Ray Davies Mastertapes BBC Maida Vale

(Further to my JR/Bobby Dallas analogy from the last blog, here’s a quote from Bobby: ‘I’ve got unfinished business with you, JR’. Strange coincidence that Dave has an album called Unfinished Business. Very sad to learn that Larry Hagman has died. Rest in peace.)

Leafy Maida Vale

The Place

Doesn't Maida Vale sound magical and romantic? Its name holds some kind of Arthurian or mythological connotations; it conjures up a more gallant time. Maybe that’s just me. Always interesting to get off at tube stops I’ve never visited before. Tall buildings, tall trees: leafy and affluent. Jackie Leven used to live in a squat here (one year since the great man passed, sorely missed, RIP). Went to one of the memorial concerts and was very moved so will blog later.

The BBC (OBN) or Here Come the People in Grey

The trouble with the Old Boys’ Network is that it engenders a culture of benign incompetence. Everyone is very nice but no one knows what they’re doing. This is the impression I’ve always had and my experience at the Ray Davies Mastertapes recording simply served to reinforce it. The fiasco over Newsnight, Jimmy Savile, Lord McAlpine and George Entwistle is typical. Where else could someone do a job badly for 54 days and get a payout of £450k? Please employ me – I can do that too.

Muswell Hillbillies era Kinks

We’d been asked to supply questions to put to Ray; each questioner has to give their profession so they can be introduced as ‘Wilfred Hood, Chartered Accountant’ or whatever. Why? Do they think we’re defined by what we do? It would be more interesting if we were asked our pornstar names (a friend of ours has a great one – Scottie Old Farm – sounds like she caters for a niche market, let me know if you don't know how to work yours out and I’ll tell you). They also require surnames. Sister is down without a surname although she has supplied it on email when asked and three times since arriving; she is still ‘Belinda, self-employed’. She might as well just add ‘Mistress’ before this and perhaps substitute dominatrix for self-employed. It sounds, as Rylan might say, ‘Well dodge’. A good 50% of people have put ‘Songwriter’ down as their metier. I speculate that they’ve been on Ray’s course and this is part of his credo, something he’s taught them, call yourself a songwriter and you’ll be one. If I’d had to give a career, I would have made something up, like Session Man, Art Lover, Celluloid Hero, Headmaster, Young Conservative?

BBC Rant

In the aftermath of the BBC crisis, some old toff (wish I’d got his name) said:

‘The BBC is loved universally by everyone’.

Speak for yourself, mate. I’ve long lost any respect for a corporation that steals ideas from other channels (and often not very good ones) and regurgitates them with a non-populist stance (let’s face it, the BBC is an arm of the establishment) So, instead of Pop Idol, Fame Academy, where the judges get the final say, instead of The X Factor, The Voice. And what about all the dire cookery/home-improvement/antique/gardening programmes? Aren’t there enough of them already ? I only watch BBC4 for the music shows and The Killing. Why does the BBC waste money remaking a series such as Wallander, when the original was far superior? And those endless geodocumentaries, where some idiot is sent all over the place, up in a helicopter, down a mine, to Death Valley or the Arctic, to illustrate something that could have been shown just as easily in someone’s back garden. At our expense. Plus they’re responsible for the preponderance of Jamie Oliver, the original Mockney. The Reithian ideal of public-service broadcasting, which I always thought condescending, the rich and the titled educating the huddled masses, is completely anachronistic. It’s had its day.

Lola Vs cover

Anyway, back to the day

The tickets say there is disabled access but to call beforehand to ensure they can provide what you require. One of us has broken her leg so did this, was told there’d be no problem, just to make herself known on arrival. Having done so, is told that the studio is downstairs and there is no lift. As it is, it’s all eventually resolved (there is a lift) but it makes you wonder why they ask you to call in advance if nothing ever gets passed on? It’s as if each staff member exists in their own little vacuum.

Elevator Man

Eventually we’re taken in, a lift materialises (thanks to Maureen for all her help by the way – she was the only one who knew where the lift was) and are placed in a room to wait. We have to be accompanied everywhere, even in the tiny elevator. Much better than being outside as it had just started to rain and our friend needed to keep her plastercast dry in a binbag.

Almost Famous

When the others are allowed in (there's a long delay while sound problems are sorted out), they crane their necks to see us, thinking they’re going to get genuine celebrities chilling out in the green room (maybe with Ray); they’re so disappointed when all they get is us ordinary mortals. It’s like being in a goldfish bowl or rather a fancy aquarium; they expected to see exotic fish but got only tadpoles and pond scum.

Musical Chairs

The host, a personable chap called John Wilson, explains the programme format. It’s a reconsideration of two albums, Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part 1 and Muswell Hillbillies.

Ray will be called upon to play certain songs or parts of songs throughout to aurally illustrate what they’re discussing. This entails Ray swapping seats continually and the stage is very small so almost immediately Ray knocks his ‘gargle’ over and has to ask for another. With all the shifting about, I can't help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been a better idea to record some songs in the first half and do the interview afterwards. Or, as they all have mikes, to address questions to Ray where he was.

Ray has his usual pulled-through-a-hedge-backwards look, or just-got-out-of-bed rumpledness. Skinny jeans and a baggy cardigan he might have borrowed from his girlfriend, with buttons he keeps fiddling with.

Ray and Bill 2012

‘Day after day I get up and I say, do it again’ (Do It Again)

They keep re-recording a promo for the Radio 4 website. Isn’t this something that they could edit in afterwards? And it seems a little silly that they should produce this retrospective on two albums and not even mention the Kinks BBC boxset. So, as is the nature of these things, we have to keep re-applauding as none of the staff seems capable of letting others know what they need or when. John Wilson fails to notice Ray putting his fingers in his ears and grimacing each time we clap. Songs/intros have to be played time and again and near the end, Ray and company (the ever ready, ever genial Bill Shanley and James Walbourne from the Dead Flamingoes) perform the whole of A Long Way from Home with the BBC not ready as they thought they were only rehearsing the beginning – luckily in this particular instance, the tape was left running although, as far as the music goes, we wouldn’t mind hearing this several times.

I can only compare this experience to an ITV show recording I went to a year ago, also a music performer, with a band, complicated choreography for at least eight dancers, different camera set-ups, interview segments.  Hardly anything went wrong despite all the tricky visual business.

(Having said that, just got back from a BBC Radio 2 show, showcasing the compositions of Marvin Hamlisch (again RIP) with an orchestra, singers, presenters, interviews and a host (Ken Bruce) and it ran like clockwork so perhaps it’s only certain parts of the organisation that need an overhaul.)

‘I got acute schizophrenia, paranoia too’ (Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues)

During the interview, Ray comes up with what he thinks is a great title for a song but as usual plays his cards close to his chest and won't divulge it despite JW’s urging. 

So what do we learn?

Ray insists that he wasn’t the most visually appealing member of the Kinks, that Dave was prettier. It’s much of a muchness, babe. He says that Dave was also a better musician but being the principal songwriter brought him (Ray) to the fore.

Writing songs for other people

Ray confesses he’d like to do more of this and says that I Go to Sleep was commissioned for Peggy Lee. Her version (not my favourite) is on YouTube and when asked again, Ray explains that the bridge was written for her voice ('I was wrong, I will cry, I will love you to the day I die/You alone, you alone and no one else, you were meant for me'). All I know about Peggy Lee is that she voiced the female stray in The Lady and the Tramp, the shaggy one who sings He’s a Tramp. My Dad told me that. Oh and Fever, of course.

Perhaps John W should have read the Record Collector article. They unearthed this gem: Oh What a Day It’s Going to Be by Mo and Steve and mentioned the Cascades, Dave Berry and Barry Fantoni numbers, as well as some of the TV and film themes.

Ray’s favourite cover of a Kinks song

Stop Your Sobbing by the Pretenders.

A Long Way from Home

Ray pretends he can't remember who sang original lead. Slyly disingenuous as usual. Reading the Record Collector article (very well researched except that it does imply that John Dalton was one of the original Kinks), it’s apparent that Ray’s recall of detail is incredible.

John W has done his homework on the albums under consideration and asks which order the songs were written in although Ray has already told him by this time that Lola was written last. Inevitably he has to query the whereabouts of Part 2, and Ray admits to have various bits and pieces of songs on different formats somewhere, which will all need work to be retrieved, converted, played, altered. (A different answer to the one given in Record Collector.) Ray claims he needs the journalist character from X-Ray to sort it out for him. I’m sure people would be volunteering all over the shop but then he might lose control.

Ray and Dave Prizefight

Disappointingly, he has to ask those questions that Ray must think are inevitable. You know the ones: What was the genesis of Lola? Will he and Dave be working together again? Ray’s responses get ever more inventive. It's as if the interviewer is forever trying to take the main line while Ray is there to throw him off track, lead him down some delicious, derelict culvert. To the latter question, he says it’s like a boxing match between two great rivals – he names Sugar Ray (Leonard?) and someone else (sorry, this is from memory and mine is evidently not as good as Ray’s), that they could always go another round.

Just garnered the actual quote from the BBC website:

‘It’s like Rocky Graziano coming out for one last round with Sugar Ray Robinson.  You’ve gone fourteen rounds, you’ve got to come out for the fifteenth. You glaze over at the prospect but it’s the one round you just might win.’ John W then asked Ray when the bell might ring. The brothers are still, he said ‘in that long minute’ between rounds. Wonder what Dave would make of that. Maybe I can guess.

I’m reminded of something Dave said when asked if he could have seized control of the band from Ray at any point:

‘That’s the whole problem: I don't want control. He's the way he is, and I'm the way I am, and we're very different. My concepts about work, life, family and relationships are so much broader than Ray's. He's very suspicious of the way I think, and I'm very suspicious of the way he thinks. The idea of seizing control - it's so counter-productive.’

As you can see, it’s not so much that they’re not on a level playing field (is that a British phrase that means nothing to non-Brits?), it’s that Dave isn’t even on the field. Fighting for power doesn’t interest him. The problem is that Ray’s nature means that he has to take complete control when allowed a free hand. In order to have any say at all, you can't dip in and out, you have to commit if you're in a game or a match with Ray. Dave is not as competitive so he ends up opting out altogether but it seems unfair that, according to the rules of Ray’s game, he shouldn’t have any say at all when Dave not only fails to acknowledge the rules of the game but even that he’s in a game at all. It must be very frustrating for Ray. It reminds me of a line from Jackie Leven’s song of self-realisation, epiphany in Kilkenny, ‘Marble City Bar’: ‘Oh, don’t pick me cause I’m not playing’. I realise that I'm mixing my match metaphors here.

So, what I’m saying is, Dave would probably forfeit the fight.

It always makes me uncomfortable when someone tells Ray what he meant when he wrote a certain song or album. It just seems so presumptuous and I sense Ray is not sure about John Wilson’s theory that Muswell Hillbillies was written from the perspective of people in suburbia peering out from behind net curtains and he thinks it’s a really dark album. I never thought of it like this but will resist the urge to interpret.

Which song best represents Ray?

The Hard Way. No details are supplied but I bet numerous folk would agree.

Waterloo Sunset

Part of him would like to go back and correct the grammar of ‘I don’t need no friends’ but he realises that the song is perfect as it is.

Some of the questions from the crowd are silly, some insightful.

One claims that a Noah and the Whale (Life Goes On) song is a total rip-off of Lola. Ray says he’ll take action if necessary. It won't be. It sounds nothing like it. Ok, there are some minor Kinks connections – it has the same title as a Kinks song, it includes a lyric about a ‘rocknroll survivor’, they spell out the title as part of the chorus and perhaps it could be described as having a similar vibe but that’s really all.

Exterior of Archway Tavern, interior gatefold Muswell Hillbillies

Another asks why they used the Archway Tavern for the album cover, aren’t there any good pubs in Muswell Hill? Ray, rather than listing his favourite pubs in the area, explains the significance of the Archway being on an island and midway between where he and the rest of his family lived.

Is his writing influenced by film at all?

Ray talks about how he once went to see The Crimson Pirate (Burt Lancaster movie) five times in one week, as chaperone to one sister or another. He says he probably would not have come across the word ‘contender’ except for Marlon Brando’s character, Terry, in On the Waterfront, saying ‘I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody.’ Ray used it in the title of The Contenders. Another movie reference, although these days Ray seems to favour ‘film’ not ‘movie’, is in Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues: ‘I’m lost on the river, the river of no return’, as well as the aforementioned Oklahoma USA.

Best moment of his career

Playing Madison Square Garden after the US ban and years in the wilderness. Validation. Vindication. Like Take That’s glorious return to Number One with their comeback single, Patience.

There must be some kind of way out of here …

I’m sure Ray wonders this several times during the interview and says something similar at one point.

In response to an enquiry as whether he ever worries that he won't be able to top a previous song (hmm, surely the breadth of his output has answered this already? He didn’t stop after Waterloo Sunset), Ray reveals that he embraces anxiety, saying: ‘Don’t be afraid of anxiety’ and the advice he gives to songwriters is ‘Don’t be afraid to fail’.

John W is astonished by Ray’s ability to remember the words to songs like Muswell Hillbilly and Twentieth-century Man, obviously unaware that Ray has been playing them almost nightly on the tour that he’s just completed. RD simply accepts the kudos here. In fact, the whole attitude is that Ray is someone who no longer writes, performs, tours, as if he’s been put out to pasture some time ago. We all know that Ray has a new album in the works (except for Ray who refused all my requests for a song from the new album on the tour, perhaps not ready to share any yet).

Complete tracklist, many of which we only heard part, in no particular order

Lola

This Time Tomorrow

A Long Way from Home

Muswell Hillbilly

Twentieth-century Man

Here Come the People in Grey

Got to Be Free

Heard later that the four people remaining outside after the others had given up, were sent away. I’m sure it wouldn’t have contravened any H&S rules to bring in four extra chairs. Have a heart next time, Auntie.

Just heard that the A side of the show will be broadcast on Monday 3 December 11.00 pm GMT.

Ray Davies: 'It's really been quite a trip': Life on the Road 2012

In a Moment at the Fairfield Halls

Is this really it?/Is this the final station?/It's really been quite a trip (Imaginary Man)
So, Ray's UK tour is over, the dates have had him zigzagging all over the country, back and forth, coming back to the London area three separate times. I would be exhausted but Ray seems to thrive on this frantic schedule and have boundless energy and adrenalin. 

And still all the critics keep saying/Are they still around?/When are they gonna stop? (The Road)

I’ve been moved to respond to some reviews of Ray’s gigs because it seems that we’re being infiltrated by incredibly shallow people who want us to follow some code of what is/isn’t appropriate, some kind of Style Stasi. And isn’t this the exact antithesis of what the Kinks and Ray were always about? These criticisms often relate to age and often to fashion, something I consider the biggest waste of time ever. Wear whatever suits you and what you’re comfortable in. For a non-Kinks-related example, when the Olympics were on, I read a whole article in a daily paper bemoaning the fact that gymnasts still thought it was ok to wear scrunchies, which went out with the 80s. Let’s not concentrate on their extraordinary talent or ability, let’s worry about what they put their hair up with. Could it be any more fatuous? 

Underneath this crude exterior/She knows I got something superior (Hidden Quality)

Apparently when you get to your late 60s, it’s unseemly to wear trainers or do star/scissor jumps on stage. You should really mellow out and sit on a stool and wear a cardigan. Well Ray Davies does all of the above (except he saves the cardigan till later). Some people break the mould. I’m the same although my experience has led me to believe that I’m a lot less like everybody else than everybody else is. I’ve done some pretty strange things in my time (exorcised a TV cabinet, made an in-flight announcement on an aeroplane, been stranded in New Jersey with only one odd shoe and $13.50) and have failed to do many things my contemporaries have, such as acquire a taste for red wine or even beer, start to hold dinner parties, care about home décor and cooking. Not yet domesticated. I still dance although no longer a teenager. Actually teenagers are way too cool to dance, unless it’s affected with extreme irony.

Ray's response to the critics: 

But I won't give it up/As long as I can make the bread/When I do, I shall stop/Close my eyes and go to bed. (All Night Stand)

From a blog review:‘His white trainers suggest that he isn’t the Dedicated Follower of Fashion he once was.’

This rather misses the whole point of the song. Ray wasn’t the dedicated follower of fashion – he was affectionately taking the piss out of him (and possibly brother Dave although both have worn some outlandish but still appealing ensembles in their time, Ray’s outfit in this version of Skin and Bone a case in point). In fact, Dedicated started out as a riposte to a designer who criticised Ray’s flares. As usual, he answered with a song.

Spotlight: Oklahoma USA

She walks to work but she's still in a daze/She's Rita Hayworth or Doris Day/And Errol Flynn's gonna take her away. 

The story behind this song, described in my last blog reminds me of my Mum. I think she believed that one day a great romance would find her, à la Some Enchanted Evening, that she would catch the eye of Rossano Brazzi across a crowded room. And I can't be the only person who watches a movie and walks out of the theatre imagining for a few minutes that I look like one of the protagonists. I used to be a great proponent of escapism, a devotee, fantasy has reality beat every time but now I wonder if cinema in the old days was ‘the opium of the masses’, how it unwittingly kept everyone in a drudge-like job in their Dead End Street.

Royal Albert Hall 4 October 2012

Bashful has blogged on this so I haven’t much to add. When we get up to dance, no one stops us but when people move to the front, the security men are determined to make them sit down again, courteously tapping people on the shoulder one by one; they win a few skirmishes but they don’t ultimately win the war. Great sound at the concert. I’ve only been to the RAH once before, when we bought our Dad and a friend tickets to see the Moody Blues and we were so high up and over to the side that it actually gave you vertigo to look down and we couldn’t see all of the stage. This time we're in the second row right at the front.

Extras: Paul Weller joins Ray for Waterloo Sunset, which seems to be in the wrong key for him. Starts off shaky but sounds better by the end. I never noticed that his voice is a little like Grant Hart’s before. Ray plays Twentieth-century Man and includes Days in the encore so we can't complain. The same T-shirts as at Canterbury cost £5 more. How’s that for London weighting?

Ray at Fairfield Halls

Fairfield Halls, Croydon 10 October 2012

Here, after we’ve navigated the urban wasteland (well it wasn’t but I like that term), crossed the tram tracks, and traversed the car-park and met some fans in the bar, we discover that there’s a long queue to get in to see the support act. I start to worry that there’s going to be airport-type security checks and that my camera and water bottle will be confiscated. My camera is large and professional-looking (unlike me) but no more powerful than that on most people’s cell phones. I couldn’t tape a whole song even if I wanted to because the files are too huge to upload anywhere. However, my fears are unwarranted; the delay was due to a late sound-check.

James and Kami seem very relaxed tonight. They’ve got married (to each other) since we last saw them. But at the next gig, he’s by himself … Hope Kami's not honeymooning alone.

Decide to risk the paper plates but stage is too far to spontaneously throw them on during the performance so I neatly place them around where I assume Ray will be (by the cup of tea or voice-saving concoction in the cup-holder on the mike stand – does everything have cup-holders these days? Perhaps we should genetically engineer children to come with them? How handy would that be?) The security man wanders past twice to check what I’ve done but decides they pose no viable threat. He must think I’m simply some harmless nutter who randomly dispenses disposable picnic-ware at rock gigs. Perhaps he thinks I’ll be back later with sandwiches.

Ray at Fairfield Halls

So the gig proceeds much as Canterbury and the RAH except that we get up to dance, and the people in the front row (friends from the Kinkdom), arise too. They move to the front of the stage. This precipitates our ungainly scramble over the seats in front to join them.

Special treats: Ray opts to play Apeman, which he says he might not have played live since the last time he played Croydon. Croydon does tend to bring out the Neanderthal in all of us. When in Rome … only kidding, guys. So infectious and I was really longing to hear it. We also get Tired of Waiting for You, which he didn’t play at the first two shows we went to and the whole of ‘Victoria’ instead of just a snippet. Excellent.

No scissor jumps tonight – just upward leaps, legs together. Hope Ray hasn’t given himself a groin strain.

A Face/Voice in the Crowd

More enthusiastic but unfortunately also more out-of-key and out-of-time singing here than anywhere else so far. One lady doesn’t know the words so just about picks up the lyric at the end of each line and I hear the last word repeated a beat after in a flat echo.

Ray at Nottingham

Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham 14 October 2012

Our non-Kinks friends seem a little frightened of meeting our Kinks friends for some reason. Have we made them sound like raving lunatics? I don't think so. And one of the non-Kinks ones collects Action Men and is in the process of swapping some hands for some feet in the post. Miniature body parts in little plastic bags. Who has the most to fear?

Undeterred, I recycle the paper plates (surely Ray would approve) and add another one, hoping to hear Celluloid Heroes as it has surfaced at other shows. We get I Need You instead. Does Ray look at my request and think ‘Hmm. What can I play that’s the total opposite of that?’ 

Let's sing it loud with feeling/Come on, one more time (One More Time)

By the time Ray reaches Nottingham, his voice is a little hoarse and there are a couple of slightly off-key notes right at the start but he’s able to compensate by altering the key or taking the pitch down or just changing the phrasing so a long note becomes a short one, or simply encouraging the crowd to sing all of the chorus, etc. A master at work.

Misfits at Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury 

Now you're lost in the crowd/Yet, still go your own way

Ray mentions that Mick was a boy scout and still has his uniform. Mick wasn’t a boy scout; he was a sea scout. I love the way Ray’s always slightly misinformed. I get the idea that he’s deliberately imprecise about things, or rather precise in his errors (like in ‘X-Ray’ when he insists that Dave was caught in flagrante by his headmaster rather than the truant officer) because he perceives his alterations strengthen the story or make the joke funnier. Weirdly, tonight he misses out You Really Got Me. Plus there's the mystery of the reappearing lisp.

So to summarise, we did get variations in the set over the course of the tour. Some nights Ray played Celluloid Heroes but I never got to hear it. This and other songs that were played at some shows but not all, were Tired of Waiting for You, Too Much on My Mind, Victoria, Apeman, Full Moon, Misfits, I Need You, Twentieth-century Man.

I think it’s curious which Kinks songs Dave and Ray opt to play – some are the same, especially the early ones. Dave tends to leave out Waterloo Sunset, Autumn Almanac and Lola. Ray doesn’t play any Dave songs though I’m sure he could do a creditable version of Strangers or even Living on a Thin Line, which Dave originally wrote for him. Neither plays Well Respected Man. Dave will do Get Back in the Line but Ray won't.

Although both have assembled great musicians to back them, who know the catalogue really well, there isn’t that sense that anything might happen, that I think people experienced at a Kinks gig. Of course this could be good or bad but always memorable I'm sure. Dave says in Kinkdom K/Come:

‘Ray and I were magicians without realising it’ that they could look at each other on stage and ‘the whole atmosphere will change’. You can see this in some YouTube clips. They play off each other, wind each other up, piss each other off and spur each other on. Ray admited at the recent Radio 4 Mastertapes recording that he would deliberately antagonise Dave and then Dave would play something exceptional, on stage and in the studio.

He also talked about how the Kinks were like family (one of them was of course), how they had one another’s backs. It reminds me of my family when we were growing up. We would argue with each other a lot, maybe appear to hate one another but when it came down to it, it was always us against the world.

I suppose what I’m saying is that the ideal, if we assume that Ray and Dave playing together is far less likely than Bobby and JR ever seeing eye to eye (maybe scratch that analogy after this week's episode of Dallas), would be to see one play one night and one the next. Dave is much more likely to deviate from the list than Ray is, attempting a song without rehearsal, without remembering the lyrics, so there’s still an element of surprise.

[All 2012 images and video are mine.]

Ray Davies Live 2012: The Canterbury Tale

Canterbury and Croydon shows are missing from this flyer

So, for those unable to make it to a solo Ray show, here’s one he made earlier. Spoiler alert for those yet to attend one. I went to four (which I thought excessive until I met fans who were doing many more). They were all similar and all different, the shows not the fans – no, actually both were.

The duo Dead Flamingoes (James Walbourne and Kami Thompson) open most nights. James Walbourne is in the Pretenders line-up, with Ray’s ex, Chrissie Hynde so perhaps that’s how they connected.

I’m not sure that this name is right for them. It makes them sound more like a comedy double act than anything with serious intent. I wonder if it were adopted as a joke. I suppose Dying Flamingoes would be worse. It certainly doesn’t do their country-style songs, lovely harmonies, passionate and intricate guitar work justice. I particularly like the song they tend to start with, ‘Bonnie Portmore’; it reminds me of early Fleet Foxes. Having listened to some tracks on the net, I can report that the DFs sound better live: louder, more committed.

James Walbourne wrestles his guitar, with a pained expression, for all the world as if it’s a recalcitrant cat which has decided it no longer wants to be picked up and is doing everything it can, including scratching, to escape his arms. It takes all his effort to contain it. But he sure can play that cat.

At Nottingham, he appeared alone. I was disappointed that he didn’t introduce himself as ‘a Dead Flamingo’.

This review will be too long if I include all the shows we saw so I’ll start with the first one we went to, also the first of the tour, and see how I go.

Ray Davies and Band at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury 30 September 2012

Here (and later at the Royal Albert Hall), there were some slow handclaps when Ray failed to materialise exactly on schedule, a few more elderly audience members possibly being better accustomed to the rigid timetabling of the residential care home than the vagaries and unpredictability of a rock concert. No, seriously, they weren't that old, just a bit impatient.

Ray’s entrance follows a particularly annoying piece of frantic music with revved-up trumpet blasts on the otherwise dreary warm-up tape (which actually makes me want to blow my brains out on fifth hearing at Canterbury, and so enter the territory of a Kami Thompson song about suicide, ‘Hold Your Fire’).

After the applause has died down, he says ‘That’s alright for Bill but what about me?’, initiating a second burst.

The shows follow a standard format, with variations on a theme, according to audience input and how Ray’s feeling. Usually Ray performs some songs unplugged, with Bill Shanley before the rest of the band make their appearance.

Nobody dances or even gets up and I start to feel like a volatile patient in a hospital ward, strapped to the bed, who keeps trying to rise, except the restraints are regrettably self-imposed. Why do I do this to myself?

By the second show, I’m able to recognise most songs by Ray’s introductions.

Ray starts with:

This Is Where I Belong (The line ‘Tell me now if you want me here to stay’ warrants crowd confirmation, but at many of these shows, this is only realised by the front two rows so that intimate connection isn’t made. It's a beautiful song, sensitively performed.)

Audience participation is de rigueur on the choruses of the next two numbers, reconfigured as vaudeville turns here:
Autumn Almanac (‘Roast beef on Sundays/Alright’ usually accompanied by a line such as ‘I take it you’re all meat eaters then?’, the response in Croydon prompting him to alter it to ‘Nut roast on Sundays’)

Dedicated Follower of Fashion (Introduced as an old English folk song, occasionally sung in the style of Johnny Cash, along with the reminder that ‘That’s dedicated, not medicated’.)

Admittedly, some Kinks songs Ray always treated as singalongs – see these 1973 performances of ‘Dedicated’ and ‘Lola' – and the audience was often slow to pull its weight. I really don’t mind it on the choruses but sometimes, given a little encouragement, it gets out of hand and you can imagine yourself at some kind of old-style Cockney ‘knees-up’. Plus Ray’s in fine voice and I would rather hear him.

In a Moment (Introduced as a new song for all the insomniacs out there and I say again, 2007 is not new, honey, when you have an album in the pipeline, still lovely though. Ray mentions that the album, Working Man’s Café, was recorded in Nashville. I wish he would play more of his solo material live – The Real World, Vietnam Cowboys, so many of these songs deserve attention. Dave mixes it up more at his Satsang shows but then he’s assured of a receptive group of people who don't only know the Kinks 60s and 70s hits – I’m afraid that Ray has made the right assessment of the majority of the people here tonight.)

See My Friends (Ray’s ‘gay’ song. Still defeats me as to why when he’s written many ‘gayer’ ones.)

The Kinks as the audience remembers them

Sunny Afternoon (Ray claims he wrote this as a joke. Cue more singalong and Ray gets to say the line that he’s been using since the early 70s, ‘If you don't know it, learn it’.)

Dead End Street (The band come on and join in during this and sound pretty excellent and things start to get rowdy for the next three songs.)

Time to introduce the band who are absolutely excellent. Both Dave and Ray are adept at choosing people to accompany them. We have Bill Shanley on lead guitar, former Kink Ian Gibbons on keyboards (and accordion), Richard Nolan on bass and
Damon Wilson on drums.

Till the End of the Day (Still sounds so vital.)

Where Have All the Good Times Gone? (A crowd pleaser whether with Dave, Ray or the Kast-offs.)

I'm Not Like Everybody Else (Expected more reaction from the crowd but this song doesn’t have the same resonance with UK audiences as it does in the US where it was featured in The Sopranos and found a new lease of life live.)

Waterloo Sunset at Marlowe Theatre

Waterloo Sunset (A request from the stands that Ray immediately obliges unlike any of mine.) (Describing this as a secret song that he didn’t want to share, it doesn’t seem to matter where he plays it, in front of how many people, the Olympics closing ceremony, for instance, it always retains a certain atmosphere of intimacy. Invoking us to do the ‘shalalas’ makes us feel part of something great, this triumphant paean to London. He usually follows the lines ‘As long as they gaze on Waterloo sunset/They are in paradise’ with ‘And so am I’ and somehow manages to sound completely sincere each time and his voice is perfect, delicate, evocative.)

Lola era Ray

Too Much on My Mind (On a par with Dave’s version at Satsang.)

Mentions his See My Friends collaboration, ‘managing other people’s egos’, etc. when introducing the next song and meeting a pretty blonde in cowboy boots, Lucinda Williams, who chose to cover it.

A Long Way from Home (points out that this was directed at Dave, a way of saying ‘Why don’t you just fuck off?’ at which point I call out ‘He loves you too’ but he doesn’t hear me – probably just as well. The lyrics and melody capture Ray’s wistful regret.)

Lola (Bill Shanley reproduces Dave’s guitar riff. The crowd oblige with backing vocals.)

It would be impossible to reflect the sheer diversity of the Kinks output in one show plus we would need more instruments so Ray chooses to showcase a couple of albums here: Muswell Hillbillies and Sleepwalker. These slightly lesser-known songs are a little taster of what’s out there. He could choose two different albums each night and I would still want more.

So James Walbourne (also from Muswell Hill, accompanies Ray for:

Muswell Hillbilly

and

Oklahoma USA at Marlowe Theatre

Oklahoma USA (Great to hear both of these, one jaunty, Ray’s voice way more tuneful than it is on the rather flat, whiny LP version, the guitars ramping it up into a good ole country romp, the other a beautifully plangent ballad about how going to ‘the pictures’ allowed Ray’s sister Rose to escape the drudgery of factory life. Music helped the Davies boys evade a similar fate.)

Misfits (I wasn’t expecting Ray to play this and find it really moving.)

Full Moon (Complete with howls from Ray and enthused reception from the Americans at least.) 

Come Dancing (Ray describes his sisters' sorties to the Palais and claims one would return and tell him ‘I came dancing tonight, Ray’.) 

You Really Got Me (Ray talks about the blues genesis of the song and wanting to be Johnny Lee Hooker, a difficult aspiration for a ‘honky’ from North London, then has Ian plink the notes on the piano as Ray himself did for Dave. I imagine this to be a little like the scene in ‘Close Encounters’ when they play pipe tones to try to communicate with the spacecraft – Ray strikes them on the old upright in the famous front room, then when Dave plays them on the guitar, it’s the moment when the spacecraft repeats the notes at a deafening volume, blowing the glass in the window. An understanding, an accord, a momentous breakthrough. Ray says something like ‘and Dave picked up his guitar and played the Kinks into rock and roll history’.)

All Day and All of the Night (Let’s rearrange those chords again and have another hit. Mission accomplished.) 

Low Budget (A new one to many here tonight but a staple of the Kinks live shows since the late 70s as in this 79 version in which Dave lets rip on the guitar. And who can fail to be entertained by Ray’s lyrics: ‘Even my trousers are giving me pain/They were reduced in a sale so I shouldn't complain/ They squeeze me so tight so I can't take no more/They're a size 28 but I take 34’. I love these lines as it always gives Ray a chance to flaunt his arse. Let's face it, any excuse. But if you’ve got it …. And we all join in on: ‘At least my hair is all mine/My teeth are my own/But everything else is on permanent loan’ – well, not all but we devotees in the front.)

Before he leaves us, Ray comes to shake hands with some of us in the front row. I resist the temptation to pull him off the stage for a hug.

Tired of Waiting for You or Tired of You Waiting for Me …

Hung around fruitlessly at the Stage Door afterwards but feeling like a predator lying in wait for prey made me uncomfortable, as if I were about to ambush him, especially when I learned that Ray had managed to avoid us. It wasn’t that hard – we’re pretty pathetic predators. It was like sending a couple of rabbits to capture a lion. That’s what happens when you pit amateurs against experts. This whole fan thing is so weird. Now, having read that he gets tired of seeing the same old people, I’m anxious not to become one of them although I expect there’s something reassuring when you look out from the stage and spot some familiar faces.

See Our Friends

Ray has described his songs as his friends and what we discovered when we saw the those original BBC4 programmes on the Kinks, Ray and Dave, about a year ago, is what some of the Canterbury crowd find out tonight, that they’re our friends too (or at least nodding acquaintances that we’ve always wanted to know better), that we’ve assimilated them in the collective unconscious, they’re part of our history, and though dressed in different clothes, they’re instantly familiar and it warms our hearts to see/hear them again.

So all in all an exciting show. Ray’s energy is astonishing. I can't understand why reviewers complain about him still doing scissor jumps or leaps. God, do everything you can until you can no longer do it. I won't sum up yet as I have three gigs to go … it’ll be a marathon rather than a sprint.

[All 2012 images and video are mine.]

 

Dave Davies: Unsung Guitar Hero

An appraisal and appreciation of Dave’s untrammelled and unparalleled live performances with the Kinks, with examples of how his playing expands the horizon of a song until the possibilities seem limitless at which point he’s able to bring it home to a flawless finish, like allowing a wild pony to have its head, run free, all the time keeping a hold of it so that he can rein it back in when it’s time. 

‘Davies' guitar was the dynamo that drove the Kinks. Brash, aggressive and entirely unforgettable, his chord progressions on their early hits have become a rock & roll rite of passage for any aspiring guitarist; "You Really Got Me" has alone launched countless garage bands.’ (Rolling Stone)

I’m not a muso, never learned an instrument, never had a piano in the house or all that jazz. For me, having a piano rather contradicts the Davies' working-class roots.[It reminds me of what a friend once said to me. Her grandparents had servants. I expressed surprise, thinking they must have been rich but she averred that her background was working class and that ‘everyone had servants in those days’. Anyone see anything wrong with her logic here? She certainly didn’t. My grandparents were her grandparents’ servants. Oh dear, starting to sound like one of those Monty Python sketches, 'You were lucky...'.] My parents thought a useful extra-curricular activity would be getting us to drag the washing down to the launderette every Saturday and bring home fish and chips for lunch. Forget about doing something we enjoyed or acquiring a useful skill. Anyway, I’m only trying to explain that I love music while not always understanding how particular effects are achieved, or which guitar is which (although the names are so evocative – Harmony Meteor – who wouldn’t want to take that home?) and I can distinguish a guitar from a bass guitar (even though Dave thinks I can't count beyond three, that’s only when breathing) and recognise a Flying Vee. I respond to the emotion generated by how the instrument is played. But even I can tell that Dave is something of a virtuoso. Shel Talmy, interviewed recently, agrees.

FZ: How would you rate Dave [Davies] as a guitarist?

ST: I think he’s one of the more underrated guitarists there are. He was an extremely good guitarist.

FZ: He doesn’t quite get the credit that he deserves.

ST: Never, I don’t think he ever got the credit. His inventions of the solos and stuff, I mean, Jimmy Page did not play the solo on 'You Really Got Me’ which I’ve said about 5,000 times to people who insist that he did. The reason I used Jimmy on the Kinks stuff is because Ray didn’t really want to play guitar and sing at the same time. In fact, Jimmy was playing rhythm guitar.

(The more people mention this, even to deny it, the more robust the myth becomes somehow. And what did I just do?)

Ray admits that Dave’s contribution was vital, saying:

‘If Dave never plays another note, his performance on “You Really Got Me” will always give him a special place among guitar players. The sound was created in our parents’ living room and ended up being copied by nearly every rock guitar player in the world.’

And Ray asserts that what Dave brought to the band was ‘the angst, the energy and an incredible right hand’.

But it’s as if Ray’s always sidelining Dave’s influence to one particular song, or sound, suggesting by this quiet insistence that that was the only thing he ever did. What about the electric guitar riff on ‘Lola’? Then, when the Kinks went ‘rock’ in the late 1970 to 1980s, a move that attracted a whole raft of new fans, particularly in the US, it was Dave’s playing that led the way and his charisma as a guitarist that helped to make the Kinks such a terrific experience live. And it sounds like it was also his initiative – he says in ‘Mystikal Journey’ that he wanted

‘to get back to a more fundamental basic rock thing’

and this was seconded by their new record label honcho, Clive Davis, who advised Ray that

‘Sometimes to move forward you have to take a step backwards.’

This was after the concept album shows, which looked like great fun to me. Ray has said:

‘Oddly enough on the shows that had themes to them, the band was much tighter as they were playing to cues’

but unfortunately there’s no good footage of these shows on YouTube.

To begin with, discovering them in the 2010s, I thought the 80s songs were too generic, too obvious, but a few listens down the line, I now appreciate all the layers of influences, irony, humour, intensity, the riffs that sound vaguely familiar, as if they’ve always existed, have entered your subconscious via some other means and can recognise that they’re still imbued with Ray’s idiosyncratic inventiveness. Perhaps it was a direction that appealed more to Dave than Ray but it became another means to demonstrate Ray’s versatility as a songwriter. And popularity in the US is really what kept the Kinks going despite NBC’s recent shameful omission of Ray at the Olympics closing ceremony. You only have to watch Ray’s ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’ speech to see how important this support was to them.

But, more than providing the band with rock credibility, Dave’s enthusiasm was infectious, even when he and Ray were having difficulties, the enjoyment he exudes when on stage playing, is almost tangible (witness he and Jim Rodford dancing, running and jumping about as they play in this version of ‘Catch Me Now I’m Falling’, they’re so obviously having the time of their lives), his extraordinary talent and innovation added depths to songs live that were never reached in the studio versions. Unlike (the) Eagles, for instance, whose concerts sound just like the recordings, with the Kinks, nothing is ever that set in stone (except some of Ray’s jokes – bless, ‘If you don't know it, learn it’). Dave hardly ever plays the same solo the same way or even the same solo, if you know what I mean because he can do anything with a guitar. His ability means that he’s spoilt for choice. Why stick to the same old thing? He constantly improvises and invents so that every song played live is a work in progress. Fluid. Unrepeatable. Inimitable. He can make it scream, sing, cry, take us in any direction. Dave plays the guitar like it’s an extension of his body, like it’s completely natural to him. It doesn’t ever look like something he has to work at.

It makes each concert an adventure into the unknown as Dave is constantly upping the ante. In the 90s, his guitar work rejuvenates, transforms and beefs up ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’ for a new generation. It sounds like a completely new song. Perhaps that’s why Ray sings the lead although he originally wrote it for Dave’s voice.

[Admittedly, I’ve never been to a Kinks concert, having only liked them a year or so; I can only judge from videos on YouTube and people’s recollections. With the Kinks, I didn’t so much come late to the party as turn up not only after it had finished but when the people holding it had got married, had kids, watched these kids grow up, moved into a retirement community and sold the house to fund their care in old age. I arrived in time for the new owners’ housewarming do.]

This mutability might also hint at a lack of discipline, another recurring feature of some Kinks gigs. A friend saw them at a festival in 71 I think and they only played three songs before Ray poured beer over the musicians at the front and then stormed off stage. In the Jon Savage biography, he mentions a gig in the US in 1965 where the Kinks

‘played one song – ‘You Really Got Me’ – for the whole act’.

You take the rough with the smooth. No wonder their managers were sometimes at their wits’ end.

In 1979, Dave invests ‘Superman’ with rock kudos, conducting a guitar masterclass from about three and a half minutes in, fleshing out a fairly ordinary pop song so that it sounds entirely different, he and Jim on backing vocals. (I always thought the female backing vocalists were unnecessary.) There’s nothing better than hearing the counterpoint of the brothers’ vocals. It’s even better when they share the lead, changing for the verse, the chorus or the bridge, as on ‘Arthur’ or ‘Artificial Man’. Dave’s vocals on the latter (very Ian Hunter-ish) surpass Ray’s, the aural equivalent of a colour segment in a black and white movie.

The dual vocal on this version of ‘Jukebox Music’, with Dave singing the lead works in a similar way, his pitch suiting perfectly and contributing that emotional edge. There’s something very special about the combination of their voices when they come together, blended like a good malt whisky, like on the chorus of ‘Hatred’ in this live rendition; Ray’s smile (2.09), Dave’s quick solo (3.25), a certain relish in the delivery of
‘Why don’t you just drop dead and don’t recover?’
(at 3.40) create utter magic.

‘Life Goes On’ 1977. How difficult it must be for Dave to accompany Ray’s vocal, its phrasing always changing, on guitar but he manages it, again with exquisite touch, so we can forgive a little ‘guitar face’.

When Dave is told to run with it, he extemporises with such talent and virtuosity, you wish all this was in the studio version. Thank God for YouTube. Rockpalast shows seem to bring out his inner guitar god, investing ‘Yo-Yo’, for instance, already a delicious diatribe, with an extra dimension, effectively changing the whole character of the song. The original’s relative resignation and restraint are ratcheted up to rage, with both Ray and Dave totally focused and committed. If they can play like this together, why would they ever want to stop? The whole climactic crescendo of sound is simply magnificent.

If looks could kill

But after watching this interview at the time of 'Scattered' (1993), I can see how Dave would never want to put himself in a similar situation again, where he’s literally frightened to speak, even to interject a frivolous comment, that it’s not worth the risk of Ray’s wrath, that look he gives him is so cutting and demoralising (see 1.17 to 1.29 for their awkward interaction). And yet, there’s affection there, in the video of the same song, when Ray sings

‘I feel older, I feel fatter’

and their exchange of smiles around two minutes in looks genuine but is it only for the benefit of the camera?

They would have to be willing/able to put aside their own past personal grievances and behave respectfully towards each other if there were ever to be a Kinks reunion. Although Dave is all about forgiveness, it’s one thing to forgive and another thing to put yourself in a position where you know you will have to exercise the muscle of forgiveness in advance.

Everybody’s waiting for the blog on Satsang 3 but I left everything I wrote in the hotel and have yet to get it back. It’s in transit. The gigs were great and we got to hear some tracks off Dave’s new album, very interesting, very varied – the five tracks we’ve heard so far (either live or as album mixes) are quite different. Dave still rocks, still emotes, still surprises. I don't know whether I’m allowed to divulge track titles yet.