Monday, July 17, 2006
"Everybody's in showbiz / Everybody's a star..."Reflections on being in the court of one Raymond Douglas Davies at The Wiltern Theater Los Angeles, July 16, 2006
A sparsely decorated stage, wide-open expectations, and a sense of "oh-my-god-I-am-the-luckiest-music-geek-in-L.A." permeated the air at The Wiltern Theater last night. It had been half a decade since Ray Davies had visited Los Angeles and in the interim Life Happened for the reigning poet laureate of The British Invasion. The Kinks went on hiatus, Dave Davies suffered a stroke, Ray sustained a gunshot wound defending the honor of his lady from a New Orleans purse-snatcher (this incident is also notable for being the Last Recorded Act of Chivalry Ever in the United States) and released his first solo album earlier this year, the potent and pointed "Other People's Lives".
The Kinks are that last great unchartered terrain of British rock history. So much has been said about The Beatles, The Stones, and The Who that most of the mystery surrounding them eroded long ago.
The Kinks are and have been always a different animal, uncompromisingly English in all phases of the career (Way back whenThe Beatles urged true believers to "Turn on, relax, and float down stream", Davies and co. praised the simplicity of Waterloo Sunsets, and long after The Fab Four disbanded and the Stones became irrelavant, The Kinks' vision never compromised or capitulated). Radio knows them for "Lola" and "You Really Got Me" but legions of balding geeks like myself know them for "Death of a Clown", "David Watts", and "Sweet Lady Genevieve". They are like the last indie store in a sea of chains.
The Kinks
That's the backstory...On with the (or should I say last night's) show!
Ray and his band of surrogate Kinks hit the stage with a force of enthusiasm that knocked the jadedness clean out of the L.A. crowd and sent it hurling towards Canada (no small feat in this town where everything save for a car crash is greeted with the energy of a 6am yawn) and immediated transformed all of us into His Royal Subjects.
Davies artfully balanced his new material with a pallet of classics and curios such as "Hairy Rag" (from the Something Else Lp), "Tired of Waiting for You", "20th Century Man", "Celluloid Heroes","Set Me Free" and "Low Budget".
His energy and vocal ability belied his 62 years (placing him on a very short list of British Invasion icons who can still perform with the conviction and urgency of their heyday) and made everyone their feel like they were part of something more than a routine Classic Rock Cash-In. He put the "showman" in "showmanship".
You could say he really got me.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
1946-2006"I don't care if the sun don't shine
And I don't care if nothing is mine"
- Syd Barrett, "Jugband Blues".
Rest In Peace, you crazy diamond.
Monday, July 10, 2006
It's been a zillion years since I posted proper so here I go with one of little consequence (but one of great importance in my world).
About a dozen years ago I liquidated most of my CD collection to help pay for a trip to Europe (I was 21 and fending off a semi-imagined mid-life crisis). Well many years later I've managed to replace the vital titles of my dearly departed catalog but a few still elude me.
After reading a recent Rolling Stone article on James Brown I started missing, I mean REALLY missing my old copy of "The CD of JB" (the first CD compilation of James Brown material ever to be released).
Sure there have been other James Brown compilations (one of which I have)...but none has been better than the CD of JB. I mean this one has "Doing It To Death" AND "Mother Popcorn" AND "Sex Machine"! Never had such a playlist of James Brown original soul had been so expertly programmed (and thanks to greedy corporate record marketeers, one would never appear again that good). I didn't appreciate what I had and like the cliche', I didn't know what I had 'til it was gone.
So flash forward to the present and an empty-handed Amoeba trip later, eBay has delivered the CD of JB back to the CD Player of Rev.Speats.
As the Godfather of Soul himself would say, "I feel good".
