Kozmo of the Cosmos by Bob Kronlage 02/21/19

Goodbye, Peter Tork

Peter Halsten Thorkelson (February 13, 1942 – February 21, 2019), better known as Peter Tork, was an American musician and actor, best known as a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with The Monkees.

 

KOZMO of the Cosmos by Bob Kronlage 021719

Dexter David Donovan III -- Too Obscure for the Internet?

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Update: A few clarifications! Ron Martens comments that when he saw Dex, his little friend was a dog named Tag-a-long. I'm sure he's right, and I was remembering the little guy incorrectly. Also, it's been assumed that I'm saying Dex and Dr. Max competed in the same time slot. Not so, as far as I remember. Dr. Max was on after school, and Dex was on Sunday mornings. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

For years I’ve been searching for information on Dexter David Donovan III on the internet and have found virtually nothing about him. Dex was the star of his eponymous Sunday morning cartoon show, which he co-hosted with a little bunny whose name eludes me*.  The show was on KCRG, Channel 9 out of Cedar Rapids IA. Apparently, it ran from around 1966 through the early 1970s*.

https://newspaperarchive.com/cedar-rapids-gazette-jun-29-1966-p-54/

          The link above shows a picture of Dex on a TV listing in The Cedar Rapids Gazette. Unfortunately, I could only cut and paste it here if I spent $20 to subscribe to see old newspapers on the internet, and I’m too cheap to do it. The Dex pictured here doesn’t look quite the way I remember him. I remember him as looking more like the wolf in the video above, but in horn rimmed glasses and a fishin’ hat. Also, he had a different voice from the one in the above video – it was a sandy, lower pitched voice and quite mellifluous.  

          DDDIII was a dog who was a one-handed piano player. It was on odd choice, since it underscored the fact that Dex was a puppet whose puppeteer’s use of one hand to operate the mouth left only one hand remaining for piano playing. Most of the episodes were in black and white, but eventually some were in color, revealing D wore a bright yellow glove, wore a dark green coat and played a piano painted bright orange.

          My brother and I viewed DDDIII as something of a hipster alternative to our market’s other cartoon show – the vastly more popular “The Dr. Max Show”. Max (Hahn) was a ridiculously nondescript personage. He never actually acted like a doctor in any remote way – he just seemed to be a middle aged, middle class guy utterly being his own, vastly unimaginative, undefined self. It was the Looney Tunes, and Max’s friend Mombo The Clown (Fred Petrick) that kids tuned in for.

          Obviously DDDIII was vastly weirder. My brother and I loved it that he featured Betty Boop cartoons, replete with their proto- psychedelic sight gags and early hipster music by the likes of Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway (as the ghost of a walrus, irrationally enough!) It never occurred to us that he showed them because they were out of copyright and free to air.  

          Another haunting image from the show were the chin puppets – I mainly remember a quartet of them lip – synching to The Beatles’ “Do You Want to Know a Secret?”   

          Exactly how ‘hip’ the show actually was, was debatable, as each show ended with Dex and his bunny friend singing a super sappy song called “Let’s Go to Church, Side by Side”.

          So who was behind all this madness? His name was Irv Shoemaker, and perhaps his biggest claim to fame was that he provided the voice for Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent and Dishonest John (“Nya Ha Ha!”) on Beany and Cecil cartoons.

According to Ron Marten’s youtube comment on the above video;

“… Irv Shoemaker … featured in the northern Indiana area from 1962 - 1968. Irv was the voice of Dishonest John and Cecil in the cartoon series in the early 1960's. He may be any one of the characters here as I see he is signed in on the credits. I have been trying to find Shoemaker's trail. He left Elkhart IN. in 1968 with the Donovan puppet for Cedar Rapids IA. Please help if anyone knows what happened to him.”

        The newspaper article above would appear to contradict Mr. Marten’s date for the end of Irv’s stay in Elkhart, as Donovan, strangely enough, was presenting the weather on the 10:00 news in Cedar Rapids as early as 1966.  

        According to another internet comment (which I can’t find back dag nabbit!) Donovan hosted the weather and also a local teen dance – party show during his time in Elkhart.

          According to the Internet Movie Data base;

          Irv Shoemaker was born on April 7, 1925 in Mishawaka, Indiana, USA as Ervin Eugene Shoemaker. He was an actor, known for Matty's Funnies with Beany and Cecil (1959) and Thunderbolt the Wondercolt (1952). He was married to Alberta Borem, Patricia Reynolds and Mary Louise Curci. He died on December 2, 1988 in Marion, Iowa, USA, a town adjacent to Cedar Rapids. 
This is a chin puppet;

*Information not available on the internet, so I don’t know!

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10CC More here than Meets the Ear

          A recurring theme of this blog is that I hate middle of the road 1970’s pop music. Thus, the obvious, but previously  unstated yin to that yang is that I love outré experimental weirdness. Supposedly, there is an exception to every rule, and this is no exception. 10cc are the one group in the world I know of that I like more THE LESS weird they get. Probably to an unfair degree, I tend to place the blame on the group’s more ‘art rock’ oriented song writing duo, Godley and Crème. They are the band’s most overtly humorous songwriters, yet, ironically, they are also its most pretentious.

10cc ** (1973)

Their debut album heavily features satires of 1950’s rock ‘n’ roll that clearly seem to be about laughing at the musical genre rather than with it. When they played their self-described “doo-wop parody” ‘Donna’ for impresario Jonathan King, his reaction, to 10cc’s delight, was that he ‘fell about, laughing.’, according to Eric Stewart. Their insincerity is reflected in the fact 10cc used modern, 1970’s production styles on these songs, rendering them as cheap parodies rather than affectionate tributes. (For the sake of analogy, The Beatles’ ‘Honey Pie’ is a great song -assuming it is a great song- because Paul’s accurate recreation of the 1930’s era’s sound reflects his sincere love of the style. Had the Beatles recorded the song with tons of echo, backwards tapes, psychedelic sound effects and sung it in corny, exaggerated voices, it would have become a parody without the integrity of accuracy, rather than a well-crafted pastiche.) Even Frank Zappa, rock’s most unrepentantly snarky satirist performed doo-wop music sincerely. He couldn’t deny his love for rock’s musical roots, even though the mushy romanticism of the genre’s lyrics we’re ridiculous to him intellectually. Here, 10cc are clearly rejecting any attempt at creating authentic sounding period pieces, thus displaying their modern ‘superiority’ over those earlier ‘unsophisticated’ and ‘naïve’ songwriters. The bottom line is, any of those original rock ‘n’ roll songs are a lot better and more un-self-consciously fun than anything presented here. Interestingly, the two best songs on the album, the contemporary sounding ‘Headline Hustler’ and ‘Ships Don’t Disappear (Do They)?’ are the only ones on the album written by Gouldman and Stewart without any input from Godley and Creme. They would all do better next time.

Sheet Music **** (1974)

          The group hit their stride with this album of unerringly timeless socio-political and pop – culture satires. Sheet Music’s subjects; Wall Street greed, crappy zillionaire pop stars, stupid dance crazes, death-dealing Middle Eastern religious fanatics, terrorists and Hollywood sleaze all remain as fresh as today’s 24 hour new cycle. It appears things have improved distressingly little over the last 44 years. The 10cc of this album just keep sounding sharper and more astute with each passing decade.

          Artistically, the band now have their horse before their cart. Specifically, they are choosing worthy satirical targets, and are then setting them to musical styles appropriate to the subject. “The Wall Street Shuffle” is somehow perfectly  evocative of its subject matter. It is a calculatedly cool, elegantly understated blues rocker on the verses, and a catchy pop tune on the choruses. “The Worst Band in the World” has a recurring riff that sounds like a band’s hopeless attempts to get in tune. “Silly Love” manages to parody the (then) current glam rock craze with a song that (unlike their 1950’s parodies of the prior year) actually works as a fine example of the genre. “The Sacroiliac”, a dance craze for people who cannot or absolutely will not dance, is quintuple smooth and relaxing – simply impossible to exert to in any manner. Godley and Crème present perhaps their finest moment with “Clockwork Creep”, sung from the point of view of (of all things) a cute, cartoony li’l terrorist bomb on the brink of exploding an airplane, set to comic opera music worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan.

          Why not a perfect five star rating? The six and a half minute song about Hollywood is annoyingly precious, in places, and the first minute of the 90 second song “Hotel” is just plain annoying.

The Original Soundtrack ** (1975)

          One would assume that “I’m Not in Love” would be the worst song in the world, yet, just about everything else on this album somehow actually manages to be worse. Not wimpier – that would be impossible, but they ARE worse. The first side has a suite of songs sung in allegedly comic French accents less convincing than that of Pepe Lepeu. The music (true to this album’s title) sounds like hokey, pompous soundtrack music evocative of a clichéd (and inaccurate) idea of the sound of French music. This is a blasé, failed attempt at a tone poem. It is not remotely rock ‘n’ roll or contemporary pop music. Who would find this fun to listen to?

          I suppose “The Film of My Life” qualifies as a pop song, but it is a smug, “We’re so superior” parody of a Dean Martin type song. Who would find this fun to listen to? If they did, wouldn’t they rather be listening to Dean Martin?

          Another non-pop, non-rocker is “Life Is a Minestrone”. It sounds like a crowd scene of ersatz Italians  singing a jingle in a late 1950’s soup commercial.

          Of course the album’s centerpiece is the huge international hit “I’m Not in Love”. Who the heck decided this song would be interesting for six and a half minutes? If you are determined to try to listen to the whole thing all the way through, just keep telling yourself, “Big boys don’t cwy … Big boys don’t cwy..”

          This album was clearly marketed as a rock or contemporary pop album and those forms are largely, disappointingly absent here. I should also clarify. When I say “this is not remotely rock ‘n’ roll or contemporary pop music”, I am not claiming those are the only good types of music. I should be more specific and say these songs have none of the joie de vivre epitomized in those styles, nor the entertaining, emotionally moving  qualities that can be found in all good music in any style.

          The album does contain two fine rockers; “Blackmail” and the wonderfully provocative “Second Sitting for the Last Supper”.         

          The best thing about this album is its amazing cover drawing by Humphrey Ocean. The CD version I own doesn’t even credit him.

How Dare You? ****

          Typically of the ironic charms of 10cc, this album’s wild, clashing eclecticism is actually one of its most endearing qualities.  Also, typical of the band’s ironies, one of the album’s most straight forward and overtly commercial songs is labeled as being “Art for Art’s Sake”. Hey, “Ars est celare artem”*, dude!

          Speaking of which, 10cc always viewed themselves as an art rock band, and this album features a trio of quirky art rock songs; “I Wanna Rule The World”, “I’m Mandy, Fly Me” and “Ice Berg”.  The first and the last are goofy, with the former being the goofiest. The former is an odd mix of strident chanting of, “I want to rule the world”, a bit of Hitleresque hollered speechifying, and a few interjections of a wicked Bee Gees impersonation. What the hell does it all mean? You tell me. The latter (“Iceberg”), combines a swingy, cool jazz melody, a second melody evocative of the lyric “Life is a roller coaster that we all ride”, an obscure reference to ‘sloppy seconds’, and it all ends with a demonic deep bass laugh. In between is the classic, McCartneyesque “I’m Mandy”. The song tells the story of a man who, during a plane crash, has an angelic vision of the stewardess from the airline ad, and by her divine intervention, somehow survives the accident. The vocals and the melody are worthy of ‘our Paul’, and lyrically the song is far more interesting than anything McCartney has come up with since the break-up of his best band.**    

          Interestingly, the title track “How Dare You?” which opens the album, is an instrumental, belying the notion that instrumental music is somehow lacking in content or significance.    

          CONTEST TIME! What the heck is the cover art about? It seems to strongly imply that it is telling a story. Maybe it’s all very obvious and I am just being my usual utterly clueless self about it. SO! Tell me what the cover means – your submission must include an explanation of front, back and inner gatefold, and how they are related (assuming they are related)’. YOUR REWARD! My undying appreciation of your insightfulness, and the promise I will always think of you every time I see the cover or hear the album (as long as my brain is capable.)  

* Latin for, “The art is to appear artless.”, or something like that.

** No, I don’t mean Wings.

Deceptive Bends ***** (1977)

          After Godley and Crème quit, The Gouldman and Stewart faction proved they were more than capable of sustaining the 10cc trademark of quality, on their instant classic album “Deceptive Bends”. It is arguably the most consistent and accessible album in the history of 10cc. It features their second biggest (but best) hit, the perfect pop gem, “The Things We Do For Love”. The group establish that understated blues rock is one of their specialties on the great “Modern Man Blues”. “I Bought A Flat Guitar Tutor” is a jazzy acoustic guitar number in which all the chord changes are punned in the lyrics as they change. Pretty much everything here is classic, perfect 10cc. The only flawed track is “Feel the Benefit”, if only because the guitar picking sounds too much like The Beatles’ “Dear Prudence”. It ends with a great, lengthy, majestic guitar solo that would have been worthy of  the Abbey Road album. Actually, the fact that the song suddenly snaps off mid-melody is TOO reminiscent of Abbey Road. A fade out would have been better. The version with the bonus tracks includes the stupidly titled, but excellent songs, “Don’t Squeeze Me Like Toothpaste” ,“Hot To Trot” and “I’m So Laid-Back, I’m Laid Out”.

Live and Let LIVE! **** (1977)

          A nice live double album. It presents a nearly perfect ‘Best of 10cc featuring Stewart & Gouldman’ playlist. The songs are so perfectly performed they sound a lot like the original studio versions, only commendably punchier and rockier.

Bloody Tourists **** (1978)

This is the first in a series of underappreciated 10cc albums. Clearly, critics were initially impressed by Gouldman and Stewart’s ability to function as a duo on “Deceptive Bends”. Perhaps, when the duo continued on, making it look effortless on album after album, the critics simply quit paying attention. Here 10cc continue to do what they do best – veering from the middle of the road at those exact moments when things need to get a little quirkier and more musically eclectic. Highlights here include the super-subdued reggae of “Dreadlock Holiday”, upbeat rocker “Shock on the Tube”, the Fats Domino styled “Anonymous Alcoholic” calypso on “From Rochdale to Ocho Rios”, and  top-notch rock blues on the bonus track, “Nothing Can Move Me”. A particularly cool moment occurs in the atmospheric “Tokyo”, in the form of a sinister electric guitar solo that sounds like soundtrack music from a tacky monster movie.

Look Hear *** (1980)

Ten Out of 10 *** (1981)

Windows in the Jungle *** (1983)

          “Bloody Tourists”, and the albums prior to it, are the 10cc albums everyone knows best. Since I am a member of the group ‘everyone’, I will be as guilty as every other critic in giving these later albums short shrift. However, I will not be guilty of assigning them the low ratings they are usually given. While these are somehow less memorable than the earlier albums (including those early, failed experiments I gave lower ratings), whenever I do dig these out, I’m impressed with their goodness, and disappointed that they are not better appreciated. Oddly, they lack the trademark humor of the earlier albums. They are (not surprisingly) characterized by top notch professionalism in their songwriting, performing and production. The songs are tuneful, the guitar solos are heavier than one would expect, and reggae and ska rhythms make frequent, welcome appearances. Of these, “Ten Out of 10” is probably the best, “Windows” probably least.

… Meanwhile (?) (1992)

Mirror, Mirror (?) (1995)

          I haven’t heard these albums, so I can’t rate them. The first was a disappointment to the fans because it was touted as a full group comeback, but only used Godley and Crème as backup vocalists. The second has Gouldman on one side, and Stewart on the other, and the two were never in the studio at the same time. 

I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again. There’s more here than meets the ear. Happy listening!

10cc (Everything you wanted to know about...)

Highlights of their ridiculously impressive resume are emphasized in red.

         

          Forming in 1973, 10cc’s initial line-up consisted of four ridiculously overqualified guys – each of them a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and recording engineer. They were; Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Crème.

          In the 1960s, Eric Stewart was the lead guitarist with Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, on their hit, “The Game of Love”. When Wayne quit, Stewart took over as the group’s lead vocalist and scored with the #1 hit, “A Groovy Kind of Love”. They appeared in the hit movie “To Sir With Love”.

          From 1965 through 1968, Graham Gouldman wrote "For Your Love", "Heart Full of Soul" and "Evil Hearted You" for The Yardbirds, "Look Through Any Window" (with Charles Silverman) and "Bus Stop" for The Hollies, "Listen People", "No Milk Today" and "East West" for Herman's Hermits.

          In the late 60’s, Gouldman came to the attention of bubblegum pop tycoons Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz of Super K Productions, marketers of countless, faceless teeny bopper records accredited to an endless list of fake band names. He worked for them for months as a production – line songwriter, cranking out a song a day. A minor success  from July of 1969 was "Sausalito", a No. 86 US hit performed by the future members of 10cc and featuring Gouldman on vocals, but credited to the group The Ohio Express.

          Around this time, Gouldman and Stewart were investing in building their fledgling Strawberry Studios.

          Gouldman suggested to Kasenets / Katz that Gouldman and his friends Stewart, Godley and Crème could crank out bubblegum records at Strawberry Studios at a dirt cheap rate, and with a ruthless efficiency.  Always purveyors of cheap quantity over reasonably priced quality, Kasenets / Katz quickly agreed. Our heroes cranked out finished records of original songs, under such sobriquets as The Ohio Express (although they had nothing to do with "Yummy, Yummy I've Got Love in My Tummy"), Silver Fleet, Doctor Father, Tristar Airbus, Crazy Elephant (although they had nothing to do with “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’”), Peter Cowap, Garden Odyssey, and many, many others. The earnings from their prolific output allowed them to update the studio to a state-of-the-art facility.

          In 1970, Stewart, Godley and Creme scored a worldwide hit with “Neanderthal”, credited to the group name Hotlegs. The song was really just a recording made to test the miking of the drums before a recording session. They recorded a full album “Hotlegs Thinks – School Stinks”. Hotlegs opened for The Moody Blues on tour, adding Gouldman to their live line-up.

          The quartet produced and played the instruments on two commercially successful albums by Neil Sedaka; “Solitaire” and “The Tra-La Days Are Over”. The guys decided they were wasting precious time devoting themselves to the professional presentation of others, and decided to do for themselves what they did for Sedaka.

           They formed 10cc.

          Their manager, Jonathan King, claimed he chose the name after he dreamt he was standing in front of the Hammersmith Odeon in London where the marquee read "10cc The Best Band in the World". Crème and Gouldman claimed that one of them had read that 10ccs would be an inordinate amount for a man to ejaculate, so the name was chosen to connote prowess and potency.

           Their self-titled debut album was released in 1973. It featured three songs that were hits in the UK; ‘Donna’ peaked at number 2, ‘Rubber Bullets’ scored a number 1, and ‘The Dean and I’ made number 30.

          Their second album “Sheet Music” was released in 1974 to critical acclaim. Two of it’s songs, “The Wallstreet Shuffle” and “Silly Love” were #10 and #24 hits respectively, in the UK. The album remained in the UK charts for six months.

          Album #3 was called “The Original Soundtrack”. It featured the huge, worldwide breakthrough hit, “I’m Not In Love”. It hit #1 in the UK and #2 in the US. “Life is a Minestrone” reached #7 in the UK.

           1976 saw the release of the album “How Dare You?” It featured two more UK hits, “Art for Art’s Sake” #5 and “I’m Mandy, Fly Me” #6.

           After it’s release, Godley & Crème left the group.

           Gouldman and Stewart proved they were more than capable of maintaining the brand’s reputation. “Deceptive Bends” was arguably 10cc’s most uniformly excellent and accessible album. Hits were "The Things We Do for Love" (UK No. 6, US No. 5), "Good Morning Judge" (UK No. 5, US No. 69) and "People in Love" (US No. 40). That same year, 1977, saw the release of a live double album, “Live and Let LIVE”.

            ‘Bloody Tourists” (1978) contained 10cc’s final hit, but it was a big one –the reggae tinged “Dreadlock Holiday” reached number one in the UK.

           Gouldman and Stewart went on to create several more 10cc albums, some of them quite good, but none especially successful commercially, or even critically.

           In addition to several solo albums, Stewart engineered and/or produced “Blue Jays” by Justin Hayward and John Lodge (of The Moody Blues), Neil Sedaka’s “Sedaka's Back”, “Sad Café”, and “Facades”, by Sad Café, and “Eyes of a Woman” by Agnetha Faltskog (formerly one of the A’s in ABBA). He co-wrote more than half the songs on Paul McCartney's album “Press to Play”.  He also played multiple instruments and performed backing vocals on many of McCartney’s recordings from 1982 through 1986, including the albums; Tug of War, Pipes of Peace, Give My Regards to Broadstreet, Press to Play, and the hits, ‘Say, Say, Say’, ‘Take It Away’, ‘We All Stand Together’ and ‘Spies Like Us’.

          In 1979, Gouldman scored a minor hit, “Sunburn” written for the film of the same name. He produced The Ramone’s “Pleasant Dreams”. He produced, and composed most of the score for the animated film “The Animalympics”.

          Between 1984 and 1990, Gouldman teamed with his friend, American pop singer / songwriter Andrew Gold, forming the group Wax.

          In the late ‘90s, he co-wrote songs with Paul Carrack (of Ace, Roxy Music, and Squeeze) and Kirsty MacColl.

           In 2006, Gouldman and Godley formed a songwriting partnership, resulting in six songs they released as computer downloads from their joint website.

           Of course, Gouldman also recorded several solo albums.

           Gouldman now tours as 10cc, but is the only founding member in its line-up. In 2018, he toured as a member of Ringo’s All-Starr Band.

           In 1985 Godley and Crème scored a #15 hit with “Cry”. Its music video (which melded a series of crying faces) was hugely influential, as witnessed by the fact that Godley and Crème went on to direct, among many other music videos:

·         Visage – "Fade to Grey" / "Mind of a Toy" ·         Duran Duran – "Girls on Film" ·         Status Quo – "Something 'Bout You Baby I Like" ·         Toyah – "I Want to Be Free" 1982: ·         Asia – "Heat of the Moment" / "Only Time Will Tell' ·         Godley & Creme – "Wedding Bells" ·         Graham Parker – "Temporary Beauty" ·         Joan Armatrading – "The Weakness in Me" / "When I Get it Right" ·         Toyah – "Thunder in the Mountains" 1983: ·         10cc – "Feel the Love" ·         Any Trouble – "Touch and Go" ·         Culture Club – "Victims" ·         David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto – "Forbidden Colours" ·         Elton John – "Kiss the Bride" ·         Godley & Creme – Save a Mountain for Me ·         Herbie Hancock – "Rockit" / "Autodrive" ·         The Police – "Every Breath You Take" / "Wrapped Around Your Finger" / "Synchronicity II" ·         Yes – "Leave It" 1984: ·         Frankie Goes to Hollywood – "Two Tribes" / "Power of Love" ·         Paul Young – "Everything Must Change (US Version)" ·         Godley & Creme – "Golden Boy" 1985: ·         Artists United Against Apartheid – "Sun City" (with Jonathan Demme and Hart Perry) ·         Duran Duran – "A View to a Kill" ·         Eric Clapton – "Forever Man" ·         Go West – "We Close Our Eyes" ·         Godley & Creme – "Cry" / "History Mix 1" ·         Graham Parker – "Wake Up Next to You" ·         Howard Jones – "Life in One Day" ·         Inxs – "This Time" (with Peter Sinclair) ·         Sting – "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" ·         Thompson Twins – "Don't Mess with Doctor Dream" with Meiert Avis 1986: ·         Huey Lewis and the News – "Hip to Be Square" ·         Jana Pope – "Don't you Hear Me Screaming" ·         Lou Reed – "No Money Down" ·         Patti LaBelle – "Oh, People" ·         Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush – "Don't Give up" ·         Rob Jungklas – "Boystown" ·         The Police – "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86" ·         Ultravox – "All Fall Down" ·         Wang Chung – "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" 1987: ·         George Harrison – "When We Was Fab" ·         Go West – "I Want to Hear It from You" ·         Godley & Creme – "A Little Piece of Heaven" Peter Gabriel – "Biko" Godley directed the music video for “Real Love” by The Beatles in 1996. Crème joined the band The Art of Noise in 1998. WHEW! They actually proved far MORE prolific than 10ccs of you-know-what. More about 10cc next time.