And so it takes until the 10th of these before a track doesn’t get added to a playlist. I’ll be honest – I like 10cc. I grew up in Manchester and Stockport and so from an early age, saw them as a “local” band. In my twenties, I even drank occasionally in the pub across the road from their Strawberry Studios (where I’m Not In Love was recorded).
I was probably too young to realise that the band had split and that by the time Dreadlock Holiday hit #1 in 1978, two members of the band had already recorded an album of their own. In fact, I’d have been totally stumped if you’d asked me to name any members of the band. But then, I was 12 in 1978 – and I could only name a couple of Sex Pistols because I’d seen their names printed in a suitably frothing-at-the-mouth article in the Daily Mail.
It wasn’t until 1981 and the Top 10 success of Under Your Thumb, that I got to know the names Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. That’s a tune I still like a lot and the cod soul of follow-up Wedding Bells is OK as far as I’m concerned. I purchased their parent album Ismism. If I put it on the turntable today, two tracks would be a lot more crackly than the rest of the album. I’ll leave that there.
I became aware of this track around the tine that Under Your Thumb was being played on the nation’s airwaves. Presumably some enterprising DJ decided our knowledge of the duo needed broadening.
It had been released a couple of years earlier to complete indifference in the UK, but bizarrely made the Top 10 in both Belgium and the Netherlands. For me, it’s an OK song, but I find it slightly irritating – a bit like the occasional 10cc album track. So that’s why it won’t be making its way onto any of my playlists.
This is of course an early example of the video-making that would give Godley & Creme a parallel career.
As a footnote, Lol Creme has recently been playing in the Trevor Horn Band. A group that performs Video Killed The Radio Star, Two Tribes and Owner Of A Lonely Heart without batting an eyelid. Trevor Horn will introduce Creme as “this old specimen” and then the band do a great version of Rubber Bullets. I’ve caught them a couple of times at Rewind North.
This was #20 on the 20th February playlist.
TGG
Wasting time in the study 
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