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Bad News by Bad News © 2004 Parlophone Records Ltd.
Cape and Hogan
Origin: This one was offered up by my (then) 8 year old while she was telling me about a family member's trip to the capital of Denmark... Thomas Cape and Graham Hogan came together having both enjoyed significant success in other bands, but it is arguably the work they did and the plaudits they garnered together through the 70's and 80's for which they will be best remembered. On the face of it they had little in common- Thomas Cape, the divisive prima donna blamed by his erstwhile band mates for tearing apart Humble Pumpkin, the pre-eminent exponents of pop psychedelia in mid-60's California; and Graham Hogan, the working-class boy from Sheffield, UK, who, as the bassist in Random Cat alongside his 3 school friends rode the wave of the British Invasion all the way to the top of the US pop charts. But together their lush, soaring harmonies achieved legendary greatness and assured their position in the annals of rock history. As the 60's were coming to their end Tom Cape had lost his way. Ostracised by his former band mates and experimenting heavily with drugs he was seeking peace and support to get his life back on track. Unfortunately he sought these with charismatic cult leader D. Beau Harrison and his mysterious "Collective". By the time Hogan also encountered (albeit briefly) Harrison, Cape's position within The Collective was breaking down (having allegedly slept with at least 3 of Harrison's "designated concubines"). Hogan, then as always the straight talking Northerner, left The Collective almost as soon as he arrived having decided in short order that their particular brand of dysfunctionality was not for him. Cape, seeing an opportunity to escape, went with him. The rest as they say is history. They wrote the first album (the classic "Live in Cape 'n' Hogan") over the next couple of months and recorded it in the dying days of the 60's. It was, to indulge in understatement, a huge hit. Despite the Folk/Rock flavour being stylistically a departure for both of them they built a huge following both for their recorded work and as a live act. They toured the world prodigiously throughout the 70's. By the turn of the decade this was taking it's toll and the recording of 1983's "Hogan's Cape" was fraught (more understatement) and even before it's release the partnership had broken down. The two remained estranged for most of the next 10 years as Cape wrestled his inner demons and Hogan produced two hugely commercially successful solo albums. Despite the sales they generated both of these works were critically savaged, dismissed as "Dinner Party Pop". The music world's collective eyebrows were raised when Tom Cape was announced as a headline act for the 1991 Glastonbury Festival in the UK. Rumours circulated almost immediately that it was both Cape and Hogan who had been booked, but it was not until Cape appeared on the hallowed Pyramid stage, guitar in hand and played the first few bars of the great "Dying Days of Summer Light" that Graham Hogan's presence was confirmed and he joined his musical brother on stage for the first time in 12 years. That performance is now legendary, with it seeming that everyone claims to have been in the 60000 strong crowd. This reunion sparked a resurgence in interest in the duo, both in their back catalogue and in the new work they continue to produce. They are rightly considered as one of the most important acts in popular music of the last 40 years.
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AuthorAndrew Burns really should know better and has so many more important things to be doing than writing this drivel. Please offer him no encouragement either via social media or through the contact page Archives
September 2017
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