Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 38, No. 18. July 23rd 1975

Amazing Grease, The Grease Band - Goodyear L35379 — The Original Soundtrack, 10 cc - Mercury 6310 500

Amazing Grease, The Grease Band - Goodyear L35379

The Original Soundtrack, 10 cc - Mercury 6310 500

These two albums are conveniently linked both stylistically and by the English R & B milieu which provided the training ground for their originators. In this day of the garish production job at the expense of the exquisitely raunchy feeling that lies at the core of rock and roll their total effect is as stimulating as discovering that Baudelaire, Paul Robeson and William Westmoreland all share the same zodiac sign - Aries.

Greasy is not really the adjective to apply to the way Joe Cocker's ex-support group approached their music; amazing's probably closer, even though their album lacks lacks the inspirational flash that could have made it great. You may recall their bobbing round the stage at Woodstock as Cocker contorted his vocal chords through 'With a Little Help',–long-time Cocker confidant, Chris Stainton, on keyboards; Henry McCulloch, the ethereal dark-eyed lead guitarist; portly Alan Spenner laying down a throbbing base line—the picture of a working rock group.

On Amazing Grease, their second release in New Zealand, sans Cocker, they have refined and developed their style moderately and widened their scope to include a Dylan song. New Morning', among their original material. They have also subtly altered their tonal colouration with the addition of sinious saxaphone rills and other instrumentation more often connected with American neo-counlry rock cabal. The sound is clean and crisp –evocative of Little Feat's chrome and piston pumping rock - but a trifle thin in parts.

The Dylan song stands out because of its inherent lyric possibilities and the band's swept up arrangement which places the emphasis strongly on rhythm. It is broken up neatly by a precise economical guitar solo. Piano and sax framed atop a surging bass contributes to Blue Monday, while Honky Tonk Angels develops ingeniously above steady rhythm.

Amazing Grease has its share of weaknesses, the most glaring of which remains the trite lyrics of Reminiscence. It's nearly saved by the haunting sax, but eventually flounders among its own pretensions. However it stays just this side of banality, and that's not the easiest thing in the world to pull off. Overall an album whose qualities are enhanced by the good naturedly informal professionalism of all involved.

The Original Soundtrack represents the first attempt by 10 cc to move outside the self-imposed limitations of the four minute traccks of their previous two albums, 10 cc and Sheet Music. Their chosen vehicle for this is "Une nuit a Paris" where, its promised one night is like a year in any other place. Of all the extended pieces I've heard in the last two years, and there have been quite a few, (especially those where the total concept is not matched by the ability to carry it off successfully - too much flesh and too little in the way of skeletal structurc)—this stands with the most impressive.

10cc are a fine four piece outfit, and include among their members one Graham Gouldman, who penned a string of hits for the Yardbirds, way back in the formative days of the English Rythm and Blues scene –For your Love, Evil Hearted You, and Heart full of Soul among them. His cohorts in 10 cc display an equally refined sense of the commercial, without ever descending to the merely vapid. Their writing ability is complemented by a high standard of musicianship which, mercifully, also allows for concise expresion of their ideas. They don't, for example, in the aforementioned "Un Nuit A Paris" take the ten minutes to thrash an outmoded idea into shape, preferring to express themselves with a more disciplined framework.

The Original Soundtrack is heavier, both musically and conceptually, than Amazing Grease, insofar as it explores some areas of a fringe consciousness that most group's don't even know .exists, would prefer to ignore it if they did, or simply cannot even comprehend.