10CC : they really *were* that good weren't they ?

OK so "Oh Effendi" is (I assume) about westerners desperate to make deals with Arabs for oil. But it manages to mention white slave girls, harems, turbans (Arabs don't wear turbans) and also finds time to refer to the French as "frogs".

What sort of enlightened racial and cultural attitudes would one expect from a gang of US mercenary gun runners in the 70s?

Having their cake and eating it I'd call it, lampooning uncultured American assholes (it's never British arseholes you'll note) while getting to slip in a few funnies about Arabs etc.

If it was only one song too...

I do get the sense that this was something of a mid-70s UK thing

I agree. The turn the thread has taken reminded me of the episode of Rising Damp that opens with Leonard Rossiter returning from his holiday in Spain, wearing a sombrero and glumly shaking a pair of maracas. His lodger asks him, "How was the food?" "Greasy." "And the people?" "The same."

Well, I just got back and I wish I'd never leave now

Each night in this thread...

...could be your last

Americans are funny foreigners too remember.

I try to pretend I'm Canadian.

A few years ago we had a compilation of the pre-10cc bubblegum material - a period memorably (and pretty accurately) described as "a load of crap" by Kevin Godley - but this looks more interesting...

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/godley-creme-frabjous-days-the-secret-world-of-godley-creme-1967-1969/

Well, I just got back and I wish I'd never leave now

I mean, that's Stewart's account, so it makes sense he'd remember it that way.

10cc manager Harvey Lisberg confirmed in an interview for the Consequences podcast (about 18 minutes in) that Eric Stewart was summoned to Manchester and told that Godley, Creme and Gouldman didn't want to work with him any more. Godley and Creme were unhappy not only that the group's music was becoming blander, but also with Stewart's dictatorial approach to studio production and engineering.

They resented the fact that their work was being produced in a certain way. They wanted the freedom to do it their way, instead of having to argue every minute. So, obviously, they pinpointed Eric - from their point of view, they wanted to get away from that. Graham was stuck in the middle of the deep blue sea, and I think... Graham was in an impossible position, because Kev and Lol definitely wanted to leave, and the question was "Do they carry on as 10cc with the three of them? How does it work?" But the reality was Kev and Lol wanted to do their thing, they wanted to do Consequences, and they wanted to be free.

Lisberg also suggested that, if Gouldman had stayed on the Consequences project, he "would have also been controlling them (Godley and Creme) to a degree, probably in deciding whether they would have done a single album", as opposed to the triple LP that emerged.

in the bbc doc lol (lol) describes consequences as a heaven's gate* project, and hints that here was a symptomatic ballooning that a better managing of band politics (by everyone) might have mitigated

*= the 5 and a half hour cimino western that destroyed united artists at the start of the 80s: i don't think you cite it as a comparison -- even as a joking drive-by -- to induce a positive response

Yeah, Gouldman and Godley both think now that they should have just put the band on hold for a year to allow Consequences to be recorded and then reconvene afterwards.

As for 10cc trying to continue as a trio after Stewart had been removed: Gouldman said in another interview on the Consequences podcast (about 1hr 17 minutes in) that he had not been 'part of the initial Consequences team,' as had been suggested in Godley and Stewart's books.

I don't think it was going to be a three-man team, I think Kevin and Lol just wanted me to play on the album. I remember doing some stuff right at the beginning. Their sessions would start at sort of 10 at night and go on until 6 in the morning. I didn't like that at all. And I just sort of eventually drifted away from it.

So at some point Gouldman must have gone back to Stewart, who he'd just co-ejected from 10cc, and suggested that they carry on with 10cc after Godley and Creme had formally left. Can't imagine how that conversation went, although Gouldman said that he and Stewart were both 'on a mission' with Deceptive Bends to prove that they could deliver as a duo.

Thanks for that info, it sounds like everyone has their own perspective on the break-up.

I was curious about the Frabjous Days compilation, although the Hotlegs album from 1971 doesn't encourage my hopes: it has a fair amount of decent music, but not a lot of 10cc's specific virtues (the lyrics, in particular, are vague or self-consciously dumb).

Seems like a lot of the songs on the Hotlegs album date from the Frabjous Days period.