The Kinks post -1970. Classic or Dud + Search and Destroy

"State of Confusion" was the second most successful non-compliation Kinks album in the US in their history, so it did pretty well.

The career of the Kinks is a head-scratcher almost from beginning to end though.

Clive Davis was somewhat famously against "Come Dancing" being released as a single, pushing instead for the other song about dancing on the album, the ballad "Don't Forget To Dance". I wonder if that contributed to why the vid for the latter was a literal Pt.2 to the one for the former.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRUE0aAI5o8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmk5ZasgEp0

I’d never seen the “Don’t Forget” video before!

Strange how Word Of Mouth stiffed only a year later. It’s no classic, but it’s got some solid tunes. “Do It Again” is an all-time Kinks fave of mine, and I remembered being shocked that the musicians playing so furiously on “Sold Me Out” were (gasp) in their early 40s! They did an arena tour that year, appeared on SNL, “Do It Again” was on the radio…and few were buying.

Last week I found and watched a free streaming copy of the SNL In The '80s doc, and the "Do It Again" performance clip figured in heavily.

"Do It Again" was the first new Kinks song I heard when it came out, I'd have to ponder if they or Ray have done anything as good since.

The first proper Ray solo album, Other People's Lives, is pretty solid, and the CD booklet has terrific liners from Ray talking about each track.

Always wondered why Dave was not in the "Do It Again" video. Guess he was on a Kinks rumspringa at that point.

I’ll rep for “Look Through Any Doorway” (from the 1991 Did Ya EP) (the 1991 what what?) and especially for “Scattered” from Phobia. Hell, I’ll go so far as to rep for most of UK Jive — “War Is Over” and “How Do I Get Close” are comparable with “Do It Again.”

xxp

Always wondered why Dave was not in the "Do It Again" video. Guess he was on a Kinks rumspringa at that point.

He’s in it! He’s there at 3:50 offering his guitar to the crowd. More weirdly, Mick Avory is in the video, but didn’t play on the song — Dave told Ray that he couldn’t work with Mick anymore, so Bob Henrit plays on most of Word Of Mouth.

Guess I missed him in that clown get up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBZh5mB66Tk

What was that song he wrote about waking up in New Orleans' Charity Hospital, observing the people around him? Was it "Morphine Song"? (He'd chased down the guy who snatched his girl friend's purse, I think.) That was really good, unlike most of the other tracks on whatever album, which sported airhead snottiness and auto-bombastic guitars, of an already dated kind at that. I may be forgetting some other keepers, but there do seem to be just 2-3 at most on much if not all of his post-1970 offerings.

"How Are You" is a good song. Funny that although I think he started playing it even before he picked up a guitar, I don't think I've ever seen Ray playing (or miming) piano before that video.

I agree that "Morphine song" was a highlight of Working Man's Cafe. The second Americana album had some good songs too, but the first was a big disappointment. The sound, playing and production were all perfect, which meant that the dismay arose solely from the mediocre quality of Ray's songs.

I don't think I've ever seen Ray playing (or miming) piano before that video.

He plays a lot of piano in this, I believe.

https://forgottentelevisiondrama.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/long-distance-cover.jpg

Also miming here - not that you see much of the piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVRyTao8zv0

Live album, "One for the Road" is pretty fun, even the songs from "Low Budget" sound OK on it. Ray's "punk voice", a kind of gruff gorblimey bark is pretty silly though.

I saw them on tour shortly before that album, sat pretty far up front, couldn't hear properly for a few days, wasn't really into it until Dave sang "Bird Dog."

I was in the fourth row for a show on that Low Budget tour, and Ray was bouncing back and forth across the stage pretty well. I have distinct memories of a long trail of spit following behind him.

I've always liked "Rats" (b-side of "Apeman")

I was in the fourth row for a show on that Low Budget tour, and Ray was bouncing back and forth across the stage pretty well. I have distinct memories of a long trail of spit following behind him.

Apparently Dave was into spitting in other band members' faces or kicking them in the shins - onstage - at the time, don't know if that explains it.

I think Ray was just so energized he couldn't control it, no malice intended. I recall Dave spitting on stage too, but not in the direction of any of the band, or audience. This was one of my first concerts, and I had never imagined that musicians outside the realm of punk rock spit while performing, so it left an indelible image.

There's a good story in the Ray Davies biography which sums up what being in a band with the Davies brothers could be like. They're playing a gig somewhere in the States, late 70s/early 80s, crowd's going nuts, Dave Davies walks over to keyboard player, John Gosling, and spits at him full in his face. At the end of the gig, as they're preparing to go back on stage for the encore, Gosling says, "I'm not getting on stage with that cunt", Ray says, "Get on that stage or I'll knock you out". Gosling refuses, Ray knocks him clean out, dives back on stage all smiles and plays the keyboards himself - ever the pro!

It's awfully hard for me to imagine Ray Davies knocking anybody out. Outrunning them perhaps, but not knocking them out.

Re: live albums, I was dismayed to learn this week that my 1998 CD of Everybody's in Showbiz doesn't contain the full original vinyl. Songs and banter were cut in order to make room for two not-very-necessary bonus songs; some of the cuts were incredibly fussy, like cutting out a second or two in the intro of "Alcohol", or replacing the transitions between songs with looped crowd noise. This is assuming, of course, that the deluxe edition is faithful to the original vinyl, and not the product of another attack of reworked mastering.

It's awfully hard for me to imagine Ray Davies knocking anybody out. Outrunning them perhaps, but not knocking them out.

He's a big guy, slim certainly, but tall - plus have you seen John Gosling? He was also a star athlete at school, in various sports, I think he might even have done some boxing?

(xp) The live part of "Everybody's In Showbiz" is weird anyway, like they, or rather, Ray went out of the way to sabotage it by including all those silly covers and having "Lola" reduced to a chant by the audience. They left out a lot of much stronger and more commercial material that was recorded at the same time. I wonder if it gave Lou Reed the idea for "Take No Prisoners"!

Yes, it's like a snapshot of a certain drunken, horn-laden idea of the Kinks in 1972, more Fandango than Made in Japan.

(now thinking of Lou Reed interrupting "I Wanna Be Black" with a rendition of "The Banana Boat Song")

"I wanna be black
I wanna have a banana..."

"Take No Prisoners" = methamphetamine
"Everybody's in Showbiz" = Tetley's Bitter

lol

The record is kind of lost, but the version of Celluloid Heroes on To the Bone is absolutely terrific.

"Give the People What They Want".

This album is pretty much a write-off until the last three songs. So much of it consists of an out-of-touch middle aged rocker's idea of what punk/new wave sounds like, with shouty vocals from Ray and hideous heavy rock guitar from Dave. The song that recycles "All of the Day and All of the Night" is an abomination. Plus it just sounds crap. Then Ray comes up with a jokey song written from the point of view of a would-be paedophile, a pretty bleak song about spousal abuse and follows those up with a song hoping for better times!

That's what the people wanted!

Not I.

I'd actually rather listen to "Destroyer" than "All Day and All of the Night", I don't even mind the medley of the two that Ray did with Billy Corgan.

Para-noi-a! the destroy-er!

It's absolutely appalling! I really wish Ray had split the band up some time in the mid 70s.

Pretty much

I think it's the one "heavy" song they did in their arena rock phase that can handle the overstatement.

lol it even starts with "met a girl named Lola..."

funny enough I am listening to the Kink Kronikles right now and it is nuts how Ray could basically do no wrong for like that entire 5 year period. practically every song here is gold and it's still missing a lot of the best album tracks. then he just kind of fucked around for a few years and when he tried to make hit records again it's like he forgot how to write a song. I remember reading some article about all the stuff from Sleepwalker on pointing out all the instances of self-plagiarism and stolen riffs. it's like two-thirds of the songs. kinda goes with his fuck-you-I'm-a-star attitude I guess

Ray Davies used to - and still does probably - make a song and dance about how Pete Townshend had ripped the Kinks off on "Can't Explain", which Townshend admitted to, and so kick started the Who's career. So what does Ray do? He rips off the Who on at least one track on every second album from the mid 70s onwards.

Nice use of "fa fa fa fa fa" here (not really)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QhUma34j7s

Recycled the Father Christmas riff too, it seems.

I don’t think Ray was too upset about “I Can’t Explain” at the time, but it probably stung considerably in the ensuing years when the Who got huge while the Kinks floundered commercially (and ended up opening for the Who in 1969). Similarly, the Kinks initially outsold the Stones in the US (and Avory had been a Stone), but the Stones quickly overtook them; and “Zeppelin?! That Page kid used to play on our records!” Ray seemed content to follow his muse in the ‘70s with the theatrical records — he knew those albums weren’t trying to compete with the Who, Stones, or Zep — but probably felt frustrated by 1976 since the Kinks had laid the groundwork for those stadium-filling bands while not able to fill stadiums (or arenas) themselves. So the clumsy following of trends, and jumping head-first into arena-rock hackery, became their defining qualities.