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10cc — 90,89,88,87

ALBUMS: 100cc 10cc (1975); Original Soundtrack (1975); How Dare You (1976); Bloody Tourists (1978)

MVC Rating: 100cc 4.5/$$$$; Original 4.0/$$$; How 4.0/$$$$/ Bloody 4.0/$$$

I’ve got 10cc in a previous post as one of my top underrated bands. I’ve had conversations with ‘friends’ that think 10cc is not underrated –but shouldn’t be rated at all because they are so bad!

This attitude comes from several things, namely two Top 40 hits. One, ‘I’m Not in Love” was a song off of the Original Soundtrack album that was a big radio hit that people either loved or hated. It has syrupy strings and slow tempo. But as I’ve pointed out in my arguments, it is satire, like a lot of 10cc. They are clever and very good musicians and songwriters:

In that song: ‘I keep your picture on the wall/it hides a nasty stain that’s lying there … I’m not in love.’

The song ends in a whisper spoken refrain: Be quiet, big boys don’t cry, big boys don’t cry.

So, if you are entering the 10cc universe with that one song on the radio, you would miss out on some interesting music.

The other ‘success’ that I think hurt them a little was a song several years later that was a sappy, big radio pop song, ‘The Things we Do for Love’ — their most successful song but I think it hurt their credibility a bit.

‘The things we do for love, like walking in the rain and the snow and there’s nowhere to go ...’

No satire to save this one as it did for ‘I’m Not in Love.”

Fortunately I entered in through their 1975 compilation album of early British hits. Or, another way to describe that would be early U.S. flops.

This really is an album of near misses. ‘Rubber Bullets,’ ‘Wall Street Shuffle,’ The Worst Band in the World,’ and ‘Silly Love,’ (Not to be confused with Paul McCartney’s sappy ‘Silly Love Songs.’ Or their own ‘Things We Do For Love.) 10cc’s ‘Silly Love’ opens with riffing power chords. .’

‘Rubber Bullets’ satirizes a couple of jailhouse songs that were popular on the 1950s including ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and Riot on Cell Block No. 9. In the song, the warden is calling guards to ‘Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets.’

Then it got out of hand as the music do-wops along:

Well we don’t understand
Why you called in the National Guard (national guard, national guard)
When Uncle Sam is the one
Who belongs in the exercise yard (exercise yard, exersise yard

We all got balls and brains
But some’s got balls and chains
At the local dance at the local county jail

100cc is a great place to start although there pleasures and treasures to be found in the others, including ‘Art for Art’s Sake,’ off of the ‘How Dare You,’ album, ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ (I don’t like cricket, I love it).’

If I had to describe their music, it would be Frank Zappa (without the overt weirdness) and Queen with its emphasis on sound production and structure.

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Daily Journal March 13 (Friday the 13th edition vs. End of life as we know it edition and a little TLC, oops, I mean 10cc)

Hope you all saw my Top 5 playlist for the apocalypse or armageddon or end times — what ever you want to call it . Click here to start dancing in these grim times.

Other bits and pieces (not from the Dave Clark Five. ):

–My good buddy Chris Brown from Georgia , a reconnected friend from childhood sent me $100 dollar to buy an old relatively obscure album we used to listen to and laugh at. In support of MyVinylCountdown. The album is 10cc’s ‘How Dare You,’ a before-its-time musical theater about love and relationships with pristine musicality. I mean, for real, when the song ‘Don’t Hang Up’ ends there’s a dial tone. Not kidding — that was cool. Of course the album now languishes in garbage dumps and bargain bends because nobody now even knows what a $%^&* dial tone is.

Best line from that song: ‘When the barman asked what’s you’re drinking, I said marriage on the rocks.’

Chris, my brother, I sent you also another 10cc album in addition to that one. It’s called Bloody Tourists and is a little more commercial. It has ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ and that last song about the guy getting so drunk he ruins his night. It has amusing special effects.

It’s called the Anonymous Alcoholic.

— Look for a MVC story over the weekend about the most expensive records you can buy and how vinyl is still ruling.

–One vinyl note, the numbers next to the artists’ names on blog post indicate how many I have left to do. So, for example, now with Process and the Doo Rags there is the number 265, which means I have that many left to review. Starting at 678, I have reviewed and posted 413 records: 265 to go as we count down. There’s some really good stuff coming up as I roll into the last quarter.

I can’t say I’d keep you as entertained as NBA basketball and March Madness but I’ll give it a try.

Leave you with an apocalyptic song from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, one of my fave all times. The album was purchased from me at the record convention by a good friend, Kevin. Here’s ‘Five Years.’

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Godley – Creme — 448

ALBUM: L

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

Yes the album is called ‘L.’ This almost became a Frisbee when I first heard it. I was a big 10cc fan but this … this was 10cc stirred in with Frank Zappa and Dr. Demento. In fact in “Sporting Life” which sounds like a Zappa song, there’s a voice that sounds like Mr. Frank, so much so that I had to check out the credits — didn’t find him listed. Now I like some Zappa but let Zappa do Zappa.  I knew I wasn’t losing my mind when I heard this lyric:

“Does getting into Zappa mean getting out of Zen,’ is an actual lyric in ‘Art School Canteen which follows the Sporting Life and Sandwiches of You, a song I actually like.

This was the second album after these two left 10cc using a guitar synthesizer type of instrument they invented called ‘The Gizmo.’ Not sure what it does or sounds like even now. It might be that zither-sounding strum on ‘Sandwiches. bit no it’s not listed as being in that song.’

Ah, funny reference to their old fun hit ‘Donna is in ‘Group Life.’ Punchbag is interesting (as all this interesting) but I’m sure I’d understand it more if  I knew what ‘fourth form punchbag’ means.

The instrumental ‘Foreign Accents’ has some good funky and crazy sounding sounds but, again, I though they were showcasing the Gizmo and it’s not listed for that song.

All in all it’s an ambitious record, which I would expect from 10cc spinoff. But if is too Art School Canteen-ish. I’ll stick to my 10cc when  I want a little pretentiousness with my contentiousness.  Checking around on the Internets I find some crazy devotion to G&C, especially this album. I’ll keep trying.  ‘Business is Business ‘ at the end of the  album finally gets to the not so avant gard point. “That the record people  and people in general don’t get us and we hate M.O.R.’

Sorry, but I’m not in L  ove.

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Flash and the Pan — 485, 484

 ALBUMS:  Flash and the Pan (1978);  Lights in the Night (1980)

MVC Rating: Flash: 4.0/$$$;  Lights: 3.5/$$

This is an odd group with an odd, albeit catchy, style.  It was essentially Harry Vanda and George Young, former members of the breakout Australian group -the-Friday-on-my-mind-band, the Easybeats.

Vanda and Young went on to manage and produce songs for AC/DC, for whom Young’s younger brother played.

But between the soaring and crashing of the Easybeats and world domination of AC/DC was Flash and the Pan.

I plucked their self-titled 1978 debut from a bin at WUXTRY  in Athens, Ga.

Their hypnotic studio sound was a little like nothing you’d heard. Although I heard some people describe them as quirky, otherworldly in a 10cc way.

I think the members of 10cc were more clever songwriters. But Flash and the Pan certainly had the stranger sound, starting with their vocals.  The lead vocals delivered usually in a talk/sing style sounded as if it were filtered by a toy megaphone. I guess you could say  it sounded like a voice that could have been used on 10cc’s prison riot hoedown,  Rubber Bullets, The sing-song semi-electronic groove would then explode into a catchy chorus, that across the two albums I have starts sounding a little formulaic.

Best songs on first album: ‘Hey St.  Peter,’ ‘Walking in the Rain’ (covered by Grace Jones, and ‘Down Among the Dead Men,’ a song about the sinking of the Titanic. On the second “Headhunter’ ‘Make Your Own Cross’ and  ‘Calling Atlantis are interesting.

They barely dented US charts, but the second album, Lights in the Night, was No. 1 in Sweden.

The American cover of the debut album (shown at top) is as odd as the sound. People sitting on the beach with Frisbees flying all around them. In the distance is a mushroom cloud. On the back cover, the people are all gone but not the chairs and Frisbees.  Hey St. Peter take me home.