10cc Apollo-gise
(and are readily forgiven)

Record Mirror & Disc 1 may 1976 pp. 6-7
By David Brown

10CC WERE BACK in Glasgow on Saturday night, with a debt to pay.

They had touched down earlier in the year with their UK tour, but flu struck two band members and they had to stop the show after a mere three numbers.

"It was a real martyr job," joked the band. "Two beds and a doctor ready at the side of the stage."

The illness caused the tour to be rescheduled, and the UK dates completed after a European trip. To compensate for their earlier cancellation, they put in an extra date at Glasgow, their three nights there bringing the tour to a close.

Glasgow had obviously forgiven them, all three dates were sell outs.

As the band opened their set at the Apollo they teased the audience about them only doing a few numbers and going off again. But what the audience got in fact was more than two hours of quality rock.

And when they apologised for the previous occasion a voice shouted from the gallery: "Don't mention it."

Break

The end of the tour means that we won't be seeing much of 10cc for some time, as they have a break and then prepare for their next album, about which they aren't saying a lot, except that it will be "something very special."

"It's been a long haul," said Graham Gouldman. "Originally there were two separate tours, the UK tour and the European one. But because of the flu thing it turned into one long tour with three legs."

How did they do on the continent?

"All the places we had been to before were sold out, which was encouraging," said Graham. "Many of the halls there are smaller though."

"In Germany we broke some new ground," added Kevin Godley. "It was pretty good apart from a couple of dates which were a bit in the middle of nowhere."

"It's a bit like starting again," said Graham. "And that's not always pleasant. It's quite similar to the situation in Britain about two years ago.

"One of the problems is that there is no real rock radio over there. All they have is AFN (American Forces Network) and that isn't just music but a bit of anything and everything. They don't seem to want to start pop radio over there. They obviously need some outlet though.

"In Munich they thought we were The Carpenters or something like that, because the audience was full of old, sophisticated people."

Another problem they had to face was that while most of the Scandinavians they met could speak and understand English, the German's couldn't. They weren't too sure how the German audiences took their brand of rock either.

Graham explains: "When Lol goes into his bit about wanting to dominate the world we thought we had better be a bit careful. So we substituted Winston Churchill for Adolf Hitler, and it was worse than ever.

"We heard that one paper printed a headline something like '10cc Called Audience Nazi Swines', which just wasn't true."

They also had some fun when they played Edinburgh when they made a joke about the Bay City Rollers.

"It turned out that Les was in the audience," said Lol Creme. "I hope he didn't take offence, it was only meant as a piece of fun.

"Someone told us he laughed, or was it he left, I couldn't quite make it out."

The resumed tour mainly met with their approval, and they said they had good nights in Newcastle and rock-starved Aberdeen, although the smell of fish had got them down in the latter.

Reaction

"We've done a longish set usually," said Kevin. "It has grown according to audience reaction of course, but usually about two hours ten minutes, and including a mixture of just about everything we've done."

When can we look forward to seeing them again?

"It'll be about six months or so, I guess," said Graham.

"We're going on holiday for a while and then do some work in the new studios. Obviously we've got a few ideas what we would like to do, but I'm not really sure if they'll reach fruition yet.

"It could be a double though. We're thinking of aiming at that anyway. We're lucky because we are not at a stage where we've got to impress anyone.

"In America we have a sort of cult following, and it would possibly do us well to tour there. The last time we went 'Original Soundtrack' had been out too long for us to do a lot.

"America said 'I'm Mandy, Fly Me' was about taking mandrax to calm your nerves before flying," said Kevin. "When all it was really inspired by was their National airline ads."

10cc have always had a reputation of being a readily accessible group, and have made many friends and a few enemies in the various music camps.

"We have never really gone out to get any particular following," said Graham. "We're not going to alienate anyone. It's better to have a wide audience. You can't knock success, though critics tend to knock you if you get popular in the charts."

"They change loyalties like underwear," adds Kevin. "They build you up and then take you down."

Pressures

"Yeah, but the more they have a go at you the more people seem to buy the records," laughed Graham.

"There are terrific pressures on musicians to produce good albums, and then the knockers come along and its like a school report: 'Could do better next year' sort of thing."

They have been criticised for being "too perfect."

"We try our best," replied Graham. "Sometimes we look back on bad reviews and in retrospect we often agree that things could have been better, but instantly you tend to overreact."

"When you've been in the studios for a long time working on an album and you come out with as good a product as possible at the time, then the sheer negative criticism is a bit of a pain," said Kevin.

"It is nice to have a pat on the back occasionally too. When a new band comes along people attach themselves to them, but after a while they are not going to change that drastically, so people get bored with them and start slagging them off.

"The business moves so fast, they've got to do well to keep up. It is really down to the people who listen."

Graham adds: "I think a lot of the trouble today is that everything has got to be 'super'. You know like you get in the papers; the prefix super is always there, super group, superman, super – everything.

"Can you imagine that, some poor mum getting worried that she's not a supermum 'cos she doesn't use the right margarine? People tend to get too involved in this unnecessary kind of trivia that they make seem so important today.

"I hope we never get to the stage where we ignore the fans. It is important to be very accessible. Sometimes you have got to be somewhere and you can't see all the fans, but we usually try and sign autographs. Of course you occasionally disappoint someone, and they are the ones who complain."

At the other end of the scale there are followers who see the band as some sort of intellectual revolution.

"I have a reasonable vocabulary," says Graham. "But someone did this in-depth thing on us, and I couldn't understand a word of it. Honest!"

Augments

Anyone who has seen 10cc live will have noticed that in fact there are five members on stage, not just the foursome who appear on the records.

The fifth member is Paul Burgess, who augments them on gigs on percussion and keyboards.

"He has been with us on the road since the beginning of the band," says Graham. "We never really think of him as a session man, more as a mate.

"He is a superbly tight drummer," said Kevin. "We get along together well.

"I was coming out of a concert in February '73 I think it was, and I saw Eric and Graham and they said I was just the person they were looking for," said Paul.

"We had first met at the Strawberry studios, where I had been doing some session work there with a band. Eric had heard the sessions and they thought I had the style they required to fit in with their music.

"My playing is compatible with Kevin's, almost as if we can read each others minds, well, anticipate each other anyway.

"Kevin is probably a better timekeeper than I am most of the time though."

Frustrated

Did he not get frustrated just being in the background with the band?

"Hmmm, not really," he replied. "I've been doing more and more each tour, and this time round had a few solos which compensated a bit.

"Basically I'm a freelance, but 10cc have first option. It is great working with four superb writers. I'm not a writer. Never have been. I'm quite content as I am. It's a great life. I'm well looked after."

When the band go into the studios Paul usually tours with other groups in need of his services.

"It is good to have variety," he says. "One night you can be playing to a 3,000 audience with this band, and the next at some working mens' club somewhere.

Removed

"I've done clubs with people like Freddie Garrety (of Freddie and the Dreamers), which might sound rather removed from this lot, but he has a good attitude to work, very professional.

"On the cabaret circuit you meet a different sort of person, but very friendly to you. 'You alright lad? D'yer want a drink?' and so on."

Paul comes from Stockport, close to 10cc's Manchester roots, and first became interested in music around 1966.

"That's when I got my first set of Quality Street tins for a drumkit," he says. I played with some school friends in a local band playing Shadows tunes and stuff like that, even though The Cream were becoming the thing of the period."

Later he played with several bands, including that of Victor Brox, former keyboards player and vocalist with Aynsley Dunbar, before going on to session work.

"I prefer working live to recording work," he said. "It would get claustrophobic working in studios for very long. The most I've done has been a week at once.

Switching

"Working live with this band you certainly move about a lot on stage, switching instruments. There's nothing worse than sitting on a drum stool for two hours at a time."

He illustrated the fact later that evening during the set as he moved from one set of drums to kettle drums, to keyboards and back again, often playing tambourine as he went!

"On stage we have to compromise," he said. "Obviously you can't do everything like the records. But that is where I come in, to help them give as full a sound as possible on stage.

"When 10cc do an album I have a listen and work out what part I can play towards the live show.

"People criticise them saying they're only a recording band and can't do live what they do on record, but they can't have been looking or listening properly."

Paul's move to keyboards is a recent development.

"I started piano lessons while I was at primary school, and while I only got to grade three, I have remembered the basics.

"My piano teacher committed suicide — which had nothing to do with me — I think!"

Conversation was interupted at this point as Paul was commandeered to play drums with 10cc's support band, whose percussionist was ill.

Meanwhile, 10cc were tuning up and before their set relaxed judging the merits, or lack of them, in an Alan Ladd western film on the TV.

"Five minutes", yelled a voice.

"It's time to turn into super stars," said Kevin, tugging at his shirt.

Out front the Apollo audience eagerly anticipated their arrival on stage. The lights dimmed to thunderous applause. Spotlights appeared, illuminating two fo the stage crew doing an awful rendition of 'Art For Art's Sake', and then "Ladies and Gentleman, the best band in the world . . . "

From that moment on the band did no wrong — at least in the audience's opinion — and they indulged not only every number, but every aside and joke from the band.

Flop

"Every band has to have a record that doesn't make it," says Lol. "This is ours. Thanks for making it a flop."

Roars of laughter.

"It's called 'The Worst Band In The World! . . . "

Roars of applause, and so on.

You could hear and understand every word that was sung, which is still remarkably rare these days.

The interplay between Kevin and Paul in evidence with some driving drums in 'Second Sitting For The Last Supper', and in the gutsy rendition of 'Rubber Bullets' which brought the show to a close.

Their lively humour came over well, but they can be equally poignant, as in 'Old Wild Men', from the 'Sheet Music' album. The material covered their whole history from the first album, '10cc' through 'Sheet Music' and 'The Original Soundtrack' and most of 'How Dare You!' Everything met with immediate recognition and approval from the audience.

As they left the stage the audience called for the one they loved so much and wanted to hear, 'I'm Not In Love,' which they got, and more besides.

Backstage there was the usual autopsy.

They didn't seem over confident with themselves.

Clinical

"We've done better, we've done worse," was the attitude.

"I felt at times it was a bit cold and clinical," said Graham. "You know sometimes you get it dead right, every note perfect, but the feel is not there. It sounds stupid but someone singing a little out of tune can sound better!"

Meanwhile, Kevin was discussing the possibilities of a horse carrying the kettle drums on stage for extra effect. Others talked about the sound system in a more serious vein, and it showed that while some people are ready to dismiss them as being too perfect, they are eager to do their best to improve their work.

"I'll be better tomorrow night, and the next," they suggested, as they returned to the hotel for a welcome drink.

Click to subscribe

© 2008 by Minestrone. All rights reserved.