Punctuation: Everything You Wanted to Know About !!!

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10cc's 1978 album, Bloody Tourists, remains an all time favorite of mine even though I know, as a rock snob, I shouldn't care for anything after the implosion that sent two original members, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley, packing years earlier.

If I could go back in time, would I snatch the Bloody Tourists cassette out of my teen-age hands? Not a chance! There's plenty of great music here. The UK #1 single "Dreadlock Holiday" is the best known song, but there's a stretch of Side Two that's also brilliant: "Life Line", "Tokyo" and "Old Mister Time"

Eric Stewart's  "Everything You Wanted To Know About !!! (Exclamation Marks)" isn't one of the best tunes on the album, but it mines the same sex-obsessed silliness to which 10cc often resorted ( in "The Dean And I" from the debut, "Head Room" from How Dare You! and "Shock on the Tube" from the same Bloody Tourists). 

In this case the young, virgin singer fails to perform in his first outing with a prostitute:

She had to laugh
I nearly died
Some Superstud!
There's more to this than meets the eye





By the way, 10cc was never afraid of punctuation marks. The B-side to their second 10cc single, "Johnny Don't Do It" is "4% of Something".

The Naughty Bits: Head Room

10cc : Head Room

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I'd hate to see this perverted week on Star Maker Machine go without letting 10cc have their say. After all the band was named after the average amount of semen in a male ejaculation. (Maybe if you're a porn star. The average male ejaculation is more like 3cc) In any case 10cc recorded "Head Room" for How Dare You, the final album with original members Lol Creme and Kevin Godley. When I got the album I was too young to get the wordplay on a chorus that goes "Just give me some head (pause) room". Now I think it's about more than taking a good photograph.

 While nobody here is going to argue that "Head Room" is the best song on the album (I will always stand by you "Mandy") , it does reveal the band's ability to be both inventively creative and inspidly juvenile in the same breath.

Alphanumeric: Oh Effendi

10cc:Oh Effendi

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I remember spiritedly arguing with a high school classmate once that 10cc was a better group than Led Zeppelin. 10cc --named for the average amount of semen in a male ejaculation--was certainly one of the most inventive bands in rock n roll. Literally. Kevin Godley and Lol Creme invented "The Gizmo",  an effects box that could make an electric guitar sound like a strange symphony. Godley and Creme were the art schoolers in 10cc, always pushing the boundaries. Bandmates Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman were the hit-makers. ( Stewart as a member of The Mindbenders and Gouldman as songwriter of The Yardbirds' "For Your Love" and The Hollies' "Bus Stop" among others.) As 10cc they combined forces, often creating powerful pop songs that suddenly shifted into parody. What other group it its right mind would confess they were "The Worst Band in the World"?

From that same 1974 album, Sheet Music, comes "Oh Effendi", a rare Godley-Stewart composition which shows the best sides of both sides of 10cc. Most rock snobs would suggest you start your 10cc collection with Sheet Music. That's fine with me but I confess to having a soft spot for How Dare You!, the last album on which all four original members played.