Sunday, March 19, 2006
Kink
Get your minds out of the gutter.
Ray Davies - one of the greatest songwriters of our time - is doing a rare solo gig at 9:30 tomorrow night. He's promoting Other People's Lives - his first true solo record.
True, there was Return To Waterloo before this - But that was the soundtrack to some made-for-tv-movie thing he did back in the 80s. It's only a total of 9 tracks - 3 of which come from the Kinks' Word of Mouth. And according to an amazon review, the lineup for this was basically The Kinks minus Dave. Not much "solo" going on here.
There was also The Storyteller, which is him telling stories along with performing some of his older songs. Interesting concept, eh? Yeah - VH-1 stole the idea - right down to the title.
Everyone knows who The Kinks are, but I don't think most people fully appreciate how important they were. They did it all during their career. They were at the front of the original British Invasion, they did a few...ummm...interesting rock-operas, they hit the height of arena rock success, then sunk into near obscurity as they later failed to sell tickets and records. The onstage-fighting with his brother, Dave, is legendary. They made those Gallagher boys look like a couple of twits. The whole time though, they never failed to put out great records. Just because you never heard those doesn't mean they sucked.
And Ray even got shot in 2004. How's that for street cred?
My guess is that the show will consist of mostly of the new record and a bunch of Kinks songs. But the new record is very good and the chance to see him in a club is too good to pass up. He's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for cryin' out loud.
Here's a handful of Kinks songs. No real theme here other than this is what I fell like listening to at the moment. It's my blog. I can do that. They'll only be up for a few days. If you like what you hear, go buy something. A good chunk of their catalog has been re-released with a buttload of bonus tracks at a bargain price. Go get 'em.
Celluloid Heroes (live) - easily my favorite Kinks song.
Till The End Of The Day (BBC sessions)
Village Green Preservation Society (BBC sessions)
Prince Of The Punks - an old b-side, re-released on the Sleepwalker reissue.
Around The Dial - remember when you were young and actually had a DJ that you liked?
Muswell Hillbilly - just a great country-ish tune
And go buy his new record here.
