Page 30 - the NOISE March 2016

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10cc
Eric Stewart, 1976 KLAUS HILTSCHER - WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Earth rebelling against humanity, resulting in catastrophic floods, tornadoes, and the like. The duo knew that, between the Gizmo and their studio expertise, they could make this a reality.
Unfortunately, they also knew it would never fly in 10cc. And so, unbelievably, one year after a million dollar contract and a multi-million selling single, the band announced they were splitting in two. Stewart and Gouldman would continue as 10cc, while Godley and Creme would pursue the muse under their own names.
The four would never play together again.
Stewart and Gouldman opened Strawberry South in Surrey, due to the overwhelming demand for studio time. They wrote songs and began recording as soon as the new facilities were complete. Godley and Creme sequestered themselves at Strawberry North and worked around the clock on their project, now called Consequences.
The duo spent hours upon days upon weeks experimenting. They tried to make a guitar mimic a saxophone by forcing the signal through a short length of garden hose with a perforated rolling paper over the end. To create the effect of someone being buried alive, they hooked contact mics onto a foam head under a thin slat of plywood. Then Kevin Godley shoveled dirt down a stairwell onto it while the tape machines rolled.
The scope of Consequences kept expanding. Godley and Creme wanted a short dramatic play in the middle, so they hired British funnyman Peter Cook to write and narrate one. Cook and sidekick Dudley Moore were the brains behind the stage production Beyond the Fringe and the TV show Not Only ... But Also, both antecedents of Monty Python’s absurdist humor. Cook and Moore recorded several LPs in the 1970s as Derek and Clive, which consisted of the two men getting extremely loaded and screaming horrible insults at each other.
Kevin Godley once described a typical working day with Peter Cook. Cook would arise early and be showered, dressed and ready to go at 8AM. Night owls Godley and Creme woke around 11:30 and began rolling spliffs at noon. There was a magical two or three hours when everyone could focus. Cook, in the midst of a divorce, would start drinking himself stupid around 3PM and be of no use the rest of the evening. He would be in bed by 10, while Godley and Creme tinkered in the studio until 2 or 3AM.
After the departure of the “artistic” half of their group, Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman had to prove they were still worthy to carry on as 10cc. Live drummer Paul Burgess was brought in to record the next LP. Stewart and Gouldman overdubbed the rest. Deceptive Bends, released in May 1977, spawned “The Things We Do for Love,” another huge hit that went top ten across the globe, including America. Stewart and Gouldman expanded 10cc to six members and embarked on a successful world tour. A double live album came out in late 1977.
Consequences grew from one LP to two to three. Godley and Creme reassured the brass at Mercury Records that a masterwork was forthcoming. The label smelled “Art” and designed a lavish box set with libretto and inflated list price. There was talk of mounting a stage performance and a feature film. Consequences premiered in late 1977 at a listening party (which included a presentation on the Gizmo) for international music journalists and record label executives.
The album was a spectacular failure, both critically and commercially. Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were victims of both bad timing and their own egos. During the 18 months secluded in the studio producing Consequences, punk rock had taken over England’s music scene. A triple concept LP about the end of the world with a bloody play in the middle was the sort of progressive twaddle that punk gleefully spat upon. When Godley and Creme left 10cc, they were on top of their game and ahead of the trends. A short year and a half later they were dinosaurs and out of touch.
A comparison between Consequences and Deceptive Bends is illuminating. The strengths and faults of the two post-breakup records neatly mirror each other. Deceptive Bends is easy on the ear and radio-friendly, Consequences is not. Even prog geeks find Consequences lugubrious and a chore to get through, while Deceptive Bends goes down like lemonade on a summer day.
Stewart and Gouldman don’t even try to replicate their former band mates’ arty weirdness. Deceptive Bends offers one sugary pop confection after another until the listener feels like he’s eaten too much cotton candy. Nothing sticks to the ribs. Consequences is bitter and so laden down with “Art” that it disappears up its own arse. Without the sour to offset the sweet, Deceptive Bends is the first faceless 10cc record. It could have been recorded by any number of groups. Consequences is the album no group would want to claim as theirs.
One thing the two LPs do share is a surprising lack of humor. Stewart and Gouldman’s jokey lyrics in songs like “You’ve Got A Cold” feel forced and obvious, barely worth a smirk. Then there’s this question regarding Consequences: how the hell did a collaboration between one of England’s top comedians and the authors of such hilarious tunes as “Rubber Bullets” and
“Donna” turn out so bereft of laughs?
The albums do have their moments. “The Things We Do for Love,” “Good Morning Judge”
and the three part “Feel The Benefit” are sparkling Stewart/Gouldman compositions which save Deceptive Bends from complete anonymity. The fire, stampede and flood scenarios in Consequences sound impressive and truly frightening. Side 3’s opener, “Five O’clock In The Morning,” is one of Godley and Creme’s lushest, most evocative creations. The album’s high point is undoubtedly “Lost Weekend,” Kevin Godley’s duet with jazz chanteuse Sarah Vaughan. But these moments are too few and too widely scattered. In the end, neither LP delivers. Deceptive Bends lacks the edge that Godley and Creme once provided, while Consequences lacks the accessibility that was Stewart and Gouldman’s forte.
Consequences, intended as Godley and Creme’s Big Statement, barely takes us halfway there. What went wrong? The numbers may provide an answer: Godley and Creme instrumental tracks = 53 minutes and 46.5%, Peter Cook spoken tracks = 37 minutes and 32.5% and Godley and Creme vocal tracks = 24 minutes and 21%.
They had forgotten where their strengths lay.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
| Tony Ballz is finding the hidden gems in his collection of music stories.
tony@thenoise.us
This time, the group had the muscle to back it up in concert. A second drummer, Paul Burgess, was added for a fuller live sound and to allow Kevin Godley to belt out his songs from center stage. To bury Godley’s wonderful voice behind a drum kit would indeed be a crime. Beginning with Sheet Music, the band commissioned Hipgnosis, creators of iconic record covers for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and countless others, to design their album graphics.
Although 10cc’s early music was in step with the glam pop and rock of the era, their appearance was defiantly working class and anti-fashion. In contrast to the clothes and makeup excesses of Bowie and Gary Glitter, 10cc’s promotional photos and concert footage show them in blue jeans and buttoned shirts. 10cc wondered why their pop scene contemporaries seemed so tall in person, until they realized everyone was wearing platform boots except them.
For 10cc’s third LP, Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman had written a moody ballad called “I’m Not in Love.” They wanted to do something special to it in the studio, but weren’t sure what. After recording a simple backing track and brainstorming, the four came up with a novel idea. Strawberry had just installed a new 16 track machine and the band decided to take it for a spin. First, they analyzed the song and figured out which notes were required to fit the chords. Then they overdubbed sixteen tracks of them singing “Ahhh” for each note: sixteen tracks of A, sixteen tracks of B, etc. The process was repeated twice, tripling the number of voices. The multi-
track tape for each note was spliced into a twelve-foot loop, with one end running through the machine’s capstan and the other around a mic stand with a plastic roller attached. Each loop was mixed down to a single track and recorded onto a new tape for the length of the song.
After months of work, they ended up with a master tape containing 48 voices singing 16 individual pitches. A fader was designated for each ascending note: fader 1 was A, fader 2 was B, etc. Finally, while the backing track ran, the four men placed their eight hands on the mixing board and played it like a musical instrument, raising and lowering the faders as the chords changed.
The results were stunning. The disembodied “Ahhhs” floating in and out of the stereo picture gave “I’m Not In Love” an eerie, hallucinogenic quality never heard in pop music before. The concept was similar to the mellotron, a keyboard instrument that utilized a single monophonic tape loop for each note. 10cc took that idea and expanded it a hundredfold, anticipating the Fairlight CMI (the first digital sampling synthesizer) by a good five years.
Despite 10cc’s British chart success, the studio overhead was still a financial drain. They began entertaining offers from the majors. A representative from Mercury Records (soon to merge with PolyGram) visited Strawberry and was played the completed “I’m Not in Love.” He was blown away. He told the band to name their sum and Mercury would gladly meet it. 10cc cheekily asked for a million dollars (unheard of for a group barely three years old) and got it.
The Original Soundtrack, 10cc’s debut for Mercury, was released in March 1975. “I’m Not in Love” was pulled as a single in May and shot to #2 US and #1 UK and worldwide. The song won three Ivor Novellos (a prestigious award in Britain for songwriting) and has been played on American radio over three million times.
The overwhelming success of “I’m Not in Love” should have boosted 10cc into the big leagues. Instead, the band was splintering. Godley and Creme wanted to tackle more high art projects, while Stewart and Gouldman just wanted to make great pop. The clash between the two camps made for some fantastic music, but it wouldn’t last. The quartet held on for one more record. How Dare You! was their best yet, a mature, idiosyncratic, downright weird album.
While recording the Sheet Music LP, Godley and Creme desired an orchestral part for a specific song, but were unable to afford it. So they designed the Gizmo, a box which clamped onto a guitar near the bridge. The box held six serrated rotary wheels with buttons attached one for each string. When a button was depressed, the wheel inside would turn against a string, providing a violin-like sound with infinite sustain.
By 1976, Godley and Creme had developed a workable prototype and recorded a promotional single demonstrating the Gizmo’s abilities. This led to the idea of a concept album about the
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