Reflections on 'Kink' by Dave Davies

Hardback cover

I’d originally entitled this ‘Kink’ vs ‘X-Ray’ but realised that this helped to perpetuate a sense of competition between the brothers. I know that Dave doesn’t want to play that game. And the two books relate in a complementary way, one illuminating some of the shadows in the other but still retaining the chiaroscuro: put them together and you get the full picture.

You might think from reading their autobiographies and from their constant skirmishes that all the Davies brothers have in common is a love of malted milkshakes. Dave makes his own version with Horlicks and Haagen-Dazs. Music brought them together despite their differences and kept them together through thick and thin. There are many of us who hope (against hope) that one day it will again.

'I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Ray phoned up someone at our office and said: Have you seen Dave's book? They said they'd seen bits and pieces. He said (adopts serious, pained tone): You know, I think this is going to be the end of the Kinks this year.'

This comment manages to imply that the Kinks have an end every year. Not sure whether Ray’s reaction is caused by Dave’s personal criticisms of Ray (as prevalent as his appreciation of his talent) or the fact that Dave’s revelations will somehow affect the reputation of the band, leading to its dissolution.

This started off as an attempt to compare Kink with X-Ray, focusing on certain events covered in both books to see how different the brothers’ perceptions and preoccupations are. But, for the moment, I want to concentrate on an overview of ‘Kink’, and in particular, what it says about the early days of the Kinks.

Dave at eleven, thanks, Frank!

I have already written about X-Ray and stated that it’s in no way a straightforward read. Dave’s book is much more open, more even-handed and seems at first glance much more transparent. But you should never judge a book by its cover or rely on your first impression. As I delved further, I realised that Dave happily disclosed much of his bad behaviour, was occasionally remorseful but sometimes proud. He's able to hide in plain sight, by appearing to ‘show and tell’ but the book does not 'tell all', Dave understandably remaining reticent where some family relationships are concerned. Nevertheless, Kink still provides more detail than X-Ray, particularly on the things that mattered to Dave back then (girls, cars, fashion) with the added advantage that it hasn’t been mixed with fiction (these are the facts as Dave remembers them) and that it takes us beyond 1973 into the 90s. Ray is rumoured to have another book in the pipeline and we can be sure it will be hard to fathom but fascinating. Oh and Dave’s includes an index which helps any reader, reviewer, confirm facts, names, dates, as they go or as they return (something which Ray’s ‘work of faction’ mitigates against) and photographs, including one of Dave as a very cheeky-looking eleven-year-old. I bet he could get away with murder, something confirmed by his mother’s comment ‘you were such a lovely little boy, but what a sod you were’. I don't know if I can write that in a blog. I think it’s ok if I write it with an English accent.

Dave spends a while talking about each album as it occurs: the inspiration for certain tracks, how particular effects were achieved, which tracks were his favourites and why. It’s made me revisit some songs and listen to ones that were new to me (being a relatively recent fan). More on this aspect in the next blog.

Dave’s style is very natural. Like Dave. There’s no additional storyline, no framing device, no omnipotent Corporation. He’s purely and simply stated what happened and when and how he felt at the time. Occasionally he goes off track, but normally when trying to explain or describe something extraordinary. He writes more articulately than I thought he would before I met him (sorry, Dave, I know better now). At the close of the book, he starts to ramble a little and this could possibly have been kept in check by a zealous editor but, as I’ve been known to ramble myself, I’ll forgive him.

‘It’s a miracle we survived it at all.’

Once you’ve read Dave’s book, you can totally identify with this quote on the back cover. No kidding. It is a miracle that Dave survived. Someone must be watching over him.

Dave from Tumblr

‘He was withdrawn and thoughtful. I did the partying; he wrote about it.’

The book is partly a celebration of an era (the 60s and 70s when the Kinks were at the height of their powers in the UK), the new freedoms, the permissive society, the drug culture, the fashion. Dave’s right: he lived the life, embraced it with open arms (and, let's face it, when Dave was young, he wouldn't have been satisfied with just an embrace), apparent in footage from the time, like this rendition of ‘I’m a Lover Not a Fighter’ (my marvellous friend described him as ‘a force of nature then’) or 'Beautiful Delilah', he often appears more assured and comfortable on stage than Ray (sometimes endearingly gauche), who was to come into his own later; Ray remained detached, sampling a little at a time while considering, observing and commentating. As the quote suggests, Ray experienced things vicariously through Dave. He didn’t have to go over the edge himself but, as in his recurring nightmare (described later), allowed Dave to launch himself over the precipice. If he hadn’t let go, Dave’s momentum would have taken them both.

The Scotch of St James

‘It was a very hazy time for me really, because I was always out of it. I was always getting crazy and going around the clubs and having a great time, falling over with Eric Burdon at the Scotch of St James’s.’

According to Jon Savage’s excellent book on the Kinks, when ‘You Really Got Me’ went to Number One, Dave embarked on a binge that was to last three years. He began to care about designer labels, know the names of posh drinking clubs, and was seduced by the trappings of his own fame.

‘I close my eyes and smile and thank God that I’m still here and that there’s nothing I have missed.’

No chance of that, Dave. He captures the hedonistic spirit of the times in a way that Ray doesn’t, possibly because Dave was more in tune/step with them. He quickly realises that his success opens doors and bursts through them, while Ray hesitates on the threshold. Dave’s account floods colour into a picture that was monochrome in X-Ray, as he is prone to none of Ray’s ambivalence. In my analysis of X-Ray, I described it as predominantly ‘Impressionist’ but Dave’s tales are the details taken from that painting. Everyone knows the devil is in the detail.

'His clothes are loud, but never square' ('Dedicated Follower of Fashion')

Dave’s devotion to consumerism is at odds with the Dave we now know, but he’s refreshingly forthright about it while occasionally suffering slight misgivings, choosing to revisit Muswell Hill in 1969 in his Austin Mini rather than his Citroen Maserati. He later criticises the owners of a shop called Lord Jim that gave him credit when he was at the top, but want cash once the Kinks have fallen out of favour. He sees them as traitors because of this. I like a quote from the unlikely source of Shania Twain here. She said that it made no sense that people only wanted to give her free things once she was rich enough to actually afford them. She didn’t accept them.

Told:

‘Sorry, Dave. Come back when you have a hit record.’

‘I threw his clothes at him, told him what I thought of him, then kicked over some clothes-racks before I stormed out of the store. … Before he had had his tongue so far up my arse that he could barely breathe, and now he was treating me like this.’

Dave doesn’t seem to have come across fair-weather friends before and appears to have enjoyed all the kow-towing that preceded the come-down. ‘A Long Way from Home’ is critical of this type of behaviour:

‘… you think/That money buys everything …/ I hope you find what you are looking for with your cars and your handmade overcoats’

Dave enthusiastically documents his voyage into excess with the same no-holds-barred approach in which he over-indulged at the time, with the same intensity which he invests in this 'Milk Cow Blues'. So many times he doesn’t know what drugs he’s taking, how he gets home, who he’s with. He’s led a charmed life. I know plenty of people who’ve experimented to a much lesser degree and are still ruing the consequences (it’s usually the family that bears the brunt). I’m not disapproving although I think he took way too many risks despite proliferating warning signs – his friends George Harris and Ewin Stephens dying from overdoses, his own experiences. Poor wife Lisbet was long-suffering:

‘As she placed the food in front of me, I collapsed on the table, smashing the plate and knocking the table to the floor. There was blood all over the place.’

She pours his drugs down the drain.

‘I struggled with her and tried to pick the dissolving drugs out of the sink with my fingers …set about dismantling the U-bend’.

They were great boots!

But these deaths and episodes only seem to register momentarily with Dave; he says he’ll be in touch with George’s Mum and wishes he had got his favourite boots back from Ewin. He seems more distressed about losing the boots than he does about Ewin’s death, indicative of his preoccupations at the time.

‘They had been hand-made at Anello & Davide, thigh-length in tan leather with a large Cuban heel and a narrow Spanish-style toe. They were skin-tight and came right up to my crotch, with a loop strap at the top of each boot where I could thread a belt.’

It’s obvious that he really loved them. Even the picture captions confirm his interest: ‘Note my lace shirt’, ‘my trademark gingham shirt’. He was a total fashionista then.

 

Although this seems callous, it’s possibly also a self-defence mechanism. If he stops to think, he’d have to stop … . It’s almost as if he believed he were untouchable, invincible. He rushes headlong into more danger, blithe, oblivious.

As usual, I have a lot more to write, but will include here an example from the two books because I mentioned it earlier.

Brotherly love

It’s interesting that both brothers believe that they will have to look out for or protect the other one and they come to this realisation through some sleep-induced phenomena.

‘I realized that night even though I was the younger brother, I would somehow have to fulfil the role of the older one and keep a look-out for him.’

This is Dave’s comment after witnessing Ray sleepwalking. It’s very similar to Ray’s: 

‘As I looked over at my brother sleeping peacefully in the next bed, I knew that I would always have to protect this interloper even though I could never quite forgive him for spoiling my solitary but idyllic existence’.

‘I had a recurring dream. My brother and I were playing on the edge of a cliff. David Russell slipped over the edge and I grabbed him as he fell. There we would stay, one brother literally holding the other's life in his hands. As the dream turned into a nightmare, I felt my sibling’s hand slip from my grasp, and the pathetic cries from my falling brother caused me to wake, shouting and sweating.’

‘I always end up letting him fall.’

Whether this is through lack of strength or lack of will is not made clear. It’s possible that this was a portent of their future dynamic, Dave always plummeting over the edge as Ray reached out to stop him.

As children, they reject each other and find their brotherly connection with their nephews, who are of a similar age: Ray with Terry (Rose and Arthur’s child) and Dave with Michael (Dolly and Joe’s child).


More in next blog about the three Rs: relationships, responsibility and respect. See Dave Davies - Kink - Man Behaving Badly.

(Thanks to http://maydavies.tumblr.com/ for the gif(t))

Village Green Preservation Society – The Kinks

This purports to be an analysis of concert footage from London in 1973, specifically of the song ‘Village Green Preservation Society’, but diverts from its purpose many a time.

This video is a virtual microcosm of the Kinks’ career and Dave’s trajectory within it. A foretaste of what was to come. It’s a falling line on a graph: from singing lead vocal on much of the Kinks early output, albeit B-sides or album tracks, some self-penned, some by Ray and many of the covers (‘I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight’, ‘Got My Feet on the Ground’, ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’) to joint lead on some songs (early, ‘Milk Cow Blues’, 'I Don't Need You Any More', slightly later, ‘Juke Box Music’, at least live), to backing singer (‘Life on the Road’, ‘Slum Kids’, ‘The Informer’). Later, and you imagine it’s in the manner of a papal dispensation, he’s granted a temporary recall from banishment and brought in from the cold to sing a song or two live (with some kind of entente cordiale in the early 80s when he gets to sing three: ‘Come On Now’, ‘Living on a Thin Line’ and ‘Bernadette’) unless a song proves very popular like ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’, in which case Ray resumes lead, even though he wrote this song for Dave’s voice, as he did ‘Sleepless Night’. (For more on this, please see 'bashfulbadgersblog'.) Sometimes he’s allowed to sing ‘Too Much on My Mind’ but they never seem to play ‘Strangers’, ‘Mindless Child of Motherhood’ or ‘This Man He Weeps Tonight’. At least, if they ever did, they’re not on YouTube, which is I’m afraid my only point of reference since I never saw them live. If only.

[In fact, ‘Milk Cow Blues’ proves an exception to the rule, with Dave originally singing a verse then passing the lead to Ray as in the 1965 version above - Dave’s like a wild animal, a tiger (in fact, in 'My Way', he sings 'I was born a tiger'), there’s often something uncontrolled about him, in his guitar playing and his singing – you’ll never hear him play/sing a song exactly the same way – it’s all fluid and flexible and when he gives, he gives it all, totally instinctual, the lyrics are mutable; at this stage, Ray’s more like a pussycat, riled enough to reveal his claws and rhythmically thump his tail but back to refuting my own point, in this 1966 performance, Dave starts the song, Ray takes over lead vocal then it reverts to Dave at the end and it’s as if they’re competing with each other as to who can hold the notes longer and deliver them with the most passion.]

While I’m on Dave’s backing vocals – well I was on them till I went off-track – I have to eulogise them a little. Their voices are so distinctive and they blend so well; Dave’s higher-pitched tone an emotional echo (it is an echo as it’s often just slightly behind Ray’s lead as people have commented on the Ray Davies Forum but it works like this and I’m sure is deliberate) and counterpoint to Ray’s voice of reason. Listen to ‘Scattered’, ‘Life on the Road’, ‘Slum Kids’, ‘Picture Book’, 'Jukebox Music', ‘Mr Pleasant’. I said in one of my first blogs, how live, Ray quite often acknowledges the advent of Dave’s distinctive backing vocal with a smile of recognition, sometimes combined with a sexy hairtoss, no doubt realising that this is a pretty irresistible combination, the incorrigible flirt. [It reminds me of a Bratpack movie, where a girl could flick her hair and smile and it was wryly considered a great accomplishment. Might have been About Last Night.

Googled it and it was (how’s that for my memory of total trivia?), found this:
Joan Her big move should be coming up any moment. The combination hair flip with a giggle.
Debbie There is a 3.2 level of difficulty here, Joan. Let's see if she can pull it off.
Joan This is it... this is it... Oh Yes!
Debbie Oh Yes! Yes! Oh Bravo! Bravo! 9.0!]

Don’t get me wrong. I love Ray’s voice and appreciate the way he can turn on a dime, from playful and affected to impassioned. To see him perform ‘Yo Yo’ (1982, Essen), with such total and more-than-adrenalin-fuelled commitment, is astonishing. He’s completely mesmerising. He gives everything. And so does Dave on guitar, so powerful; they match each other’s intensity. I love it when Ray reaches the top end of his range in ‘Million Pound Semi-Detached’ – it’s really touching. The choices he makes musically are always spot on. It’s not so much that he can do something as when he decides to do it, sometimes on the most unromantic word, like ‘semi’. ‘The Real World’ is a beautifully put-together song, in which Ray’s vocal wrenches your soul. Listen to the last verse/chorus ‘So head off in the car and follow the stars’ – it’s heart-breaking, the first half of the line plain-speaking, the second imbued with that wistfulness that only Ray can impart, in lyric, voice and melody (his signature move, level of difficulty: irrelevant to him because it comes so naturally). When he writes about Dave, and I don't think I’m reaching here (‘So you headed down south, left your old home town, … relocated so far away from the real world’ – it doesn’t take a detective to work this out although I admit that it could just as easily be about an ex-girlfriend), there’s always a special intimacy plus a real evocation of loss and regret. You can hear the love in his voice even if he’s unable to express it when they meet. I don’t think Dave needs to worry that Ray sometimes minimises his contribution (after all, what better way to wind him up?), because it’s obvious that he’s always in his thoughts. And I’d venture much more so than the other way around.

Anyway, I digress: Ray is sweaty and preternaturally pale and extraordinarily beautiful in this particular incarnation. Dave is slight (and perhaps used to being slighted), almost physically diminished somehow, insubstantial, an effect of his stance and position; as if he’s trying to disappear altogether. He looks like his body is there but his mind somewhere else. His eyes are glazed. They look without seeing, in complete contrast to this early ‘Waterloo Sunset’, in which he’s so alert to the camera’s every move, so intent on being noticed, forever making eye contact with the lens.

So, let’s (over-)analyse:
Ray is in shot as he shyly and somewhat disingenuously introduces the song. Camera zooms out from Mick to a wide shot of the band.
Both Ray and Dave are shown, in the forefront of a wide shot, side by side, almost equal partners.
Then a two-shot, both in view, with Ray in focus in the foreground, Dave out of focus behind him.
Throughout the performance, the cameraman pulls focus now and then, rendering one clear, the other blurry, neck and neck, as it were. There are glorious stereo hair tosses as they synchronously approach the mikes to sing. Usually Ray is in focus and pre-eminent, with Dave out of focus; he seems to be first a shadow, a smaller image of his brother (because of perspective), then in his brother’s shadow. This is the most recurrent shot (this technique is also evident in this live version of ‘Juke Box Music’ although the emphasis on Ray is less pronounced). And possibly the story of Dave’s life; also used in this video of ‘Days’, with Ray mostly clear and Dave mainly blurred although it switches occasionally.
Dave medium close-up right, remembering the words.
Ray extreme close-up right – don’t need to say whether he knows the words or not – if he didn’t, there would be no song; he can't rely on Dave.
Back to the usual two-shot, with Ray clear in the foreground, Dave less distinct behind him.
Then they are shown separately, from different sides, superimposed on the background of the whole band, face to face, as it were, with Dave visible in the background and foreground, forgetting the words (well, there are so many!) and, in the background shot, looking somewhat dazed, perhaps by the onslaught of lyrical verbiage.
A technique much beloved of the BBC at the time is common here, where a dissolve is unresolved so that you can see through the subject in the foreground to the shot behind. Very noticeable in much ‘TOTP’ footage of the Kinks. See the aforementioned ‘Waterloo Sunset’, for instance. A contrariness in me always wants to see the person in the background.
The camera pans down from the right to show most of the band one by one.
Ray alone in medium shot, from front. Can hear Dave in background – it’s not fair – he knows this bit!
Shot of horn section.
Two-shot again, Ray in front, with Dave and John Dalton part of the indistinct background.
Camera swerves to show Ray from right.
Camera ranges to show most of the band.
Back to the recurring shot. Both again, in a two-shot and both in focus.
Switch to the facing images again but this time they’re both Ray, one medium close-up left and an extreme close-up right and only part of Dave is accidentally visible; he’s lost in some dark, out-of-focus (as out of focus as his eyes) hinterland, an in-between world, another dimension, between the two in-focus shots of Ray before disappearing altogether. This scenario is the one that seems to have most often proliferated in live footage of the Kinks ever since, with sometimes almost whole concerts in which the only parts of Dave you’re likely to catch sight of are his hands on the guitar, during a guitar solo – that’s if they’re not showing Ray’s by mistake.
Dave alone right.
Camera pans to two-shot again, this time with Dave in focus, everything but his eyes at least (and that’s no fault of the cameraman). A final reprieve.
Back to the horns again, with the shot gradually widening to encompass Mick then the rest of band.

After
Dave smiles shyly, timidly, at Ray, with something of a beaten dog still anxious to please an unpredictable and volatile master.

Ray graciously and flamboyantly receives the audience applause with a grandiose flourish.

Dave isn’t zoned out for the whole concert. He invests all his energy and enthusiasm in ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’, very obviously enjoying himself (and when you see him like that, how could you deny him the opportunity, the unadulterated joy, also apparent in his failure to hide his smile of anticipation before he sings the beginning of ‘Juke Box Music’); in fact, the whole band looks more relaxed, apart from Ray, whose engagement seems jittery and nervous in comparison and whose backing vocals sound a little strained and frantic. During Dave’s guitar break, they show Ray on the mouth organ, which you can't hear in the mix.

Poor John Gosling is so far over to the left that the camera can hardly ever include him. He can occasionally be spotted in the background of other shots. But at least he isn’t made to appear in some costume or other, those wicked boys.

Obviously, it’s natural for the lead vocalist (especially when he’s also the songwriter) to take centre stage in performance so this analysis is in a sense, a little facetious. But I had fun.

Intended to do a blog on the recent Satsang event at Dave’s house but I know someone else who’s writing one so don’t want to duplicate that. More later but suffice to say 'Milk Cow Blues' is still a showstopper.

First, I'll report on a weekend in the perfect village, according to William Cobbett, where the Church of Leven gathered for Easter.