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10cc
weren't like most bands. Not for them the instant hit single or even the years
spent touring together in the back of a van. Instead they all met up first
while they were in different bands, 'borrowing' each other's material when
they'd run out of their own or drafting each other in as last minute
replacements when somebody or other left. Between them Stewart, Gouldman,
Godley and Creme played on 47 different singles and made six albums before
recording under the 10cc name - and that's without counting the
so-close-to-10cc-it-may-as-well-be-a-10cc-LP 'Thinks...School Stinks!' which
was released under the name 'Hotlegs' in 1970 and has already been reviewed
here at the AAA elsewhere. Interestingly the band members start playing on each
other's records as early as 1968, with Graham (by far the most prolific of the
four in these early days) a mutual friend of everyone's, while it helped that
almost all of these bands and acts were Manchester based. We've listed the
songs here not in complete chronological order but by band solo career or
weirdly-named one-off (why didn't Godley and Creme keep the moniker 'Frabjoy
and Runciple Spoon'?!), whichever happened to come earliest in the story.
Looking out all of these records is hard work - even as big a group as The
Mindbenders were in the 1960s haven't been properly served on CD at the time of
writing and mainly exist on compilations - but one way of tracking down many of
these items in one go (and a few guest appearances outside our scope) is to buy
the compilation 'Strawberry Bubblegum' (2003), which rounds up 23 typically
esoteric and zany choices.
Eric
Stewart
(Wayne
Fontana and The Mindbenders)
By
far the most successful of all the many pre-10cc bands were The Mindbenders.
The group were formed in 1963 as yet another one of Manchester's answers to
Merseybeat and were at first very much a backing band for their lead singer,
the charismatic Wayne Fontana (actually his name was Geoffrey Glynn Ellis; he
probably got his 'new' name from Elvis' drummer D J Fontana - funnily enough
the band were on Fontana records, though this seems to be a coincidence rather
than a case of Wayne being teacher's pet!) Eric was at first the solemn
guitarist with the blonde fringe who stood behind him, but as the 1960s moved
on he got more and more power within the band, finding that he had a natural
knack for writing songs. It took the band longer than some to get going - their
first single just missed the top forty and the next three all missed the charts
- but breakthrough 'Um Um Um Um Um Um' peaked at #5 in Britain and did well in
America too. Follow-up 'Game Of Love' was unlucky to lose out to The Seekers
for the #1 spot and the band were at last 'allowed' to make their first LP.
Unfortunately things went downhill after this - the new material didn't quite make
it, the big change of 1966 that caught out so many other early 1960s acts spelt
doom and Wayne Fontana got cold feet, quitting for a solo career that blazed
nicely but briefly. Rather than hiring a replacement, The Mindbenders carried
on as a trio with Eric given much more space for his compositions and singing
and the period 1966-1969 really helps his confidence no end. Especially because
the first hit the Mindbenders have without Wayne was their biggest: 'A Groovy
Kind Of Love', which used to be a hugely popular song in the days before Phil
Collins slowed it down and wrecked it. The Mindbenders tries to grow with the
times and even released a concept LP (10cc's first and a sign of things to
come?!), though it was centred around women rather than un nuit en paris and
clockwork creeps. By 1967 the band's fortunes were fading (even though the had
the perfect band name for the psychedelic period! They got it from a rather
staid 1950s film as it happens) and even a big cameo part in 1967's hit film
'To Sir With Love' (they get a song of their own and back Lulu on 'To Sir With
Love') couldn't reverse the band's fortunes. The band broke up in November
1968, after fulfilling their contractual obligations and an endless package
tour with The Who, Arthur Brown and Joe Cocker. Bassist Bob Lang joined one-hit
wonders Racing Cars soon after; drummer Graham Foote joined Herman's Hermits.
As for Wayne, he scored a hit single 'Pamela Pamela' by some guy named Graham
Gouldman and carried on releasing singles with sixteen to his name up until
1976. After that he joined the 'Solid Sixties' tours but struggled for money
and ended up in prison for pouring petrol on the bonnet of a car belonging to a
bailiff who was about to re-possess his home. He deserved far, far better out
of life. A rather good compilation, inevitably called 'A Groovy Kind Of Love',
collects together all the recordings from the period when Eric was lead singer
- sadly the Wayne years are thinner on the ground, with the early singles
particularly hard to pin down.
June
1963: A raucous start, Fats Domino cover 'Hello Josephine' sounds
remarkably like the early Searchers with a scruffy but exciting song built
around one fast-played chord and some wild drumming. Eric doesn't get much to
do for most of the song except throw in some 'bop bops' while Fontana appears
to have a nervous breakdown in the middle with an endless 'ha ha ha' chorus,
though his blistering guitar solo in the middle is easily the song's highlight.
This simple song about trying to ask a girl out and things going wrong deserved
to do far better.
B-side 'Road Runner' is a little more ordinary, though just as wild
with Eric clearly coming from the Pete Townshend/Dave Davies school of guitar
playing, albeit a year early. This sort of thing must have sounded so mad and
dangerous for 1963, but you can only be so wild and the song lacks the
slow-burning menace of Bo Diddley's original.
October
1963: If the debut single was more Stonesy then follow-up 'For You, For You' is pure Beatles, complete with
an 'oh oh oh' chorus lifted straight from their cover of 'Anna'. The writer was
Peter Lee Stirling, who more usually used the name Daniel Boone and came up
with deeper material than this rather soggy throwaway. The Mindbenders turn in
a strong performance though, with Eric's harmonies a great foil for Wayne's
lead vocal.
A lot slower and more mournful than The Searchers'
recent hit version, 'Love
Potion Number Nine' is another strong cover, with Leiber and Stoller's
words of a spooky romance played as a tragedy rather than a comedy. The moment
when the drums suddenly burst into life in the middle and the band find a great
throbbing guitar riff is terrific, though Eric's guitar solo is very eccentric.
January
1964: Oh dear. Third
single 'Little Darlin'
is too obvious a cover, being a big hit for The Diamonds only a couple of years
before. It doesn't help that the band seem to have been inspired to record it
by listening to 'Speedy Gonzales', with an irritating screechy falsetto over
the opening (one I fear might be Eric having a bad idea, though as he never
used it again - at the public's request one senses - we can't be sure). The
Mindbenders were never the neatest of bands, but this song has crossed over the
line from fun and energy into mayhem.
The B-side by songwriting team Mat Maurer and Tony
Powers, 'Come Dance With
Me', is calmer but also a lot more boring. Wayne shines on a song that
has a slight Elvis touch about it crossed with a flamenco part and The
Drifters' 'Save The Last Dance For Me', but the rest of the band sound bored
and seem to do the least amount possible to get through to the end of a song
they're clearly not enjoying. Eric's crystal-clear picked guitar solo is a step
further to the sound he'd find with 10cc though.
May
1964: The next single 'Stop, Look and Listen' is a fun song with a
variation on tradition with Wayne playing it cool and the Mindbenders playing
it manic. The song memorably stops whenever the word 'stop' is sung, which is a
great hook, though the rest of the song sounds suspiciously like everything
else around in 1964. Good enough to return the band to the top 40 anyway.
Flip 'Duke Of Earl' is an oddity: what other song do you know that
starts with an acapella 'Too Too Too Kar Velm' chorus? Thankfully, just as the
track seems to be about to evolve into 'The Birdie Song', the track settles
down into a fun doo-wop song that's sung with more care and seriousness than
most and a vocal that's clearly inspired by Motown. Goodness knows what the
lyrics are about though- you can be a duke or an earl, but not both...
September
1964: At last the breakthrough and The Minbenders have
found their sound by calming down and going for character and catchiness rather
than raw energy or cuteness. Clearly based on Manfredd Mann's similarly nonsensical
but cheerful 'Do Wah Diddy' from a couple of months earlier, 'Um Um Um Um Um Um' is a
fun Curtis Mayfield song about a man humming. It's hard not to admire a song so
audacious it doesn't even bother to include lyrics in the title or main hook,
but it's catchy upbeat and original enough to catch the ear and stand out even
in a packed chart of 1964. Eric's flamenco guitar is the star of the show,
adding pizazz and exotica to a song that's really about enjoying the mundane.
Foote's final tongue-in-cheek cymbal roll is also delicious, summing up the
song's cheeky humour.
Here, on the B-side, is where things start to get
interesting for 10cc fans. 'The
First Taste Of Love' is the first taste of Eric as a writer and it's a
strong debut almost equal up to the A-side. A better update of 'Save The Last
Dance For Me' (clearly The Mindbenders' favourite single of the era), Wayne
sounds right at home on another slightly exotic song about an unexpected brush
with romance. The middle eight ('Your lips upon my face, your arms around my
waist') proves that Eric was great at writing them even this far back in his
career. If anything it's Eric's slightly chunky and aggressive guitar work that
doesn't fit. Foote's cymbal drumming through is fantastic. All in all a fine single.
'Too Much
Monkey Business' was the only new song released on the
EP titled 'Um Um Um Um Um Um' (and currently available on CD as a bonus on
'Eric, Rik, Wayne and Bob'). It's a shame this Chuck Berry isn't better known
as it's one of the best Mindbenders rockers, manic and wild if not quite as
manic as The Hollies' cover. Wayne's comedy vocal doesn't quite cut it, but the
combination of Eric's eccentric guitar, Rik's wild bass and thunderous drumming
even by Bob makes for one hell of a backing track.
'Late'
1964: 'Wayne Fontana
and The Mindbenders' (LP) (She's Got The Power/You Don't Know
Me/Git It!/Jaguar and The Thunderbird/Certain Girl/One More Time//Where Have
You Been?/Keep Your Hands Off My Baby/Too Many Tears/The Girl Can't Help
It/Cops and Robbers/I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday) Despite being delayed by
around 18 months, The Mindbenders still don't sound quite ready to make their
first album. They've only just found out what their style is and now they have
to replicate it several times over, making for an album that sounds a little
timid in places and a tad behind the popular movement (this many cover songs on
an album in late 1964 is a big no-no after The Beatles have shown the way).
Like the singles, though, there's a certain charm about the mixture of cute
harmonies and wild playing and there are some under-rated gems here. Of the
songs not already released on single 'She's Got The Power' is a fun, driving, handclapping rocker
right in the middle of Beatles and Stones, safety and danger. The slow and
falsetto-filled 'You Don't
Know Me' might well be the single worst thing The Mindbenders ever did
though - Wayne spends the whole song trying to get a girl's attention, but it's
no surprise she doesn't answer - she's probably calling the police. The title
of 'Git It!' must
have raised a few eyebrows in the more innocent days of 1964 but actually it's
a silly childish song mostly made up of the line of 'Willow Whopping' whatever
that means. Nice tune though and Eric's loud on the backing vocals. Chuck
Berry's 'Jaguar and The
Thunderbird' is played in a rush, which is rather fitting given the
lyrics about the drivers getting a speeding ticket and the chorus 'slow down
little thunderbird'. The low-key, almost unplugged performance is before it's
time but doesn't quite come off. Naomi Neville was a pseudonym for Allen
Toussaint and 'Certain
Girl' sounds much like his masterpiece 'Fortune Teller', with a great driving guitar part
from Eric and a fun backing vocal counterpart as Wayne's narrator tells a shaggy
dog story about a bird he's just pulled ('What's her name?' 'Can't tell ya!'
Yeah right, this story's true...). The
album highlight might well be Eric's second ever song, the slow weepie 'One More Time' which
again sounds like 'Save The Last Dance For Me' and sports a weird Wayne
falsetto, but is a very pretty and romantic song. Listening to this you can see
where all those future glorious Stewart ballads came from, with 'Don't Turn Me
Away' perhaps the closest in feel in the 10cc catalogue. Goffin and King's over-covered 'Where You Been?' again
shows how similar The Mindbenders were to The Searchers (who covered this song
almost identically just a few months earlier). Goffin and King appear again
with a ragged cover of 'Keep
Your Hands Off My Baby' which is a trifle dull. 'Too Many Tears' switches gears too many
times between slow and manic, but Wayne's in good voice and Eric's in great
guitar. 'The Girl Can't
Help It!' was the manic theme song of one of the most influential rock
and roll films and the Mindbenders are faithful to it here, with a revved up
version that's a lot of fun. Bo Diddley's 'Cops and Robbers' gives the band a chance to show
off a different side, as Wayne throws in lots of funny stories and the group
groove rather than thrash. It's nice, they should have done more covers like
this. Finally Fats Domino's 'I'm
Gonna Be A Wheel Someday' is one of the 1950s' more oddball numbers
('I'm gonna be somebody' is what the song really means) and one of the band's
more oddball covers, slowed down and given more of a Buddy Holly makeover. It's
a rather undistinguished way to end a mixed album. Some say this debut is one
of 1964's hidden treasures: it isn't, not really, but it deserves to be far
better known - and easier to track down! That's Eric on the far left of the
original record cover by the way, now growing into his haircut and looking how
we all know him later while all four men are the epitome of what 1964
considered 'cool'. Actually some of us still do...The album was re-issued soon
after though with a lesser cover, two new hit singles and a ridiculous title
('Um Um Um Um Um Um It's The Mindbenders!')
January
1965: You can see why
'The Game Of Love'
became the band's second biggest hit in the UK and the biggest in the US (#1 in
fact) - it's the Mindbenders song that most catches the ear, with a manic
opening drum part, some comedy vocal parts that 10cc will use a lot later on
and a catchy chorus. The song was written by Clint Ballard Jnr, who was a
favourite of The Hollies (he wrote their biggest selling 1960s hit 'I'm Alive')
and features the songwriter's typical style where a track grows from nothing
into several peaks across the song. The nagging staccato chorus is unusual
though, while the lyrics are more playful than usual with a 'la-la-la-la-la-la-love'
that Eric seems to have remembered when co-writing 'SSSSSSSSSSilly Love' with
Lol.
For the second time in a row Eric wrote the B-side,
with help from his rhythm section colleagues. 'Since You've Been Gone' sounds as if it features
his first lead vocal too, though Eric's voice is very close to Wayne's in these
early days. A moody gloomy piece that still keeps threatening to break into
Martha and the Vandellas' 'Heatwave', it's not quite as distinguished or as
original as 'The First Taste Of Love'. However the echo on Eric's voice works
nicely and his chunky urgent guitar riffs work well on a track that's desperate
to re-set the clock and put things back how they once were.
June
1965: A slight step backwards, 'It's Just A
Little Bit Too Late' sounds more 1964 than 1965 and sounds even more
like fellow Mancunians The Hollies than normal, with some tidy guitar work and
a slight bossa nova-ish feel to the track. Eric's playful solos run rings
around the straight-laced narrator whose full of self-pity and almost seems to
be laughing at his fate, carefree and wild while he finds himself stomped on by
an oddly bass and drum-heavy production. The end result isn't quite as
memorable, despite being a second straight Clint Ballard written A-side and is
perhaps a little too angular and awkward to be as strong a hit. It would have
made for a great album track, though.
Wayne and Eric wrote the far more commercial B-side 'Long Time Comin' which
is a great R and B number about a relationship that's been going slow and
steady for years and has now finally exploded into the real thing. The
Mindbenders can't believe their luck and play with their original joyful
abandon and excitement that the day they've been waiting for has finally
arrived. One of the band's more overlooked tracks.
August
1965: The Mindbenders suddenly leap from still sounding
like they come from 1964 to the psychedelia of 1966 on 1965's 'She Needs Love'. At
least for the opening which is exotic and unusual, with some great fuzz-box
guitar from Eric and some wild drumming. This final Ballard Jnr track soon
settles down into something more ordinary though with a typical 1950s tune
about treating your girl right because she's 'special' even though at times she
can be a 'funny thing'. Offering her your love will make her act sensible,
apparently. I don't think you've really thought this through guys...
Rather fittingly Wayne's last song with the group in
singles terms gives him the last word with his only solo-composed song for the
band. 'Like I Did'
is a good one, moody and sombre and unplugged and with lyrics about 'dying a
little inside' when the narrator's girl goes out with his rival. The highlight
is the gorgeous and spooky harmonies from Eric that add real depth and beauty
to the song, while Lang ignores his usual drums for some manic tambourine
playing that's really quite affective. All in all one of the very best
Mindbenders recordings.
'Late'
1965: 'Eric, Rik,
Wayne and Bob - The Mindbenders' (LP) (Some Other
Guy/She's A Rebel/Like I Did/Memphis Tennessee/It's Just A Little Bit Too
Late/The Shadow Knows//I Remember Love/Skinny Minnie/Honey and Wine/Your
Hoochie Coochie Man/Please Stay/Long Time Comin') Album number two was recorded
at an interesting time for the band, recorded just as Wayne was abpout to leave
for a solo career, hence perhaps his reduction to third billing with Eric given
the biggest picture on the album's original front cover (the CD uses the
American version which is just a band shot with Eric at the back). If the first
Mindbenders album felt a little bit behind the times then this second seemed
aeons behind: a contemporary of 'Rubber Soul' 'The Beach Boys Today' and
'Aftermath', this album still insists on being full of cover songs performed in
the old Merseybeat sound. It's not a great surprise that it sold poorly on
release, but it's more of a surprise that the record hasn't been given a
similar sort of re-appraisal to the first LP. It's certainly of huge interest
to 10cc fans as it's the first album where Eric is firmly in charge and you can
hear early attempts at the sort of unusual arrangements and production excess
that the band will go on to make their name with. Skipping the songs previously
reviewed... 'Some Other
Guy' is a rather low-key opener, played at about half the speed of
normal and with several seconds before any vocals come in and played with
sadness rather than anger or manic energy. 'She's A Rebel' - more usually 'He's A Rebel' and
performed by girl groups starting with The Crystals - is rather flat too. Chuck
Berry's greatest song 'Memphis
Tennessee' was played by just about every band in the 1960s but never
like this: Eric's early use of bottleneck sounds almost chirpy while the band's
rhythm section play like they've just invented heavy metal. 'The Shadow Knows' is an
oddball original that seems to tell the story of a Jack The Ripper style killer
who hides in the shadows and waits for his prey. However the performance is
more uneasy comedy than bodice-ripper tragedy. 'I Remember Love' is a silly little bluesy shuffle
that returns the band back to their earliest days with some daft falsetto
harmonies and cutesy pie lyrics. The year 1965 seems a bit early for nostalgia
for 1963, but ok...Bill Haley's 'Skinny Minnie' features Rick making his vocal debut and this
much-covered tale of a really thin girl has lots of enthusiasm but still falls
flat as a pancake. Goffin and King's gorgeous 'Honey and Wine' is the most Mindbenders like of
all the songs of his they covered and while the Mindbende3rs can't compete with
The Hollies' marvellous version theirs is a strong one, with a clever walking
guitar part from Eric. 'I'm
Your Hoochie Coochie Man', though, is a disaster - The Mindbenders were
never the type of band to play blues from the heart and most of this cover is
just four minutes of wild guitar that still isn't quite wild enough to let
itself go. 'Please Stay'
though is a lovely song, a sweet ballad that's more like a Gerry and the
Pacemakers song as Wayne finally drops to the full rich bass voice he was gifted
with instead of singing a bit higher to be commercial. Though the song isn't
that advanced or original, the melody is quite lovely and The Mindbenders add
some fine backing harmonies. All in all, then, Eric, Rik, Wayne and Bob come up
with rather a mixed second LP that's all too obviously rushed in places but is
pretty strong in others.
January
1966: One final product of the Wayne era was the EP
'Walking On Air', which was released a month after 'Groovy Kind Of Love' proved
the band didn't need their 'leader'. The EP included the previously released
single 'She Needs Love' and three new tracks: 'Remind My Baby Of Me' shows off both sides of the
Mindbenders: it starts as a very bass-heavy dramatic weepie where Wayne
implores a mutual friend to pass on his best wishes to an ex, before ending up
in a comedy chorus full of daft falsetto voices and a Hillbilly guitar riff.
Both sides are quite nice separately, but really don't belong in the same song.
'Walking On Air' is
a truly bonkers oom-pah song that sounds melodically as if it belongs in a
Laurel and Hardy film soundtrack, though Wayne doesn't seem to notice as his
head's up in the clouds. Finally 'I'm Qualified' is as good way to bow out as any, a return to
the Searchers style of earlier years with a sweet tale of devotion and promises
played out as an early rock and roll waltz with a sweet tune and another strong
Fontana vocal. And with that The Mindbenders qualified and went their separate
ways...
Eric
Stewart (and briefly, Graham Gouldman)
(The
Mindbenders)
December
1965: There's a train of thought that the single most
archetypally sixties word might well be 'groovy' - a 'cooler' word for 'cool' than 'cool', with
hippie slang for synchronisation, things falling into a groove and the world
being well. In that case 'A
Groovy Kind Of Love' has a better case than most for being the most
1960s song ever. Carole Bayer (occasional songwriter for The Monkees) comes up
trumps with a song that manages to ooze positive vibes, romance and all the
feelings of hippiedom that are right around the corner. It's a wonder no band
had picked up on this lovely song before this and it comes right out of
left-field for The Mindbenders who hadn't ever sounded like this before. Not
least because that's Eric taking his first lead vocal on an A-side, the band
choosing to promote their guitarist (who sounded a little bit like Wayne
Fontana anyway) rather than get in a substitute. Clearly an awful lot was
riding on this single - it had been a while since the band had had any hits and
'Groovy' is very different to the groove of ''Um Um UM' or 'The Game Of Love',
appealing to a whole new market of swooning pre-teens girls rather than
partying R and B boys. It shouldn't work at all with a relatively unknown
songwriter, an untested singer and a band still struggling to escape the sound
of 1964 covering a song that points ahead to at least 18 months in the future -
and yet the grooves just fall effortlessly into place as if it was meant to be.
Even though you can hear the fear and nerves in Eric's voice and his vocal
lacks his later subtlety and warmth compared to what will come later, this
remains a great version of a great song that is, despite the use of the word
'groovy', truly timeless in a way few songs are. At least until Phil Collins
gives the song a bad name in the 1990s anyway...
The B-side 'Love Is Good' is another Eric special that serves
as a fond farewell to the Mindbenders' original frenetic sound and it's one of
their most exciting recordings. Like 'People In Love' in reverse it tells us
that partners often do silly things that break up a romance far too early, but
that it's not love that's the problem but lovers. When love 'goes like it
should, love is good!' is the exuberant cry of the chorus, but Eric's clearly
singing the song from some darker place, with an urgent expressive guitar part
and a mad drum part from Bob Lang that sounds like fate throwing everything at
this relationship to try and make it fail.
April
1966: Having got lucky and found a whole new style without
really trying, The Mindbenders are at a loss what to record as a follow-up. So
instead of recording a similarly sweet and groovy song they go for another
ballad that's very much of the orchestral period style, but one that happens to
be by the same writer Carole Bayer. 'Can't Live With You, Can't Live Without You' sounds like The
Walker Brothers on a faster speed and Fontana have clearly given the band some
money to splash for the first time now that they're big names, although they
don't often use it wisely on this track. Added organ helps, but the Phil
Spector-ish backing vocals and echo-drenched lead vocals are distracting and
The Mindbenders' always slightly scruffy performance sounds wrong in this new
style. The song itself is a good one though, with much to think about in its
philosophical words about whether what drives a couple apart is bigger than the
spark that made them get together in the first place and the unusual structure,
with each section of the track ;leading on breathlessly into the next, very
much reflects the uncertainty of the narrator. A bit less money and a smaller
production and this song would have been a fine follow-up, now sadly all but
forgotten.
The Mindbenders go back in time for Goffin and
King's cutesy-pie 'One
Fine Day' which sounds like the sort of song Davy Jones always got
lumbered with on the first two Monkees records. The narrator has just been
dumped but he's in a fierce mood and tells his girl one fine day he'll be big
and she'll be sorry. It's hard not to see this song as a riposte to Wayne
Fontana and his solo career somehow...
June
1966: 'The
Mindbenders' (LP) (The Way You Do The Things You Do/Just A
Little Bit/Seventh Son/One Fine Day/Tricky Dicky/A Groovy Kind Of Love//Little
Nightingale/Don't Cry No More/You Don't Know About Love/Love Is Good/Rockin'
Jaybee) The success of 'Groovy Kind Of Love' inevitably lead to a third album that
this time was the contemporary of 'Revolver' and 'Pet Sounds'. However The
Mindbenders haven't updated their sound one iota and still insist on recording
slowed-down cover versions that by and large don't quite have the swing of the
records. That said, Eric's really getting to grips with being the band's new
boss and his lead vocals are all good practice for the sort of songs that come
later with a third straight LP that's largely made up of filler but contains a
handful of truly excellent and overlooked recordings. Again, skipping the songs
previously released on single...I've always thought that 10cc's 'The Things We
Do For Love' sounded a little like Smokey Robinson's 'The Way You Do The Things You Do' and
Eric's slowed down vocal on this version makes the two sound closer than ever.
It's an odd choice for the band to do, as it fits in neither their cute pop
persona or their wild erratic one and instead we get a sort of half-way house
with a daft guitar/vocal part set against some absolutely thunderous drumming. 'Just A Little Bit'
features Rik on lead on an energetic sped-up 12 bar blues that's good fun as
the narrator pleads for any sign from his lover that she fancies him as much as
he does - a 'teeny weeny' bit will do. Willie Dixon's 'Seventh Son' is a sequel to 'Coochie Man'
from the last record and marginally better with a sultry Eric Stewart vocal
that does a better job than Wayne Fontana's at oozing the blues. However the
song still doesn't suit the band who are far too Northern English in their
approach to come from Louisiana like they want to pretend. 'Tricky Dicky' is one of
the better covers of Lieber/Stoller's distinctly odd tale of the local lothario
around, with a claustrophobic production heavy on the bass that for once beats
the similar Searchers cover from three years earlier. 'Little Nightingale' sounds like a sampler
from the rest of the record - a similar urgent riff and wild drumming and not a
lot else happening to be perfectly honest and not even a chorus. 'Don't Cry No More' is a
fun and frollicking rocker that seems to be going somewhere across the thirty
seconds until you realise with a sinking heart the band are just going to keep
this same two-chord pattern up for the whole song. It's a good chance to hear
just how good the Mindbenders' instrumental chops have become by now though,
with some nice Dick Dale style guitar, some shimmering bass and some wild
drums. Eric's one new song for the album, 'You Don't Know About Love', is perhaps the most
interesting song here and comes from a similar place to 'Love Is Good'. It's
another 'how dare you break up with me!' song that suggests early girlfriend
trouble and might well have been an attempt to recycle the chords from 'Groovy
Kind Of Love' backwards. Certainly the lyrics are the opposite: he thought he
was enjoying a groovy kind of love but for her love fell out the groove a while
back and she didn't tell him, leaving him looking foolish. It's a song that's
far more intense than anything else in the Mindbender's catalogue and unusually
intense even for Eric (it's closest to the post-car crash 'Windows In The
Jungle' album for 10cc fans). To close, 'Rockin' Jaybee' is a band instrumental that's
impressively heavy in style and soars close to feedback throughout, recalling
the turbulent sound and muscle of The Who who made their breakthrough about
five years before. It's a good chance to hear a test run for the epic Stewart guitar-break
in 'Blackmail' ten years early, but isn't of that much interest in and of
itself. So ends an intriguing record, perhaps the best The Mindbenders made but
that's only a comparative measure - they're still a singles act first and
foremost in this era and that's where they make their better records. Certainly
few fans bought the record the first time round and it was only after a few
months and a name-change (inevitably 'A Groovy Kind Of Love') that the album
started selling and then not by very much. This later version includes the
then-new single 'Ashes To Ashes' in place of album tracks 'Don't Cry No More'
and 'Rockin' Jaybee'.
August
1966: Perhaps not quite taking the hint, The Mindbenders
recorded a third Carole Bayer song, but despite a nice chorus 'Ashes To Ashes' is a far
weaker song and the novelty aspects of this record (the ringing piano for
instance) don't help. 'Didn't my love mean anything to you, did all my kisses
go through you?' Eric asks as he finds just how little the marriage ceremony
meant to his beloved. The B-side was Eric's album track 'You Don't Know About
Love'.
December
1966: The
Mindbenders took 'I Want
Her, She Wants Me' from The Zombies catalogue and play in much the same
style (ie loud and staccato). This song really doesn't suit the band and they
sound terribly bored, with Eric really not engaging with this track at all
(after two flop singles were they making this one after record company
pressure?) It's also very un-late 1966, traditionally a time for love songs and
psychedelia, although it does share the same bleakness and choppy chords as The
Kinks' 'Dead End Street'.
Eric as usual gets the B-side and 'The Morning After'
continues his recent run of rather grumpy songs. His girl sometimes gets him in
a 'whirl' and he wonders whether he's done the right thing 'right after the
morning after'. This song is actually pretty daring for 1966 - this is clearly
the morning after a night of sex, with the morning after pill by now big in the
news. However what could have easily have been a fun tongue-in-cheek song is
played for tears not smiles and Eric's almost punk guitar part reveals just how
rotten and low he's feeling, without any colour on the bones at all, just bare
strummed strings. It's left to Rik and Bob to add the cheery 'ba ba ba's.
March
1967: The band's fourth Carole Bayer song isn't much of an
improvement on 'Ashes To Ashes' with 'We'll Talk About It Tomorrow' another soggy production ballad.
At least this one suits Eric's voice though if not the band's approach and it's
yet another step closer to his gooey-eyed ballads for 10cc.
For once Eric doesn't get the flipside. Drummer Bob
got his only solo credit for the band with 'Far Across Town' which features lots of room for
his Keith Moon-style drumming and a cute lyric about the dream house he and his
partner are going to buy together one day. For that to be a reality, though,
the Mindbenders needed a better A-side than this.
April
1967: 'With Woman
In Mind' (LP) (To Be Or Not To Be/Honey and Wine/Schoolgirl/A
Little Piece Of Leather/Shotgun/I Want Her She Wants Me//Mystery Train/Morning
After/Homework/Airport People/Cool Jerk/Ashes To Ashes) Perhaps the most
interesting of the four Mindbenders albums, if even more uneven than the first
three, 'With Woman In Mind' is one of the world's first concept albums (well,
technically The Beach Boys got there as early as 1963 and 'Little Deuce Coupe'
but most people credit 'Sgt Peppers' and this album beats it by two months!)
While most albums are based around love in some form, this record takes the
impressively forward-thinking view that love comes in many shades and forms and
tries to look at love from all angles, from teenagery crush to one-sided
obsession to a mature lasting adult relationship. Unfortunately while the Mindbenders
are thinking big in terms of visions, they're still thinking small in terms of
original material and arrangements and this must be one of the least
psychedelic albums released in 1967 (apart from Englebert Humperdinck and Cliff
Richard anyway). On the plus side, though, they've finally got round to hiring
a fourth member to help Eric out a bit - and it's a talented young lad named
Graham Gouldman. For now both Eric and Graham are still working very much in
their own styles (see later for a discussion of Graham's) and haven't yet to
work with each other, but you can just hear how much harder Eric is trying
compositionally with Graham there to keep him on his toes. 'To Be Or Not To Be' is
yet another Carol Bayer song, a rocker this time as Eric's narrator tries to work out whether his
friendship with another counts as a proper relationship or not. 'Honey and Wine' is a
cover song that had already appeared on the band's second LP and features a new
and stronger arrangement here, much more like The Hollies' one, with Eric
singing lead not Wayne over a nicely-spaced production that's heavy on the
tambourine. The Mindbenders still don't sound as if they quite get the full
scope of the song the way messers Clarke-Hicks-Nash do though. Talking of which
The Hollies had bought 'Schoolgirl'
off Graham with the intention of releasing it as the sequel to their other
Gouldman covers 'Look Through Any Window' and 'Bus Stop'. However the song was
abandoned because of worries about the risqué lyrics (the schoolgirl is seduced
by a much older man who ruins her academic potential and she 'lets him have his
way') and wasn't released until the 1990s (it was first released on 'The
Hollies At Abbey Road Volume Two') and it's pretty stunning, a psychedelic
masterclass! Graham's own take is more like something from his own solo album,
big on sweeping strings and without the energy and earthiness The Hollies bring
it. To be honest it's a very odd track lyrically that manages to be
simultaneously creepy and funny ('In a library researching English lit she met
a student who took her mind off it!') - all is pure to the pure, mind - and
Graham's sly school-mistress vocal doesn't help matters much. Still,
fascinating to compare and Eric's snarling guitar is impressive. 'A Little Piece Of Leather'
is an unwelcome bit of caterwauling falsetto you'd hope The Mindbenders had
grown out of by now and the chorus 'she's a little bit of leather that's well
put together' might well be the worst moment in this whole book. 'Shotgun' is another
noisy unfocussed rocker - and quite where this fits into the concept is
anyone's guess! - though it does feature some blistering guitar. 'Mystery Train' is
perhaps the most obvious cover song choice ev-uh but at least The Mindbenders
speed the song up compared to normal and throw in some spicy guitar chops along
the way. Bob Lang manages a great impression of a train too using just his
drums. 'Homework'
is a song about lust that comes on so strong it distracts the poor narrator
from his studies. What with this and 'Schoolgirl' you have to wonder what age
The Mindbenders were pitching this album at, especially given the sultry,
sensual flavour of the guitars. 'Airport People' is a rare song by Bill Martin, one time Monkee
auditionee and occasional songwriter. Alas it's no 'Door Into Summer' or 'Zor
and Zam' but a rather plodding song that's a rather heavy-handed metaphor for
drugs. The people stuck at the airport because the planes are full can't get
'high', you see? No? Well neither did most of the Mindbenders' fans probably.
This slow repetitive recording is a bum trip, though. The last 'new' song is 'Cool Jerk' and it's not
that cool but it is very jerky, one of those daft dance numbers that sings the
title over and over. Rik's bass part is pretty inventive but, a few 'hey hey
hey's aside, there's not a lot going on in this dance to be honest.
July
1967: 'It's Getting
Harder All The Time' is, possibly, more risqué mischief from
a band that seem to be changing their personas in this era (that Graham
Gouldman is clearly a bad influence!) or more likely a song about the
difficulties of living without the love of their life. Eric's giving them one
last chance though to drop their 'foolish pride' but with demands like that his
chances of a happy ending are getting smaller all the time.
Carol Bayer returns for 'Off and Running' a fast-paced and
uncharacteristically aggressive rocker that finds Eric trying to leave at
break-neck speed on the sort of retro track 10cc will find parodying hilarious
in a few years' time. There's some nice see-saw guitarwork and an early
10cc-ish attempt to throw lots of things at a song at once in the hope that
some of them will stick whether they suit the song or not, but this song needs
to calm down a lot before it's listenable.
September
1967: Following 'A Groovy Kind Of Love', the Mindbenders
had all but disappeared from the charts but they made a belated slight-return
with a cover of 'The
Letter', the song made famous by The Box-Tops. The track fits Eric's
vocals much more snugly and The Mindbenders up their game here, with a great
orchestral arrangement and a nicely urgent backing track that reflects the
narrator trying to hurry 'back to my baby once more' after receiving a farewell
letter.
Eric's first B-side in a while, 'My New Day and Age'
finally got him his first royalties for a while and it's another step forward
to 10cc. There's a lot packed into this psychedelic track as a Leslie-speakered
and prematurely-aged Eric tells us that aging isn't suiting him and he's
forgotten most of his childish dreams. Until now - suddenly 'something' has
changed his mind and he sees the world in a whole different light! Someone must
have added something to his sandwiches when he wasn't looking - probably that
Graham Gouldman!
November
1967: 'Schoolgirl' was belatedly released as a single a
full seven months after it came out on the 'With Women In Mind' LP (in a new,
slightly punchier mix). 'Coming
Back' was the new B-side, a Bob Lang composition that couldn't be less
like the psychedelic A-side, being pure Merseybeat nonsense. Eric ups the ante
with a psychedelic solo though as suddenly the thought of the one you love not
being in your life anymore goes from being pop fodder to the loneliest possible
thing in your life.
February
1968: One of The Mindbenders' better late-period singles, 'Blessed Are The Lonely 'is
a return to the band's earlier Motown influences and tries to come to terms
that something as sad as a breakup could happen on such a bright and sunny day.
This makes Eric's narrator wonder if he's been studying the world all wrong and
he comes to the conclusion that being lonely allows him to understand how the
world works. Or something like that - what was in those sandwiches?!
Eric's first B-side in a while, 'Yellow Brick Road' is an
impressive production exercise that manages sound like Beatles B-side 'Old
Brown Shoe' in better sound. The first Mindbenders' song that's piano based
(almost certainly played by Eric himself with his favoured big choppy chords),
it's also the first that sounds more like 10cc (or at any rate Hotlegs) than
past Mindbenders songs. The title doesn't refer specifically to 'The Wizard Of
Oz' but is clearly a drug trip of some sort that manages to be nicely trippy
and other-worldly, with some superb bass and drum work, with Bob Lang not so
much propping the backing track up as trying to splinter it. Only an
unfortunate spoken word passage and some trying falsetto harmonies over the end
get in the way of one of the true unsung gems of 1968. Much under-rated. If
this had been the A-side not the B-side and this track had been marketed right,
The Mindbenders might have been successful enough to get a whole AAA book to
themselves...
August
1968: Graham provides 'Uncle Joe The Ice Cream Man' and it's very much
in keeping with his solo record 'The Graham Gouldman Thing' in being very
liberal in all things musical (check out the psychedelic phasing!) and oddly
conservative in subject matter (a song from 1968 being nice to old people?!)
Uncle Joe 'has a smile that makes children love him' which raises a few
eyebrows in our Jimmy Saville-savvy era, especially when followed by a list of
flavours the kids all love to lick, but this song is even more bonkers than
that as it casually tells us that the events in this song happened decades ago,
that the children are all grown up and Uncle Joe is long dead - even though
it's obviously set in the 1960s. Time travel and chocolate ice cream and
another sly tongue-in-cheek Gouldman vocal, what's not to love?
The final track released in The Mindbenders'
lifetime gives the last word back to Eric, with his own take on a
Gouldman-style novelty/psychedelic song 'The Man Who Loved Trees'. The song celebrates a
poet who came to tune in with nature and features a lovely chorus set in the
middle of a typically urgent Mindbenders backing track. The band have clearly
come a long way from first to last, though, with this single and the last
couple notably tidier and more professional than the ones before it. Enough to
bend your mind just a little bit anyway.
Graham
Gouldman and Lol Creme
(The
Whirlwinds):
Meanwhile, over in another part of
Manchester, the aptly named Whirlwinds came and went in the blink of an eye,
releasing just one single around the same time The Minbenders were at their
sales peak before breaking up. Graham was the band's figurehead and lead
writer, while the band also featured guitarist Steve Jacobsen, drummer Maurice
Sperling and Bernard Basso, who rather fittingly was the bassist (Graham was on
rhythm in those days). They also had a sort of unofficial honorary member in
Lol Creme, who wrote the band's one and only B-side before the band broke up.
Good luck tracking that song down though - to date only the A-side 'Look At Me'
is on general release as part of the Various Artists set 'Beat At Abbey Road
1963-1966' (1997). After losing their drummer they mutated into Graham's next
band The Mockingbirds which is where we'll pick the story up...
'Late'
1964: The very Beatley 'Look At Me' couldn't be more 1964 if it came in a
Dylan cap and a collarless suit - it certainly doesn't sound much like Graham's
later work. Full of 'hey heys', Buddy Holly hiccups and oodles of cheeky charm,
it's the sort of song that had it been written fifty years later would have
been given straight to a boy band to sing. There's no denying Graham's musical
grasp though even this early on as he pleads
with his girl to simply turn round and notice he exists because on his
part 'I want to marry you!' The band are clearly under pressure (one of the two
Grahams singing this song gets his words wrong at the 1:45 mark, making the
other one laugh out loud!) but the slapdash nature of the performance only adds
to the charm of this cute song which somehow manages to be good fun rather than
simply annoying.
B-side 'Baby Not Like You' doesn't sound anything much like Lol's later
10cc songs either, sounding much like 'The Letter' funnily enough, the song his
future partner Eric Stewart is about to have a hit with four years later.
Lyrically it's a song about wanting stability after the narrator has been
betrayed yet again, even after handing over all his money and cash and pledging
his loyalty. Drummer Maurice sings lead on this one alongside Graham's
harmonies (Lol doesn't appear I don't think) and ragged harmonica, but the real
star is Jacobsen's sturdy guitar, which oddly is the most 10cc-ish thing in the
whole song!
Graham
Gouldman and Kevin Godley
(The
Mockingbirds):
After whirling Graham's next band went
a-mocking, hiring a young Kevin Godley (with a very distinctive goatee beard in
this era) as the replacement for the departing Maurice Sperling, though Lol
Creme seems to have stopped hanging round the band by this time. The
Mockingbirds signed to Fontana, who obviously had a thing for Manchester bands.
Unlike The Mindbenders, who continued to cover singles on their A-sides up
until the bitter end, The Mockingbirds were very much a vehicle for Graham's
songwriting talents and almost all the singles they recorded (the band were
never successful enough to be granted the go-ahead for a full album) were from
his hand. Two of these - 'You Stole My Love' and 'How To Find A Lover' -
appeared on the best-selling 'Nuggets'
compilation of psychedelic one-hit wonders (the second volume dedicated to
British and Empire singles), while the others aren't very well known or widely
spread (sadly there still isn't a CD that just features The Mockingbirds, which
is a tragedy given that they feature two of the 1970's biggest stars in their
early years). None of the five released singles charted and the band were never
asked to make an album, though fate might have been very different - Graham's
plan was to make 'For Your Love' the band's debut, but Fontana didn't like it
so he gave it to The Yardbirds instead, who scored a big hit with it. That
rather sums up the fate of this poor band, who during their two-year lifetime
were overshadowed by other bands having hits with Graham's songs, with 'No Milk
Today' 'Pamela Pamela' and 'Bus Stop' also all released in this two year
period. It probably didn't help that Graham cut his own solo records on the
side during this period, which we've indexed separately as part of a wider
discussion of his solo work. However The Mockingbirds sounded like a band with
a real future - almost all the reviewers who heard these singles said it and
the band had a big following, they just never quite got the knock-out song they
needed to be chart regulars.
February
1965: 'That's
How (It's Gonna Stay)' sounds very much like a debut single - it's
derivative ('A Hard Day's Night' era Beatles, naturally) and slightly unsure of
itself but not without an innocent charm. No surprise in a way - Graham's still only eighteen and Kevin only
nineteen and neither of them have had much experience as yet, with 1966
Graham's breakthrough year as a songwriter (starting with 'Look Through Any
Window' for The Hollies in January). The charts in 1965 were full of fluff like
this - boy likes girl, girl likes boy, 'that's how it's gonna stay for a long
long time', but Graham's got the charming false smile down pat. So much so
grandmothers up and down the country probably loved this record, though less so
the teenagers who probably considered it all a bit square by 1965. There's far
worse debut records from this era though and Godley's eccentric drumming is
already catching the ear (though there are no harmony vocals as yet).
If The A-side is very Beatley, then B-side 'I Never Should've Kissed You'
is very like fellow Mancunian band The Hollies, with similar harmonies, heavy
energetic drumming and strong guitarwork. This song wouldn't exactly win any
awards for creativity either, but there's real excitement from the backing
track with Godley trying to rush everything on and Graham's in far better
voice. This time the theme is that the narrator is almost cross that he's been
fooled into kissing a girl he fancies, because now he's going to have to be
true 'forevermore' and he's got so many other girls he never kissed!
May
1965: There's been a great re-think in the band for second
single 'I Can Feel We're
Parting', which is more like a Motown special. Actually the band were
probably thinking more of The Yardbirds who'd just scored a big hit with the
debut album The Mockingbirds intended to release 'For Your Love' (Graham left
the song in their dressing room one night when they played Manchester and
offered the song after Fontana turned it down for his group - ironically The
Yardbirds were signed to Fontana as well but with a few hits under their belt
were more able to fight their corner than The Mockigbirds). Frankly, the song's
not quite as inspired and takes things very slow, but it's far more original
than the first single and Graham has grown as a vocalist especially with a
deeper, more heartfelt timbre to his voice. You can also hear Kevin's first
taped 'oohs' at the high end of the harmonies which are already awfully good.
Graham wrote the song with his early writing partner Charles Silverman, who
also co-wrote 'Window'.
A fierce instrumental credited to the whole band, 'The
Flight Of The Mockingbird' sounds like an early band jam that got way out of
hand, similar to what Hotlegs will go on to record with the tapes left running.
You can already hear how interested the band are in studio trickery, suggesting
Graham and Kevin at least already had half-an-eye on a studio of their own. Not
that distinguished perhaps, but good fun.
October
1965: Perhaps the most convincing of the five Mockingbirds
singles, 'You Stole My Love' is way ahead of the
curve and already suggesting psychedelic trips before we've even got into 1966
(we've come a long way in just three singles). Graham plays the earthbound
narrator whose life has been ruined after his girl turns him down, while Kevin
sings the angelic and pure chorus halfway between innocence and - fittingly
given the group name - a mocking tone. Julie Driscoll, a few months away from
her success with The Trinity, adds some guest vocals too. However the song's
biggest star is surely guitarist Steve Jacobsen whose ringing 12-string - so
much the sound of the period - manages to straddle the line between detachment
and emotion coming to the boil. Like many Gouldman song in this period, this
one comes in several parts and not all of them work - the uptempo cowboy
'That's the way it's going to be' middle eight being by far the weakest - but
there's a lot more here to praise than criticise. The moment when the song boils over into full on 'You Stole
My Love' passion at around the 90 second mark and The Mockingbirds suddenly and
jarringly turn into The Who, is genuinely thrilling - the band should have
recorded more songs like this one. Alas though nobody bought 'You Stole My
Love' which was, in retrospect, perhaps a couple of months too ahead of it's
time to be successful. Later fans, who knew how the 1960s panned out, loved it
and it became a much discussed and much-loved highlights of the 'Nuggets II'
psychedelic box set.
An early example of a bonkers 10cc B-side, 'Skit Skat' is another
even lesser instrumental, based around some bluesy chord changes and featuring
someone (Kevin?) wailing along just off-mike. Though everybody thinks of The
Mockingbirds as Goudlman's band, this is a good chance to hear just how strong
they were instrumentally, with Bernard Basso on - what else? - bass
particularly strong here. Anyone who likes the early Jethro Tull upbeat
instrumentals will find much to enjoy here.
July
1966: Sounding a little like a compilation of everything
heard so far, 'One By One' is a cute
Beatley song that sounds very 1964 given a psychedelic production makeover
(with a very Beach Boys use of horns this time) that makes it sounds very 1966.
The production is by far the more interesting half, with a really good use of
slow build-up and tension and Jacobsen's surf guitar up against a wall of
drums. Sadly the song is pretty boring, full of reasons why the narrator's girl
should go out with him and with the confusing Noah's ark chorus 'They go
through a closing door, lost and gone forevermore'. The middle eight is more
interesting though, with Graham seemingly giving out reasons why he's better
off as a loner: 'How would life be without beauty? Why would we be without
dreamers? Tell me why can't others make it through?' The lack of success for
The Mockingbirds is clearly getting to him, although if they couldn't make it
with the last single they had no chance with this one which is something of a
step backwards.
Sounding not unlike 'Baby Love', the flipside 'Lovingly Yours' is more
Motown yodelling, with Graham in twee balladeer form. Promising undying love,
Graham strings together some clever rhymes ('I'll always be near you when you
say you need my love to cheer you') but this is an intellectual rather than
heartfelt song and something about this song just seems off. It's probably the
chirpy organ which sounds like a microwave is going off across the song.
perhaps the weakest of the ten Mockingbirds recordings.
October
1966: The other inclusion on 'Nuggets', 'How To Find A Lover' is
funkier than the other tracks, though still with ambition on the production
side. This time the song was written by Peter Cowap, another writer seemingly
on the verge of a breakthrough the whole 1960s long and who crops up again with Graham in the
band 'High Society' (Graham had offered him 'Look Through Any Window' before
The Hollies heard it so clearly felt he owed Peter one). Graham puts his voice
through every possible device going (with Kevin mirroring them up high) as he
reads out a book of instructions. To be honest you won't learn much here except
the 1960s' obsession with the proper hairdo as most of what we get is 'chapter
one is easy', although there is a genuine laugh when Graham reveals he's got to
chapter sixty and still has so much to learn. The track fades out early though
- given Gouldman's indulging his usual early love of multiple sections here
1:58 isn't anywhere near long enough to explore this interesting landscape.
The Mockingbirds bow out with 'My Story', which isn't
so much autobiographical as every single 1960s pop song ever written. Graham
fell in love, his girl promised him 'heaven' and that she'd be 'true only to me
- which proves just how wrong you can be'. She left in the Spring, he cried
through to the Fall ('but never did she call'). Cute, but very much
made-up-in-five-minutes-B-side filler this isn't 'my story' so much as
'everyone's story' and The Mockingbirds' last appearance is basically a Graham
solo effort with some Godley drums in there somewhere.
Graham
Gouldman (Solo):
Graham was clearly being groomed as a
star, even though his record with his own band were flopping, so Fontana asked
him if he fancied making a solo single instead, just to see if it was his band
holding him back. After this single failed in the charts too (released in a gap
between Mockingbird singles three and four), Graham returned to his solo career
in 1968 and re-recorded many of the hit songs that he'd given away to other
artists (though strangely not his breakthrough hit 'Look Through Any Window').
The singles were successful enough for a full - and cult - album 'The Graham
Gouldman Thing', which has been re-issued a few times down the years and is one
of the more common early 10cc releases to pick up, though even this record
didn't exactly set the charts alight. We finish off with a lone single released
right on the eve of 10cc when Graham had run out of other bands and didn't
expect 'Donna' to do any better in the charts than any of his other one-off
groups he'd been involved with. As it happens 10cc will put an end to Graham's
solo career until Eric Stewart's car crash and recovery leaves him twiddling
his thumbs in 1979...
February
1966: Funnily enough the first Hollies single released
after two Gouldman compositions was a self-written record titled 'Stop! Stop!
Stop!' (itself a last minute substitute for intended third Gouldman single
'Schoolgirl', released by The Mindbenders instead). Could it be that they were
still taking notice of their hitmaker's ideas? Graham's first solo single was
titled 'Stop! Stop! Stop!
(Or Honey I'll Be Gone...)' and isn't a million miles away from The
Hollies' driving sound (though it's more like 'I Can't Let Go' than 'Stop!
Stop! Stop!') Graham returns to his Motown influences on this driving
horn-drenched track that could easily have been a hit for The Four Tops or the
like. Graham sounds slightly uncomfortable singing it himself (especially the
James Brown style 'Ow, honey, huh huh!' break in the instrumental) but it is a
good song, with a groovy horn riff and a nice funky bass riff pushing the song
on. Certainly it's a lot more interesting than the last two Mockingbirds
singles and deserved to do something in the charts. The song was co-written
with 'C Connolly', who never seemed to work with Graham again (maybe he wrote
the horn parts?)
February
1968: With The Mockingbirds having now flown the nest, The
Mindbenders having blown and High Society and The Yellow Boom Room having blown
up too, Graham was at a lull in his career and felt himself rather written out
after four years of constant songwriting almost to clockwork for the Kassenatz
Katz bubblegum company (Graham kept regular hours as a songwriter there). It
was his manager Harvey Lisberg who suggested that Graham should re-record all
the songs he'd written for other people, the original plan being for Peter
Noone (of Herman's Hermits) to produce the album, a 'twist' on the usual
writer-produces-the-singer idea. Peter, though, only turned up for one session
so the album got passed to John Paul Jones instead, back when he was still a
session bass guitarist a year away from forming Led Zeppelin. Jones plays bass
across the record, legendary session man Clem Cattini played drums (it helped
that he'd filled in for a sick Bobby Elliott on The Hollies' cover of Graham's
'Schoolgirl' the year before) and Graham played everything else. Though the
record wasn't a big success, it did bring the spotlight back onto Gouldman and
gave his confidence the boost it needed after a relatively dry spell across
1967. You have to say, though, that never in the whole of 1968 was there an
album quite so out of step with its times, with songs full of topics like
grandparents and inheritance and re-recordings of songs that were so much a
part of their eras in 1964 and 1965.
The first single
of three singles released from the album was 'The Impossible Years', a track originally
recorded - funnily enough - by his new friend Eric's old rival Wayne Fontana.
Released as his sixth solo single since splitting with The Mindbenders, it
missed the charts everywhere but Australia and was something of a brave choice
for the singer in late 1967. A long way from Wayne's usual teenage pop songs,
it's a dramatic ballad about a girl growing up and coming of age in a world of
'great explorations' and her boyfriend struggling to keep up with her. Includes
the memorable couplet 'Girls are growing and without knowing they're the seeds
that we've been sowing'.
'No Milk
Today'
is to this day arguably Graham's highest selling song, a hit for Herman's
Hermits in September 1966 around most of the world. According to Hollie Graham
Nash a sixteen year old Gouldman had already written the song when The Hollies
got in touch but had promised the song to Peter Noone, an old friend from years
back (he'd turned down 'Bus Stop' so The Hollies took it instead!) The title
was one of 'my father's, as it were, with Gouldman senior coming up with the
idea and telling his prodigal son 'have a go at writing something round that my
boy!' Graham certainly did: a clever commercial song this one says a lot by
saying very little, a message for the milkman and an empty milk bottle on the
step telling more or less the full story as a lonely boyfriend keeps the house
he used to share with his lover as a 'shrine' to her. Graham's version is less
cute than Herman's Hermits and is sung much faster, with a certain school-teacherly
urgency lacking in the teenyboper hit version.
February
1968: 'Upstairs
Downstairs' was another, lesser known song written for Herman's
Hermits, an album track on their late 1967 album 'Blaze'. Another cute tale of
love gone wrong, it's a tale of a boy and girl living their empty loveless
lives just one flight of stairs away from each other, but both of them are too
scared to make the first move. Though the hummed 'Upstairs, umm-hmm' chorus
isn't one of Graham's better ideas (and oddly sounds even triter than when
Peter Noone sang it), the idea's a strong one and the Medieval arrangement
makes it clear just how timeless and ageless this song is. Sadly there is no
resolution by the end.
One of the few new songs written for the album,
blues near-instrumental 'Chestnut'
has a pleasant enough guitar riff but needs some warming over an empty fire to
properly find it's groove. The session musicians are clearly more used to
following Graham's songwriting ideas and bashing them into shape than letting
fly. There's a curious spoken word middle eight too in which Graham indulges in
an early love of wacky voices with a posh upper class twit voice: 'If all of us
were doomed to die when we lived a minute...we'd let our sixty seconds run when
Spring has sprung and there's a Chestnut in Kensington Gardens'. Me, I'd be
listening to CSN, but each to their own I suppose...
July
1968: 'Pamela
Pamela'
was Wayne Fontana's biggest solo hit, a nostalgic reminiscence for times when
life was simpler and romance consisted on taking your girl to the pictures and
handing her a sticky red lolly on a splintery stick. More cheesy and cloying
than most of Gouldman's songs, it seems likely that this song was written for
Herman's Hermits again and suits their style more than Wayne's. Graham sounds
deeply uncomfortable too, though like many of his best songs from the period
'Pamela' works well at explaining hippiedom in easy speak for nervous elderly
relatives. 'Pamela Pamela you started to grow, answers to questions you wanted to
know...' The Hollies may well have, erm, 'borrowed' this song for their own
'Jennifer Eccles' released more or less at the same time as Graham's
re-recording.
Graham's most influential song (until 'I'm Not In
Love' at any rate) was probably 'For Your Love', a big hit for The Yardbirds which Graham wrote
early on during a lunch break at the tailor's where he was working during the
day. Actually this song is the odd one out in Graham's early oeuvre - though as
classily written as any of the other songs Gouldman gave away, it's clearly
emotionally driven and written from the heart as much as the head. Graham
promises the world and sounds like he means it, with the song building up to an
intense passion during the middle that makes it clear he's not just chatting a
girl up and telling her what he wants to hear. Sadly Graham's own recording is
a bit of a disappointment, hampered by too much crazy-paving production and fat
echo that's no substitute for The Yardbirds' fierce playing (though Nils
Lofgren's 1976 cover version steals the show from both it has to be said).
Still a stunning song though in any version, simple enough for everyone to
understand but original and powerful enough to be more than just another clever
pop record. They should have switched the A-sides round.
'1968':
'The Graham Gouldman Thing (LP)
(The Impossible Years/Bus Stop/Behind The Door/Pawnbroker/Who Are They?/My
Father//No Milk Today/Upstairs Downstairs/For Your Love/Pamela Pamela/Chestnut)
Graham's first solo record duly followed, though none of the three singles had
done all that well. Six of the album's eleven tracks have been covered already
so for now we start with 'Bus
Stop', a rather fun if 'polite' version of The Hollies' breakthrough
American hit. A lovely and very English song about a boy and girl falling in
love after he offers he shelter under his umbrella, the romance takes place at
break-neck speed but sounds entirely natural. Graham's solo re-recording is one
of the best on the album, sporting a sweet string part very much based on
'Yesterday' and an inventive arrangement where the full band only kicks in
halfway through. Graham also sounds far happier on this sweet and subtle track
than he does the nakedly honest 'For Your Love' or the twee and cutesy 'Pamela
Pamela'. 'Behind The Door'
is another album highlight and a track recorded by Cher in 1967 that returns to
Graham's favourite metaphor of a couple's house reflecting the state of their
relationship as it evolves 'from love to hate, in remorseful fate'. This time
the feelings aren't good and Graham comes up with a rather eerie and solemn
backing, complete with strings and a harpsichord. Though the arrangement pushes
Graham's vocal up uncomfortably high, he's more than up to the challenge and
sounds best on this slow-building smoky kind of song, at least until the lesser
rocky finale which sounds very Minderbendersy as he pleas for a 'happy ending'.
'Pawnbroker' is a
Spanish flamenco song about the very English past-time of swapping goods in a
pawnbroker's. Graham's cheeky vocal isn't one of his best (was this song
written for Peter Noone again and is this an impression?) but the tale of the
narrator passing over the medals for his own accomplishment as he tries to move
on with his life has it's moments. 'Who Are They?' is another album highlight, as Graham writes a
Wax-style protest song though one that wears very 1960s rather than 1980s
clothes. 'Who are they where they're bound, the faceless mass on the
merry-go-round' sings Graham, with a dig at the 9-5 community which probably
also contains a dig at his Kassenatz paymasters asking him to come up with art
multiple times a day. 'Getting wed, going to bed, two kids to feed, and the
mortgage ahead' is Graham's damning indictment of 'straight' people leading
boring lives, who always seem to be doing something yet 'nothing gets done'.
One of Gouldman's very best 1960s songs, with a good mixture of playfulness and
sarcasm. Finally, at the end of side one. 'My Father' is an oddball song for 1968. Graham
was unusual for a 1960s musician in being both close to and encouraged by his
parents - indeed, it was his father Hyme 'The Rhyme' Gouldman (a failed
songwriter himself) who rang up Graham Nash to tell him about his lad's
talents! Graham repays the compliment with a most un-1960s tale of a wonderful
father that the narrator would like to be like when he grows up. There's still
time for a moving middle eight when the narrator learns that, however great
things are at home, he can only grow by being 'independent and free, on my own
two feet', but even that's followed by the recognition that he'll never be as
successful as his father with 'smile so charming' and ends the song realising
that while he can't be his father, he can be the next best thing - the 'son of
my father'. Hyme Gouldman probably spat his pipe out with laughter when he
first heard this song, but it's more than just sucking up to the old man -
Graham clearly means every word and manages to be sentimental without being
cloying. A useful song for those few 1960s children who didn't hate their
parents. Overall, 'The Graham Gouldman Thing' is rather a nice album, cosy
rather than groundbreaking and sweet rather than sensational, but it did its
job at proving Gouldman's strength as a writer. Very poppy and simple as most
of the songs here are, they show a ridiculous understanding of not only musical
principles but also people – the innocent pair in ‘Bus Stop’ are brought to
life in barely a few lines. The downside of this record is that, understandably
for such a low budget release, the simple backing makes every song sound a bit
the same and Graham hasn’t quite grown into his growly voice yet. Still, treat
this album as a bootleg or as an extra from a box set and you’ll be fascinated.
Interestingly, though, it's the newer material - not used as singles - that
impress more than the 'hit' songs, making you wish Graham had written a whole
new album in 1968 instead of just half a one. Little did Graham know it but it
would be another thirteen years before the sequel as life with 10cc got in the
way. This record - once a cult sought after by 10cc, Hollies, Herman's Hermits
and Wayne Fontana fans all - is thankfully easier to find in the present day
than ever before thanks to re-issues in 1974 (to cash in on 10cc's success), 1992
(Edsel), 2004 (BMG) and 2007 (Rev-Ola). And a good job too: Graham Gouldman
can do his 'thing' like no other.
January
1972: Jumping forward in time slightly, 'Nowhere To Go' is, in
retrospect, a very telling song. Graham has never sounded more fed up and acts very
out of character as he snarls at people who dare to tell him things will get
better soon. 'Plenty of time?' he snaps, hardly - he can't get rid of the time
fast enough, with the radio bad, his mama out and there's nothing to do but
'walk in my head'. To be honest Graham was probably getting a bit long in the
tooth for teenagery pop songs like this (the chorus even includes an 'Oo-wee'),
but the string arrangement is nice and the melody is lovely, with hints of
several Gouldman classics to come including 'Lifeline' and 'I Hate To Eat
Alone'.
B-side 'Growing Older' deals with this in fact, a far superior
nostalgic song to 'Pamela Pamela' remembering childhood games and old favourite
songs. Graham runs to the top of a hill to hear the echo, like he used to do,
but remembers that it's only an echo and he lies in a different time now.
'Everything seemed so small, now it's me that's tall - well it happens' he
shrugs his shoulders with down-to-earth philosophy. Actually an even stronger
song than the A-side, you can almost hear Graham's frustration at life and
success passing him by. Heh heh heh, little does Graham know what's about to
happen to him by the end of the year...
Graham
Gouldman (High Society)
Graham's 'other' new friend of the late
1960s along with Eric and Kevin wasn't Lol (not yet), but gravelly-voiced
singer-songwriter Peter Cowap. The pair has similarly quirky songwriting styles
and teamed up with a promising couple of folk singers named Christine Ebbrell
and Friday Brown for a sort of Mancunian Mamas and Papas. Though the band only
ever made one single (with a Gouldman A side and a Cowap B side), the band had
quite a following and were spoken about with far more awe and respect than The
Whirlwinds or The Mokingbirds for some reason. To modern ears they sound a
little bit too straightlaced today, but there's no denying than this is another
stepping stone in Gouldman's development as a writer and arranger. The song
also marked Graham's first work with John Paul Jones who is credited as
producer two full years before 'The Graham Gouldman Thing'.
November
1966: Rather prim and proper, 'People Passing By' is more Seekers than
Searchers and is one of the few pre-10cc recordings to show off a folk root.
Christine and Friday are the main pulls of the song as they emote about being
ordinary people not living out their full potential and 'living in a cage' when
they could be doing so much more. Graham does join in, singing the deep bass
part for the first time on record, but he sounds rather out of place on this
song despite the fact that he wrote it. The nagging staccato 'people people'
chorus doesn't really fit with the genteel English feel of the rest of the song
either. A poor man's 'Look Through Any Window'.
Graham had little to do with B-side 'Star Of Eastern Street'
which, if you can forgive the lack of loyalty, is actually the better side.
Peter's song is very much in the same folk sentiment but makes a better job of
being cute as well as being weird. Lyrically this is a tale of prejudice, where
a woman with 'slanting eyes' manages to be the 'most dignified' on her street,
overcoming what people thought about her when she first moved in. Peter and
Graham's sitar-style duel on guitars over the fade-out is what catches the ear
most though and makes you wonder how great a 10cc album from the psychedelic
era might have been!
Graham
Gouldman (The Manchester Mob)
Graham
and Peter teamed up for another record under the more plausible name of 'The
Manchester Mob' along with new pals Phil Dennys on keyboards, session musician
(and part time Hollie when Bobby Elliott was poorly) Clem Cattini and future
Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones. Interestingly the last two will hang
around long enough to help Graham in the making of 'The Gouldman Thing' in
1968. Oddly, considering that the band featured one of the great writers of the
age and - in Peter - someone who could have been one of the great writers of
the age and considering that we're at the winter of promise which is about to
lead directly into the summer of love, this single is a cover of a 1950s song
and is more Sha-Na-Na than peace, love and flowers. Sadly I still haven't heard
the B-side, which is an original Graham-Peter song named 'Afro-Asian' (though
credited to the pseudonym 'Plonk') which sounds much more interesting, but then
that's ridiculously rare one-pressing-only flop singles from fifty years ago
that have never been re-issued for you.
January
1967: The medley 'At The Hop' and 'Bony Maronie' mixes together two classics 1950s
tunes by Danny and the Juniors and Little Richard respectively (oddly 'Little
Richard Penniman' gets sole credit for both on the label). Played with a
typical Merseybeat groove, despite the era and the fact the players have drawn
attention to their Mancunian roots (generally speaking Manchester beat music
was slightly more melodic, harmony-based and more 'upbeat' than Liverpool's;
think The Searchers versus The Hollies or Gerry and the Pacemakers versus The
Mindbenders), Peter and Graham have fun swapping verses but you sense this
single was a lot more fun to play on than to listen to. The harmonies are
rather nice though and the brief Cowap solo is a pretty good one, much busier
and bouncier than Eric's future performances. Well out of its time, this single
was always going to struggle despite the talent involved in it.
Godley
and Creme (The Yellow Bellow Boom Room!)
After The Mockingbirds flew away, Kevin
Godley teamed up with another Mancunian friend in Lol Creme as well as a few
fellow pals including vocalist/harmonica player Stan 'Red' Hoffman (who was as
big a draw as Godley thanks to his time with the band with the 'catchy' name
The Measles), bassist Stuart Sirrett and flautist Jeff Walters. Even by the
release of their first and only single, though, The Yellow Bellow Boom Room
were all about the new off-the-wall friendship between Godley and Creme, who
naturally also came up with the unique new band name and both sides of the
single. The band pretty much invent prog-rock here, with the sound of Jethro Tull and The Moody Blues wrapped around some
impenetrable lyrics about seeing the world from a slightly different angle.
Though not quite the lost classic some fans take it to be, this rare single is
a key part of the 10cc story (the first musical acquaintance between two future
best friends - though it's worth noting that they first met in art college and
had collaborated on several paintings by 1968) and is good enough to make you
wish that the band had gone on to paint the world their peculiar shade of
yellow a few more times before the 1960s were out.
January
1968: Kevin's lying in a tree and clearly taking acid or
something similarly strong, with 'Seeing Things Green' describing what he sees from the branches
and admiring the 'sweet smell of incense' from the juniper berries near by.
Yeah sure, Kevin, if that's what you want to tell your mum you've been
sniffing. What Godley's narrator sees turns out to be like a softer, more
psychedelic version of future partner Graham Gouldman's visions of a perfect
world, full of people who should be making more out of their lives. Which is a
bit rich coming from a man off his heads on drugs lying in a tree, but that's
the 1960s for you. A pleasant tune drifts by quite sweetly over lungs full of
flute, but there's an added toughness here too that already belies the angelic
voice of the lead singer.
'My hand is no bigger than a pair of butterflies
tied together tied up with string - and I'm growing older day by day!' Kevin
sings deeper for the more shallow B-side 'Easy Life', which is a cute 'busy doin' nothing'
song in the late 1960s Brian Wilson mould. Even though nothing really happens
across this song (the narrator grows older, thinks about stuff including all
the skills he once learnt but gave up and - oh yes - builds a wigwam), the
track has fun getting absolutely nowhere. Lol's urgent guitar tries to nag
Kevin's narrator into moving on with his life but he's not listening, content
to drift to the sound of flute and celeste. The character has all that he wanted
and more anyway, so what's the point in working harder? This very much fits in
with the art college rants of Godley and Creme's joint records, though it
doesn't sound much like the perfectionism and hard work that goes into most of
10cc's recordings.
Graham
Gouldman (Ohio Express)
There wasn't just one 'Ohio Express'
leaving town in the 1960s but lots of them. Like the future 10cc (certainly
like Hotlegs) the band was an ad hoc collection of whatever session musicians
happened to be around in the room at any one time, all of them part of the
mammoth Kassenatz Katz bubblegum pop record amalgam. Graham was, for a time, a
reluctant fellow employee trying to scratch out a living there and as one of
the few musicians there who'd actually worked on a record was invariably
drafted in to help work on the band's ninth single (the most famous being the
third, 'Yummy Yummy Yummy' released eighteen months earlier). In actual fact he
did more than work on it - he took it over and got his new friends at
Strawberry Studios to play on it, making this the first time all four men from
10cc play on the same record a full year before the 'Hotlegs' LP (though it is
for now very much Graham's baby the others play on rather than collaborate on).
The record did marginally better than the last one (the memorably titled 'Pinch
Me Baby!') and hit #83 in the hit parade but wasn't exactly a runaway success
so Graham never got asked to contribute again. The B-side was 'Make Love Not
War' which had nothing to do with Graham or indeed anyone else who passed
through the ranks of 'Ohio Express' - the track had already been released
months previously as 'Road Runner' by fellow Katz employees 'The Music
Explosion'. I bet that confused a few record buyers in the 1960s!
August
1969: A great groove from three guitars and some fierce
drumming from Godley make 'Sausalito (Is The Place To Go)'
a real ear-catcher. It's certainly one of the catchier songs the Ohio Express
released with a sweet tale of all the things to do in one of California's
greatest towns. Why some kid from Manchester knows so much about it though is
another matter and the lyrics are very over the top in Graham's haste to say
how wonderful everything is. It's all done with such good humour though that
it's hard not to go with it. I mean is this the greatest ever chorus or what?
'You gotta go there, everything grows there, when you get high on a mountain it
snows there, everything's groovy, like in a movie, Sausalito is the place to go
to!' I don't know about you but I'm ready to pack my bags right now... The song
must have been the source of much mirth back in Stockport though! Dare I say it
though but the source material is still very close to home, with more
Hollies-style backing (especially their folkie phase circa 'Romany' which strictly
speaking hasn't happened yet - 'Won't You Feel Good That Morning' is a dead
ringer for this track, especially the Tony Hicks style guitar from Eric). Even
though this recording clearly feels like the 'future' though it took 10cc three
more years and a lot of other session work and hanging around before the band
finally met around a table and went 'hang on a minute, instead of backing other
idiots doing this stuff maybe we should back ourselves?' You can find it as the
opening track on the 'Strawberry Bubblegum' compilation (2003).
Godley
and Creme (Frabjoy and Runciple Spoon)
Godley and Creme, you see, already had
other plans including a second single together without the rest of the Yellow
Baby Boomers. History doesn't record which of Godley and Creme was Frabjoy and
which was Runciple Spoon, but what it does record is how quickly the pair had
bonded over eccentric humour and wild ideas, with Graham and Eric both lending
a hand too. As per usual for this period in 10cc's history when the single flopped
the band just moved on to the next song and daft name and never gave this track
a second glance. A shame because it's one of the nicer pre-10cc recordings
around.
September
1969: A merry folk-rocker, 'I'm Beside Myself' sounds like The Eagles if they
could actually sing, with a run of nutty rhymes scattered through the song and
some lean mean harmonies from the Godley-Creme partnership hitting their stride
for the first time. Godley sings a great lead vocal as his narrator tries to
sleep, the sun casting a shadow of a whole other person 'beside myself'. Kevin
wonders if his shadow having a better time than he is and suspects that, maybe,
he is. After all, he's in a bad condition: 'My thoughts are shaking and my mind
is slow' and he's got no particular place to go so for all he knows he is the
shadow! Some nice country guitar from Lol adds a more laidback feel, while the
catchy chorus really deserved to be recycled in the 10cc set like some of the
'Hotlegs' moments were. Al l in all a fine little song that's long overdue its
first CD release.
The B-side was 'The Animal Song' which is a much more intense
song with some great creepy-angelic vocal from Godley. A sitar adds a touch of
surreal psychedelia to this song as Godley imagines himself being visited by
all sorts of creatures including a spider 'whose body is as gold as the sun', a
beaver 'building a hole in the stream' that's about to take out the Pacific
ocean, a parrot 'learns the words of a song' and a porpoise 'who lives in a
tree and charms all the fish in a far away sea'. Throughout the song a doctor
nods in the corner, seemingly accepting everything the narrator has to tell
him, suggesting the narrator isn't on a drug trip so much as pouring out his
darkest fears and fantasies. Though the song never really gets anywhere
(there's no chorus or middle eight), it's very atmospheric and almost as good
as the A-side, too good to stay hidden on an obscure 45 single that's for sure.
Even from the first Godley and Creme have a really unique writing style together.
The
Graham Gouldman Orchestra
For a long time I thought this single only
existed in the windmills of my mind. I mean, what is one of the leading
songwriters of the 1960s doing re-recording film soundtrack standards using an
orchestra? But 1969 was a funny year for Graham: after a year working for the
Katz bubblegum team he felt written out and felt the songs he was writing had
nothing in common with the rest of the world's releases in 1969. So, looking
for a new direction, becoming a sort of arranger-producer must have appealed to
an artist who had already fallen in love with the way of life the other 10ccers
were enjoying over at Strawberry Studios. Though we know this single to be a
dead-end, at the time it made perfect sense.
'1969':
Michel
Legrand's 'Windmills Of
Your Mind' always leant itself to instrumental covers and film scores
and Gouldman's stormy recording sounds much as you'd expect. No substitute for
one of his own songs of course, but hearing the track like this reminds you of
just how Gouldman the track is, with its rounded melody and natural curve.
The B-side was 'Harvey's Theme', a similar sort of song written
by Gouldman in honour of the close friendship he had with his manager Harvey
Lindsberg. Though song publisihing is a notoriously disloyal business, the pair
had stayed close and this track sounds like a nod of the head from Graham to a
manager who'd been there through thick and thin and wanted something a bit more
'classical' from his protégé this time around. Graham clearly has a knack for
this sort of thing, but it's still a relief to hear him go back to making
'normal' records again in a couple of years' time.
Kevin
Godley (Crazy Elephant)
Crazy Elephant were another of the Kassenatz Katz bubblegum groups
who were farmed out from Ohio to the unlikely confines of Stockport, mainly
because the company had invested a lot of money into Strawberry Studios in the
hope of getting more hits out of Graham. While Gouldman had moved on, Godley
eagerly took up a franchise that had already scored a hit bigger than anything
he'd had a hand in ('Gimme Gimme Good Lovin', an American #12 hit) and played a
central role on this 'Hotlegs' style rocker. Possibly the others join in too
(that sounds awfully like Lol on the wistful middle eight), but only Godley has
ever been credited (or been brave enough to take the blame!) Sadly the song
missed the charts entirely, while the B-side 'Landrover' probably doesn't
feature any of the band at all.
May
1970: 'There Ain't
No Umbopo!' is a bit of an in-joke: recorded after the track
'Umbopo' but released a few months earlier, it's a faster more energetic
version of the same song that sounds much like 'Today' to come from the Hotlegs
LP speeded up. Godley can write nonsense lyrics as good as any bubblegum hit-makers
and manages to string together a nearly-plausible song out of gobbledegook,
held together by nothing more than the most Godley-ish vocal he'd recorded so
far. The tale of a man who overhears some mysterious sounds on his car radio
and sets off in search for it, we never find out what an 'umbopo' is (the man
is never seen again before he gets there) but that's ok: this track is more
about the journey than the destination. The song can be heard on the
'Strawberry Bubblegum' compilation (2003).
Stewart,
Godley and Creme (Doctor Father)
By now we're getting much nearer to the
formation of 10cc, with this the first single released by the band after their
'Hotlegs' hit of 'Neanderthal Man' and the subsequent LP. For the time being
the band were content to try out different names and styles and discard them as
they went along, but somehow the success of 'Hotlegs' tainted the masterplan
and the failure of the 'Dr Father' single so soon after scoring a #2 UK hit
discouraged everyone. For now the band are back as a trio, with Gouldman having
returned to America after his cameo role with Hotlegs to think about his
future. To be fair, a nonsense song about an imaginary creature named an
'Umbopo' probably wasn't what he had in mind! The single's quite sweet though
and fans of the 'Hotlegs' album will love it.
August
1970: Sadder and slower (at almost double the length) than
its predecessor, 'Umbopo'
is a more measured take on the same track with a lot more instrumentation going
on behind (and yes it definitely features Eric and Lol this time). The slower
tempo rather loses something in this version, which has less mystery and
excitement, but there are better production techniques this time around (with a
stunning steel guitar solo from Eric in the middle about the best) and a whole
extra verse that really shouldn't have been cut in which the narrator has a
mystical experience as he gets nearer the 'umbopo': 'He rose to explore the
wealth of his newfound kingdom, where the trees are getting taller but he is
getting smaller...' The track was included on the 'Strawberry Bubblegum'
compilation (2003).
The flipside 'Roll On!'is an oddball blues led by Eric, which
sounds more like something Graham Gouldman would give to The Yardbirds. Clearly
modelled on Willie Dixon (think 'Little Red Rooster' and this song makes more
sense), Eric does a pretty pastiche of an elderly bluesman staring back at his
life and 'wondering where it went wrong'. Eric, of course, was all of 25 when
he recorded this 12 bar, but then 10cc were the kind of band who got things
upside down and the wrong way round (the band all recorded their poppiest work
towards the end of their careers!) Also on the 'Strawberry Bubblegum' set
(2003).
Gouldman
and Godley (Silver Fleet):
Silver Fleet was another short-lived Kassenatz
Katz band, with two members of 10cc playing on both sides this time. A novelty
record about an aeroplane, it's tempting to see the A-side as an early
rehearsal for later 10cc song 'Clockwork Creep' but without quite the same
level of panache or originality. Unlike some of the other bubblegum bands,
Silver Fleet were grounded after just this one single.
January
1971: A noisy percussion-laden song, 'Come On
Plane' has Godley reprising his 'Um Wah Um Woh' heavy metal style from
'Hotlegs', though this track is a little more focussed. At least until the song
ends up as a gospel parody in the middle complete with a few 'oh mamas'.
Godley's narrator is waiting for his girl to get here and an airplane to land
but there always seems to be another hold-up. This song, credited to Gouldman
and the Kassenatz company, is an early example of just how convoluted and epic
10cc songs can be, with lots of different bits stitched together that shouldn't
really make any sense but somehow do. Included on the 'Strawberry Bubblegum'
compilation (2003).
Godley (at least it sounds like him...with these
early recordings under weird names, who know whose on it?) puts on his best
hippie speak for the squeaky three-chorder 'Look Out World' which sounds like Country Joe and
The Fish. Godley is a hobo, who ain't got no pillow for his head and sleeps on
a park bench for a bed, but he's dreaming big. Graham turns in a terrific funky
bass solo while it sounds as if Eric and Lol guest on the harmonies. We say
sounds like because even by these obscure releases standards, nobody seems to
know much about this recording, though personally I'd bet it is a 10cc-style
number rather than an anonymous group of bubblegum-makers this time. Reportedly
the Kassenatz Katz kompany wrote this song entirely, but it's not all that far
removed from 10cc's own style.
Godley,
Creme and Gouldman (Fighter Squadron):
By now Kevin Godley had taken over the
Kasenatz Katz role at Strawberry Studios and was their chief singer, although
the single released under the 'Fighter Squadron' name was still written mainly
by Gouldman with a few other anonymous Katz employees. Again the band may or
may not play on the B-side 'Ah-La' (credited to Lieb/Cordell rather than anyone
from 10cc) - probably not listening to it despite from very Godley-ish
drumming, so we've skipped it here but it's quite pleasant in a
folky-psychedelia kind of a way.
February
1971: A dirty, gritty
gospel tune, 'When He
Comes' finds Godley trying to become Godly. All the gospel trappings are
there (choirs, organ chords, trippy spiritual words, the works) and yet it
still comes over sounding strangely rocky and heavy. It's surely mocking in its
depiction of devout believers too, though Kevin sings the track straight, like
an outtake from The Who's 'Tommy': 'Come on everybody, put your cares away,
dress up in your Sunday best 'cause today's a holiday!' Creme's guitar doesn't
just accompany the song but seems to comment on it, with a burst of
uncomfortable staccato gunfire that's useful practice for the future 10cc songs
where the band handles all sorts of different vibes simultaneously. Another
track included on the 'Strawberry Bubblegum' compilation (2003).
10cc
(Tristar Airbus):
A breakthrough single in many ways, this
is the first release credited as a 'Strawberry Production' and the first
release by all four future 10cc men as a career move rather than a 'filler'
between other recording stars. Graham celebrates being free of the Kassenatz
Katz team for the first time in years by contributing both sides of the single,
though this tribute to a Manchester United player was actually only intended as
a demo. Graham's original plan was to record a song he'd co-written with a new local
group in named Tristar Airbus who
everyone thought were going to be stars - they comprised Geoff Foot (who
co-wrote the A-side with Graham), Ric Rothwell, John Kellman and Frank
Worthington. Graham got record label RCA interested in the demo and told them
the finished product (featuring him and his mates) would be even better -
however RCA weren't so sure and asked Graham for 'that guy with the funny voice
from the demo'! So instead the first 'Strawberry Studios Production' featured
the band themselves 'borrowing' Tristar Airbus' name with Geoff adding a lead
vocal! Weirdly the orchestral outfit Ted Taylor Chorus recorded their own
version of the A-side soon after - neither version sold that well. Both sides
were included on the terraces of the 'Strawberry Bubblegum' collection.
January
1972: 'Willie Morgan'
was actually Scottish and played for several clubs before finding his biggest
fame with Manchester United. Lyrically this is one of those really irritating
football chants (it shouldn't even be called a song) designed to be stupid
enough to be shouted, drunk, by people going home from the pub. Few 10cc fans
would rate the chorus 'Willie Morgan Willie Morgan Willie Morgan on the wi-ing'
as their greatest contribution to the music world. However things are much more
interesting melody and performance-wise, with Lol and Eric building up a
driving guitar grunge thrash between them while Godley unleashes his inner
heavy metal God. It all sounds far too good to be wasted on such a poor song
and seemed to be a poor omen: once such a hero of Manchester, Willie found
himself demoted back to Burnley after two disappointing seasons in 1973-1974.
However 10cc are about to go up a division...
The B-side 'Travelin' Man' is of much more interest to 10cc
fans, with Graham taking the lead on a song that's the most 10cc-ish yet,
albeit with the folk stylings of the 'Hotlegs' years still most prominent.
Graham sounds subdued and a little unhappy here as he sings about paying his
dues and travelling the world in search of his goal, while Eric gets to ape his
favourite blues stylings and Godley adds some exotic percussion over the top of
everything. Sounding like a Mindbenders song, with Graham singing a lyric taken
from his 'Thing' solo album and a touch of Godley-Creme weirdness in places,
this may not be much as a composition but the performance sounds like it's
coming from a band worth watching.
(Manchester
F.C.)
It's odd that none of 10cc were
particularly big into football given that the sport is the most important thing
in the world to around 90% of the people who grow up in Manchester and who are
split down the middle between the city's two football clubs (same with The
Beatles over in Liverpool, actually). Proof that 10cc had no allegiance came
with the follow-up to a song about a Man United player - a single where 10cc
back the whole of the 1972 Man City team! Like most football songs this is more
about cashing in on a popular craze than any attempt at making art, but I'm
told by people far more knowledgeable about the sport that I am that this is (God
help us) one of the better songs of the genre and quite admired in the
industry. All of 10cc get equal credit (surely blame?) writing-wise on both
sides of a single that sounds like it took them about five minutes.
April
1972: 'Boys In Blue' is a slow dirge about staying together and
travelling the world with loyal fans no matter how far away the team plays. The
chorus: 'Blue and white just go together, no I know we'll play together
forevermore!' The boys in blue sing lines about being 'the best team in the
land' in a collective voice that sounds as if they're about to get shot at dawn
and for their performance on this record probably should have been. Godley
provides the chugging 'Neanderthal Man' drums, but otherwise chances are the
(very) few people who are both 10cc and Man City fans have never had a clue
about the connection and are heading up to the loft to check the credits on
their old battered copy right now...
B-side 'Funky City' is a little better, simply by virtue of featuring
less players and more band. A groovy little near-instrumental, you can just
tell from the hypnotic guitar 'n' drum beat that this is 10cc and multiple Lols
give the game away a little too. Kevin gets a cameo as a soul star in the
middle which is worth a quick giggle, but is over way too fast. This is still a
dire song though, again more of a simple chant to be honest, and amongst the
worst 10cc ever made. At least it's a bit better than 'Leeds United' though, a
track which doesn't feature any of 10cc but was recorded in Manchester's Strawberry
Studios and released in April 1972. Talk about an own goal...
Stewart,
Godley and Creme (Festival):
By now 10cc are fed up of backing other
artists writing lesser material for peanuts and vowed to spend more time on
their own recordings. The only problem was, they'd been working so hard
(especially during the Katz period) that they didn't have many songs left over.
They did have a bit of studio time though so they set about some recycling
under a name that suggested they might soon have something to celebrate...
October
1972: Sensing that maybe they should have capitalised on
their success as 'Hotlegs' when they had the chance, 10cc reconvened for a
re-recording of 'Today',
one of the stronger tracks from that album which was by then two years old.
This time the main difference is that Graham is very much involved (on bass and
'oohs') and there's much more of a band 'feel' compared to the Hotlegs process
of overdubbing everything. This version of the song is slower and more relaxed,
with a full cycle of the song's hypnotic riff before anyone starts singing.
It's also more elaborate with full backing harmonies, a phased 'extra backing
vocal' (which sounds like an early attempt at the vocal gymnastics of 'I'm Not
In Love') and a brief new middle eight ('You feel the way too and I am drawn
away from you...') For all that, though, I still prefer the Hotlegs original
which is prettier and punchier and a lot more memorable - that said 'Today' is
a lovely song in either version and really should have been a hit the first
time round anyway. Oddly enough, though this used to be the rarest 10cc single,
it's now far harder to get than the 'Hotlegs' version thanks to it's presence on
the 'Strawberry Bubblegum' compilation (by contrast the Hotlegs recordings are
all very hard to track down on CD!)
B-side 'Warm Me' is another historic moment: the first ever
Stewart-Gouldman co-writing credit! This song sounds very much like their later
work, mixing Graham's easy-on-the-ear lyrics and Eric's laidback blues
stylings. It's a trial run for future 10cc B-side 'I'm So Laidback I'm Laid
Out', but with more affectionate lyrics about a girl who can make all the
narrator's problems go away with her 'warmth'. Eric turns in an impressive
slide guitar solo that makes The Rolling Stones' 'Little Red Rooster' sound
like a chicken. One of the highlights of the 'Strawberry Bubblegum' compilation
and the last moment when 10cc were anything other than 'big' (a delay of release
by a few months meant that this single actually made it into the shops just as
'Donna' was peaking at #2 but the band didn't know that when they made this
recording!)
10cc
(Grumble)
That should be that - after the 'Festival'
single 10cc finally became 10cc and released 'Donna' on the UK label in August 1972
and the band never again had to resort to recording under a funny name to see
if they might get lucky with a hit single. However just because they didn't
have to didn't mean it wasn't fun to carry on doing that and the final 10cc
oddity sounds like a 'grumble' in response to the fact that a band as respected
as 10cc already were couldn't get away with daft singles like this one. One
weird cover and one unrecognisable near-instrumental B-side might make for one
of the most puzzling entries in this article and though the credits are split
this single has much more of a Godley/Creme feel to it than a Stewart/Gouldman
one somehow...
June
1973: Almost unrecognisable from The Crystals' hit 'Da Doo Ron Ron', Godley sings in his 'true'
falsetto for the first time and sounds about an octave higher than the original
girl group. The band have really nailed their harmonies by now, with Eric in
the middle and Graham on the bottom really blending well together. This
arrangement of the song is much meatier than the usual covers, with an
ear-catching aggressive guitar riff running throughout and a guitar solo in the
middle that's pure Eric Stewart, exciting but always fully under control. Lol
probably added the space-age effects, for reasons nobody is quite sure of. Included
on the 'Strawberry Bubblegum' set.
An uptempo instrumental that sounds like it started
as a jamming session, 'Pig
Bin An' Gone' starts like
'Neanderthal Man' and ends up like 'Hot To Trot'. You'd be hard pressed to
guess this was 10cc, at least for the minute or so before the guitars come in
and any relation to pigs is obscure. One of the weaker moments on the
'Strawberry Bubblegum' set, you sense that 10cc were probably relieved to get
back to their day-job. Well you know the old maxim 'mustn't Grumble...'
That ends the article for now and it's
plenty long enough already. However if you want a really complete collection of
10cc recordings then you may also want to pick up a set of recordings which
were made at Strawberry Studios with 10cc guesting behind other artists. Given
the amount of unknown one-hit wonders the band worked with a complete list
would be impossible but would include the following: John Paul Joans' single
'Man From Nazareth' (a comedian also under Harvey Lisberg's management who had
to change his last name from 'Jones' to differentiate himself from the Led
Zeppelin bass guitarist - all four 10cc members play on a very 'Hotlegs'
sounding track), Freddie and the Dreamers' 'Susan's Tuba' (which is really more
of a Freddie Garrity solo track backed by 10cc on a Gouldman composition very
like 'Travellin' Man' above), a run of singles by Graham's friend Peter Cowap
(a couple of which are also on the 'Strawberry Bubblegum' set), unknown band
Garden Odyssey for whom Graham wrote on single 'The Joker', the 'McGear' album
by Mike McCartney and his brother Paul (1974), eccentric self-declared re-incarnation-of-an-Egyptian-Pharaoh
Ramases' 'Space Hymns' LP (1971), comedian Lesley Crowther's festive single
'Santa Claus' and - most famously - two of Neil Sedaka's biggest LPs
'Solitaire' (1972) and 'The Tra-La-Days Are Over' (1973). It was the success of
'Solitaire', on which 10cc played throughout for a flat session fee, that
convinced them they could do just as well making their own material, if only
they could come up with the right name...Later bands to use the studios,
without 10cc present, included perhaps four of the most dissimilar yet equally
Mancunian acts in popular music: The Syd Lawrence Orchestra (well, some of the
band were from Manchester - technically Syd was a Chester lad), The St
Winifred's School Choir, Joy Division and The Stone Roses.
A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF 10cc ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM
ARCHIVES:
'How Dare You!' (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/10cc-how-dare-you-1976.html
'Deceptive Bends'
(1977) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/10cc-deceptive-bends-1977.html
'Meanwhile' (1992) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/10cc-meanwhile-1992.html
'Mirror Mirror' (1995) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/10cc-mirror-mirror-1995.html
Pre-10cc: 1965-1973, A Guide to Mindbenders, Mockingbirds and Frabjoy and
Runciple Spoon!
Non-Album Songs Part One
1972-1980 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/10cc-non-album-songs-part-one-1972-1980.html
Non-Album Songs Part Two
1981-2006 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/10cc-non-album-songs-part-two-1981-2006.html
Surviving TV Clips, Music Videos and Unreleased Recordings https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-and-godley-creme-surviving-tv.html
Solo/Wax/Live/Compilation
Albums Part One 1971-1986
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-solocompilationlivewax-albums-part.html
Solo/Wax/Live/Compilation Albums Part Two 1987-2014 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-sololivecompilationwax-albums-part.html
10cc Essay: Not-So-Rubber
Bullets http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/06/10cc-essay-not-so-rubber-bullets.html
