Once you know my age my musical tastes as a teenager are very easy to guess. Obviously Dylan, Mitchell, the Kinks and the Beatles – equally obviously not the Stones or the Who. Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, Fairport, Steeleye Span, Roy Harper, The Watersons, Carthy, etc, etc and more than any of them, Kevin Coyne. It was hard to hear any of these on the radio, and, addicted to Radio 4 from the age of 3, I turned to Radio 2 only for Folk on 2, the weekly Jazz hour, and the Sunday lunchtime comedies (when I was 15 Steve Mulliner told me to listen to Peel on Radio 1, which I probably did twice a week). I never listened to top-40 music deliberately: obviously I heard plenty of it by osmosis as it were, and especially during wet school breaks in which I remember one girl in particular whose desk was in front of mine always tuned to Radio 1. When punk started I enjoyed it, rather than being enthusiastic about it: and that was easier to hear on the radio than other stuff I liked because of John Peel (who was also the main location for the other stuff I liked, just less frequently).
But I love a lot of the music now in which I had no interest at all at the time. When I notice a band is playing nearby that I am curious about, and whose members I suspect might be on or near their last legs, I often go, usually taking at least one of my children with me. So last week it was the turn of my son to accompany me to see 10cc. At school my more musically adventurous friend Guy owned one of their albums, which I must have listened to, but I’d never really paid much attention to them. After buying the tickets I started sort of listening to their (voluminous) output, though without really paying much attention.
Seeing them, on their first US tour in 47 years, I discovered they are nothing like I thought. As presumably all of their fans and everyone else who was actually paying attention in the 70’s know, they’re basically an extremely sophisticated comic song band. They opened with The Second Sitting of the Last Supper, and followed up with Art for Art’s Sake, both of which had more or less passed me by, and both of which are very funny. Even the songs with unhumourous lyrics are often musically funny (a lot of pastiche). Graham Gouldman has a huge smile on his face when performing, partly just because he’s doing what he loves, but also because it’s all sort of a joke. The set goes on from there. Even their biggest hit [1], the one song that even I know by heart, sounded so different live. I’ve always assumed its at best a sad song about self-deception with a little cruelty thrown in, but live, in context, I got the feeling that not only does the subject know perfectly well that he’s in love but that she knows it too, and he knows that she knows it, both of them are happy about it, and the song is actually an exercise in elaborate Gricean implicature.
The boy didn’t enjoy the show as much as I did. But he did enjoy it enough, and is now regularly humming Life is a Minestrone. They’re touring the UK and parts of Europe in the Fall: highly recommended.
[1] A friend says that as a teenager she used to dread “I’m not in love” being played at parties. I think I went to a total of 5 parties as a teenager (4 of which she must have been at) because I gradually realized that there was no specific aspect of parties that I dreaded.
{ 22 comments }
Alan White 08.07.24 at 2:53 am
I’m all in on 10cc.
Alan White 08.07.24 at 5:12 am
I should also say Harry that your analysis of I’m Not in Love as “not only does the subject know perfectly well that he’s in love but that she knows it too, and he knows that she knows it, both of them are happy about it, and the song is actually an exercise in elaborate Gricean implicature” is terrific. Thanks for that!
Robert 08.07.24 at 5:53 am
And they morphed into, or branched into, Godley and Creme, who gave us An Englishman in New York and Cry; for which we should be eternally grateful.
Chris Bertram 08.07.24 at 7:16 am
10cc were a band my little sister listened to, ergo (at the time). Interesting that you mention the Watersons along with the more obvious Fairport-related acts. I’ve been listening to them a lot recently, particularly Norma’s first solo album and I discovered that the very niche Bright Phoebus is now streamable.
NomadUK 08.07.24 at 12:22 pm
The landlord of a flat I rented near Oxford is the brother of Rick Fenn of 10cc. He had his own little band with his kids, and I attended a gig they held at a local pub, and neglected to wear any kind of hearing protection, which resulted in tinnitus that has continued for 15 years or so now.
No reflection on 10cc, of course. Just an interesting connection; whenever I hear the band’s name, I think of the ringing in my ears.
William Roark 08.07.24 at 1:17 pm
I’m with both Alan and Robert. All in and eternally grateful.
Harry 08.07.24 at 2:50 pm
“And they morphed into, or branched into, Godley and Creme, who gave us An Englishman in New York and Cry”
I am close to certain that I never heard either until Saturday (after the concert) and they are both so brilliant I’m horrified that I might easily have gone a whole life without hearing them.
Watersons: there was a chap in the year above me at school who had an extensive (well, maybe it was small!) folk collection, and its through him I heard Fairport, Watersons, Carthy, Pentangle, you name it really. He didn’t own Bright Phoebus: I subsequently knew someone in Campaign ATOM who did, so heard it, just once, in their shared house in East Oxford (I was at the house twice — once at a meeting at which I remember Mike Picken being annoying, the second time soon after specifically in order to listen to records). Only Roy Harper did I find by myself because The Sophisticated Beggar was very cheap at the local record shop (imagine, a record shop in a village with a single street of shops): it was the first record I ever bought, and I bought it because the record shop owner told me, after several conversations, that he thought I’d like it. (Mike Batt was a regular customer apparently, but I never bumped into him).
PatinIowa 08.07.24 at 6:14 pm
A propos of very little:
Grice lectured at Michigan when I was an undergrad. I was lost, even though I had read him pretty avidly. Later, I was diagnosed with ADHD, including extremely poor auditory processing, so I was used to being confused by lectures, and now I understand better what happened.
Even so, someone said, as we were leaving the auditorium, “Is that the guy who wrote all those wonderful articles? I couldn’t understand a word he said.”
William S. Berry 08.07.24 at 8:47 pm
” . . . obviously not the Stones or the Who”
I am likely irony impaired, but I think I might be missing the exact flavor of the “obviously” here.
I couldn’t help thinking: “Way to (obviously not!) hook some hardcore rock fans into your readership (assuming you might be interested in doing so). I also wonder whether you obviously like, or obviously dislike such as, e.g., LZ, DP, Talking Heads, REM, Everclear, , Jackyl, or RATM, or whatever and etc., and on and on for dozens, maybe hundreds, of bands that many fine folks (on all sides!) find worth listening to.
I wouldn’t question anyone’s personal taste in anything artistic; I’m just a little curious as to the severity (“obviously”) of your distinction here (I’m hoping It goes to something deep and philosophical but if not; well, that’s OK also too.
praymont 08.07.24 at 9:16 pm
Should “Graham Goulden” be “Graham Gouldman”? Before 10cc, he wrote songs recorded by the Yardbirds (e.g., “For Your Love”), the Hollies (“Bus Stop”), and Herman’s Hermits.
Harry 08.07.24 at 9:27 pm
Oh, I didn’t mean anything negative at all: I think they’re both great, and was mostly being wry/silly. I just think for no particular reason that its obvious I would have listened to the Beatles rather than the Stones, the Kinks rather than the Who, the Eagles rather than the Doors (the one band in this list I actively dislike), the Small Faces rather than Procol Harum (who are great!). I didn’t listen to Genesis, though lots of my friends did, and recently saw Steve Hackett perform some hits plus the whole of Foxtrot, which was a revelation!
Name corrected! Yes, and don’t forget Neanderthal Man!
KT2 08.08.24 at 12:36 am
Cry by Godly & Creme, once heard, is embedded in crystallized memory. For me anyway. As is a snippet from ‘risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on such LPs as “Derek and Clive”.
10cc “played their first gig at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Birmingham”, and so must have had knowledge of Blue Note Records. As serendipity would have it I saw a doco on Blue Note Records last night on SBS in Oz. Worth a watch for everyone, from jazz to hip hop and beyond.
“Godley and Creme left 10cc to work on a project that eventually evolved into the triple-LP set Consequences (1977), a sprawling concept album that featured contributions from satirist Peter Cook and jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan.” … “This version of the band played their first gig at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Birmingham”
10cc Wikipedia
As you say Harry, “but also because it’s all sort of a joke” reinforced with “contributions from satirist Peter Cook”. ! First heard the C-word on this albumn… “Derek and Clive was a double act of comedic characters created by Dudley Moore (Derek) and Peter Cook (Clive) in the 1970s”… “Considered highly offensive by many at the time, the sketches primarily took the form of bizarre, sometime drunken streams of consciousness led by Cook, with interjections from Moore.” As kids we thought our parents or the police might burst in and arrest us. Like a car crash I didn’t know if I should keep listening or leave. “Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on such LPs as “Derek and Clive”. The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of Good Evening and used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous.”. Wikipedia
As seems the case, 10cc / Godley and Creme were influenced by Cook, no wonder their songs reflect “it’s all sort of a joke”. Thanks.
Documentary.
‘Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes review – pristine doc of tonal clarity’
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/mar/15/blue-note-records-beyond-the-notes-review-sophie-huber-record-label-jazz
“… Wilkinson convinced Blue Note executives to sign him to make more music featuring Blue Note samples.” … “So Wilkinson established Us3 with production partner Mel Simpson.[2] One of the resulting demos, recorded in March 1992, was “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)”, featuring UK trumpeter Gerard Presencer.[2]It sampled Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island”.[2] Two years later, it entered the US top ten and was included on Hand on the Torch, the first Blue Note album to achieve platinum status (1,000,000 sales) in the US.” US3 Wikipedia
“Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JwBjhBL9G6U
Alan White 08.08.24 at 3:03 am
Christ, Harry your post @ 11 showed that we are brothers from different mothers.
Trader Joe 08.08.24 at 10:54 am
I remember being a 10cc fan for probably about 2 weeks in 1975 when “Im not in love” was near the top of the charts….but beyond that I never kept in touch and certainly had no idea they were either still around or as prolific as they became. Certainly something (at your prompting) I intend to correct.
The main thing I remember of that era was there were just so many bands. Every week there were new acts on the radio and making the charts you had to be diligent to keep up. While I had plenty of consistent favs I rarely stuck with one for long – it seemed like there was always some new group with some new single that made me try to get the related cassette or LP. No electronic sharing – if you wanted something you had to buy or bootleg. Finding a first or second album from a group that made it big on say a third album was like finding lost treasure – there was no Spotify to easily research past recordings.
“Discovering” bands like Springsteen or Journey before they were big was on of my greatest joys. Indeed when they became big I usually moved on (though not entirely).
I’m sure there are every bit as many bands today, maybe more, but somewhere in the 90s I sorta stopped chasing with the same enthusiasm. Your idea of circling back to some of the older ones is a good one.
Not Trampis 08.08.24 at 10:38 pm
Dylan and Mitchell yes , Kinks and Beatles no. How anyone could prefer the Beatles to the Who is beyond me.
Long john Baldry, Jeff Beck group, Butterfield blues band are all superior to ‘your’ bands.
you needed to get out more often.
10CC was just another average commercial band who at least said in one famous lyric they loved cricket!!
The great thing about music is we have different tastes and dish each other about those tast3s
Adam Swift 08.08.24 at 11:25 pm
Do they still do Dreadlock Holiday? Or is that now an embarrassment?
anon/portly 08.10.24 at 2:56 am
Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, Fairport, Steeleye Span, Roy Harper, The Watersons, Carthy, etc, etc and more than any of them, Kevin Coyne.
Richard Thompson is touring this year:
https://x.com/RthompsonMusic/status/1800573891695497331
Norma and Lal Waterson both have kids that might, like their moms, be more obscure than is deserved. Waterson Carthy (Norma, Martin, daughter Eliza) toured the US a fair bit and were awesome live. Lal’s daughter Maria/Marry sounds not so unlike Lal and currently is in the psych-folkish Hack-Poets Guild with Lisa Knapp.
https://x.com/MarryWaterson/status/1817997321868554511
Other than being a fan of Michael Mantler’s Silence, I’m in the dark on Coyne. Are the earlier albums the best or are they all good?
The philosophy behind seeing 10cc and Hackett is insightful, I think, I’ve probably passed on some shows I shouldn’t have.
Robert 08.10.24 at 4:49 am
If anyone is interested to explore how it is that we discover, develop, end up with our musical preferences, and how they change (or don’t) over time, Michael Faber’s “Listen: On Music, Sound, and Us” is a nice and thought-provoking read.
Neville Morley 08.10.24 at 10:50 am
I was really too young for 10cc – I liked Godley and Creme (Under Your Thumb is one of the great ‘short story’ songs) but had no idea of their previous activities – until an excellent BBC4 documentary on them about ten years ago, which interviewed all four and gave a really powerful sense of their musical and songwriting craft. I did do a thorough dive into their back catalogue (yes, so much easier with streaming; I remember back in the 1980s how difficult it was to engage with the music even of groups from a decade earlier) and was struck by how varied their output was, beyond the ubiquitous singles – and how far they felt they could be merrily inconsistent in tone, where most bands seemed to stick to being high-brow or low-brow, serious or funny, sincere or arch.
Harry 08.10.24 at 2:01 pm
anon/portly – thanks for the tip re Hack-Poets Guild. I’ll miss RT this time around (but see him on most tours).
Coyne: I assume people differ about the high point, but I love every single one of his seventies albums (there are many!), though have the greatest fondness for Dynamite Daze and Millionaires and Teddy Bears, which is where I started (so worked back from there). Probably, despite my affection for those two, Marjory Razorblade is his masterpiece. Apparently the Doors tried to get Coyne to replace Morrison after the latter’s death, and Coyne was so uninterested that he didn’t even respond to them.
And… I have never heard Michael Mantler’s Silence, a defect I shall correct today.
anon/portly 08.10.24 at 11:56 pm
And… I have never heard Michael Mantler’s Silence, a defect I shall correct today.
Just be sure I didn’t recommend it! (It has a rep as being a difficult listen, I believe). It’s an adaptation of a Pinter play, “Kevin Coyne as RUMSEY,” it says on the back.
Its brother or sister album, Michael Mantler/Edward Gorey’s The Hapless Child, is more accessible (tuneful, perhaps) and has the added advantage of making it easy to learn some wonderful poems.
David in Tokyo 08.12.24 at 7:40 am
“Once you know my age my musical tastes as a teenager are very easy to guess. ”
Yes. Here it’s Dave van Ronk, Richard and Mimi Farina, and Velvet Underground.
I’m rather too American for this thread, though. Sorry, Listened to a lot of John Renbourne, though.
Basically, it’s imprinting; it’s about being human, not about the music. What caught our attention in junior high, or maybe high school stays with us. The stuff for which each of us says “That other stuff was way too childish/commercial/boring but this speaks to me.”
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