RAY DAVIES & THE KINKS / NICE TO HEAR AGAIN #5

RAY DAVIES & THE KINKS

Together with The Stones and The Beatles, The Kinks were the foundation of my interest in music which began in the late 70s. It was my brother's copy of the TV advertised '20 Golden Greats' on Ronco that first made me aware of the band. Remember those collections? Coincidentally, it was the Arcade's 'Get Stoned' and Hallmark's 'Top Of The Poppers Present The Beatles' Golden Hits' that kick started it all for me with The Stones and The Beatles. However uncool these types of albums seem now, they had their uses and were affordable too. The '20 Golden Greats' did come at a slight cost to me though, as I accidentally scratched it during one listening session and had to babysit my nephews for no charge a couple of times afterwards to pay my brother for a replacement!

With The Stones it was the energy and excitement that attracted me, maybe even a little danger lurking in there too. In the case of The Beatles, it was the innovation and wide scope of their songwriting. The amazing progression that the band made in such a short space of time – 'Please Please Me' to 'Abbey Road' – wow - all from the same band! It changed the course of popular music, but what was it about The Kinks and the songs of Ray Davies? I think it was that I could relate to the songs, they stirred the emotions. I remember my brother having the same feeling, pointing out the words in middle of 'Autumn Almanac' to me – 'I like my football on a Saturday, roast beef on Sunday is all right, I go to Blackpool for my holidays..', then becoming all 'misty' at the 'this is my street and I'm never gonna leave it...' part that followed. That was us, our life and how we felt, right there in a song.

The albums by The Stones and The Beatles I had no problem finding, but those of The Kinks were more of a challenge. In 1979 I was in the sixth form and had a part time job for a short time in a garden centre one evening a week and all day Saturday. At lunch time on Saturday, having been paid, I'd hop into town to buy an album, usually by The Kinks, as by now I was eager to hear more. In just a few weeks I had 'The Kinks' to 'Lola Versus Powerman'. The recent Arista albums by the band were lapped up too. 'Low Budget' was just out and I remember really being knocked out by that one, except for the cover - not what I was used to from The Kinks, looking more like a 'high hair' heavy metal band's album sleeve - yuk! The music and lyrics though – sublime! I had to wait until the early 80s before I could find the RCA concept albums, but they were all waiting patiently for me in a junk shop (!) in Manchester, virtually unplayed and about two quid each. I bought them all! I've often wondered if perhaps the shop had the entire Kinks collection at one point and it got 'cherry-picked'. I was beginning to get the impression that these were considered the 'runt of the litter'. Definitely more demanding of the listener, but worth the effort as they contain some hidden Ray Davies gems and astute observations of Britain at the time. The 'Muswell Hillbillies' and the 'Preservation' sets opened my eyes for the first time to the wider things happening around me. It wasn't looking good for the little guy again. Ray was seeing the world he knew and loved disappearing as the developers and greed moved in, now I could see it in my home town too - not pretty.

My favourite Kinks album? 'Arthur'. There were a lot of sonically 'heavy' albums released in 1969, but 'Arthur' was emotionally 'heavy'. Nostalgia, loss and grief, it's all here. 'Shangri-La', what a composition both musically and lyrically. Life's all rosy at the start, very cosy indeed, but when Ray sings '...put on your slippers and sit by the fire, you've reached your top and you just can't get any higher, you're in your place and you know where you are, in your shangri-la. Sit back in your old rocking chair, you need not worry, you need not care, you can't go anywhere...' things are upended and the character in the song appears to be trapped. I began to think right back then that perhaps there was more to life than just striving for material gain. Perhaps Bill Fay put it best, with something he heard his father say – 'life is people' and Ray Davies knows this...
'Dead End Street', 'Waterloo Sunset', 'Oklahoma U.S.A.', 'The Way Love Used To Be', 'Moments', 'Sitting In My Hotel', 'Do You Remember Walter?', 'Days', 'Some Mother's Son', 'Yes Sir, No Sir', 'Where Are They Now', 'Celluloid Heroes', 'Misfits', 'No More Looking Back', '20th Century Man', 'Get Back In The Line', to name a few, but the list goes on and on. They're songs about people, family, feelings. Things all around us - all the time - all relatable. Everything else just seems to come and go...

I first got to see The Kinks in late 1980, a midweek gig at the Manchester Apollo. I went with a friend who lived a few streets from me and who I was in the sixth form with at the time. He was the only other person I knew who liked the band. Serious too, he even had Dave's solo album 'AFL1-3603'. I still don't know how he managed to find that when it was tough enough finding Kinks albums! We went to the gig by train, a thirty mile journey to a city neither of us knew and we had no idea where the venue was either. We'd worry about that when we got to Manchester Piccadilly. Once there we asked directions, eventually finding the Apollo in time for the start of the show. Although we couldn't see the band that well, we were both knocked out by the energy of the show and of Ray Davies as a live performer. The concert album 'One For The Road', released earlier in the summer, is a good account of what we witnessed. I'm pretty sure the encore at the Apollo was 'Waterloo Sunset'. A rarity to hear live at that time. We felt privileged! Show over, it was back into the cold streets and the trek back to the station. We were fighting to keep our eyes open during the journey home lest we ended up at the train's final stop, London Euston.

A few months later, mid 1981, I saw them again at the Victoria Hall, Hanley. The 'Vicky' Hall was a good venue in which to see live bands. Large enough to attract 'names' but small enough to see them close up. Eric Clapton (with Muddy Waters), Stiff Little Fingers, even Wishbone Ash (!) were just some I'd already seen there, but now The Kinks! The balcony in the venue had a clock at its centre and the seat directly behind it was usually where 'Legendary Lonnie' sat. Lonnie ran a record shop in the town of Stoke and had his own radio show on the local station...'Let's put another biscuit on the stove' (meaning to play a record) was one of his famous sayings. A recording artist too, who could forget 'Constipation Shake'! Yes, a 'local legend', a real character - bless yer Lonnie! Whether Lonnie was at the Kinks show or not I now can't remember, but I would like to think he was...

This time I made it to the edge of the stage, right in front of Ray. It was one of the best live performances I've ever seen. Audience participation was encouraged – and yes, we all fell for the teaser intro to 'Lola' (despite having heard it already on the live album) and we all joined in when instructed, taking with good grace Ray's comment that if we didn't know a particular song then we should learn it. He was still quite a dandy too, judging from the array of snazzy looking jackets he quick-changed into during the set. On the other side of the stage Dave's soloing was being checked out by the heavy metal fans present, probably intrigued by The Kinks after hearing Van Halen's version of 'You Really Got Me'. There were a number of New Wave types too thanks to The Jam and The Pretenders' recent championing of the band. It was quite a gathering of mostly recent, but already 'dedicated followers'.

By 1982 I was living in Manchester and saw the band once more at the Apollo. This was followed, just a few days later, by another Vicky Hall appearance and I was there for that as well. I saw Ray outside the venue after this show, he was standing alone as various members of the crew were busy trying to round up the rest of the band so that they could all leave. I couldn't help myself and scrambled in my pockets for my pen and a bit of paper, walked up to him and asked for his autograph. I told him that I'd really enjoyed the show and he replied 'God bless you son' and hugged me! Well, follow that! Annoyingly, I've since lost that autograph. It is one of two gig souvenirs I misplaced when I moved down to London, the other being a broken guitar string Bo Diddley gave me after a show of his I attended a few months earlier. I'd hung the string on a wall in the room I lived in at the time and forgot to take it down when moving. I've no idea what happened to Ray's autograph, perhaps it was mistakenly thrown away in a hasty tidy up one time. Oh well, so it goes, but I still have the memories...

Living in London in the mid 80s all sorts of interesting gigs were coming up regularly, sometimes even two on the same night, making the choice of which one to attend tough. Those were the days eh? I did manage to see The Kinks a couple more times though, once at The Town & Country Club in 1987 and then finally at The Grand in Clapham Junction in 1993. They never disappointed me, although when I asked someone I went to the T&C with what they thought of the show afterwards, they replied 'it was OK'. OK?! OK!!? Sheeesh!!! The recent collection 'The Journey – Part 3' CD set, with its second disc of the band's 1993 Royal Albert Hall gig is a reminder of how good the band remained in concert up to calling it a day (as The Kinks) in the mid 90s.

Ray's solo adventures since have been fascinating. 'The Kinks Choral Collection'! Who saw that one coming? An interesting way of hearing a few favourite songs of mine, but I have to admit looking the other way with the collaborative 'See My Friends' release, I couldn't see the reason for that one. 'Return To Waterloo', 'Other People's Lives', 'Working Man's Cafe', the two 'Americana' albums – all worthwhile listening and often.

I was at Ray's solo show at London's Bloomsbury Theatre in late 1995 during the 'Storyteller' tour. His book 'X-Ray' had just been published and these shows featured him reading from it and performing stripped down versions of his well known songs accompanied by Pete Mathison on second guitar. It was an intimate performance and the readings often amusing. 'The Storyteller' album that followed a year or two later is another one I still return to often. Ray's a natural when it comes to spinning tales and I've always enjoyed a good yarn, no matter how many times I hear it.


'If life's for living', what's living for...' these words popped into my head a few weeks ago, I don't know why, I wasn't feeling particularly worried about anything at the time. 'Life', 'living', here we go again. As with those in 'Shangri-la', they gave me something to ponder on for a while. They're from a song Ray wrote for 'Muswell Hillbillies' called 'Oklahoma U.S.A.' The song describes a lady living a normal working class life, but dreaming someday of the one she's seen in her favourite film 'Oklahoma'. We've probably all had similar dreams of escapism and once more here's Ray singing our life to us. It's one his most touching songs, one where the words and music fit perfectly and can't help but leave the listener reflective. It was then I began recalling my memories of listening to and seeing The Kinks, which in turn then led me to writing this post. They're a part of my life, so let's hear it once more for Ray Davies & The Kinks - 'thank you for the days'...

NICE TO HEAR AGAIN #5

Psychedelic Furs / Talk Talk Talk CD

1981 album that takes the best of Bowie, The Velvets, Roxy Music, a little Dylan too and mixes them all together with wild abandon. With perhaps two exceptions, 'She Is Mine' & 'All Of This And Nothing', the band's 'wall of sound' is unrelenting on this album and Butler's lyrics concisely depict the 'beautiful chaos' of the world that surrounds him. 'All Of This And Nothing' is heartbreaking and simply just an inventory of all that remains in a room where love is now lost. Genius. 'Dumb Waiters', 'Into You Like A Train', 'I Wanna Sleep With You', 'Mr. Jones' and 'It Goes On', phew, are just frantic and I've not even mentioned 'Pretty In Pink' yet...oh drat...never mind. Let's just say that the original and superior version of 'Pretty' is here as well. 'Talk Talk Talk' is a masterpiece of disorder and still for me after all these years, compelling listening.


Tangerine Dream / Machu Picchu CD

Edgar Froese's tribute to John Peel recorded shortly after the DJ's passing. To think Edgar originally didn't want this music released! Thankfully his wife managed to persuade him otherwise. A continuous piece of six musical passages. 'Adios A Cusco' is worth particular mention, emerging slowly from the title track to reveal a moving and memorable progression before disappearing as steadily as it began into 'Tayta Inti'. I can't just listen to it once, I have to hear it a few times over, it's a beautiful composition. The music on 'Machu Picchu' captures perfectly the remoteness of the place and the sense of loss at the same time. Quite an achievement that also serves as a fitting tribute to the talent of Edgar Froese too.


Many Bright Things / Many Bright Friends CD

Many Bright Things was a folk/psych collective who made, I believe, three albums in the late 90s. 'Many Bright Friends', the third album, features an interesting take on the groundbreaking Butterfield Blues Band opus 'East West'. Guitarists featured include Nick Saloman and Al Simone, themselves no strangers to followers of Fruits De Mer! With other solos from harp and organ added as well, there are in total seven to follow over the whole 20 minutes. Bliss! Alisha Sufit (Magic Carpet) offers the entrancing and beautifully sung 'Silver Witch', while there's another Eastern-tinged guitar instrumental 'Minor Parade For 18 Strings' this time featuring both tamboura and tablas for further authenticity. Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys) gets it all off his chest while talking about collecting psychedelic music in 'I Am Not A Collector Potato'. Opinions worth a thought. Interesting improvised 'jazzy' backing for this one. Apparently the vocals were recorded at 4:30am sitting on a couch somewhere in the Midwest! The album closes with the acoustic drone-based instrumental, 'There Will Be A Slight Delay', but I'm not complaining, I could listen all day long to music like this! One of the more unusual albums I've had the fortune to stumble upon over the years.