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.

Brothers Beyond: 'Kink' - Dave Davies/'X-Ray' - Ray Davies

Dave makes smoking look cool

It occurs to me that I’m experiencing the 60s and 70s vicariously through Dave’s book. Such is my second-hand life.

So again I find myself digressing along a path I didn’t intend to take. You know how it is when you’re on holiday and you see a sign that says ‘KEEP OUT’ or ‘DANGER BEYOND THIS POINT’ (they had one of those at Niagara Falls) and it entices you to go exactly where you shouldn’t. The lure of the forbidden. Anyway, here are more thoughts on ‘Kink’, including some comparisons of how Dave and Ray remember and relate certain episodes in their lives.

In ‘Kink’, Dave more frequently (although not always) shows awareness of how other people are involved in or impacted upon by what he does or what happens. This reading highlights how two events can be perceived (or at least remembered) quite differently by the participants or observers of the time. It’s not that one brother is right and one wrong; it’s only natural that there should be these discrepancies but what they do and don’t include and the emphasis they place on these does help to illuminate facets of their personalities. ‘Kink’ extracts purple; ‘X-Ray’ green; others blue.

Schooldays

Normally you could say that school might come before sex and drugs and rock and roll but with Dave and Ray, they were to prove almost concurrent.

The fight

Ray is much more competitive than Dave. He likes to win. But the boys don’t only fight each other.

As schoolboys, Ray and Dave are both boxing in the same tournament. Typically, Ray doesn’t even acknowledge that Dave was also fighting while Dave watches Ray in action and lets us know how he feels:

‘I flinched at every blow, winced at every punch’ … ‘I was torn between my own joy over winning and concern and worry for my brother’ … ‘Ray had lost the bout but had won much respect and admiration from the crowd for the courageous fight he’d put up against a more seasoned boxer. I burst with pride.’

Dave wins his match, motivated by the desire to impress the teacher he fancies:

‘The joy of victory was nothing compared to the look of approval and pleasure I received from Miss Joshua.’

Ray comments that he’s rather unlucky to come up against a formidable opponent, Ronnie Brooks, reigning British school boxing champ, a fact Dave also includes:

‘the referee intervened to prevent what little brain I had from being spilled all over the floor’.

But each particular setback makes Ray more generally resolute:

‘I began to associate those flashing lights with defeat, and I was determined to avoid defeat in the future.’

Ray’s focus is more self-central; he doesn’t even seem aware that Dave was there. Or if aware doesn’t deem it relevant. I don't know whether this is because Ray is more single-minded about winning or whether he simply can't be bothered to watch his brother. The concern at this point seems to be all one-way.

Perhaps it was fortuitous that the young Davies brothers were encouraged to take up pugilism, given their later propensity for pugnacity and tendency to get into fights with each other and everyone else, this later possibly being the ‘mystery’ behind why they were originally banned in the US, Ray reacting in a Dave-type manner, unusually for him not rationalising the ramifications of his actions:

‘I believed America to be an evil place …I remember we were doing a television spot, I think it was for The Dick Clark Show – and this guy kept going on at me: “When the commies overrun Britain, you’re really going to want to come here …?” I just turned round and hit him, about three times. I later found out that he was a union official.’

Ray in underwear

Sex

For Dave, see ‘Man Behaving Badly’.

I’m going to contradict myself here. Ray details some of his experiences with groupies in a similar way to Dave (although occasionally allowing another character to describe them, like a Vulcan mind meld, but they’re still his memories). And they’re explicit and raunchy. He doesn’t stint us on the viscera as I might have previously implied, for instance:

‘My head is banging against the door and the brunette is heaving back and forth, still with her head attached to my penis, her mouth slurping like a giant suction-pump’

although he does make this experience sound a little frightening. Note the lack of agency though – Ray is ‘acted upon’. For more on Ray’s sexhanigans, see ‘Sex-Ray’.

And Drugs

It’s that instant vs delayed gratification phenomenon again. It’s frightening – even after a friend dies of an overdose, Dave shows no signs of slowing down or giving up or even hesitating in his quest for the best high. After all, this is the Dave who filled in a questionnaire, putting his likes as ‘Money, clothes, cars’. Let’s face it – teenage Dave was pretty shallow. He wasn’t the Dave we know today, all sensitive and planet(s)-friendly. In the 60s, the spirits he was into were of a more liquid variety, usually taking the form of Rémy Martin.

In the US, a girl called Norma convinces Dave to try acid.

[Acid is the street name for LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), a semisynthetic psychedelic drug, known for its psychological effects, which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synesthesia, an altered sense of time and spiritual experiences. Good news is that it’s non-addictive and not known to cause brain damage, although in rare cases adverse psychiatric reactions such as anxiety or delusions occur.] [I don’t really understand what synesthesia is so if anyone can enlighten me, please feel free.]

‘Before me I could see the universe and all it contained and I was rushing at the speed of light into what seemed the very heart of it.’ … ‘I examined a chair and could sense the pulsating radiations from its atoms’ … ‘I would be suddenly lifted into mystical realms of ecstasy’ … but this elation doesn’t last: ‘Hopelessness pulled at the core of my being.’

This trip has a lasting effect on Dave. Overcome with sadness and anxiety, he tries to counteract this with first wine then sleeping pills. Good thinking, babe. Later he goes on stage:

‘Halfway through the show, I couldn’t stand it any more, so I left the stage, put my guitar in its case, and left the building.’

Naturally, Ray isn’t that sympathetic although just as volatile and unpredictable himself.

‘By 1971 I had lost my confidence to play live and was mentally in very bad shape’ … ‘I was again in despair and continuing to experiment with hallucinogens’ … ‘I spent the entire time in my room drinking wine and taking mescaline’

[Mescaline is a hallucinogen obtained from the cactus peyote. It produces rich visual hallucinations but the full spectrum of effects serves as a chemically induced model of mental illness. It is used as a recreational drug and also to supplement various types of meditation and psychedelic therapy. Users typically experience visual hallucinations and radically altered states of consciousness, often experienced as pleasurable and illuminating but occasionally accompanied by feelings of anxiety or revulsion. Other effects include: open and closed-eye visualizations, euphoria, dream-like state and laughter.]

Then a girl called Diana (there’s always a girl) introduces Dave to Angel Dust:

[Angel Dust is the street name for PCP, a recreational dissociative drug, formerly used as an anaesthetic, with both hallucinogenic and neurotoxic effects. It is significantly more dangerous than other categories of hallucinogens.]

‘It seemed fine when I was lying down but trying to walk was really difficult’ … ‘it was intended to be used when you were so drunk and stoned with everything else that it would be the only thing that could effect any noticeable difference’ … ‘God, it was wretched stuff.’

Dave with Flying Vee

It’s no wonder that Dave sometimes didn’t feel very well. Ray hasn’t really commented on any of these strange and disturbing interludes or the effect that any of this had on him and the band, whether through lack of interest or out of discretion, I can't say although he does mention the altercations that sometimes ensued as a result. Nor does he admit to having succumbed to any of the mind-altering substances out there, except for alcohol. Of the Cardiff fiasco (see below), he writes:

‘Dave had been hanging around with Brian Jones … and as a result started mixing drink and drugs. Everybody was relieved when, after several run-ins with the police and punch-ups outside clubs, he returned to live with Mum and Dad.’

That Brian Jones has a lot to answer for.

And Rock and Roll (Fantasy)

‘The year was 1963, and what I had on my mind mostly that year, besides girls and football, was guitars.’

Green amp set-up

Green amp

‘I always loved to mess around with amplifiers.’

‘When I was sixteen, I discovered how to make my guitar scream.’

Dave starts his book with a description of the sound he achieved with these different amps (the Elpico green amp – 10 watt says Dave, 8 watt says Ray, the 60-watt Linear, and Vox AC-30: a tale, recounted in vivid detail, involving razorblades and electric shocks (and knitting needles according to Ray). You know the one. Ray also recalls using this little amp at an early pub gig, where the band was dragged offstage but the amp played on.

‘It wasn’t called heavy metal when I invented it.’

Both recognise how important this was; it’s natural that Dave covers some of it more thoroughly than Ray (whose version is condensed and not quite accurate) because it was he who instigated the mutilation of the amp and it reinforces how integral he was to the distinctive guitar sound which was to jumpstart the Kinks career and influence so many other musicians.

‘As it vibrated it produced a distorted and jagged roar … the original set-up was so crude that the main amp's hum was almost as loud as the sound I had created. A sound was born, but I didn't know it at the time.’

Dave has just written a song called ‘Green Amp’. It would be great to get hold of a copy of the lyrics. Will hopefully hear it again at the September Satsang. Wonder if he'll try to reproduce the amp's sound.

They then use this strange multi-amp set-up live.

‘You Really Got Me’

It works well on ‘You Really Got Me’, the guitar all crunchy, but Dave calls the first attempt to record this ‘a disaster’:

‘After we threatened to pack the whole thing in if they released it, Robert and Grenville lent us the money to go back in the studio and record it again. I think it cost £200’ (a lot of money in those days, or even today)

Ray recalls this differently. He’s the one who objects and insists it be re-recorded when it sounds too smooth, determined to recreate the raunchiness they achieved live on the track. He does mention Dave:

‘At the time Dave had a girlfriend called Linda who put my feelings into words when she said that it didn’t make her want to drop her knickers’ …

‘I threatened to leave the band and never have anything more to do with the music business again but nobody took any notice.’

Luckily for us, Ray eventually gets his way and they redo the recording:

‘Dave’s eyes squinted and his face broke into that arrogant sideways smile that I had learned to love and hate over the years. … He gritted his teeth and sneered at me before turning away to play his solo.’

If Ray hadn’t been so stubborn so early on, they maybe wouldn’t have had their first hit and the course of their career might have been very different. In a recent interview, Shel Talmy has said:

‘Ray was always difficult. I didn’t have a problem with anybody else. Ray was moody, and I think it’s fair to say jealous from the outset that I was the, quote-unquote, producer and that he wasn’t. We were obviously close in age, which made it even more difficult … but hey, we worked it out.’

This might be a reference to that first encounter.

As they were, 1960s

'Well, the road's been rocky along the way’ (‘The Road’)
The Cardiff Incident (sounds like one of those 70s thrillers my dad watches, like ‘The Philadelphia Experiment’) or Where Have All the Good Times Gone, already?

‘Mick tried to slice Dave’s head off with a cymbal during “Beautiful Delilah”’

‘I looked at Mick and shouted at him, calling him a useless cunt. I said his drumming was shit and they’d sound better if he played them with his cock. I sneered at him and kicked his drums all over the stage’ … ‘he hit me over the head with one of his cymbal stands’

It was a stand not an actual cymbal that did the damage. He says he had half a dozen stitches in his head. Ray increases the number but I can't remember to what.

In Jon Savage’s book, we get Mick’s side of the story:

‘Everyone misinterprets it and says I hit him with a cymbal. If you hit someone with a cymbal, you decapitate them. I only had a high hat left from my kit to hit him with so I hit him over the head with the pedal end.'

This might be the memorable occasion when Dave is said to have spat in everyone’s faces but I’m only guessing. Happy days.

Pete and Jonah’s car accident 1966

Dave gets a call at 3 am from Grenville. Pete’s ok but

‘Jonah … was in a bad way, with fractures to the ribs and pelvis, acute stomach lesions and, worst of all, severe injuries to his face and jaw.'

Dave goes to see them both in hospital and is obviously concerned:

‘I was particularly upset about Jonah because I had grown up with him and we were good mates. His family ran the newspaper shop a few doors down from us.’

Ray hears about the accident in a news report before ‘Grandstand’. It’s not clear why no one tells him personally. Maybe they didn’t dare. He acts like this is a slightly annoying inconvenience but one that can be got around on their scheduled TV appearances as these are usually mimed anyway. Pete is missing from this ‘Sunny Afternoon’ from around the time and Ray looks pretty pissed off.

I think these comparisons show that Ray was detached from those around him, almost remote, in a way that Dave never was. Dave is much more emotional than Ray; Dave makes me emotional when I’m with him. But Ray retains that distance for safety’s sake and so that he can observe and judge and make a considered decision. Dave’s decisions are rooted in his feelings. (See ‘Man Behaving Badly’.)

I’ll end with a quote from ‘Kink’, something Ray’s second wife, Yvonne, said to Dave:

‘If Ray was bit more like you and you were a little more like him, then both of you would have been better off.’

It takes a woman.

Last word

I know that if Dave thinks I look cold, he’ll offer me a sweater to wear; I don't know about Ray. I think he would probably say ‘Why didn’t you wear something warmer?’ I'd love to meet him and find out.

To come: The third Dave Davies Satsang weekend retreat; the Kinks trail in Muswell Hill and Highgate complete with surprise guest appearance from an original member of the Kinks.

Thanks to Wikipedia for drug descriptions and Frank Lima for amp set-up picture.