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.

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'.

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))

Ray Davies Rocks the Hop Farm Festival, 2012

I don’t understand festivals. I like variety but don’t see why someone who can appreciate the extraordinary talent of Ray Davies or the consummate professionalism of Billy Ocean (he’s like an injection of serotonin, his joy is contagious) should have any time for something so bland and uninvolving as Gomez, apologies to their fans, a band who obviously believe their own press releases, urging the people sitting or lying down to get up, begging them to, because why should they bother if we don't, etc., telling us to put our backs into it (hmm – we are here to relax and enjoy ourselves, mate – go polish your Mercury Prize – it seems that anyone can win an award these days and no one ever advises the recipients that ‘Success walks hand in hand with failure’) but who remain pub-standard in my opinion, only singled out here as an example of other bands scheduled for the main stage who aren’t in the same league as Ray and Billy. However, they did get their fans to choose which songs they should play. Not a bad idea in these interactive times.

Mary Epworth, who began the proceedings, was much better than some of the acts that followed – heartfelt singing, a pretty voice, good songs and great hair. Self-deprecating and sweet. Liked ‘Black Doe’ although this video is not really representative of how she comes across live. She’s not as generic-looking as that.

Still not really sure why a former prog rocker (and let’s face it, on this showing, we can dispense with the ‘former’ – it seems you can take the boy out of Genesis but …), Peter Gabriel, gets to headline over Ray Davies whose body of work’s quality far outstrips his but perhaps it was the spectacle of the light show that swung it. Ray doesn’t need a light show – his performance is brilliant enough, blazing bright for some songs, occasionally dazzling but leaving us basking in a warm glow.

Looking more robust than he did during the ‘Come Dancing’ show (perhaps it was just the suit), he’s energetic as soon as he reaches the stage and easily establishes a rapport with the crowd. Years of stagecraft I suppose. 

I Need You

A strange choice to start with, a fairly standard pop song, delivered with verve. Perhaps it’s directed at someone watching? Other songs showcase this era of the Kinks better. Would love to hear him resurrect ‘This Strange Effect’, ‘Tell Me Now So I’ll Know’ or ‘All Night Stand’ instead. As Mrs Doyle (from Father Ted) might say ‘Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on’. But I recall RD saying, ‘I don’t have to do anything’ when asked about pleasing fans live so I’ll shut up now. With a canon of work that huge, it’s always going to be hard to whittle the list down for one gig. 

Where Have All the Good Times Gone?

The extremely cheerful melody and the vitality of the rhythm temper this complaint about the present and paean to the past. Always a winner live. Dave usually plays it too.

‘Well, once we had an easy ride and always felt the same/Time was on my side and I had everything to gain/Let it be like yesterday/Please let me have happy days’

Ray was all of 21 when he wrote this in 1965. And I thought I was prematurely nostalgic! Mind you, I did get there at 11.

I’m Not Like Everybody Else

Great as ever but it's not the same without Dave’s guitar intro (above) (not in the original song but now very familiar from the live versions on YouTube and repopularised by The Sopranos) although Bill Shanley’s playing compensates some. The audience doesn’t know this song so the reaction is more muted but I would have been crazy if he hadn’t played it.

Sunny Afternoon
Which it is by the time Ray comes on, helped by Billy Ocean’s own little bit of sunlight.  Although encouraged to sing 'part' of this, the festival-goers want to hear their own voices and probably imagine they’re incredibly knowledgeable when they remember the verses and insist on shouting these out too. Thanks, guys. Less really is more.

Come Dancing

Jaunty but not as convincing as it was on stage in Stratford.

Semi-gratuitous but so what?

Brief Dave interlude. You know me, I can't talk about Ray without mentioning Dave. Or vice versa. And it seems Ray is the same. Plus it's time for me to weigh in on something Bashful has mentioned in another blog.

Although Ray dedicates songs to Dave and asks the audience to applaud him (which we would do anyway), I venture to say that there is absolutely no chance of a Kinks reunion as long as Ray continues to add (as Bashful hears, not me, me naively believing that for once Ray would do the better thing – see ‘Come Dancing’ blog) ‘Dave “Death of a Clown” Davies’. Why must he try to reduce Dave’s talent down to this song as if it were the only one he’d ever written, the only one we could have heard about, making him sound like a one-hit wonder, refusing to acknowledge not only Dave’s contributions on songs credited to Ray but also the Kinks songs he wrote, such as the anthemic ‘Strangers’, the effervescently enthusiastic ‘Love Me till the Sun Shines’ and ‘Wait till the Summer Comes Along’ (even sad, Dave sounds happy), the popular live staple ‘Living on a Thin Line’, or the early unparalleled ‘This Man He Weeps Tonight’ and ‘Mindless Child of Motherhood’, let alone any of Dave’s varied and inspiring solo material (‘The Lie’, 'Rock Me, Rock You’, ‘Flowers in the Rain’) , which he’ll probably affect not to have listened to? That was a long sentence, sorry. Ok, he wasn’t as prolific as you, Ray, but his talent extends beyond ‘Death of a Clown’, memorable as it is. He’s integral to the sound of the Kinks, from the guitar riff on ‘You Really Got Me’, to his distinctive vocals on ‘Come On Now’ or ‘Sleepless Night’, to the phenomenal virtuosity of his guitar skills live on tracks like ‘Yo Yo’, ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’ (see above) and ‘Wish I Could Fly Like Superman’ (see 3.40-4.50), where his guitar masterclass fleshes out an ordinary pop song, investing it with authentic rock kudos. Whether it's meant as a joke or a taunt, it's simply unnecessary and implies that whatever Ray says about Dave's talent, he doesn't rate him as he should. It’s always a back-handed compliment with Ray; he gives with the right and takes back with the left and with such sleight (or in this case ‘slight’) of hand too.

All Day and All of the Night

Dedicated to Dave.

Waterloo Sunset

To finally hear Ray (now 68) sing this brought tears to my eyes. I felt the same way I did when I heard Dave sing ‘Flowers in the Rain’ live. My heart was full. Wish the crowd had confined themselves to just singing the ‘Shalalas’ and not the verses though.

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Cue more singalong from over-excited crowd.

These songs still sound amazing each time you hear them, and somehow reassuring, like returning to your hometown after a trip, their familiarity is comforting.

Dead-End Street (but not all of it, he only ventures halfway down the street, Dave got further at Satsang II).Would have loved to hear it all.

Till the End of the Day

What can I say? This is a recipe for instant happiness. So joyful. I’ve taken to playing it in the car whenever we set off somewhere. It really lifts the mood.

Tiny bit of Victoria

Why not more?

Twentieth Century Man

Ray quick-wittedly points out that he's a century out of date. I bet that’s why he played it.

Then the holy triumvirate, with the inevitable audience participation.

Lola

Can't listen to this without seeing YouTube footage of the brothers when young and it saddens me that I never knew them like this. Don’t get me wrong – I think they’ve aged well but still, Dave’s cheeks were so chubby, his hair so glossy and Ray sang it so vehemently. They looked like they were having fun. Now, to a certain extent, it’s got a classic status, which in some ways, decreases its value. It was ahead of its game idea-wise but now it’s just a fun song in the same way that Ray has turned, despite himself, into an elder statesman of rock, the well-respected man although no doubt still a rebel at heart.

Days

‘Thank you for the days/Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me/I'm thinking of the days/I won't forget a single day, believe me.’

Ideal sentiments for a festival but Ray sings

‘I wish today could be tomorrow/The night is dark/It just brings sorrow, let it wait.’

with a touch more feeling. It's a cheerful lament, a subtle blend of nostalgia, gratitude, forgiveness and hope.

You Really Got Me

The first hit and the perfect finale. Instantly recognisable even to the most uninformed among us. It's simply part of history. Leaves everyone wanting more but why is it that acts at festivals never do encores?

We were the wrong side of the stage and Ray only came over to us once, to perform a sexy little shimmy, tease that he is. (It sounds incongruous but Ray can pull it off as he and Dave do retain a certain sex appeal). He looked really well – it’s a shame that my best view of him was on the big screen. It was annoying that the people who’d shouldered their way to the front were a tad clueless: ‘So – was Ray Davies in the Kinks then?’ and ‘I think I know two Kinks songs’.

The set was totally apt for a festival crowd: all the hits. As I’ve booked tickets to three shows on the September/October tour, I hope that we’ll get to hear these and tons more from Ray’s inexhaustible catalogue. The only songs missing that would have fitted in really well, bridging the early Beatlesesque tracks with the later more considered, lyrically sophisticated ones, were perhaps ‘Apeman’, ‘Well-Respected Man’ or ‘Picture Book’.

But I wish Ray would do away with the constant ‘Way-oh, waaay-oh’ calls, expecting a response. Once for old times’ sake would be good. Also that the crowd would sing along when requested but not otherwise. I didn’t come to hear shouted, out-of-tune versions of these great songs; if I had, I would have gone to a Kinks karaoke night, if there were such a thing. I came to hear Ray’s delightfully idiosyncratic voice sing his delightfully idiosyncratic lyrics. I realise it must be gratifying, even moving, to hear a few hundred people sing your words back at you, but a little restraint on the part of the audience would not have gone amiss.

I wish both Dave and Ray would play more of their solo material live. I love the Kinks and I know that everyone wants to hear those songs but they’ve both been busy since they split up 16 years ago. So why not ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ and ‘Vietnam Cowboys’, ‘Better Things’ and ‘A Better Thing’; ‘The Moneyground’ and ‘Let It Be Written’? I would kill to hear him perform 'Holiday' or 'Yo-Yo' though.

Other acts I enjoyed:

Billy Ocean

God, he looks and sounds great although there’s no good footage from the festival. ‘Red Light Spells Danger’ is a highlight, such urgency, such atmosphere, and I’d completely forgotten ‘Love Really Hurts without You’, so even a couple of rather lame ballads and ‘Lover Boy’ can't diminish my enjoyment. Energy and commitment personified.

Mary Epworth ‘Long Gone’

Joel Sarakula ‘Feels Like the First Time’

I Am Kloot ‘Avenue of Hope’

Dog Is Dead ‘Two Devils’

Although I’m not a lover of festivals – I’d rather sit in a tearoom than a bar tent and I prefer to be far from the madding crowd, especially in the countryside – I’ve got to say that the Hop Farm is very well organised and user-friendly. There’s a courtesy shuttle bus from the local railway station – it’s not their fault that this happens to be in the middle of nowhere. There’s little queuing at any of the facilities and refreshments are reasonably priced. Drinking water is available from taps. The line-up is eclectic so there should be something to please everyone. Can't believe though that I managed to miss (the) Eagles here last year.

‘Come Dancing’ with Ray Davies, 2012, Stratford

Visited the Theatre Royal Stratford East in the week as we were up in town to see Bob Mould and managed to get much better tickets than were available online. It’s a beautiful Victorian building so we opt to go on the theatre tour prior to the matinee. Wander behind the scenes, past the dressing rooms, the green room, to the upper circle, etc., all refurbished to resemble the original décor of red and gold. I’d call it rococo but am happy to be disabused. It has a certain elegance and the faded glamour of an old Hollywood movie star, keeping up appearances against the onslaught of time, frayed at the edges but it’ll take more than some flaking paint to diminish her splendour. In a way, it rhymes with the production itself (and it’s not impossible that the old Palais might have looked something like the theatre), which captures an era of post-war privation and post-war optimism but although the theatre has weathered the storm and still stands, the Palais could only delay the changing of the musical guard as the big bands dissolved into the background and pop music took centre stage. Now it’s a bonafide community theatre with volunteers around to explain things, hand out questionnaires, and so on.

As it was the first time I had seen the show in any form, I had few preconceptions. I knew that Ray would be in it but thought his role might only be a cameo and he might not sing; I was prepared to be disappointed. Billed as a concert, the focus is the music: it’s all about the songs and not many of us would dispute Ray’s talent in that arena. He is the storyteller, his words providing the background, stitching the songs together but he sings as well, starting some songs that move on to the ensemble or to another performer.

I didn’t know who was new to the cast or who was an old hand; they were all excellent and I particularly liked Julie who reminded me of Shani Wallis (as Nancy) from Oliver!, especially singing ‘Something Better’, an inspirational number for which she suddenly developed a broad Cockney accent, a bit like RD himself does on occasion.

(Of course we can't overlook the choice of Julie as a name for the big sister, also used for the unattainable dream girl of the X-Ray narrator’s fantasy of RD, in ‘The Ballad of Julie Finkel’ and in ‘Waterloo Sunset’. Ray likes to keep these mysteries alive.)

Given the opportunity, RD has finally written that troublesome ‘interloper’, that scene-stealing, attention-grabbing younger brother out of his history, out of this story anyway although some of Dave’s youthful traits (belligerence, vitality, recklessness, sexual ardour, that effervescent joie de vivre, which he still has) find echoes in the younger male characters. It must be fun to revise the past like this, create a fictionalised version; in Ray’s case, streamlining, contracting, editing it for dramatic impact and personal satisfaction. The six sisters have been conflated to three with Peg and Rene’s characteristics and details slightly altered and transferred to Julie.

I tried to note down the songs as they occurred, guessing the titles from the lyrics. I don’t have them in the same order as on the Ray Davies Forum so may well have gone wrong. I won't list them all as some are mere snatches of tunes but concentrate on the ones that particularly affected me.

First, a lively song by the ensemble (there’s a band at the back of the stage) that I will hazard is called ‘The Palais’. Lets us know where we are as the cast enters, the women in fabulous 50s frocks, with magnificent full skirts, tight bodices, demure and alluring at once. I wish I’d lived in that era. Surely life was simpler then.

Then, Ray himself, looking slight, a little fragile, dwarfed by an outsize suit (makes you want to give him a hug); he sets the scene, introduces his ‘imaginary family’ and starts the story with reference to a book (no doubt simply a prompt), sounding slightly tentative but when he begins to sing ‘Come Dancing’ and ‘My Big Sister’ (an effortless swing tune), that voice is so familiar, it tugs at your heart and any wavering is overlooked.

The sisters sing ‘Putting on the Face’, a lively number full of humour, that summarises their personalities for the audience. Enter Tosher, the delinquent who has his eye on Julie, to whom he addresses an impassioned, sexually frustrated version of  ‘Tired of Waiting for You’. I like the way a couple of Kinks songs have been sympathetically interwoven into the story, thread of a slightly brighter hue, immediate and fresh.

Photo of castlist that may disappear ...

At the Palais, we meet Frankie, our host, part-comic, part-singer, part-band leader, one of those all-round-entertainer types, common to the time. I hesitate to say ‘jack of all trades, master of none’, because the actor has a good voice. He takes the part well; the character connotes ‘variety’ to me, not a good thing, as it conjures up The Royal Variety Performance, something that deserved to go the way of the big bands (indeed I would have kept the big bands) but is still clinging on somehow.

Favourites from the first part include:

Tosher’s band’s rousing rendition of ‘You Really Got Me’, his love song to Julie;

‘The Rhythm of the Dance’, an uplifting ensemble piece;

‘Something Better’, an angst-ridden plea for more as well as a statement of self-belief (dreams once more thwarted by life and Julie’s weak heart);

‘When the Band Begins to Play’ evoking the time and place, the escapism that the Palais and the big bands represented for the workers or would-be workers with nothing to look forward to but a lifetime on the factory floor; some of this hope is ill-founded, the ‘New Towns’ of the fifties not the promised paradise on earth that Rose and Arthur envisaged, Stevenage here standing in for Australia, also disappointing in Ray’s opinion.

In the second act, there are some heart-wrenching ballads, around the Julie/Hamilton dynamic: ‘Wherever You Go’; ‘The World Won't Keep Us Apart’ plus the all-pull-together solidarity of ‘We’ll Meet in Heaven’ but the highlight is Ray singing ‘A Better Thing’ in an effort to rouse Frankie’s conscience, so delicately fervent. Notice that he sings with a slight lisp here, rendering the vocal even more vulnerable. Is this done deliberately?

I never hear the words ‘better thing’ without thinking of that other great chronicler/observer/inventor of English eccentrics and the line in A Tale of Two Cities about the ultimate sacrifice: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." Such poetry in prose. But, of course, if this were Dickens, the character would have done the better thing …. In interview excerpts, Ray has implied that Frankie’s interest in Julie is romantic but this isn’t his motivation in this version but I don’t want to spoil it for people who have yet to see it.

Ray has a fascination with certain ideas (variations on a theme), the desire for optimism is one of them; ‘Something Better Beginning’, ‘Better Things’, ‘A Better Thing’, ‘Something Better’, ‘Things Are Getting Better’ and others that don’t use those particular words but express the same emotion: ‘Look a Little on the Sunny Side’, ‘Rock and Roll Fantasy’, ‘Good Day’, etc. They reflect a positivity he strives for against the workings of a naturally pessimistic soul. You always feel that in trying to raise our spirits or his characters’ hopes, he’s trying to raise his own, a sort of cheerful fatalism. He’s really saying that things aren’t going to get better but if we don’t believe they will, we might as well give up.

The concert showcases Ray’s versatility as a writer; the only songs that don’t shine are the r'n'b numbers, although delivered with gusto by Rita (‘Do It’, for instance, seeming raucous and one-dimensional in comparison to the big band numbers, the pop and the ballads, a mere belter) and the Rock 101 of ‘Rock Till You Drop’, the latter unable to hold a candle to ‘You Really Got Me’, but of course it’s meant to represent the beginning of a band and as such is not supposed to equal the perfect pop songs in the Kinks back catalogue which sparkle anew in this setting, with ever-lasting lustre; the sheer exuberance of ‘Tired of Waiting for You’ the jewel in the crown.

It’s actually scary how versatile Ray is and this production is simply one facet of one gem in his crown, or simply a skilfully embroidered sample from Ray’s rich tapestry. Of course he doesn’t work alone and all the cast and musicians play a part – you’d never have guessed they’d only been rehearsing for a few days. I’m sure they could have put on more performances – all that work and professionalism for less than a handful of shows. Such a shame. Perhaps next time a longer run? Or perhaps a concert of the songs from 80 Days?

[There was a girl in costume at the front of the stage, enthusiastically acting out each bit of dialogue as she signed the whole show for the deaf and hard of hearing. Great job.]

Excellent news that the younger sibling, who exists despite Ray’s creative attempts to excise him from their past, is about to release a new album.