I was going to review Tenology, the 5-disc 10cc import box set retrospective released last November that I gave to Amy for Christmas, but Amazon reviewer "containsnopartofmyname" beat me to the punch. It's a pretty good review and fairly spot on in its assessment that the later, post-Godley & Creme split 10cc songs weren't up to the high standard set by the full quartet's fantastic four album-run (not to mention their chart-topping singles run) during the years 1972-1976 (10cc, Sheet Music, The Original Soundtrack and How Dare You?), and that the highlight of this set is the inclusion of an all-region DVD (finally!) of rare concert performances and music videos (if only so fans could finally see exactly who was singing or playing what parts in this overly-talented band that featured four singer-songwriters who could play just about every instrument). So here it is, and ta to the reviewer! Oh, I added the bold texting to highlight what I thought were the author's most cogent points; inserted pictures; inserted relevant hyperlinks; added my own parenthetical thoughts inside brackets: [...]); and embedded some video clips that reenforce this reviewer's quite astute (and correct) observation that 10cc were a great live band (if ever in doubt, check out the 10cc in ConcertCD that captured their 1975 "King Biscuit Flower Hour" performance - at the peak of their powers - at the Santa Monica Civic Center).
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A Fitting Testament to the Worst Band in the World
by containsnopartofmyname
10cc was the first band with which I was obsessed. I was about 12 and already had Deceptive Bends, The Original Soundtrack and How Dare You. But the twentysomethings at the record store at which I spent my after school hours all told me that Sheet Music'was *the* album I needed to hear. At the time, neither of 10cc's first two albums were available in the US, so it had to be ordered out of the exotic JEM import catalog. I looked at the track listing. What could songs with titles such as 'Clockwork creep', 'Silly love' and 'Hotel' possibly sound like? I had to wait weeks and weeks before the album finally arrived to find out. And the advice I was given was right on. Sheet music was and is the definitive 10cc statement. Great tunes, gonzo (but smart) lyrics and hooks, hooks, hooks. Still one of the great lost pop/rock albums of the 70s, at least in the US.
10cc - Sheet Music (1974)
As I got older, my musical taste expanded. Punk/New Wave. But 10cc was a constant. Bloody Tourists was pretty good. Yeah, Look Hear? was disappointing. (Really disappointing.) But I remember listening to 'We've heard it all before', 'Power of Love' and 'Don't ask' (from their next album, 10 Out of Ten) over and over again at college, even if they were nowhere near as 'cool' as the likes of REM, Echo and the Bunnymen and Big Audio Dynamite that then dominated by collection.
10cc's "reunion" LP. Windows in the Jungle (1983)
I remember stumbling across Windows in the Jungleat a local record store. It came wrapped in the loose plastic bag (as opposed to shrink-wrapped), the sign of an IMPORT. I wasn't really thinking much about 10cc at that point, but bought it almost on reflex. And I remember the disappointment of the hookless, virtually Gouldman-less, long, sad attempts to ape Steely Dan. It was the last 10cc album that I would buy for almost a decade and the last one I bought for more than that. (Meanwhile... is the only 10cc album I've never owned. Never felt like I was missing anything. The less said about the shameless, cynical Mirror Mirror - which I did unfortunately purchase - the better.)
10cc - Mirror Mirror (1995)
Over the years, I've remained a music obsessive. My taste has deepened and widened. Hip Hop, Reggae, Brit Pop, Indie...anything with above average smarts, a bit of edge and hooks (always hooks) still catches my ear. And I've refused to be stuck in any particular era. But my appreciation for 10cc has remained. The original 72-76 era was woefully undiscovered in the States. Only 'I'm not in love' made any impression. But it's just about as strong a run as any band had at that time. Up there with the likes of Roxy Music and Steely Dan (though all three bands only share a certain cool, cynical detachment). Why is 10cc not remembered as well? Perhaps because when they fell off, the drop was so sheer (spot the reference 10cc-heads). They definitely became less loved critically after Godley and Creme left. And not without reason. Despite the relative successes of Deceptive Bends and Bloody Tourists, the band lost almost all their edge. They became known as pop lightweights, not without reason. And their biggest hit from this period (though, again, not in the US where it stalled outside the Top 40) 'Dreadlock Holiday' has not aged well. (Hey, most of us didn't know much about actual reggae in 1978.) Even as they re-expanded the band, the insecurity in Gouldman and Stewart became audible. And, as happens, they flogged the horse for too long.
Yet I continued to think of 10cc fondly. I bought the various, often-botched CD re-releases. I even found (what turned out to be) a Russian bootleg of Look Hear? on ebay, which I bought hoping it somehow was better than I remembered. It wasn't.
But the quartet of the self-titled debut, Sheet Music, The Original Soundtrack and How Dare You have all continued to sound as good as they ever have. (Give or take a few tracks here and there on the latter two.)
So all of this was in my head when I saw there was a 40th anniversary box set. Initially, I was pretty excited. That was quickly diminished when I saw the track listing. There was very little there that a hardcore 10cc fan hadn't already owned, often having purchased the songs more than once over the years. Even the b-sides and rarities weren't all that rare, having been appended to the aforementioned CD re-releases. [Of these bonus tracks that came out on the CD reissues, my personal favorites are "Channel Swimmer," the "Life Is a Minnestrone" B-side included on The Original Soundtrack CD reissue; "I'm So Laid Back I'm Laid Out," the "People in Love" B-side included on the Deceptive Bends CD reissue; and "Hot To Trot," the "The Things We Do For Love" B-side included on the Bloody Tourists CD reissue.] So why did I (or *you*) need to purchase most of these songs for the 3rd/4th time? For me, establishing that Universal had the good sense not to region lock the DVD (meaning it would play in North American players) is what did it. Mostly, the opportunity to see the brief 'BBC In-concert' performed live by the original quartet.
Which brings me, finally, to Tenology itself. Are there any revelations among the 4 CDs and 1 DVD? Not many. Am I glad I purchased it? Absolutely.
For starters, in terms of presentation, Universal actually showed 10cc and its fans a good deal of respect. The box is nice and sturdy, adorned (as is only fitting) with a new Storm Thorgerson design. [The box set design really is wonderful - each individual disc has neat ephemera filling in the picture of the 10cc membrane!]
Head Trip: Storm Thorgenson's cerebral design for 10cc's Tenology
Inside, you're first presented by a hardcover (!) book. The book is really well done. In the absence of a good 10cc biography in print, it's nice to have contemporary reflections from all four of the original band members on the (72-76) history of the band. And, yes, that's the emphasis. Gouldman and Stewart, while proud of Deceptive Bends, are no less aware than the rest of us of the dipping quality, particularly after Bloody Tourists. In addition to the short(ish) recap, filled with (as of this writing) recent quotes from all four, the lyrics to every song on the box are included. Right off, this made the set feel like a good purchase. Beneath that, a die cut 'well' holds all 5 discs. The discs themselves come in those thing, cardboard holders. But unlike some I've gotten, these are actually well sized. You don't have to dig the CD/DVD out, inevitably scratching/scuffing them. They slide out nicely.
As to the contents, well, if anyone is still reading, you're either a masochist or a truly hardcore 10cc fan. What you get is almost all the tracks (with an exception or two from each album) of the first four albums, spread across Discs 1 & 3. It's a mish-mash of album and single edits, occasionally mislabeled on the box. (For instance, the running time of Look Hear's 'One two five' suggests it's the almost interminable album version. Mercifully, it's actually the single edit.) Disc 2 starts with a high (heh) in 'Dreadlock Holiday' and slides all the way down to the singles from ...Meanwhile. Consequently, it's the least essential of the discs. And that's probably being kind. I imagine this one will be the one most of us will come back to least. The only two things on all three discs that I hadn't heard before are the (Voodoo Mix) of 'People in Love', indeed covered in a swampy morass of vocals and other sounds. And, for me, preferably to the Adult Contemporary version of the song that was the band's last hit (reaching 40) in the US.
10cc - "People in Love" (Voodoo Boogie Mix)
The other 'new track' is called 'The recording of 'The Dean and I'", a BBC (?) audio documentary detailing how the song was, well, recorded. I didn't make it through all 7 minutes myself. On Disc 4 are the b-sides and, I must say, 10cc knew which songs to throw away. Okay, that's harsh. These are definitely, for the most part, lesser songs of the eras they represent. But some of the 72-76 cuts are at least interesting. And Stewart made sure they all *sound* fantastic. In fact, the productions on some of these are among the most interesting, as Stewart either wanted to make up for the less stellar songwriting or just tried out things he couldn't on the albums proper. For my taste, only 'I'm so laid-back, I'm laid out' (B-side to 'People in Love') is one I'd put on a mix. Unusually funky with a great vocal from Gouldman, it's easy to hear this a song that simply didn't fit musically onto Deceptive Bends, rather than a song that just wasn't good enough. Everything sounds good. Nice and bright.
Finally (you can exhale), the DVD. Clearly, the highlight is the above-mentioned concert-ette from '74. Seven songs, starting with 'Silly Love' and running through songs from the first two albums, ending with a jam (for 10cc) of 'Rubber Bullets' that, in seemingly typical BBC fashion, is faded under the credits. For a band so richly produced, with four vocalists, two of whom possessed truly unique vocalists (Godley and Creme) its astonishing how good they are in concert. Mostly, that they could reproduce the sounds on those albums so closely.
[I've included videos from the BBC concert below.]
10cc - "Silly Love" (BBC Concert 1974)
10cc - "Wall Street Shuffle" (BBC Concert 1974)
10cc - "Rubber Bullets" (BBC Concert 1974)
(A side note, the audience for this show could only be called 'live' in the sense that most of them, presumably, had pulses and breath. Like most BBC audiences for pop shows from the 70s, they look they were either tricked into attending the taping or are there as some form of punishment. At the end of a really beautiful version of 'Fresh Air for my momma', they cut to a couple who look they may have been awaken from a nap by the smattering of applause around them.)
[Click here to watch "Fresh Air for My Mama." (Embedding disabled by YouTube.)] No, 10cc was not the most dynamic live band. They had no image, don't always seem that interested in each other being there and lack a focal point....but just listen. The rest of the DVD is filled out by assorted, usually mimed, appearances on a variety of televised pop shows. Most of these don't beg watching more than once. There's also a handful or so of promotional videos, most of which aren't that different from the mimed pop shows. The videos for 'Dreadlock Holiday' and 'One two five' are mildly interesting for being early versions of the kind of conceptual-lite things that would appear the first couple of years on MTV, but a few years before MTV existed.
10cc - "Dreadlock Holiday" (TOTP)
Otherwise, you're not liable to come back to most of these either. [Though the cheesy, dated MTV narrative story-style music video for "Feel the Love" - with a sexy couple playing tennis in short shorts - bares repeated viewer as a video oddity!]
10cc "Feel the Love" Get it?
The quality of the video is mostly fine, especially considering the age and source material. For the most part, they look like good standard def video. The promo videos look a little less good but, again, all things considered, they're fine. [Come to think of it, the promo video for "Good Morning Judge" is pretty amusing, too!]
So that's Tenology. Would it have been nice to have some genuine rarities? More demos and such? Absolutely. But they may no longer even exist. Did it need solo Gouldman and Stewart or duo Godley and Creme? Probably not. Frankly, most of the former was pretty forgettable (Yeah, Animalalympics included.) And the latter really needs it's own box. Or least two good discs that do a damn sight better job of getting G&C on CD then Renaissance did with their muddy releases of Consequences and L.)
So...do *you* need it? If you somehow made it all the way through this--and, holy crap, I've just looked at the preview and seen how long it is--the answer must be yes.
Graham Gouldman celebrates the 40th anniversary of 10cc
(New York - July 13, 2012) - On Friday the 13th, Amy and I experienced our first Bolt Bus ride, boltin' from Charm City's hot-and-humid Penn Station to an equally hot-and-humid drop-off point on W. 33rd and 7th Avenue outside the seedy Pennsylvania Hotel ("Glenn Miller played here!") and the even seedier Adult Peepworld storefront in the Big Apple.
Amy: "Are we then yet? I'm ready to rock!"
Our mission: to see pop songsmith extraordinaire Graham Gouldman's "10cc Live In Concert" show at a small Upper West Side venue called The New York Society for Ethical Culture (which bills itself "A welcoming home for humanists" - I don't know what that means either, but I'm a human so I figured I'd be welcome!).
Technically it was really a 2.5cc show, with Gouldman the last of the four original 10cc members (Eric Stewart, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley were the others) to hoist the 10cc banner, though unofficial "Fifth Member" Paul Burgess - who's played onstage with 10cc from the start, filling in on drums whenever Kevin Godley came out front to sing - was on hand to keep the beat, while Rick Fenn - who played in the Stewart-Gouldman edition of 10cc that carried on after Godley & Creme left to go solo and make music videos in 1976 - was there to play blistering lead guitar.
The Original 10cc: Gouldman, Godley, Stewart & Creme
But that's OK, because of all the mega-talents that made up 10cc, Graham Gouldman was perhaps the most accomplished songwriter, having already penned hits for The Yardbirds ("For Your Love," "Heartful of Soul"), The Hollies ("Bus Stop," "Look Through Any Window"), Hermit's Hermits ("No Milk Today," "Listen People"), Cher ("Behind the Door"), and former Mindbenders leader Wayne Fontana ("Pamela Pamela") before he officially joined ranks with the band in 1972. (For more on Graham Gouldman the songwriter, see my "The Graham Gouldman Thing" blog posting.)
Graham Gouldman's "Thing" was writing hits
Gouldman calls his current touring band "Graham Gouldman and Friends" and, in addition to former 10cc-ers Rick Fenn and Paul Burgess, it also includes multi-instrumentalists Mike Stevens (keyboards, guitar, bass, sax) and Mick Wilson (vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion). Mick Wilson is particularly important to this 10cc lineup, handling most lead vocal duties with an impressive high-octave range comparable to that of the McCartneyesque Eric Stewart. Together, this group (10cc Mk III?) plays all the 10cc hits everyone wants to hear.
Forget-me-nots: 10cc had a string of '70s Top 10 hits
This 10cc concert was truly an historic occasion, as 2012 marked the (gulp!) 40th anniversary of 10cc's birth - and Gouldman himself (who turns 66 this year) had not set foot in New York since 1978's Bloody Tourists tour. Plus, this was the lone US stop on the band's current world tour. Not that any but a few "ethically cultured" cognescetti - like those in attendance here on this night - took notice. Because, for some unfathomable reason, 10cc remain a rock & roll footnote, the answer to a trivia question that never gets asked. Try looking for mentions of them in any rock history book and maybe they'll get a page for "I'm Not In Love" (a UK #1, a US #2) or sometimes be lumped in with a discussion of Prog Rock. (Actually the best bits - and most mentions - I've seen written about the band appeared in Dave Thompson's informative book Children of the Revolution: The Glam Rock Story 1970-1975 - even though 10cc are as far from Glam as one can get!)
In fact, whenever Amy and I mention them to people (especially young people), their faces tend to go blank - this despite being one of the biggest selling bands of the '70s in the UK, with a string of top 10 albums and singles (including three UK #1 records). One kid once remarked, "Oh yeah, didn't they have a song on the Virgin Suicides soundtrack?" And, during the whole Occupy Wall Street movement, why wasn't one news station savvy enough to cue up the band's brilliant anti-Capitalism manifesto "Wall Street Shuffle"? It was there on a plate, ready to be served, program directors! Alas, only those who know 10cc get to "Feel the Benefit" while those that don't, won't.
OK, rant over...now on with the show!
Amy and I are retards when it comes to figuring out the subway system, so we flagged a taxi outside the Herald Square Macy's and arrived well before the 8 p.m. showtime at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. The Society is located just north of Columbus Circle and across the street from the west bottom end of Central Park.
Before the show, we checked out the concert hall, which looked like it was a repurposed chapel - our seats were basically wooden pews.
Amy looks for a book of hymns in our pew seating at New York Society for Ethical Culture
We also mingled with a few 10cc fans, including some British medical supplies salesman from Leeds (didn't catch his name) and a young couple named Matt and Miki.
The Brit started off charming, talking about growing up listening to 10cc and how Brian Clough destroyed the great Leeds football club in the '70s (yes, we had to mention having seen the Leeds United soccer movie The Damned United!), but he was pissed by show's end and became somewhat of a drunken boor, ranting about how Graham Gouldman wouldn't shake his hand after the concert ("Wot a cunt!") and later, when Matt and Miki suggested going downtown to former Dictators singer "Handsome Dick" Manitoba's bar (Manitoba's in the East Village), how he didn't get along with Manitoba because of some blah-blah-blah slight I lost interest in. (I suspect it all boiled down to a Leeds vs. Manchester football rivalry, at root, as 10cc were all Mancunians.)
Now Matt and Miki were an interesting couple: Matt was your classic New York hipster with leopard-skin boots who had studied acting and frequented the local rock & jazz club scene.
These boots are made for politicking
But he was also involved in politics; in fact, when we mentioned we were from Baltimore, he raved about our governor and said he was working with a group that hoped to get O'Malley elected as "our next President of the United States." His girlfriend Miki was not only beautiful, but Japanese - when Amy asked where she was from, it turned out she was born on the same island as Amy's mom (Kyushu) and in a town near Amy's mom's birthplace outside of Miyazaki. Small world indeed! When Miki asked if Amy was Japanese, Amy replied that she was ainoko (meaning 1/2 Japanese); Miki laughed and said that was an old-fashioned word for what today's Japanese call hafu ("halfsies") - and Amy explained that was the term she learned from her old-fashioned mom!
The show's promoter had announced beforehand that an opening act would play at 8 p.m., followed by 10cc roughly 45 minutes later. Turned out that opening band was none other than Graham Gouldman - and Friends - playing an acoustic set of Graham's best solo songs.
Graham Gouldman's Acoustic Set Graham took the stage promptly at 8, sat down on a stool with an acoustic guitar and, after thanking everyone for being there, explained that he was going to play some songs he wrote before 10cc that became associated with other pop stars.
He opened with "Pamela, Pamela" - a Donovan-styled chamber pop ditty that became a minor hit for Wayne Fontana in the '60s (Graham's version is available on The Graham Gouldman Thing). With each new song he played, another musician from his band would join him on acoustic guitar, starting with Rick Fenn, then Mick Wilson, and finally Mike Stevens.
Graham Gouldman opened his set acoustic & solo, introducing the rest of the band song-by-song
Graham also performed two songs from his new album (his first solo record since 2000's And Another Thing) Love and Work, which is set to be released sometime in August 2012: "Daylight" and "Memory Lane." Graham dedicated "Daylight" to his former Wax partner Andrew Gold, with whom he recorded four albums between 1984 and 1996. When Gold passed away in 2011, Graham wrote this song about him and decided to dedicate the entire album to the memory of his dear departed friend. He wrote "Memory Lane" after taking his fiancee Ariella around Manchester to show her where he grew up and went to school; on his web site, Graham claims it's his attempt to write a song in the style of Ron Sexsmith.
Gouldman's new single "Daylight" & new album "Love and Work"
Following is the acoustic set songlist (to the best of my memory, the order may be slightly off), with who recorded the song in parentheses.
1. Pamela, Pamela (Wayne Fontana)
2. Bus Stop (Hollies)
3. Daylight (new song from Love and Work)
4. No Milk Today (Herman's Hermits)
5. Look Through Any Window (Hollies)
6. For Your Love (Yardbirds)
7. Memory Lane (new song from Love and Work)
8. Heartful of Soul (Yardbirds)
"10cc Live in Concert" Electric Set And now ladies and gentlemen, "10cc Live in Concert"!
Amy thought the 10cc electric set would open with a big rocker like "Rubber Bullets" (a song that thematically should either open or close a 10cc show), while I thought maybe it would be their first hit single, the Doo-Wop parody "Donna." We were both wrong, as Graham surprised everyone with "The Second Sitting for the Last Supper," a song from 10cc's third album, The Original Soundtrack (1975). I suspect no one (outside of the band) expected that!
Rick Fenn and Graham Gouldman whet the crowd's aural appetite with the surprise appetizer "Second Sitting for the Last Supper"
Following is the rest of the setlist (again in "close-enough' proxity of chronological order), including encores. In parentheses, I've identified which 10cc album each song appears on - the 17-song setlist was topped by four songs from the eponymous first LP 10cc (1973), followed by three selections each from Sheet Music (1974), The Original Soundtrack (1975), and Deceptive Bends (1977).
1. The Second Sitting for the Last Supper (The Original Soundtrack)
2. Wall Street Shuffle (Sheet Music)
3. The Things We Do For Love (Deceptive Bends)
4. Silly Love (Sheet Music)
5. Donna (10cc)
6. Good Morning Judge (Deceptive Bends)
7. Life Is a Minestrone (The Original Soundtrack)
8. From Rochdale to Ocho Rios (Bloody Tourists)
9. I'm Mandy, Fly Me (How Dare You!)
10. Feel the Benefit, Pt. 1-3 (Deceptive Bends)
11. Sand In My Face (10cc)
12. Old Wild Men (Sheet Music)
13. Art For Art's Sake (How Dare You!)
14. I'm Not In Love (The Original Soundtrack)
15. The Dean and I (10cc)
16. Dreadlock Holiday (Bloody Tourists)
- Encore -
17. Donna (A capella version) (10cc)
18. Rubber Bullets (10cc)
10cc Mk III: Mike Stevens, Rick Fenn & Graham Gouldman
The image above is taken from an NME review of 10cc's recent UK tour. Below are some of my crappy cell phone photos from the show (I wish I had more in common with my fellow Baby Boomers in the audience, who had fancy iPhones and digital cameras - like the narrator in "The Dean and I" they must be "really earning now"!)
Throughout the show, "Graham Gouldman and Friends" proved their worthiness to perform these songs as "10cc," for like the original lineup, every musician was a multi-talented multi-instrumentalist. That's "the 10cc Thing." Graham sang and played bass, acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, and electric rhythm guitar; Rick Fenn played electric lead guitar, rhythm, bass and acoustic guitar; Mike Stevens played keyboards, electric guitar and bass, acoustic guitar, sax, and percussion; Mick Wilson sang, played acoustic and electric guitar, percussion, and keyboards; and Paul Burgess played drums, percussion and keyboards. Mick Wilson, in particular, was an outstanding utility musician, one whose impressive lead singing and harmonizing were essential to performing 10cc songs orginally crafted for the melodious pipes of Kevin Godley and Eric Stewart. And between Rick Fenn's fretwork and Mike Stevens' keyboard doodling, the band was also able to successfully replicate Lol Creme's signature "gizmo" guitar sound, which I didn't think they could pull off (what do I know?).
The set closed with 10cc's last UK #1 single, the reggae-flavored "Dreadlock Holiday" - an inspired choice because Graham was able close the show with the crowd-pleasing line "I don't like New York - I love it!" For the encore, the band put down their instruments to perform "Donna" once again, this time in pure Doo-Wop a capella style. Then they hoisted their electric gear once more to send everyone home with the sound of "Rubber Bullets" richocheting through their ears.
Fare Thee Well: 10cc don't like New York - they love it!
Reflecting afterwards, we agreed that the evening's standout performances were the extended mini-symphony "Feel the Benefit" (an homage to the power of music from Deceptive Bends that features a great Beatles-y "Dear Prudence" guitar intro), the note-perfect (right down to reproducing all the sound effects from the record, like a bell ringing, etc.) "I'm Mandy, Fly Me," the achingly beautiful "Old Wild Men" (which most of these musicians are!), and Rick Fenn's soloing on "Art For Art's Sake" (which, like "No Milk Today," was another song title thought up by Graham's dad "Hyme the Rhyme" Gouldman). Oh, and of course, the jailhouse rockin' encore jam "Rubber Bullets," for which Mike Stevens - not having a police siren on hand - broke out his sax to wail away the night to a stirring close.
Mike Stevens asks "Do you think I'm Saxy?"...
...and honks goodnight to NYC
The funny Charles Atlas body-building spoof "Sand In My Face" ("Dynamic tension...make a man out of you, you, you") provided lots of laughs - but the evening's most comedic moment came when someone shouted out a request for "Iceberg" (from the original 10cc's final album, How Dare You!); this was the 10cc equivalent of requesting "Freebird"! (In retrospect, it was an inspired choice, as "Iceberg" was one of the few Graham Gouldman-Kevin Godley songwriting collaborations up to that point in 1976 - though the duo would join forces 20 years later to record and tour as GG/06.)
Charles Atlas: A girl on each arm - and one in his pants!
But just as we made the wrong call about 10cc's opening tune, we were equally surprised that Graham didn't play the one song we were sure he'd play - the one he sings lead on: "Sacro-Iliac" from 10cc's 2nd album (and their Sgt. Pepper masterpiece, IMHO), Sheet Music (1974). (See, this is why I gave up betting on ponies at the racetrack; life may be a minestrone, but it's also way too unpredictable!)
In the UK, fans can watch Clever Clogs, a PAL format DVD of Graham Gouldman and Friends' 10cc tribute concert recorded in 2008 at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire. Below is a medley of highlights from that show that closely mirrors the setlist we enjoyed at the New York Society for Ethical Culture show.
Watch Graham Gouldman and Friends' "Clever Clogs" highlights.
After the show, Mick and Miki hung around hoping Graham would come out again, and made plans to head to "Handsome Dick" Manitoba's bar downtown (which I've heard is a great place), but I got tired of hearing the Brit from Leeds ranting excitedly and incoherently, and Amy and I decided to just walk back to our hotel and call it a night.
The Neon Lights Are Bright On Broadway We figured walking down Broadway was our best option for a well-lit, up-all-night in The City That Never Sleeps route to take home, and were spot on. We ran into all kinds of crazies along the way, from a mobile Statue of Liberty to Spiderman and the Naked Cowboy.
Patriotism and NASDAQ Capitalism on illuminated display on Broadway
Find the Cost of Freedom: Lady Liberty wanted $5 for a photo op...
Whereas Broadway Spidey posed for free!
Amy nipped the Naked Cowboy in the bud
Amy spanks while the Naked Cowboy yanks
It was especially great to finally meet the Naked Cowboy, as there's a Baltimore connection with the guitar-slinging cowpoke in the tightey-whiteys: his personal videographer/editor is none other than Baltimore public access legend Dr. Ron Israel - the maestro who taught Scott Huffines and I the art of video editing back when we started Atomic TV. (Dr. Ron, who was a dentist in his other life, also fixed Edie "the Egg Lady" Massey's teeth back in the day!)
The Naked Cowboy with Ron Israel
Watch our walk down Broadway in Horizontal-View (Manhattan does have a downward slant!):
Hark, the Herald Angel Sings Show over, we headed back to crash at our hotel...Ok, let me backtrack just a bit to set the backstory to our little weekend adventure...As always when it comes to grown-up activities involving sound judgment and decision-making, I left our travel & accomodations planning to Amy - and was once again richly rewarded. The girl has a true knack for finding the best, booking us for an overnight stay at the charming and historic Herald Square Hotel - former home of Life magazine - which was conveniently situated on 31st Street between 5th and Broadway (and, our stomachs reminded us, just a street down from "Korea Town" on W. 32nd Street!) in what they call the Midtown Garment District. More importantly, the Herald was extremely reasonable as far as rates go - it bills itself as a place where "you can spend the night, not a fortune" and that's just what we po' folk from down South did.
The Herald Square Hotel
LIFE Comes to Herald Square Life had been housed in two different offices before coming to this location, which was specially built in 1894 by the magazine's founder-editor John Ames Mitchell to house his staff of artists and writers. According to the hotel's web site, the architectural team of John Mervin Carrere and Thomas Hastings (exponents of the Beaux Arts school) designed the building and sculptor Philip Martiny was hired to create "Winged LIFE," the winged golden cherub that was to become the symbol of the magazine throughout it's existence. Martiny's original sculpture still hangs over the doorway of 19 West 31 Street and a larger cherub peers through the plate-glass lobby window.
Hark, the Herald Angel sings!
Knowing the mercurial habits of his mag's creative personnel, Mitchell requested that the architects equip the building with "bachelor apartments" on the upper floors, creating little "homes within LIFE's home" there.
Life's Bureau of Bachelor Beauties
Our renovated "bachelor's apartment" was on the 9th floor, which we reached by taking the world's smallest, and curved, elevator (Amy and I weigh a combined 230 pounds but with backpacks on felt like we were squeezed in tight as sardines.) Either people were inordinately tiny back then or this shaft was a converted dumbwaiter. (We subsequently took the curved stairways as often as could!)
But no worries, for this is what our room looked like when we reached the top floor:
Lay Lady Lay: Amy chills on the big brass bed
Amy checks in on Facebook while sitting at our room's table
"Golly, this bathroom is almost as spotless as yours, sweetie!" Amy lies
Amy was bowled over by our sink
Amy made sure we took home the Aveda soap ("That's high-end product!")
Odd wall ganglia like this revealed that this was a renovated room
Bathroom tile floor
My William Eggleston-style photo of our room's chandolier and high-perched AC unit (I had to stand on a table to adjust it!); this shot reminds me of the cover of Big Star's "Radio City"
Speaking of William Eggleston, I think he'd like this shot of our room's illuminated mirror
Amy's ready for her close-up now
Vintage rotary phone in the hotel lobby
The lower levels of the Herald Square Hotel also once housed the studios where such legends as "The Gibson Girl" - artist Charles Dana Gibson's iconic symbol of elegant feminine beauty and American pluck - were born. The Gibson Girl was the Belle Epoque Barbie, the "It Girl" of her turn-of-the-20th Century times, a pen-and-ink rendering of the spirit of an age. Many writers have attempted to describe the Gibson Girl and in America's Great Illustrators, Susan E. Meyer put it succinctly: "She was taller than the other women currently seen in the pages of magazines.. infinitely more spirited and independent, yet altogether feminine...Though always well bred, there often lurked a flash of mischief in her eyes."
"I'll tell you how I got what you have called the 'Gibson Girl,'" Charles Dana Gibson himself explained. "I saw her on the streets, I saw her at the theatres, I saw her in the churches. I saw her everywhere and doing everything. I saw her idling on Fifth Avenue and at work behind the counters of the stores... The nation made the type. What Zangwill calls the ‘Melting Pot of Races’ has resulted in a certain character; why should it not also have turned out a certain type of face?...There isn’t any ‘Gibson Girl,’ but there are many thousands of American girls, and for that let us all thank God."
Watch a video of the Gibson Girl (she looks remarkably well-preserved!) giving a tour of the hotel.
The current hotel has a gallery of vintage LIFE magazine covers from this era lining each floor (as shown below). The first cover below asks "Do you know a girl like this?" - to which I can reply, yes I do: Parker Posey! The hipster indie-film actress has true Gibson Girl qualities, right down to that "flash of mishief in her eyes."
The Gibson Girl, Class of 1930
Pagan LIFE cover
Aquamarine LIFE
"The Honeymoon" cover
Politically incorrect "Wearing of the Grin" St. Patty's special
Down in its underground stacks, Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library has bound volumes of Life going back to 1833. For Baby Boomers like myself, who grew up in the '60s knowing only of the magazine's latter incarnation as a glossy photo-journal, seeing the old Life magazines was a revelation. Life of the '20s, '30s and '40s was more witty and urbane, its pages resembling its more literary cousin The New Yorker.
Out of curiosity, I checked the Pratt's catalog to see if there was anything about the hotel in our collection and found a fascinating story by former New Yorker magazine writer St. Claire McKelway called "The Rich Recluse of Herald Square" (available in his story collection Reporting At Wit's End: Tales from the New Yorker).
It seems that at its old address on 116 W. 34th Street near 7th Avenue, the Herald Square Hotel was famous for being home to Ida E. Mayfair Wood, the aforementioned "Rich Recluse of Herald Square," who checked into the hotel with her sister Mary in 1907 and didn't leave her 5th floor suite until 1931, about a year before her death. There she lived in Grey Gardens-style squalor, smoking small cigars and rubbing her face with petroleum jelly from dawn to dusk (she alleged had a remarkable complexion) while squirreling away over a million bucks in cash (mostly in $1,000 and $5,000 bills), stocks, and jewelry that she stored in mattresses and shoe boxes - this at the height of the Great Depression. She and her sister apparently subsisted on nothing more than evaporated milk, coffee, crackers, bacon, eggs and an occasional fish, brought to them by the elevator operator, who was tipped a dime each time. In one box of stale crackers (almost thrown out until an alert, court-appointed nurse made a last-minute inspection), she stashed a diamond necklace worth $40,000! (No wonder I'm a hoarder - you never know what you might be throwing away in those Cracker Jack boxes!)
According to the New York Songlines web site, Miss Wood was "once a socialite who danced with the Prince of Wales during his 1860 visit to New York, she was married to Benjamin Wood, publisher of the Daily News (not related to the present-day tabloid) and brother of two-time mayor Fernando Wood; she ran the paper after her husband's death. After her own death, it emerged that she was not the daughter of a Louisiana planter, as she had claimed; she was actually Ellen Wood, an Irish immigrant who worked as a domestic servant before creating an assumed identity for herself and her family."
Much Ado About Mandoo So much for history...more importantly, the Herald Square Hotel was conveniently right around the corner from Manhattan's Little Korea:
Once you go Korean, there is no other Way!
We love Korean food, but our fave eatery here is the Mandoo Bar, which specializes in making the tasty little dumplings Koreans call mandu, which are similar to Slavic pierogis or Indian samosas. It's a tiny, unassuming place, but the service is great and the food comes out almost immediately.
Mandoo Bar on W. 32nd Street
You can get the dumplings steamed (jjimandu), boiled (mulmandu) or lightly pan-fried (gunmandu); I followed Amy's lead (she always orders right!) and got the juicy garlic pan-fried pork dumplings, which were delish! (You can get other things here, including chewy rice noodles and the traditional bibimbap, but we've yet to sample items beyond the namesake main dish; maybe next time!)
Dumplings: It's what's for dinner!
Other than a banana, I don't recall eating anything but Mandoo dumplings the whole time I was in NYC!
Amy: "I can't wait to taste some dumplings!"
Dumplings: It's what's for dinner!
Facebook Status Update: "Satiated!"
After grabbing some dumplings, we made our way to 33rd and 7th to catch another Bolt Bus back to Baltimore. The ride up was fantastic, but the ride home was, well, Ghetto Coach Style. The AC was iffy, the lights didn't work, the seats were smaller and had less leg-room (Amy cramped up, in fact), and the driver insisted on blasting Gospel music for the first hour or so - this after giving us the spiel about having quiet cell phone conversations and making sure everyone used headphones to listen to their music!
Oh well, can't complain; we got to see Graham Gouldman play the great music of 10cc - the closest thing to a 10cc reunion we'll probably see in our lifetimes. We came, we saw, we truly "Felt the Benefit." The things we do for love!
