They don't make 'em like that anymore. Pt 578

You know me: can't resist a bit of clever cloggery. Which is why I've already blogged about this bunch. As a teen I dug their smart subversions of pop in singular form. As an adult I finally discovered their four albums (as the original four piece) and was predictably smitten all over again.
But what set them apart was their studio craft just as much as their songwriting chops. Many conversations with the Bass Player about how the band, esconsed in their Strawberry Studios base in Manchester using the STUDIO AS AN INSTRUMENT recently prefigured the sudden synchronistic appearance of this on the BBC. Grab it on the iPlayer while it's hot folks!
It's a delight from start to finish. The combination of Gouldman's early diet of easy listening and fab four, Stewart's love of James Burton and Godley and Creme's art school background as well as a healthy dose of smart Jewish humour made for something that was every inch as clever as Steely Dan, but without the slavish devotion to jazz.
The BBC's Record Producer series, hosted by Richard Allinson, is old school programming that satisfies because it goes one step further than straight biogs by getting a real record producer to run through the original masters, highlighting studio chat and outtakes and pinpointing excactly how the bands got THAT sound. previous triumphs have included one on Britain's very own Phil Spector: Roy Wood!
Anyhoo, listen as the band fluff Donna, use drums that were messed around with by Paul McCartney for a previous session in the studio or decide to invent the Fairlight years before digital technology was available, by using separate tape loops to recreate the chromatic scale and using the mixing desk as the instrument (I'm Not In Love).
Of course, your scribe can't stop there. Unable to stomach the post Godley and Creme years (despite Eric's awesome geetar) I'm drawn to the even-cleverer-cloggier sounds of the aforementioned duo. Be warned folks, it's strong stuff.
Obvious fans of Zappa, vast quantities of weed and Hollywood musicals (weirdly Godley describes 10cc's early hit, The Dean And I as Doris Day meets Frank Zappa), from their triple concept album (featuring Peter Cook AND Sarah Vaughan!), Consequences, to the pop genius of later hits like Cry and Wedding bells, these guys obviously loved to a) tell stories; b) multitrack voices like muthas; c) play with sequencers and d) tell jokes, albeit bleak, dark ones.
Ignoring the dubious joys of involving Andy Mackay etc. it's still an acquired taste. But never, ever boring.
We shall not see their like again.

Nonsensical pub argument time

This is Graham Gouldman. You know, the tall geezer who played bass with Manchester's second best band ever (they'd win if Magazine didn't exist). He was fairly succesful before he joined the clever boys and started making clever pop rekkids that took the piss out of pop; long before the Pet Shop Boys thought about it. Anyway after EBP mentioned he'd watched the band in an archive gig on BBC Four we got talking about how his previous career had been as a staff writer of hits for early 60s bands such as the Hollies (Bus Stop) and the Yardbirds (For Your Love) and it suddenly occurred to me that, even more than being the bass player for Manchester's second greatest combo, he had a greater claim to fame.
This man made Eric Clapton quit the Yardbirds. Faced with recording another pop nugget from GG's pen (Heart Full Of Soul, actually) he upped and quit; claiming that he was devoting his puritanical, hypocritical ass to THE BLUES. Like he'd received the tablets from Robert Johnson himself. Pah.
Anyway, this, as any self-respecting pop scholar can tell you, opened the floodgates to the might of Jeff Beck, and even later, James Patrick Page. Clapton, of course went on to make, erm...great psychedelic POP records with Cream and then took up heroin. But this all happened because of GRAHAM GOULDMAN. Pivotal or what? What would have happened if GG hadn't written that song? Would EC have stuck with the, frankly, not quite stellar Yardbirds? Would Beck have made it anyway? Would he have, instead, formed an even better band? The what ifs come pouring out don't they?
So: Graham Gouldman - hero or lanky pretentious bass player with an extensive knowledge of show tunes and complex chords? Go and have a pint and get back to me ;-)