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It Came From the Cracks |
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Godley & Creme |
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FEATURESIt Came from the Cracks: Forgotten Albums and Fringe Classics |
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by Andrew Helminger At age fifteen, I spent countless hours in my room listening to music. It was the only place in the house where I could escape the wrath of my parents. There wasn't anything wrong with my parents. They were just THERE, and that was enough to drive any fifteen-year-old into seclusion. Out of sheer boredom one night, I popped the belt off my turntable and started playing some records backwards. I was searching for messages hidden in the vinyl grooves. For this quest, I selected records from my collection that sounded the strangest when played forward. One of these albums was 10cc's The Original Soundtrack--a record that includes the quirky 1975 hit "I'm Not in Love." When played forward, "I'm Not in Love" sounds normal enough at first. Singer Eric Stewart croons about a lover that he halfheartedly denies. He sings over a backdrop of mellow music and smoothly textured backing vocals--typical light-rock fare from the mid-'70s. But then the bridge arrives, and all conventions disappear. The rhythm section vanishes. A bass guitar is left meandering through layers of angelic voices and chimes. Finally, a woman whispers, "big boys don't cry, big boys don't cry. . ." This song was too strange not to have something hidden in it. When I played it backwards, the voice said, "how come I serve you, how come I serve you. . ." After striking this gold mine of weirdness, I purchased the entire 10cc catalogue. I didn't find any more hidden messages, but I did discover the real geniuses behind 10cc's quirk rock--Kevin Godley & Lol Creme. While fellow bandmates Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman pumped out the pop songs for the band, Godley & Creme were the ones who turned everything they touched into total weirdness. Godley & Creme left 10cc in 1975 and began recording even stranger albums as a duo. Their music is grounded in art rock, but a comedic element is always at the heart of their work. These guys were the closest the British have ever come to matching the prowess of Zappa. Although Godley & Creme enjoyed some hits in the U.K. with 10cc, the duo never expressed much interest in attaining commercial success after leaving the band. The duo's debut release entitled Consequences was a three-record box set of experimental music. It's not surprising that the album bombed from a sales perspective, but the fact that record executives allowed it to be made in the first place is truly amazing.
Of course, Godley & Creme's gizmo did as much for the future of music as the invention of the novelty toilet seat did for the future of plumbing. The sounds they produced with the gizmo on this first record of Consequences, however, are intriguing. Some of this material is reminiscent of the instrumental tinkerings of post-rockers like The High Llamas and Stereolab (except that Godley & Creme made their weird sounds the hard way). The "Wind" sounds like orchestrated dance music from the period (i.e., disco), but slowed down to an undanceable speed. "Fireworks" and "Stampede" find Godley & Creme exploring strange sound effects over washes of circus music. The duo creates the stampede effect by striking timpani covered with kitty litter. On "Honolulu Lulu," the gizmo is used to play Hawaiian music, and the backing vocals sound like a Munchkin choir--it's Don Ho meets the Wizard of Oz.
The songs interspersed between the dialogue on the second two records are structured pop, for the most part. Much of it brings to mind theater music. The gizmo still appears on these tunes, but it's meant to act as accompaniment rather than as a lead instrument. One of the strangest moments occurs when jazz-vocalist Sarah Vaughan performs a duet with Lol Creme on "Lost Weekend"--at that point, Consequences drifts from the weird to the surreal. Consequences closes with "Blint's Tune (Movements 1-17)," Blint's performance to save the world. This instrumental centers around a piano with some rather quirky accompaniment, including the xylophone and gizmo. Some classical music themes pop up in "Blint's Tune" as well, such as Copeland's "Rodeo" and Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring." During this finale, Godley & Creme also take their most overt stab at the pretensions of prog rock. Just so we know Consequences shouldn't be taken too seriously, the album ends with chirping birds and rumbling sounds, like those heard at the beginning of Yes' Close to the Edge.
Unlike the lighter, more comic, atmosphere of Consequences, L is several shades darker. There are still shots of humor in songs like "Sandwiches of You" and "Sporting Life," but it's black comedy. Sometimes, it's hard to tell if the duo is working for laughs or for pure shock value. L opens with "Sporting Life," a song that starts out so slow that you have to do a double-take to make sure the record player is set on the right speed. The tune takes a jab at a society feeding off the sensationalism of suicide. During the frantic bridge, we hear a help line answering machine featuring "the bad samaritan," who encourages the callers to make their suicides more dramatic. "Sandwiches of You" is your not-so-typical cannibalistic love song. The guitar effects make the strings sound so loose that you'd think they were about to fall off. The mix of falsetto and bass vocals only add to the weirdness (and also bring to mind some of the operatic endeavors of Freddie Mercury).
"Punchbag" recounts the story of nerds getting beat up by schoolyard bullies. This song plants a seed for nerd rockers of the 1990s like Pavement. Finally, L closes with "Hit Factory/Business Is Business," one of the most scathing criticisms of the music industry I've ever heard. Until recently, Godley & Creme enthusiasts and curiosity seekers alike had been forced to track down Consequences and L on vinyl, because neither album was readily available on CD. Now, One Way Records has reissued both albums on CD. Consequences is available as a specially-priced two-CD set, which includes all three of the original records. L has been packaged with Freeze Frame, the duo's third album, onto one CD. Freeze Frame isn't as good as the first two records but it does have a few shining moments--how could any connoisseur of weirdness not be drawn to a song like "I Pity Inanimate Objects." It's rumored that Paul McCartney also played on Freeze Frame--if you can hear him among all the weirdness, you get a cookie. If you like the comic art rock of Zappa and Captain Beefheart, give Consequences and L a try. These albums are two of the most bizarre, yet rewarding, listens in my collection. |
GODLEY & CREME: 
The
first record of Consequences is mostly instrumental and showcases
the "gizmo," an effects device invented by Godley & Creme. The
gizmo, which looks like a metal cigarette case, attaches to the strings
of a guitar around the bridge. When the buttons on the outside of
the gizmo are pressed, the device strums the strings like a bow strumming
a violin. The gizmo could make the guitar sound like a violin, a
cello, or even a saxophone. With the addition of other effects, the
gizmo could also produce some exotic and downright bizarre sounds.
The
second and third album of Consequences contain as much dialogue
as music. Godley & Creme recount the story of a couple who meet
in a lawyer's office to hammer out their divorce settlement. This
plot may not sound particularly interesting, or even original, until you
throw in a piano player named Blint who lives in the apartment below the
lawyer's office and converses with the other characters through a "gaping
hole" in his ceiling. Oh yeah, and Blint is writing a musical masterpiece
that will save the world from an apocalyptic flood. It's absolutely
bizarre, yet wonderful. British comic Peter Cook scripted the narrative
and provides the voices for many of the characters.
The
duo followed up their epic debut with the 1978 release entitled
L--a
short album clocking in at a mere thirty minutes. After producing
a debut album that was undoubtedly criticized for being too long, Godley
& Creme snubbed record executives a second time by making an album
that was too short. (You get the feeling these guys pet their cats backwards
too.)
Andy
Mackay of Roxy Music comes along for the trip through weirdsville on L.
His sax tears through tunes like "Signals," where he's allowed to escape
the more conservative constraints of Roxy Music and blow his damn horn.
A much more interesting side of Mackay is flushed out by Godley & Creme's
experimental approach.
