was repeated two years later on Alice Cooper's 1972 album School's Out. Thinks: School Stinks was released in some countries with an alternative cover. Kevin Godley, in a 1976 interview, said the album included the songs and ideas that he and Lol Creme had intended recording in 1969 with entrepreneur Giorgio Gomelsky. Gomelsky had named the duo Frabjoy and Runcible Spoon, wanting to fashion them in the style of Simon and Garfunkel. "I still say that was a bloody good album," Godley said. "Most of the tracks were from the Frabjoy period and it's an interesting LP."[1] "Fly Away" had earlier been released on a Marmalade record label sampler, 100 Proof as "To Fly Away", credited to Godley, while the opening lines and percussive rhythm of "Run Baby Run" were later reworked to become the basis for "Art for Art's Sake" on the 10cc album How Dare You!. The album failed to chart. Stewart, also interviewed in 1976, said Thinks: School Stinks had presented a problem because it was so different from "Neanderthal Man": "It was totally alien to what people were expecting from us. It was a good record, a little ahead of its time. It was similar to the things we are doing now. It was very melodic with chord structures that hadn't been used before – and some of the sounds that we used on that album hadn't been heard at the time."[1] Lol Creme – guitar, bass, vocals, keyboards, arranger Eric Stewart – guitar, bass, vocals, arranger Kevin Godley – drums, vocals, arranger Peter Tattersall – left-handed boogey piano ("Desperate Dan") Mike Timoney – organ Rod Morton – on-beat tambourine ("Desperate Dan") Baz Barker – violin ("How Many Times") Ian Brookes – trumpet Mike Bell – saxophone Cheadle Hulme High School Choir Arranged and Conducted by Brian Day "Neanderthal Man" (Kevin Godley, Lol Creme, Eric Stewart) – 4:19 "How Many Times" (Godley, Creme, Stewart) – 3:57 "Desperate Dan" (Godley, Creme, Stewart) – 2:12 "Take Me Back" (Godley, Creme) – 5:01 "Um Wah, Um Woh" (Godley, Creme, Stewart) – 5:30 "Suite F.A." (Godley, Creme) – 12:53 1st Movement – On My Way 2nd Movement – Indecision 3rd Movement – The Return "Fly Away" (Godley, Creme) – 2:43 "Run Baby Run" (Godley, Creme, Stewart) – 2:50 "All God's Children" (Godley, Creme) – 4:55 ------------------------------------------------------------- I don't really know much about this to be honest. All I know is it was the guys without Gouldman, as I believe he was in the US doing some business, and come back later just before the guys reconfigured and became 10cc.
