Poco versus Eagles: 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven'*

*Title quote taken from Ecclesiastes 3:1, also familiar from the Byrds song ‘Turn, Turn,Turn’, written by Pete Seeger. Richie Furay got together with Chris Hillman from the Byrds and J. D. Souther to form the imaginatively named Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. Well, it worked for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Early days

So, this blog is really about why the Eagles made it and Poco didn’t.It's pure speculation of course.

‘What’s in a name?’

Well, Shakespeare thought nothing but I’m so glad that they changed the name from Pogo. Who could have taken them seriously? Poco was really a complete accident name-wise but you know, to the uninitiated, it could mean anything, peace in Arapahoe, for instance, river in Sioux. It has connotations of depth. I don't think there’s much to choose between the names Eagles and Poco though.

Could they look any more louche?

Genre-bending

Don Henley:

Even now the Eagles are thought of as a country-rock band. The music industry and the media saddled us with that label at the very beginning, and, no matter how diverse our musical palate, it has been impossible to shake that stereotype. At the end of the day, we’re an American band. We’re a musical mutt with influences from every genre of American popular music. It’s all in there.

[‘Saddled with’ seems like an apt term when we consider the cowboy-themed Desperado but the implication is that this is something you would want to avoid but I don't believe Poco ever felt the need to disassociate themselves from this category and I’m with them – in the 70s, surely it was the best thing to be? Or perhaps it shows foresight on Don’s part that he realised they had to transcend this label to achieve world domination.]

Despite this quote, it isn’t really true. The Eagles have crossed over. And everyone knows it. They straddle a number of genres, like musical giants. In doing this successfully, they also attract criticism from purists along with accusations of selling out. As if to sell records and to sell out were synonymous. Poco never sold out but neither did they ever sell as well as the Eagles.

So how did this band of talented musicians and songwriters, with a great pedigree, proven track record, manage to escape fame and fortune in the 70s? How did they do that usually quintessentially English thing – snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

They could!

Naked ambition

We know that the Eagles had this in spades along with tons of confidence.

David Geffen:

The Eagles weren’t going to fail. It was a group that was put together with clear intentions.

Glenn Frey:

This was our best shot. Everyone had to look good, sing good, play good and write good. We wanted it all. Peer respect. AM and FM success. Number one singles and albums, great music and a lot of money.

Bernie Leadon:

We had lofty goals …Here we are, you want us or not?

They sound so single-minded. Then again, it might have been mere bravado. Glenn Frey:

There was a certain intensity … perhaps a lot of it was bluff.

But I’m sure Poco were also driven, just more carefully. Timothy B. Schmit:

But I had a vision – I just wanted to write songs and travel and be on stage.  I wanted that adoration from being a musician.

Maybe Poco were too much of their time, too laidback and easy-going. No doubt they had ambition but it wasn’t the vaunting hubris that launches careers (for instance, a band who call themselves America – that’s a bold statement). They probably thought they could leave all that behind with Stills and Young. But they fit perfectly into the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter culture. Folk/country rock was up and coming, the latest rage. It was surely the right time and place for them.

Bitter Blue

Perhaps they didn’t rate themselves highly or take themselves seriously enough. Perhaps they looked like they were having too good a time, that nothing more was needed. The template in a way for the early Eagles, a vocal harmony group (the essence that the Eagles wanted to recapture when they reformed in 1994), as mentioned in my first Poco blog, they watched that band soar (forgive the pun) into the stratosphere while they languished on the ground, performing, releasing records, garnering admirers but never really ‘making it’.

They’re like a diamond in the rough. If you polish it, you gain something but you also lose something: the spontaneity, the freshness. I still love Eagles harmonies and loved it when they sang No More Walks in the Wood on the Long Road out of Eden tour but it was almost too perfect, too pristine.

Why did the people who walked away – Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Randy Meisner, Timothy B. Schmit – go on to greater things? It surely wasn't just talent.

Irving Azoff

The Eagles of course had a ruthless, devoted and feisty manager in Irving Azoff. They were his cause and he never lost sight of the big picture. Loyal to them above all. My favourite quote from the Hotel California book is from J. D. Souther:

Irving’s 15% of everybody turned out to be worth more than everyone’s 85% of themselves.

But did he really alter the course of their history? And I don’t want to suggest that Poco’s management was less effective although someone on the Border has just reminded me that Poco's management turned down an offer to play Woodstock - possibly not the greatest decision. As with everything though, it’s probably a combination of all of the above.
 

Wow! Joe looks gorgeous

Then there’s Joe Walsh. He attracted a whole raft of rock fans (and still does) and although I think he’s a crazy and entertaining character with a great sense of humour, the well-brought-up, un-rock-and-roll side of me doesn’t approve of all those destructive rampages. I just don’t see the point and can't help but feel sorry for the people who had to clean up after him. He brings rock credibility, at no. 54 in Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. And his onstage guitar duels with Don Felder were something else.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

I tend to believe this is simply serendipity rather than strictly meritorious. Even given that taste is subjective, we all know bands/singers whose work has never received the recognition it deserves while lesser talents are lauded (not that I’m in any way implying the Eagles were lesser talents). People seem to like what they hear most often and these days that tends to be rap, hip-hop and fey, affected girl singers. See my first ever music blog for my thoughts on this.

Path less travelled

Poco followed the country route, unlike the Eagles, who made a transition, became a bonafide country-rock hybrid and didn’t lose anything, only seemed to gain. It was no accident that  Bernie Leadon fell by the wayside. He wanted to stay closer to their country roots. Poco have stayed more grounded in this way. They appear in the Country Music Hall of Fame (with their own exhibit) rather than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But, even if we accept that the Eagles’ huge success was down to their ability to cross the divide, it doesn’t explain the popularity of tracks from early in their career, such as Peaceful Easy Feeling, Witchy Woman and Take It Easy, a time when they were more country-orientated. These all made the Top 40.

Rose of Cimarron

'I write the songs' 

Rusty Young highlights the importance of being able to write songs in this entertaining interview. David Geffen, speaking to Rusty, after convincing Richie Furay to leave Poco: 

You don’t write and you don’t sing.  You’re in big trouble.

Rusty Young:

That’s the day I became a songwriter.  Whether he knew it or not, David Geffen gave me the best advice I have ever heard.

There’s been much discussion on the Poconut forum lately about which band has the best writers and I have to admit to 'Sitting on a Fence’. I can see that Henley’s lyrics chimed with the Zeitgeist in a way that Poco’s didn’t (while prefiguring its eventual disillusion/dissolution - Henley's always been prescient that way) and that, at the same time, they were incredibly evocative and alluring to people who were only aware of the 70s, the Californian scene, after the fact and from a great distance. The Eagles became a soundtrack to the era. I love both Frey and Henley’s songs (and the contributions of Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner, Don Felder, Joe Walsh, Jack Tempchin and Jackson Browne) equally. But Poco had as many talented writers as the Eagles, with Richie Furay, Rusty Young, Paul Cotton, Timothy B. Schmit, Jim Messina all writing. They just couldn’t seem to translate critical acclaim into commercial success. This simple fact led to a series of line-up changes as members became disenchanted or were poached by record companies, but Poco still endured, with the core altering a little each time.

In my last blog, I mentioned a few Poco songs that I think are on a par with Eagles songs but there are more: Furay’s What If I Should Say I Love You (the passion and fervour bring tears to my eyes every time); Schmit’s Find Out in Time; Cotton’s Angel; Young’s magical Spellbound.

And I’m only a newcomer to Poco whereas I know Eagles albums like the back of my hand. I’m probably only scraping the surface of their material. All taste is subjective so I’m certain there are plenty of Poconuts who would choose completely different tracks to these or those in my last blog.

But perhaps they were mere featherweights in a heavyweight field. Their gossamer-fine songs lacked the punch of the best of the Eagles material.

Exposure
I suspect though that radio play was a significant factor. I can't speak for the States but in the UK, it was hard not to hear the Eagles, whereas you would only ever hear Rose of Cimarron by Poco. It’s not that their songs did not resonate as strongly, more that they never reached the same market and never got a chance to become standards in the way of Desperado or New Kid in Town. It might be a question of how they were promoted or how they were perceived.

Go, Don!

It's all about sex, really (to quote my former English Lit teacher)

But I think what really did it, what made the difference, is something I can actually trace in my own experience. One of These Nights was simply the sexiest thing I’d ever heard on late-night radio and the first time I heard the Eagles. Its intro sent a thrill through me. Rose of Cimarron I believed pleasant but unmemorable although my first Schmitten blog confirms it had entered my consciousness and I did remember it years later.

Don Felder came up with the opening bass line of One of These Nights (and let's not forget his other vital contribution: Hotel California). Don Henley:

With Don Felder, we can really rock. He's made us nastier and he's done a great guitar solo on One of These Nights.

The very act of listening to One of These Nights (and Witchy Woman which has the same ‘satanic country-rock’ vibe) seemed illicit and exhilarating (well, I did live in Sidcup and we got real excited about a chicken the other day – it was a magnificent chicken though). You felt complicit in a crime.

Languid, mysterious

Glenn and Don, in particular, Glenn, let’s face it, the cascading hair, the droopy moustache, those molten blue (I admit I always thought they were brown), come-to-bed eyes, looked and sounded dangerous. Poco seemed like safe, down-home country boys nextdoor, the Eagles like bad boys from the wrong side of the tracks. But I can't even say this had anything to do with looks because I'd never seen young Timothy B. Schmit.  Then there were those straightforward lyrics ‘I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight’ (Peaceful Easy Feeling) or ‘It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me’ which leads to ‘Open up, I’m climbing in’, so compelling, direct and honest.

Of course, the Eagles played up the outlaw image with the Desperado album but we were already convinced. More West Coast than Wild West, it was all the same to those of us in the London suburbs. Something out in the Wild Blue Yonder.

Anyway, these are just a few of my thoughts. Be interested to hear what any readers think.

Now, if I'd seen this ...

Thanks to http://www.timothybschmitonline.com,

http://eaglesonlinecentral.com, http://www.poconut.org/ and Wikipedia.

Dave Davies – ‘Kink’ – Man Behaving Badly

If you see a fair form

If you see a fair form, chase it
And if possible, embrace it,
Be it a girl or a boy.
Don't be bashful, be brash, be fresh.
Life is short, so enjoy
Whatever contact your flesh
May at the moment crave:
There is no sex life in the grave.

W. H. Auden

This poem could sum up Dave’s carpe diem approach to life in the 60s. And perhaps other people’s attitudes to his fair form.

In 1964, Dave held all the cards. Seventeen, heartbreakingly beautiful, confident, talented, successful, limitless sex appeal. He played what should have been a winning hand with reckless abandon while Ray feinted and bluffed with his.

Somehow, despite everything that Dave does, he emerges untouched, still retaining a naivety and an aura of innocence, purity. There must be a portrait gathering dust in an attic somewhere.

I promised relationships, respect, responsibility and it seems to me that these are inextricably entwined. I might not fit them all in this blog though.

‘I wanna lot out of life, but I know my limitations/Guess I want a lot of things and got my inclinations’ (‘Got My Feet on the Ground’)

Dave’s sheer exuberance and joie de vivre carry us along with him as he bounds from one (mis)adventure to the next, hardly pausing for breath, his lust for life redolent in the action and in the telling (encapsulated in Shel Naylor’s suitably raucous and energetic version of ‘One Fine Day’). Dave is open to everything, an attractive quality that can be a fault as well as a virtue. He doesn’t reason things out too much when he’s in his teens and early twenties. And he manages to have his cake and eat it too. I’ve never really understood the thinking behind that phrase. What’s the point in having cake if you're not going to eat it?

Battle of the sexes?
I do sometimes wonder whether both brothers fight a tiny, subconscious misogynist urge. Maybe all men do, being encouraged to perceive themselves in an adversarial relationship with women, obliged to take part in the battle of the sexes. There are certainly signs although I’m sure that they would say that they love women and Dave championed female deities and feminine power at the last Satsang. Ray often seems to divide women into those who withhold sex in order to trap/control a man (usually holding out until they see Dave’s smile) and those who freely indulge in sex, in order to trap/control a man and he thinks each is a deliberate manoeuvre. Girls withhold for many reasons, especially first time around, many having little to do with the actual man who feels he’s being denied. There are questions of respect, born out of attitudes exactly like Ray’s. You’re a slapper if you put out and frigid if you don’t.

Consider these lyrics:

Ooh, Bernadette, you are so expensive/You've never done a day's work in your life/You've got no incentive/You've made a career out of punting off all of the men you've slept with' (‘Bernadette’)

and Ray's exhortation at the end of this live version (quote deleted to appease the moral majority). Anyway, it sounds pretty bitter, possibly a reaction to a particular experience or the influence of too many recreational pharmaceuticals.

In Kink, Dave claims that there’s an old Cockney saying: ‘I fucked her rigid’. Never heard that one.

Ray and Rasa wedding photo

I’m not saying that some women don’t use sex as a weapon; some definitely do, if not as a weapon, at least as a means of manipulation. (This is sometimes learnt behaviour from how men react to them). I’m not saying that women don’t trap men in all sorts of ways. And possibly this does happen with Dave and Ray at different times in their lives although of course, if it’s an unplanned pregnancy, both partners have equal responsibility. I also believe that men collude with these stereotypes, liking to see themselves as desirable of entrapment, even if it means playing the role of the dupe.

I know several men who claim that they get on really well with women and that they are in touch with their feminine side although many are sorely deluded. These men often cite an early female-dominated environment as being at the root of this innate ability to connect with women. As far as Ray and Dave are concerned, this would relate to their being the first boys in a family of six girls, who petted and adored their younger brothers. I believe they went out in the world expecting all women to cosset them like this. So, while both claim to have been shy although Dave admits he was never shy with girls, they were also supremely confident. Their upbringing led to a sense of entitlement and a sense of security. Witness Dave walking home from primary school because he didn’t like it and Ray refusing to toe the line for the Eleven Plus.

First experiences

Women are usually very receptive to Ray and Dave and their attentions. Some are kind and giving as both brothers acknowledge. The Davies boys appear reactive rather than proactive so it’s usually a girl that approaches them or makes the first move. Dave sleeps with groupies but these are usually girls he doesn’t have to seek out. Even Lisbet was introduced to him. And Rasa pursued Ray, see my blog on ‘X-Ray’ for more on this.

‘I used to do my courting on an old kitchen chair/The girls were all so sporting, but I only really cared for my little Katie-Sue/There was nothing she wouldn't do’ (‘Fortis Green’)

So their first sexual encounters seem to be initiated by women or girls, from Sue:

‘We pushed our chairs together and began to kiss, deep tender kisses … Sue straddled herself across my lap after hitching up her delightfully pleated skirt and I entered her. It was a truly magical moment’ after which ‘Sue and I made love at every opportunity.’

to the ‘lady of the night’ (as my Mum would have put it), with a heart of gold (Miriam) in the club who is kind to Ray:

‘Then I felt her hands on my skin as she slid them under my shirt to feel my backside. … She kissed me gently on the face … she just grabbed me harder and kissed me on the mouth.’

‘So tonight let's be together, live for love and life and pleasure/Feel each moment there to treasure, soon we will be gone forever’ (‘Ladies of the Night’)

Ray, of course, doesn’t reveal exactly what takes place. Dave does. This willingness to divulge is apparent again when he relates some of his experiences with groupies.

EP cover

‘God save little shops, china cups and virginity’ (‘Village Green Preservation Society’)
'He'll make you laugh, make you smile/And make you feel good for a while/Wicked smile, decadent grin/He likes school girls, nuns and virgins' ('He's Evil')

While still living with his parents, Dave’s escapades are escalating:

‘Often Mum would try to bash down the door to see if there were any underage girls. Of course there weren’t … . But on one occasion I was with a girl whose hymen was so difficult to break that for a moment I thought she still had her tights on.’

I do feel sorry for Eileen, a friend of Rasa’s, of whom Dave says:

‘A pretty, dark-haired girl whom I took back to my hotel. … Eileen hung around a lot but I wasn’t interested in her as a constant companion. There were too many girls to see in other towns we visited.’

They connect at the same time that Ray meets Rasa, hook up at the wedding and are ‘lying locked in sexual ecstasy’ when Dave is supposed to be making his best man’s speech. So when Eileen announces she is pregnant, possibly expecting that Dave might do ‘the better thing’ as Ray had done with Rasa, and as he failed to do with Sue two years earlier, ostensibly owing to the machinations of their parents, she is bitterly disappointed. A paternity suit is filed and the implication of:

‘It was amazing what 50 quid could buy in those days’

is that Eileen was bought off by Dave’s lawyers. Ray mentions this in ‘X-Ray’ very briefly as another paternity suit. Were there more then?

Although Dave claims to feel badly for Eileen, he writes,

‘I also felt manipulated as I had only had sex with her three or four times and I knew that she had been hanging around with other bands at the same time.’

Fair enough. How many times does it take though? Only one. Eileen comes to see Dave in the 90s to show him photos of her son (perhaps his son) but he writes:

‘I just didn’t have any deeper feeling about it … I didn’t “feel” like I was his father and he my son.’

It’s not really about you, honey. It’s about him.  Dave allows his heart and what he feels for Eileen (not very much – it was a bit of fun that got too serious too soon) to guide him (a positive trait, which, in other situations, leads him to show a compassion and understanding missing from some of Ray's reactions) but sometimes following your own heart can break someone else's. Sue’s daughter, Tracey, fares better but that’s a longer tale so I’ll leave it for now.

Back to the groupies although it’s not entirely clear if that’s what these girls are or whether they would have ended up in bed with Dave regardless, pop star or not. Such is his youthful appeal. He often has girls jumping into bed with him and as a red-blooded male, he very rarely refuses when they offer. 

‘After a while, I was awakened by the blonde girl as she snuggled up beside me. She was naked.’

Naturally, Dave doesn’t resist this opportunity.We get details and let’s face it, that’s what we want from an autobiography, ‘This blonde Vampira licked my stomach and placed my penis fully into her mouth and began to suck on it like the Goddess of Whores’.

Again, she makes the first move and what is she labelled? The ‘Goddess of Whores’? (Double standards, anyone? Although I actually think Dave means this as a compliment.) (Of course David Watts does call Dave ‘that little whore’, a term of affection in that instance.) Again, the woman takes control:

‘Then she sat on top of me and placed my cock inside her.’ It's clear that Dave doesn't have to try too hard. I like this evocative description of another encounter:

‘One of the girls undressed me and laid me on the couch’ … ‘I felt her mouth on my penis and it felt as if her tongue was inside my head, touching and stimulating every nerve ending and sensory centre in my brain.’

He’s understandably more reticent on the subject of the women he cares about – Sue, Lisbet, Nancy – realising that discretion is the better part of valour. And he spends time talking to them before getting down to it. Or does he?

‘Once in my room I began to make clumsy and drunken advances to a bewildered Lisbet. After a short while, before I could remove any of her clothing, there was a loud knock at the door.’

Long John Baldry

Men
Dave’s short-lived relationships with men, such as Michael Aldred and Long John Baldry are mentioned:

‘Long John and I sat talking, kissing and holding hands.’

All night. Hmm. Would Dave have been satisfied with this if LJB had been a woman or would he have expected more?

‘It was very beautiful. I always remembered that feeling of being close to another man, of being intimate in a respectful way.’

Things progress further with Michael Aldred, for whom Dave seems to develop a genuine affection:

‘I really liked him but I tried to avoid having sex with him because I never enjoyed it as much as I liked just sharing a relationship with him. I never really thought much of it, in fact; to me it was just perverse fun. I think he really did love me and I must have hurt his feelings but I was young and arrogant and possessed too much of an insatiable hunger for women to be faithful to him.’

This shows a certain self-awareness and Dave, a habit of his, tries to be kind while being cruel; he stays out late drinking only to be greeted by a mini melodrama on his return; it seems quite amusing in retrospect but could not have been much fun at the time:
‘With that he tore off the apron and flung it dismissively in my face.’
There’s shouting, a fight, tears, a kiss and make-up before an ultimate break-up. Once the relationship threatens Dave’s freedom and ceases to be fun, he sympathises but calls it a day.

He sums up his feelings:

‘Recently someone asked me if I had ever been in love with any of the men I slept with. And the answer is I loved them but I was never in love with them, not like being in love with a woman.’

Exotic women

I’m always a bit suspicious of men who choose to hang out with, go out with and eventually marry someone who does not speak English as a first language, unless they or their lover are bilingual. To me, it suggests that the attraction is instinctual, primitive, purely physical rather than any meeting of minds or convergence of ideas and values. Simple basic sex with no intellectual engagement. I also wonder if there isn’t some element of power involved. It’s different of course if the man moves to the woman’s country – then he’s the one who has to adapt and he’s the one who’s lost control. Interesting that both Dave and Ray married exotic foreign ladies. And that Dave should go out for a while with a German girl he couldn’t converse with at all. Uncomplicated sex free of any commitment. And why not? But can this initial attraction either sustain or develop into a real relationship?

[I admit though that this is a bugbear (what is that?) of mine, having once fallen for a guy who I thought was single, only to discover that he had a Hungarian fiancée. He went back to Hungary to break up with her and go out with me, perhaps confused by my foreign name but eventually dumped me for someone who was genuinely foreign, later splitting up with her to marry a Belgian girl.]

Jackie Leven is of a mind with Dave here: ‘We really liked all the exotic women coming and going. I think we all knew that this was probably our one and only chance to have massive sexual availability. We all had far too many girlfriends going on. And swapping them didn’t assuage the situation.’ Get it while you can.

As they were, 1970s

With Dave, the inclination is to blame any error on his youth; it’s true, he was exposed to temptations at a very young age (and it was the permissive 60s) but I believe that, had their ages been reversed, Dave would still have been the miscreant, the recidivist raver, would still have over-indulged. And Ray would have been the sensible one, ‘the wicked headmaster’. He would have contemplated, considered and intellectualised it all. Not that he didn't play any of the cards he was dealt. He just kept them closer to his chest.

'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there' (The Go-Between)
'Because I've lived this life/And I made it for myself' ('All Night Stand')

There’s a real joy in 'Kink' though; Dave captures that sense of a wild ride. And his candour deserves credit, as confessing his misbehaviour in such delicious detail leaves him open to criticism, but he did it so he writes about it and can be commended for his honesty and bravery. Perhaps the needle on another person's moral compass might be spinning but Dave is not constrained by society's codes. He's not like everybody else; at this point (and maybe even now), he's a law unto himself, true to himself, in a world of his own making.

Next time: responsibility. For first part, see Reflections on 'Kink'.

Who Should Play Ray and Dave Davies in the Kinks Movie?

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boys

20 March 2014 Update
In view of the latest developments on the Kinks film, i.e. none, I've revised this blog to make a few more suggestions. Feel free to comment.

Being driven to distraction by the people put forward on the Ray Davies Forum as possible candidates. I want to stick my oar in but have no idea how to upload pictures to a message so I have to do it via a quick blog.

No no no! Not Matt Smith. Have you all lost your minds? He can't be Ray. He’s not nearly attractive enough. Nor is Ben Whishaw. It’s not enough to bear a slight resemblance from a certain angle if you crop half his face off. He has to be beautiful.

It’s immediately apparent that we all see Ray and Dave differently. We can only be subjective. With that in mind, here I go.

Ben Barnes

Ben Barnes is a possibility and he looks great with long hair. He's played Prince Caspian and Dorian Gray. Swashbuckling or effete, he can do it.

Or how about Hans Matheson? Great actor, plays guitar and has already accomplished the pseudo-Cockney thing Ray has going many a time. His performance in Dr Zhivago should have propelled him to stardom instead of the wooden Keira Knightley. And he has Ray's generous mouth.

Cillian Murphy

Cillian Murphy has already sung ‘You Really Got Me’ in Disco Pigs. Also a musician and an actor. Perhaps he’s too extraordinary looking though, with those cheekbones and eyes. For Dave maybe? We’d have to tone him down and rough him up a bit (Cillian not Dave). But I think he could do that insouciant innocence Dave somehow retained while he was a rampant teenage sex god. And he could definitely achieve the femininity of the ‘Sitting in the Midday Sun’ Dave. See Breakfast in Pluto for proof.

Ray and Dave

Of course it’s going to be an impossible task to find anyone who could express their myriad qualities and different looks in a movie. You can't go with someone who, from a specific angle, bears a slight resemblance because they have to be as physically captivating as the brothers were. There has to be androgyny, ripeness (but not over-ripeness which would be the problem with Michael Pitt), a certain delicacy and amazing smiles, not forgetting the very uneven British teeth. The actors would need to have something comparable (rather than having any particular feature in common) that allowed the overall impression to be strikingly appealing in order to convey the indefinable, irresistibly attractive nature of Ray and Dave.

Sweet Ray

Perhaps the 70s hair can be achieved by a certain (un)styling – though I’ve never been able to get anywhere near it myself.

Not to mention that it might be useful if they could sing and play instruments …

But have any of you seen the aforementioned ‘Sitting in the Midday Sun’ video? Perhaps looking at actors is the wrong way to go. How about some girls?

Mind you, I’m a little worried that this creative team will produce something dated and irrelevant: unimpressed by the ancient sitcom writers, none of whose work has really entertained or amused me, and Julien Temple, who seems rather a one-trick pony (just my opinion) although I don’t mind the ‘Come Dancing’ video. I know the Davies have a track history with him and it might be ‘better the devil you know’ although I’m loath to quote Kylie at this point. Perhaps they’ll prove me wrong. I hope so. But I really don’t want the Kinks story to be reduced to a comedy of hackneyed one liners. It has to be so much more than that because it was.

Gratuitous pic of Dave and Ray, looking pretty

I’m not sure whether Ray’s judgement can be trusted on these matters, given the almost uniformly abysmal videos the Kinks turned out in the latter part of their career. You know the ones I mean, with the repetition of clichéd tropes (images within images, the person stepping into the movie frame, the photo coming to life, the band on the TV in the living room, the camera passing through the window of a house into another time, and so on) and the obligatory unattainable (or now lost) wispy, ethereal girl wafting in and out of time and shot, for example, 'Lost and Found', 'Down All the Days' and 'To the Bone'. The sweet 60s promos were far preferable, charming and straightforward – ‘I know! We’ll show them sitting on a bench. In the park!’ ('Starstruck', now no longer available on YouTube, such a shame) or ‘I know! We’ll show them walking. In the park! But it’s called ‘Apeman’ so one can be costumed as a gorilla!’ or ‘I know! We’ll have them playing their instruments. In the park!’ ('Sunny Afternoon') Brilliant.

Vincent Kartheiser

Some extra ideas. Let's not reject Vincent Kartheiser, here looking suitably androgynous (and rather elfin so maybe Dave?) as Connor in Angel and he can effortessly achieve sulky (surely much called for in the endless battle between the brothers?) or Jared Leto (always loved him in My So-called Life as the unattainable, cool-without-trying Jordan Catalano but should have got him before the Oscar but hey, it's a wishlist) who also sings/plays in a band (30 Seconds to Mars). Here's a link to their song, Hurricane.

Jared Leto as Jordan Catalano

And a couple of suggestions from leftfield or from out of the ballpark and down the street a way (I may be mixing American game metaphors here). How about Christian Kane? He sings, plays guitar, acts, has long hair and is cute. Here’s a clip of Sever from the Jazz Café last year. Of course he’s Texan and sings country but Muswell Hillbillies, anyone? The accent might be a problem. He loves to fight so could suit either of the Davies boys. Ok I admit it's just an excuse for me to put this picture of him in my blog.

Christian Kane - positively beatific

And, one from outer space (he does look a bit like an alien): Benedict Cumberbatch. Ok, he doesn’t bear any resemblance to the Davies brothers being pretty striking rather than strikingly pretty and he looks better if part of his face is covered up for some reason – it doesn’t matter which part. Check out Google Images and you’ll see I’m right. But if we knocked the hat about a bit, he could fit into the promo for Dead End Street.

Of the cast, Julien Temple says: ‘I think you would want to have the music played by the actors ... that is believable and real while miming is problematic’ so that leads us back to Hans, Cillian, maybe Jared or Christian.

Benedict Cumberbatch - Dead End Street?

Anyway I’ve stuck my oar in and now I’m going to paddle my boat hastily away before someone scuppers me.