The encore was an a cappella/barbershop quartet version of “Donna” that was utterly spectacular, the best thing I’ve seen all year.

But you’ve probably never heard the original.

10cc was a band nobody wanted that was signed by Jonathan King, of “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” fame, and its initial album came out on King’s “UK” label via Mercury in the States and there was no airplay but plenty of ink, and if you were a dedicated follower of print you were intrigued and bought it.

At least I did.

I had to hear the track that went to number one in England, “Rubber Bullets.”

“I went to a party at the local county jail

All the cons were dancing and the band began to wail”

It sounded like nothing so much as the Beach Boys, who at this point had lost the formula. It was like hearing a new Beatles song, completely unexpected, but oh so fine.

“Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets

I love to hear those convicts squeal

It’s a shame these slugs ain’t real”

And there was a sense of humor to boot. 10cc evidenced an intellectual quality while the airwaves were being ever more dominated by meat and potatoes and corporate rock. They were almost too good for the airwaves.

“Sheet Music,” the band’s second album, started with a delineation of finance almost a full decade before the audience caught on, before Reagan legitimized greed and everybody was doing the “Wall Street Shuffle.”

But “Sheet Music” had even less commercial impact in the U.S., if that was possible, and then came “The Original Soundtrack” and “I’m Not In Love.”

Now normally when you go to see an act of seventies hitmakers, that’s just what people want to hear, the hits. You know, the songs that crossed over to Top 40, and during the rest of the set the audience talks, goes to the bathroom, eats.

But not Thursday night.

If you weren’t a fan of 10cc, if you didn’t know the albums, you weren’t in attendance. It was a convocation of music nerds, those who lived for the music, and knew every note. How else could you start with “The Second Sitting for the Last Supper,” an album cut if there ever was one. It’d be like Paul McCartney starting the show with “You Gave Me the Answer” from “Venus and Mars,” hard core fans would be thrilled, and casual fans would be completely flummoxed. But like I said, there were no casual fans there Thursday night.

But there was cognitive dissonance. What was once a band of four now only has one original. You heard Eric Stewart’s parts, but they were sung by this young bloke with a high voice and intellectually it was not easy to swallow.

And then came “Art for Art’s Sake.”

And I couldn’t help throw my hands in the air.

“Art for art’s sake

MONEY FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

I was grabbed by the music and brought right back to 1976, only this was 2024, and it felt just as vital as it did back then. And just as meaningful.

There are no bands like 10cc. You can’t compare them to anyone. And therefore their music has never dated. It’s as fresh as it ever was, waiting to be discovered or reconnected with whenever you hear it.

Now I was on the boat, on the cruise, I’d left all preconceptions behind, because I was hearing a song I knew by heart that was more than a ditty, all these years later, after all, 10cc hadn’t performed live in the U.S. since ’78, at the Santa Monica Civic, I was there, I can even tell you where I sat, and the fact that when I got home my girlfriend was in bed and feigning sleep, she didn’t want me to to.

But I had to.

But the pièce de résistance was “Feel the Benefit.” The last song on 1977’s”Deceptive Bends,” when it was now two, after Godley and Creme had left to pursue their work with the Gizmotron.

There was less humor on “Deceptive Bends,” but there was a slice of pure pop that was undeniable, that you only had to hear once, “The Things We Do for Love.”

A sing-songy number straight out of the middle sixties I thought was a takeoff on that era, but Graham Gouldman has assured me it was written straight, all I know is it’s a master class in songwriting, right down to the bridge.

“Ooh, you made me love you

Ooh, you’ve got a way

Ooh, you had me crawling up the wall”

And when you love a song so much you play the album to death. Which is how I know “Feel the Benefit.” At this point it’s the 10cc record I play the most, the one I sing in my head.

Now the thing is “Feel the Benefit’ is a minor symphony, over eleven minutes long, the kind of number you never expect to be played live, like something from “Sgt. Pepper,” impossible to replicate.

But Thursday night 10cc hit every note.

Stewart may have been gone.

But Rick Fenn and Paul Burgess were there, band members for decades. And Fenn is an absolute master, from the era when guitar heroes were a dime a dozen and therefore someone like Rick didn’t get the attention he deserved.

It was positively astounding, the notes, the sounds he was wringing from his guitar. Not to mention Keith Hayman’s work on the keys. And then two-thirds of the way through Graham Gouldman pulled off a bass solo that showed he was more than a songwriter, MUCH MORE!

It was mesmerizing. It garnered a standing ovation. And not the only one.

Like I said, the audience knew the material.

The venue wasn’t completely full, but I was stunned how many hard core devotees there were of this music. Which was not cool like Jane’s Addiction, that wasn’t for boys only like Rush, but hit you in the head as well as the heart.

We were all on the same train. We were on a private journey, and the rest of the world did not matter. I read that Sabrina Carpenter just played the Forum, there’s all this hoopla over Chappell Roan, but they can’t hold a candle to what 10cc was…and now still is.

You see this music worked on its own, it didn’t need chart success to give it an imprimatur of greatness. The band took the sixties and synthesized them into something new.

I won’t say you had to be there, because if you did, YOU PROBABLY WERE!

It was strange. The original lead singer, one of the best in the business, was absent, but it was a religious experience nonetheless. You see there was the playing, but even more there were the songs.

You couldn’t help but have a smile on your face.

It was a private thing, but for everybody in attendance.

We were all celebrating the band, even those in it.

And then came the encore of “Donna.”

The initial 10cc album was akin to Zappa’s “Ruben and the Jets.” It hearkened back to the sounds of yore, but with a twist, with humor.

“Donna” in its original incarnation was a doo-wop parody. Not something you expected to hear live, then again I didn’t expect to hear “The Dean and I” either.

And I’d be honest if I said I wasn’t dying to hear “Donna” Thursday night, I was hoping for “Old Mister Time” or some other deep cut from “Bloody Tourists.”

There’s not a ton of instrumentation on the recorded “Donna,” but there were no instruments at all Thursday night.

It was the first encore, before the closing “Rubber Bullets.”

The band stood around one mic, like Dion and the Belmonts and every street corner group of the late fifties.

“Whoa, Donna

You make me stand up

You make me sit down Donna”

In this case Andy Park nailed the falsetto lead vocal and the rest of the members supported him, and they were smiling, almost laughing, and you were standing there, just waiting for them to hit a bad note, to fail, BUT THEY NEVER DID! IT WAS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!

The band cast a spell. And needless to say, when it broke, the audience exploded.

This had nothing to do with rock, had nothing to do with hits, had nothing to do with whether you knew the number, this had to do with MUSIC! Which was what enraptured us all those years ago.

The show was over and I wanted to see it again. I wanted to concentrate on what I missed, I wanted to luxuriate in this music once more, I wanted the high to continue.

I found it nearly impossible to fall asleep. Because of the pure joy. It wasn’t about shooting selfies, telling anybody I’d been there, but just being there myself, in the moment.

You can’t really ask for much more.

Tune in Saturday August 17th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

“They don’t write ’em like that anymore”

And they surely don’t.

Greg Kihn and his band were on Beserkley Records, famous up to this point for the initial Modern Lovers album, partially produced by John Cale, the group contained David Robinson, long before he had success drumming for the Cars, and Jerry Harrison, and this was 1976, before “Talking Heads 77” with “Psycho Killer” was released.

“The Modern Lovers” was a legendary punk album when the Ramones had no sales traction, only press, and we read the press incessantly, when if you were a little left of center you could still be noticed, being off the radar screen was not anathema, never mind being lost in the sea of songs of today.

And it’s not like you ever heard “The Modern Lovers” on the radio. You had to buy it to hear it. I read about the record, the band that had already broken up, so much that I finally laid down my cash.

And I was titillated and surprised.

Now when the history of punk is written, and in truth it’s been written time and again, mostly by acolytes, it should be noted that the two breakthrough icons of early punk, the progenitors, were both Jewish, Joey Ramone and Jonathan Richman. And that’s important, because their lyrics evidenced a Jewish sensibility, a sense of humor, the perspective of an outcast looking in. And despite being basic, the music possessed an intellectual quality absent from today’s hit parade. Where you were coming from, what you were saying, were very important. As was attitude. And no one but the critics and a few insiders got it. Believe me, even with their third album and “Rockaway Beach” almost no one was listening to the Ramones, and Richman went in such a wacky direction, an acoustic folk singer rendering his tunes around the summer campfire…

But when you dropped that needle on “The Modern Lovers”…

All the ink was about “Roadrunner,” the opening cut, but the essence of the album came at the end of the first side, with “Pablo Picasso.”

All I can tell you is, “Pablo Picasso was never called an a**hole.”

“Pablo Picasso” was a secret handshake, if you knew it you were on the inside, if you didn’t…you didn’t have a clue.

“The Modern Lovers” was a club. And it has continued to get praise over the decades, but in truth few people know it, and they should, but it’s hard to understand sans context. This was at the height of AOR, bands in spandex taking themselves seriously, meat and potatoes, and then came THIS?

I’ve seen Jonathan Richman many times. I thought his inclusion in “There’s Something About Mary” would break him wide, but that did not happen. Just like Graham Parker in “This Is 40.” However Parker had his moment, on Arista, even though the first two records on Mercury were the best.

So, why not?

Well, when you see Jonathan Richman, when you listen to the records you wonder if it’s a put-on. But it now appears that this is who he really is, just like another Jewish musician, Gene Simmons. But Richman looks inward, Simmons outward. But if you want to know which way the wind blows, you’d be better off listening to Richman.

All of which hipped me to Beserkley Records.

And I went to see the Rubinoos at the Whisky.

If it was on Beserkley, there was thinking involved. Matthew “King” Kaufman wasn’t only in it for the money, although you could hear the influences of Zappa in the records he released.

But no one expected Greg Kihn to be the breakthrough. For him and his band to be all over MTV. It would be like some influencer on Threads being as well-known as Taylor Swift, but unlike the stars of today, EVERYONE KNEW THE LYRICS TO JEOPARDY!

But that came later. And got a second life when Weird Al reconstructed it as “I Lost on Jeopardy,” one of the pinnacles of the comedic performer’s oeuvre.

And the thing about “Jeopardy” was that keyboard, a direct descendant of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.”

“Our love’s in jeopardy, baby”

Because she’s absent, can’t be found in those pre-cell phone days.

Once again, today the script has been flipped. If you’re a male on the hit parade you cannot show weakness, vulnerability, but that’s what made these records great. Greg Kihn wasn’t that far removed from you and me.

But “Jeopardy” came later, ’83, before that there was “The Breakup Song.”

It started with a guitar riff and sound which Bryan Adams would amplify into his breakthrough on “Run to You.” 

“We had broken up for good just an hour before”

A straight derivation from the sixties. As typical of Beserkley records. They were referential to that era when we’d all grown up, our formative years, especially those Top Forty singles we knew by heart.

They didn’t write ’em like that anymore, even in 1981, never mind today.

“We’ve been living together for a million years”

Unlike our parents we didn’t get married, we needed no piece of paper from the upstairs choir keeping us tied and true.

And when you break up, it does feel so strange out in the atmospheres. Not sure I’d heard that word in a song before or since.

So Greg Kihn and his band were not a typical MTV breakthrough, they’d put out albums previously, unheralded and unknown. But they were in the right place at the right time, and with exposure, they made it.

And then it was over. It always is. And then what do you do?

Some go back to college, some fall into drugs, others rob 7-11’s and…

Greg Kihn became a deejay. We knew this. But we didn’t hear him. Because radio was local, you may not remember that when Howard Stern was syndicated across the nation that was a huge breakthrough.

And now Greg Kihn is dead. As are two other members of his band. That’s what you check first these days, whether the members are even alive, never mind whether they get along and go on the road together.

Furthermore, they say Kihn had Alzheimer’s. I didn’t know. Maybe it was somewhere, maybe it was secret. But that long goodbye is such a bizarre way to go. You fade away and you don’t radiate.

And I’m not sure Kihn’s music will either. I mean it’s amazing what licensing can do for you, look at “My Sharona” and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” placements made them legendary.

And you can read the facts in the obituaries, but they won’t give you the feel.

Even at this late date, at the turn of the decade, from the seventies to the eighties, we still believed.

Music drove the culture. Forget Patti Smith, how many people listened to “The Modern Lovers” and started a band!

There was something to dig your teeth into. And it was all rooted in what had come before, rock and roll.

These songs had more than one chord, they had changes, choruses, and it was surprising that Greg Kihn was the Beserkley artist to strike lightning, but he did.

And for a while there, at the advent of the internet, everyone was around. You could look them up, eventually on Wikipedia, see where they’d been, maybe even follow them on Facebook.

But that era is ending. It’s the final chapter for our heroes, and then us.

And Greg Kihn was a hero. Do you know how hard it was to get a record deal, never mind have a hit, two? Nearly impossible. People didn’t sit at home with no skills and believe they’d become household names. Maybe you had fantasies, but you knew it was unrealistic.

But there were some who picked up the guitar after seeing the Beatles on “Ed Sullivan,” who played in high school bands, and then stuck with it. It wasn’t glamorous, they were falling behind while their brethren were building careers, never mind families, but this was the path they needed to go down, to stick to.

And the audience was ready for you. All those people who couldn’t follow the artistic path, they bought records, went to the club, music was the grease our world functioned on. The most nimble and influential art form.

And sure, we can all bow our heads in prayer when an icon dies, Freddie Mercury, Bowie, Glenn Frey… But they lived above us, we couldn’t reach them, they were gods.

But Greg Kihn was us just one step removed.

But it’s Greg Kihn and the rest of the two hit wonders, legendary album makers, non-stars, who not only fill out the canon, but our hearts.

It’s always weird when you find out about these passings. You power up your phone, you’re surfing the news, or you get an e-mail, and then your entire past is laid out in front of you.

And we think back and say…

They don’t write ’em like that anymore.

Definitely not.

Johnny Brower was the promoter of the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival which featured the debut of John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and is documented in the new movie “Revival69: The Concert That Rocked the World,” now playing on PBS. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/johnny-brower/id1316200737?i=1000665440337

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/312c9cb8-b9a6-4ffd-ab79-c53b11b0fb10/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-johnny-brower