10CC Live1975 and 1976

I love 10CC. No, you don’t understand, I LOVE 10CC. They were the first band I ever saw live, ‘The Dean and I’ was one of the first pieces of Pop music I ever got excited about and when it comes to their first four albums, my critical faculties go out of the window and I just gush superlatives. I love 10CC. You need to know that.

10CC were one of the biggest selling bands of the 70s in the UK. They were responsible for a string of top 10 albums and a consistent run of innovative, dazzlingly different and beautifully performed singles. And yet, whenever one of those ‘Weren’t the 70’s great with all the Chopper bikes and Spangles and Spacehoppers and stuff’, space filling TV list shows is made, 10CC are conspicuous by their absence. If you’re lucky, you might get a be-permed Footballer confessing to enjoying ‘I’m not in love’ but that’s yer lot. Now that is what I call a bloody raw deal. I have no idea why they have been clipped from history…too normal? Not glam enough? Not controversial enough? – and before anyone says 'too clever', just think about those words…if we’re living in a society where a surplus of intelligence is considered to be a bad thing, then I’m off…

Rant over

The four albums the Godley/Crème/Gouldman/Stewart line up made are all brilliant. If you compile a list of the 50 greatest 70s albums and you miss one of them out you are wrong. Wrong. Predictably, when the original line-up split in two, the level of excellence couldn’t be maintained – Godley and Crème missed the discipline of Stewart and Gouldman and they in turn, missed the Art School inventiveness of Godley and Crème. Both halves made great music – ‘Deceptive Bends’ is better than it has a right to be and once Godley and Crème had got the unwieldy but sporadically superb ‘Consequences’ out of the way, they went on to make some fascinating recordings. (1978’s ‘L’ is a genuine lost classic).



Knebworth 1976 Poster



So what? You say. My first reply is ‘How rude!’ My second reply is ‘They were flippin’ brilliant live, too!’ But there are precious few bootlegs or genuine live recordings to back this up. On video there is a fantastic August ’74 gig filmed by the BBC, already available in Blogland. (I’ll put that up here if there’s a demand). Otherwise, we have to make do with a rather weirdly assembled ‘King Biscuit’ release – recorded in 1975 and released in ’98, this Santa Monica gig has been edited to remove any material from the album they were promoting – ‘The Original Soundtrack’. In fact, I’d had this album for about six months before I realised that this wasn’t a show from 1974. Well boys and girls, as a public service, I’ve included the full gig for you, with the post ’74 stuff back on. And guess what…it’s amazing. The most mind blowing thing is the encore – when most bands are happy just to sleepwalk through an off key version of ‘Johnny B Goode’ with one eye on their stash and the other eye on the groupies, 10CC choose to end the night with ‘Une Nuit A Paris’ – their most complex and intricate piece. Lightweights they are not. The other show I’ve included is the last performance the fantastic four (plus longstanding drummer Paul Burgess) ever did – supporting the Rolling Stones at Knebworth on August 28^th 1976. The recording comes from a boxed set (now deleted, I believe) produced by promoter Freddie Bannister which included a bunch of audio recordings, some DVDs and a fascinating book about his life promoting the Knebworth Festivals and beyond. The 10CC audio is pretty rough, but it’s still essential and features the then unreleased ‘Good Morning Judge’. I’m getting misty eyed typing this….

I know this ain’t Post-Punk or Alt-Rock or even PowerPop, but people need to hear this music. This band have been shunted into a corner and marginalised and that is not right. I would agree that these recordings might not be the perfect introduction (never have a major band been so poorly served by record companies…where’s the boxed set? Where’s the rarities compilation?) – I would steer first time listeners to their best work – ‘Sheet Music’. There are more hooklines in ‘The Wall Street Shuffle’ than some bands write in a career.

I Love 10CC…and you should too.

Santa Monica 1975

Knebworth 28 08 76

PS - If you look to the Right at 'Rushbo's Guide', I've included my (sadly unsuccesful) proposal for a 33 1/3 book on 'Sheet Music'.

SANTA MONICA 1975

Intro

Silly Love

Flying Junk

Interlude

Baron Samedi

Old Wild Men

Interlude

The Sacro Iliac

Interlude

Somewhere In Hollywood

Donna

Interlude

Ships Don't Just...

I'm Not In Love

Interlude

The Film Of My Love

Interlude

Art For Arts Sake

Worst Band In The World

Neanderthal Man

Wall Street Shuffle

Rubber Bullets

Une Nuit A Paris

KNEBWORTH 1976

Une Nuit A Paris

Worst Band In The World

Good Morning Judge

Silly Love

Don't Hang Up

Old Wild Men

Wall Street Shuffle

Neanderthal Man

Ships Don't Just....

I'm Mandy Fly me

Second Sitting For The Last Supper

I'm Not In Love

Rubber Bullets