The Consequences Podcast

Consequences 10cc podcast 58 - Tim Rice

Sean and Paul are really pleased to welcome Sir Tim Rice to the podcast. 

Tim is of course one of most successful and important songwriters of the past fifty years. Even before winning three Best Song Oscars in the space of five years (in the Nineties), he had revolutionised British musical theatre with Andrew Lloyd Webber courtesy of Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.

But there is also a strong 10cc connection, ranging from an early, almost, management deal with Harvey Lisberg and Kennedy Street enterprises through to his lyrics on one of the great late period 10cc songs ‘The Monkey And The Onion’.

All in all, this is a fun conversation calling at all points on and beyond the 10cc map. Sean and Paul would like to thank Tim for his great contribution to British song in general and to our podcast in particular. ‘Tim One Nice!’

Don’t forget to listen to Tim’s excellent podcast ‘Get On To My Cloud’

https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/yz8vx-db121/Get-Onto-My-Cloud-The-Tim-Rice-Podcast

 

Consequences 10cc podcast 57 - Thinks: School Stinks - Kevin and Lol's extra-curriculars, with Paul Hamilton

As part of our ‘Looking for Lolagon’ push, we decided to recruit our friend and Consequences correspondent Paul Hamilton to explore the extra-curricular activities of Godley and Creme in the late 70s and early 80s. He’s the Co-author/editor of the brilliant 'How Very Interesting: Peter Cook's Universe and All that Surrounds it’, and boasts a prolific career 'writing and producing songs and videos that I hope will unite the whole world in actively hating’!   He brings us a tour-de-force here: an absolute Kevin and Lol trivia-frenzy, and a real hoot to boot.

 

This episode will make it clear that Kevin and Lol were involved in some really interesting musical projects, almost all of which were eye-wateringly obscure and sadly, commercial failures. Hamilton is keen to stress that the principal motive for chasing paid commissions was to pay the bills; for, unlike most other musicians, Godley and Creme had no revenue from live work. This is a very good point, and after all, the boys needed some paid gigs given the failure of their first three albums! Their first two outside ventures were perhaps the most substantial and interesting that we cover in this chat. 1977’s ‘Listen Now’ album by Phil Manzanera and Bill MacCormick's band 801 sees Kevin and Lol turn in some nice cameos on vocals and Gizmo on four tracks. A recorded gig in Manchester sees G&C make a rocking-horse-shittingly rare live appearance, and we’re delighted to say that these tracks have been added to our subscribers’ shared ‘Goodies in the Pipeline' folder. 

 

Kevin and Lol were paid handsomely to produce Mickey Jupp’s 1979 album Long Distance Romancer. An eclectic departure for the Southend ‘pub rock’ Stiff Records artist, the album does give us some lovely thick wadges of G&C-ness. It’s tremendous to hear Kev’s drums and Lol’s guitar, especially, and like most of the projects we discuss here, our Dynamic Duo’s presence is so often almost over-bearing in its distinctiveness. This wouldn’t always endear Godley and Creme to their collaborators. Their production work on the Boomtown Rats’ V Deep LP from 1982 is a case in point.

 

Other musical dabblings are generally a mish-mash of obscure and/or unlistenable curios, and we dish up some super-rare clips courtesy of Hamilton and our good chum David Jarvis. These include cameos with Jona Lewie and The Clash, and production jobs for Blue Rondo A La Turk and Writz. One other venture behind the mixing desk is so rare that not even our usual helpers can find it! Almost as rare, you'll also hear a few painful snippets of their collaboration with 'The Photo Kid'. Not all works of genius then, but finally, on a much more positive note, we'll play you a terrific little advert jingle that you may well recognise. It's a treat.

 

We really hope you enjoy our chaotic romp through this patchy but fascinating stuff. Do check out Paul Hamilton’s tasty and entertaining music and video catalogue at https://bisonics.bandcamp.com/music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consequences 10cc podcast 56 - Looking for Lolagon 1: Creme post-Godley

Sean and Paul have for months now being racking our brains about what to do about Lol Creme. He's long since stated that doing a podcast interview just isn't his thing.  So we'll just do a pod talking about his 70s and 80s 'extra-curricular' projects and solo career after Godley and Creme - easy, right? Well, not really. The more we've dug around to find him, the more elusive he's seemed to have got!  He's seldom been very audible, let alone visible, in these last 30 years. 

This episode focuses on Lol's solo work, from his obscure Naughty Nola single in 1973 to the present day. Much of his work in that time has involved playing session guitar on established artists' records, and most of those as part of ace producer Trevor Horn's crack team. These musicians include the likes of Anne Dudley, Steve Lipson, Luis Jardim and Ash Soan - and more on these shortly. You'll hear many, many clips on this podcast from Lol's contributions to major and more minor artists' work, including Inga Humpe, Tom Jones, Cher, Tina Turner and Barry White, Robbie Williams and Olly Murs. An illustrious list, but in truth it's often difficult to pick out what Lol actually played on these records!

Much more interesting are his more substantial contributions (as writer-performer) to three outfits: Glam Metal Detectives, Art of Noise and Producers (more recently aka The Trevor Horn Band). All of them are helmed by the ubiquitous Mr Horn, and display very different facets of the Creme gemstone. The former's playful wackiness shows off some terrific rock guitar playing from Lol and his son Lalo. Joining ZTT's established but shifting Art of Noise collective in the late 90s, he brought them some subtly beautiful and tasteful guitar layers we'd never heard from them before. Most interesting of all perhaps is the 2012 album Made in Basing Street by the Producers line-up of Creme, Soan, Lipson and Horn, which although falling short of the 'second coming' status its pedigree promised, contains a few wonderful songs and some spectacular moments. Not to mention an elusive lead vocal from our diminutive ex-10cc man!

We've enjoyed picking through the bones of Lol's solo career here, but we're still feeling somewhat frustrated by how thinly its' spread across those decades. But, as Paul rightly says, 'it's our problem, not his.'

Next time we're joined by hugely entertaining author Paul Hamilton, who'll be sharing his singular views on Lol and Kevin's non-Godley and Creme projects.   

 

Consequences 10cc podcast 55 - with Peter Kearns, author of 'on track... 10cc and Godley & Creme'

2020's been a terrific year for 10cc fans, with exciting releases of Consequences, Modesty Forbids and Muscle Memory, and two books by Liam Newton and now Peter Kearns. Paul and Sean really enjoyed our conversation with the affable author, professional musician and New Zealander.

The new tome is an excellent complement to 'The Worst Band in the World'. It catalogues every song, chronologically, that 10cc and Godley & Creme released officially between Hotlegs and Mirror Mirror. As a musician, Kearns discusses each track with a good deal of musical and lyrical analysis, as well as some interesting back stories and great insights. He tackles much of the material from different angles to where we've come from on the podcast; we learned a lot! Graham Gouldman and Kevin Godley helped with the research too, which gives the work added accuracy. Befitting the 160-page length, the author packs his prose tightly; there is a lot of detail here - some songs and albums much more than others of course.  The style is concise and punchy, which makes this a quick-fire and very informative reading experience. Occasionally, we glimpse Peter's own preferences. You can really taste the admiration he has for some of the four-piece's more off-the-wall work, particularly L and Freeze Frame. It's well worth the price tag!

Peter's had varied and interesting musical and writing careers.  He's collaborated with Judie Tzuke and Norwegian Prog-rock band Gazpacho among many others, and has produced two other books in the 'on track...' series, featuring the work of Elton John and (soon to be published) Joni Mitchell. We recommend his album 'No Such Thing as Time', from which you'll hear a few tasty clips on the podcast.

He gave us a typical succinct and spot-on appraisal of 10cc's historical standing:

'10cc and Godley & Creme were artists who cared about music and cared about their contribution to it. They worked through a time period where their commitment to quality steadily increased, against the background of a mainstream that was moving in the opposite direction.'  Hear hear, Peter.

'On track... 10cc and Godley & Creme' is available worldwide, and is well worth your shekels. 

 

 

 

Consequences 10cc podcast 54 - Graham Gouldman #5: And some other things...

Paul and Sean bring to a close our five-episode dissection of all things Gouldman with a conversation attempting to do justice to Graham's post-2000 solo albums and the enormous number of songwriting collaborations that he has taken part in since Wax.

Graham has been incredibly prolific, by any songwriter's standards. With his 'insider' access to the PRS database, Paul has unearthed just shy of 1000 songs attributed to Gouldman. Many solo, many co-written with a vast array of songwriters, some of the very highest pedigree. Today's podcast can only scratch the surface of this rich seam. We look in some detail at his excellent work with Claudio Guidetti, Kirsty Maccoll, Henry Priestman (of Christians fame), Suggs (Madness) and Chris Difford (Squeeze), all of whom he rubbed shoulders with at EMI's residential songwriter workshops at Huntsham Court. Once again, we're massively indebted to both Graham and his archivist David Jarvis for allowing us to play snippets of some of the wonderful live recordings and demos of songs that were born during these star-studded jaunts.  We hear some truly delightful clips from Graham's songwriting sessions with Gary Barlow (Take That) and Kevin Godley (for 'GG06'). Along the way, we touch on assorted projects with Andrew Gold, Roger Cook and less well-known but notable collaborators such as Barry Greenfield, Gordon Kennedy and Gary Burr. There are even some lovely revelations about his early Strawberry work with Neil Sedaka. Sadly, our efforts to shine light on some mystery compositions by Eric and Graham are in vain. Graham has no recollection of them, if they existed at all!

Gouldman rekindled his solo career with several fine and enjoyable albums which seemed to capture the same warm, natural and personal touch exhibited by his songs on 10cc's 'Mirror Mirror. 'And Another Thing', 'Love and Work' and 'Play Nicely and Share' all receive a good and deserved delving here. 

90 minutes were simply no time at all to try and encapsulate Graham's discography over this 25-year period. Waiting in the wings for discussion, with rare tape recordings to hand, were the likes of Lamont Dozier, Tony Hadley, Steve Piggott, Kevin Kennedy and several others. But we hope that with the cross-section we did manage to cover, we succeeded in conveying the simple fact that Graham Gouldman is an exceptionally prolific, productive and consistent songwriter. It's a joy to hear him recall these many, many musical journeys with such clarity and fondness.

Thank you so much Graham and Dave, it's been a pleasure for us. 

Consequences 10cc podcast 53 - American English: Graham Gouldman on Andrew Gold

This is one of our favourite ever episodes. Sean and Paul once again had the pleasure of Graham's company for a loving and hugely enjoyable tribute to his late friend and prolific songwriting partner Andrew Gold.

Graham shows his massive admiration and love for this supremely talented multi-instrumentalist, who rose to prominence as musical maestro with Linda Rondstadt, among others.  He gives a comprehensive account of his involvement with Andrew, from his introduction to the Ten Out of Ten album in 1981, when the Californian was brought in at the behest of the U.S. record company. The spark was lit, and Gouldman sought him out soon after he and Eric parted ways. We hear the complete story of how the duo Common Knowledge was formed, in Graham's home studio, and we hear lots and lots of never-heard-before songwriting demos.  Once again, we thank Graham and David Jarvis for these wonderful recordings, spanning their collaborations from 1986 to 1997.

With their second project, now named Wax, the pair had their breakthrough hit with with the storming Right Between the Eyes.  There was an infectious energy about this new music, all but completely missing from 10cc's post-70s output. We shine a torch on the highlights of all four of Wax's album releases: Magnetic Heaven, American English, A Hundred Thousand in Fresh Notes and Bikini. Sean even gets out his guitar to quiz Graham on a song he hugely admires: Wax's biggest UK hit, Bridge to Your Heart.

So this is a candid, warm, funny and poignant appreciation of Andrew Gold the person and musician. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Consequences 10cc podcast 52 - The Great Gambo: Paul Gambaccini

Sean and Paul have been trying to pin this man down for over a year. Thanks to Graham Gouldman, we finally did! Paul Gambaccini is arguably the best-known and respected Rock journalist in Britain. His career spans five decades. He was co-author of the Guinness Book of Hit Singles and countless articles, notably for Rolling Stone. Amazingly, he has presented primetime shows on four of the BBC's major stations: Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4, as well as Classic FM. He's presented the Ivor Novello Awards since 1990. His face and voice are continually familiar to fans of Pop and Rock documentaries. Yep, he's a legend.

Ostensibly, Paul and Sean invited him on the podcast for his insider views on the Consequences sessions. It is his diary that we read in the booklet after all! And what about his cameo as the Bad Samaritan on Godley and Creme's 'This Sporting Life'? Also, we were keen to hear his unique take on 10cc's artistic merits and early success (for which he greatly helped their cause in the States, with his important piece for Rolling Stone, '10cc - The Hottest Band in Britain').

What we got from this conversation was predictably much, much more than that...  Don't expect this to be solely focused on the world of 10cc! This is akin to a masterclass in after-dinner speaking: a series of fascinating, funny and surprising tangents, anecdotes and details, taking in dozens of the major artists he's known, reviewed and rubbed shoulders with over fifty years. His account of the Consequences launch in Amsterdam features a classically surreal Peter Cook episode... So our advice here is to pour a large cup of tea (or three) and relax into the experience of hearing a Pop and Rock guru-cum-raconteur at work!

Next week we're joined again by Graham Gouldman for a hugely enjoyable romp through his work with Andrew Gold.

 

 

Consequences 10cc podcast 51 - Graham Gouldman on 10cc

Paul and Sean are incredibly excited about this episode. 

Not only did Graham give us two hours of his thoughts on 10cc's entire career, from his first song with Eric to the current touring band, he's given permission for us to include clips of a whole slew of unreleased tapes. We thank Graham's archivist David Jarvis for his generosity in letting us hear and restore these wonderful artefacts! You'll hear snippets from songwriting sessions and original demos with Graham and Eric - a real treat, in other words. We've also tried to include lesser-known live recordings of many of the tracks, and Sean's done his best to isolate and process moments from some of our beloved 10cc album tracks to highlight the hidden genius and inventiveness on display.

Graham gives honest and often highly detailed insights into 10cc's 48-year history, covering every album.  Some of his views will startle you! He has his guitar on hand again, and his live demos of some of our favourite melodies and chords are wonderful to hear!  We learned so much from this conversation, as you will too, and we were surprised by his sheer openness and candour.

We'd love to know your thoughts on this episode. It took a long time to put together. Thanks.

 

Consequences 10cc podcast 50 - Memory Lane - Graham Gouldman on the 1960s

Welcome to the 50th Consequences podcast!  Paul and Sean are delighted to welcome Graham Gouldman for his second interview with us. This time, we focus on his meteoric songwriting work in the 60s.

Graham's on tremendous form here, giving us a joyful whistle-stop tour of many of our favourite corners of his early career. It's so good to hear him talking so fondly and frankly about his dad Hymie's massive contribution to his canon, with many insights that are new to these ears. We press him on his time at Olympic Studios, including the excellent tracks on his solo debut arranged by John Paul Jones.

We even ask him to give us some live demos on his guitar, which he dutifully does, to beautiful effect. We of course don't stick to the hits - we're keen to know more about such forgotten gems as Behind the Door, Nowhere to Go, Getting Nowhere and some of the early Strawberry Super K material, and we find out so much. The keen-eared listeners among you will notice that we're including audio clips of at least three recordings that have never been released before, bootleg or otherwise. Huge thanks to David Jarvis and Graham for these treasures.

Oh, and there are revelations about I'm Not in Love thrown in for good measure too! A real treat for all of us 10cc fans.

Tune in next week for Graham's account of 10cc, from Alpha to Omega.

Consequences 10cc podcast 49 - Eric Stewart: Ne Pas Plier

Paul, Sean, Liam and Pany continue our epic four-hour conversation from last week with this exhausted hour tackling Eric Stewart's last musical offerings: Do Not Bend (2003), Viva La Difference (2009) and Anthology (2017).

It's a joy to hear Liam's account of his eight hours in Eric's home studio in France, hearing brand new tracks from the album slated originally as 'My Dear Friends'. This gives a key insight into the premise of the 2003 follow-up to Frooty Rooties.  They're ostensibly songs written and recorded about - and for - his friends and neighbours: Norman, Fred, Audrey, Yves, Nettie et al. Perhaps this is why the album struggles to work in a wider public context? But we highlight two songs in particular which do translate better in the world outside Templar Studios. Sleeping With the Ghosts and Set in Blancmange have some real saving graces.

Three of us agree that the follow-up, Viva La Difference, is more successful. This is in no small part down to Eric returning to social commentary for some of his lyric inspiration. 10cc fans will sense familiar territory here, with targets that include financial corruption, injustice, homelessness and racism.  Opener Gnomes Sweet Gnomes is perhaps the most successful at hitting its targets, odd as they are. Sixties Prime Minister Harold Wilson coined the 'gnomes' tag to refer to the Swiss bankers who were manipulating the currency market at the time. Eric is both snarling and having fun with this track, we sense. Down By the Palace tackles the gulf between the luxury of the ruling classes contrasted with the poverty of the homeless living in the same borough. The title track champions racial diversity. So in many ways this album is a partial return to form, and this is certainly true of the highlight track We Are Not Alone. Musically, there are echoes of the more interesting production touches of 1982's Frooty Rooties. And this is not just a shallow 'Close Encounters' premise; Eric is pondering big existential questions here, his place in the universe and the depths of his emotions, the macro and the micro. Ultimately, most questions are left unanswered.

You won't be surprised to hear that Sean has a lot to say about Eric's production choices here, especially on the 2017 compilation. He feels that Stewart has simply been a bit over-eager to tinker and tweak at the knobs. Suffice to say that Paul and Sean have really struggled with these two records. We're hugely grateful to Pany and Liam for their positivity and objectivity; we genuinely think that this episode tries to give a balanced view, and praise where praise is due.

Next time round we're thoroughly excited about our conversation with Graham Gouldman about his lesser-known 60s exploits, with his 10cc episode coming quickly on its heels.  Happy days!