April 11, 1997 GOLDMINE #436
10cc :
A Pure Injection Of Pop
Original
Article By Dave Thompson
Chapter Nine
: I said �You�ve got to be joking man, it was a present from me mum�!!!!
Neither
was much critical attention lavished on a pair of albums featuring Eric
Stewart, released during this tumultuous year. The first was by Sad Caf�, the
�We used
to go on holiday to the Caribbean and one day Eric decided he wanted to go
parasailing,�
�We got
some flak for Dreadlock Holiday,� Gouldman laughs, �For stereotyping
black voices and style, but the stupid thing is, the song is if anything,
anti-white, because it�s talking about this guy trying to emulate black cool,
black style, which he can never do!� And besides, the single was so successful,
its detractors were very swiftly drowned out. In the summer of 1978, Dreadlock
Holiday gave 10cc their third British #1, and a #44 in
Looking
back on Godley/Creme�s departure from that perspective, Gouldman reasons, �We
withstood it remarkably well, coming out with our biggest selling record right
after.� Dreadlock Holiday was 10cc�s eleventh Top 10 hit in
In fact,
there were more tangible reasons than that, beginning with Eric Stewart being
involved in a very serious motor accident in January, 1979, on the eve of a
sold out Far Eastern tour. Scuppering the band�s plans to appear in a science
fiction rock movie, Rock On, in which they would have been filmed
playing on Mount Fuji in
During
this enforced lay-off, Gouldman scored his first ever solo hit with Sunburn,
the soundtrack to a new Farrah Fawcett movie. It reached #45 in
Eric
Stewart bounced back in late 1979 with his own solo album, the soundtrack to
the French movie, Girls, which he recorded during his incapacitation;
with a sparkling production job on Sad Caf�s eponymous fourth album, and a new
10cc album, Look Hear?. It was not a great success. The problem was,
says Gouldman, �I think we felt we could take up the reins where we left off,
without paying any attention to what was going on around us.� He remains
adamant that Stewart�s incapacitation did not really make a difference to the
band�s continuing misfortunes. Look Hear? reached #180 in the
Those
�other things,� of course, were Punk and the New Wave, a musical backlash which
sent 10cc�s brand of rock perfectionism reeling, as new bands sought to return
music if not to the stone age, then at least to a stone age garage. The
continued sophistication of 10cc�s music had no place in a climate dominated by
the young upstarts of Punk, Two Tone and New Romanticism; Gouldman�s one
serious brush with Punk Rock, when he was drafted in to produce the Ramones� Pleasant
Dreams album in 1981, remains an unresolved thorn in the Ramones�
collective side. �He was [Sire Records chief] Seymour Stein�s idea,� Joey
Ramone recalls. �He thought Graham would be perfect for us, after all the songs
he�d written in the �60s, Bus Stop and things like that. But we didn�t
really understand it.�
Neither
did Gouldman, whose last outside production job had been an album by Irish
singer songwriter Gilbert O�Sullivan. �That was bizarre. They contacted me, and
I said, �Why me?� They said, �we loved the songs you wrote in the �60s, and we
think we write those kind of songs!� I didn�t understand that at all. I
couldn�t think of songs more opposite to those I�d written. But I loved doing
it. We cut most of the album in
Eric
Stewart In Air Gun Revelation!!! |
|
Graham
Gouldman In Wrong Studio Revelation!!! |
|
Graham
Gouldman In Songwriting Technique Expos�!!! |
|
The
Runcible Spoon� What Exactly Is It? |
|
Strawberry
Puts The �Hit� In �Shit�!!! |
|
So
That�s How They Got The Name� |
|
A
Million Dollars Buys A |
|
Strawberry
Studios South� Now You�re Dorking!!! |
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I Said
�You�ve Got To Be Joking Man, It Was A Present From Me Mum�!!!! |
|
Headline
Writer In �Stuck For Words� Shock!!! |
|
Sometimes
Having Wax In Your Ears Can Be A Good Thing |
|
And They
Still Don�t Give A� |