Each month, ‘Pickled Beats & Jamz’ picks a “Freedom Rock Plus Retro Site Of The Month”. For October, that site is the Official 10cc Fan Club website. The site webmasters are Dave Jarvis and Roy B.

Roy B tells us how he got involved with the Official 10cc Fan Club website :

Originally, it was started, I believe, by Dave Jarvis and Nicole Molenaar. Nicole left in 2002 and I was invited along to take over doing it and that’s where I came into the website. I’ve got my own personal site on Yahoo and it was getting good reviews and they saw stuff on there that they liked and they asked if they could borrow it and that’s how I got involved with it.

Here’s Roy B to explain how their site became the Official 10cc Fan Club website :

The “Official” title comes from Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman, and the management as well. They had given their blessings to Dave and Nicole originally to run the official website and we have carried it on from there. We do know that Graham and Eric have both recently looked at the site and liked what they saw and they’re quite happy for us to continue doing that.

Here’s Roy to tell us who the original members of 10cc were and what they’re doing now :

The original members are Kevin Godley, Lol Creme, Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart. 10cc as such does not exist any more with Graham and Eric because Kevin and Lol left in 1976 and Eric and Graham carried on. The last official 10cc album was in 1995, and it doesn’t exist any more. But, saying that, Graham goes on tour with a band called Graham Gouldman’s 10cc which features Rick Fenn and Paul Burgess who both played in 10cc from 1977 onwards along with Mick Wilson and Mike Stevens.

According to Roy, the band is still on the go and touring around the world. He tells us where they’ve been and where they plan on going soon :

Graham’s 10cc did a 20 date tour of August last October and this year Graham’s done a couple of festivals in Belgium, very recently, with the line-up that I’ve just mentioned. But Eric doesn’t tour any more.

Any tour information we get will be listed on the Latest News page of the site. The front page has several buttons to press on and there’s always a Latest News and that’s the best page to go to for any information.

Here’s Roy laying out a timeline of the band 10cc :

10cc was born out of a group called Hotlegs in the very, very early 70’s. Hotlegs consisted of Eric, Kevin and Lol. They were all Manchester based musicians in the 60’s and they got together and did various things around the 60’s. Eric was in The Mindbenders, most famously, and they formed Hotlegs as a trio. Graham was asked to come along on a tour with them. And 10cc grew from that.

Here’s Roy to tell you how 10cc got their name :

There are a couple of versions of the name. The one usually bandied about is it’s the amount of male ejaculation but there’s also a story that Jonathan King, who was their early manager, had a dream one night and he saw the name 10cc in huge lights over Wembley Stadium and he said “That’s it!!! That’s the name!”

Here’s Roy with a look at 10cc’s history in the music charts in both America and England :

I’m Not In Love was a very big hit for them in America, as was The Things We Do For Love, from the Deceptive Bends album, which was after the split. They also had other small chart hits. I’m Not In Love was released in England in April or May of 1975 and got to Number 1 in the English charts in June 75. The Things We Do For Love was late 76/77 and it was the first single from the new 10cc after Kevin and Lol had left.

Here’s Roy to tell you everything you can find on the Official 10cc web pages :

You can expect to find, well, there’s the Latest News page. We also have the Collectors Corner where it’s mainly items, all 10cc singles, albums, posters, adverts, all 10cc related stuff that either Dave or myself have got, and we have had a few people send in photo’s or scans of things that they’ve got, for adding into the Corner. We’ve got a small Frequently Asked Questions page, articles about pre-10cc, 10cc, after 10cc, you, that sort of thing.

Here’s Dave Jarvis the originator of the website to tell us the whole history of how the website came about :

Well originally it was run by Mr. Phil Loftus. That was a few years ago but that wasn’t on the website. He used to just do it on a magazine issue. So I used to help him out with that. And then he stopped doing it and I approached Lisberg Associates, that was 10cc’s management, with an idea of doing a website. So originally, they gave the go-ahead for that, so together with a friend of mine, a lady called Nicole Molenaar, we started up just a fanzine on the internet, and that was called 10cc Matters. And basically that was just to let people know what was happening with the band and any new releases, you know, just a basic labour of love type of thing. And we were getting so much good feedback that we approached Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman and we got their permission to call it the Official 10cc Fan Club. And that’s basically the short story I have of how it all started.

So then Nicole, she stayed with me for 2 years because we did the, we did it on the internet and we also did a magazine issue as well. So that lasted for about 2 years and then we stopped doing the magazine and just concentrated on the website. And then Nicole, due to personal reasons, decided to stop being involved, and so, I knew of Roy Beaufoy and so I got in touch with Roy and asked him if he wanted to come in and help keep it going and that’s basically how it all started, and that’s where we are up to now.

Dave tells us what visitors will find on the Official 10cc Fan Club website :

Well basically what we try and offer is up-to-date information. We work closely with the Eric Stewart website so we know what Eric is up to most of the time. So we’re in contact with Eric Stewart, we’re in contact with Graham Gouldman on a regular basis and basically we keep updating the website all the time, as to when Graham’s on tour or Eric’s new album or any news that will, or if Graham’s been writing for other people. So basically that’s what we try and do.

And we also do a Collectors Corner where we have all the 10cc singles, albums, posters and all memorabilia from all over the world, so people can look up on the website and see album covers that they’ve not got from different countries, singles, badges, patches, a lot of music paper adverts from the 60’s, 70’s 80’s and that’s basically it really. We just try to keep it as informative as possible. We don’t sell anything, you know, nothing is ever for sale. It’s just a labour of love for me and Roy, you know. We print interviews that we’ve done with Graham, we’ve done with Eric. We’re still trying to get Lol Creme and Kevin Godley a bit more involved but at the moment it’s just mainly Eric and Graham that give us all the info’ that we need.

Dave tells us which members of 10cc are still touring today :

Well Graham, he’s still performing. He goes out on the road. What he calls it is “Graham Gouldman And Friends” or “Graham Gouldman celebrates 30 years of 10cc”. So Graham did a tour of the UK and that was 18 months ago now and then he did a tour of Australia last year. So with Graham Gouldman there was Rick Fenn who joined 10cc in 1977 after Lol and Kevin left the band, and Paul Burgess who has always been a part of 10cc right from 1972. He never actually joined the band officially until ’77 when Kevin Godley left, but Paul Burgess was always, he used to go out on the road with 10cc in the very early days between ’72 and ’76. But that’s it really. Eric doesn’t do any touring. Lol did a couple of tours with the Art Of Noise.

Even though the members of 10cc do not record together as a group any more, Dave tells us that the members have gone out and done solo albums :

Graham Gouldman recorded a solo album a couple of years ago called “…And Another Thing” which was a follow-up to his solo debut album called “The Graham Gouldman Thing”. And Eric, I think, as you know, released his new album last year called “Do Not Bend”. So, but they don’t work together. 10cc do not really exist as a band any more but Graham sometimes goes out on the road and uses the name but he’ll use it in a way where he’ll say “Graham Gouldman and Rick Fenn of 10cc…”

Even though 10cc disbanded many years ago the music of the band keeps appearing today in our culture. Dave tells us how :

A lot of 10cc music is sampled a lot, especially Dreadlock Holiday and I’m Not In Love. They’re the two main songs that are sampled a lot. I can’t think of any groups off-hand that have done that but it has been quite a few. Even the Godley & Creme stuff, you know, when they split from 10cc, that still gets covered a lot like Cry and Under Your Thumb. That still gets re-done and re-mixed and re-sampled. So it still keeps 10cc alive.

There’s even a television advert’ now for a credit card in this country called Capital One which has got the backing track of, the backing track of Dreadlock Holiday playing in the background all through the advert’, no singing, just the backing track. So now doubt I’ll start getting a few emails saying “I recognize that tune, is it 10cc?”

There are two stories on how 10cc actually got their name. Dave tells us and explains what the real story is :

We got the official version. I spoke to Graham Gouldman and I’ve spoken to Eric and they’ve given us their version and that’s Jonathan King who used to manage 10cc in the very early days. When 10cc had their studios in Strawberry Studios in Stockport, they’d recorded a song called Waterfall and Godley & Creme came up with what they thought was going to be a B-side called Donna, and soon realized that Donna would be an A-side, and so they were trying to think of somebody who would be mad enough to release this as a single. And that’s when Eric thought of Jonathan King, because Jonathan King used to follow Eric around in the 60’s when Eric was in The Mindbenders, and Jonathan King used to follow Eric around trying to get him to manage the band.

So Eric got in touch with Jonathan King and he said “come down, have a listen to this song we’ve got and we haven’t got a name”. So the next day Jonathan King traveled down from London to Stockport, listened to the song and loved it. And Eric said to him “well we need a name, what do you think?” and he says “well”, he says “I had a dream last night and I dreamt I saw this name 10cc in lights above Wembley Arena” and basically Eric and Graham have stuck to that story ever since. Even though everybody always seems to prefer the uncensored version.

For more information on 10cc, stop by our website at www.pickledbeatsradio.com and surf the Freedom Rock Plus pages and listen all month long for more interviews with Dave Jarvis and Roy B. right here on ‘Pickled Beats & Jamz’