Something 4 The Weekend # 244

The Kinks:  "Do You Remember Walter?"  [mp3]

I had just turned onto Wright Street over by MATC, so I was only about half a mile from home.  It was quarter after six, and I was looking forward to watching the Olympics opening ceremony.  I had a bag full of groceries that included a pound of Ranier cherries and a healthy wedge of Double Gloucester, my favorite cheese.  The cheese they roll down a big hill in Gloucester every year, and dozens die. 

....

I was behind a small black car that was behind a dude on a motorcycle, and I had noticed as he made the turn before me, that his bike was jerking a bit, as if the guy had little experience and was popping the clutch too fast whilst not giving it enough gas. 

You know. 

Not long after I had successfully navigated the turn myself, I see his front wheel start to violently wobble, and then, quite suddenly, the front tire jerks to the left and the bike and rider go down fast and hard.

The small black car stops immediately behind him, and I creep around the whole scene and park soon after.

The dude is able to get himself out from under the bike, which can be difficult as his ride probably weighed about 500 pounds, but when he attempts to stand up, his legs crumple and he goes down hard again, rolling around on the asphalt and now wildly trying to peel off his helmet.

By the time I reach him, it's apparent that his left knee is fucked up.  The kneecap is not where it should be, and his leg was bent in an unsettling position.  His bike, meanwhile, is leaking oil like a mofo, and the front brake assembly is smoking rather impressively.  His front brakes had locked up, simple as that.

It's a busy intersection, due to MATC and the fairly large apartment complex facing this street and the accident, so I'm only one of about 15 people that seemingly appear out of nowhere in a matter of seconds.  A middle-aged woman who identified herself as a registered nurse quickly took control of the situation, compelling me and another guy to fireman carry the guy over to the grassy curbside as she keeps his knee immobilized. 

Done and done.

She's taking his pulse, and says he's going into shock, information that a young MATC coed is relaying to the 911 operator via a very gaudy cellphone.  Others are taking pictures and video with their phones.

The first cop is there within a minute, I shit you not.  Perhaps more impressively, a firetruck with a paramedic is there about two minutes later.

The dude was fairly coherent, but definitely in pain.  He would laugh softly from time to time, and somehow that seemed like an appropriate thing to do when suffering a dislocated knee.  The whole thing made me a bit nauseous, so I lit a cigarette and went to take a look at the bike, waiting to give my statement to the officer, which I eventually did.

I wished the fucked-up dude good luck, and drove the last few blocks to my house.  The broadcast of the opening ceremony was well underway on NBC by the time I got home.

I don't really have anything to say about the ceremony at the moment, although I kept thinking that if I had produced it, I might have used nothing but Kinks tunes for the "soundtrack".

Hotcha!  Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 07 December 2010

MEAL: 1 order Fried Crispy Bean Curd + 1 large order Curry Beef With Onions = $12.50

Hotcha! Hank

Do You Remember Sideways Maneuver?

Well, I'm pretty sure this Kinks song isn't about Walter Cronkite, but it was one of the first things that went through my mind when I heard the news today, babycakes...

Plus, it's kinda hard to deny a video like this...

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: The Kinks

05: The Kinks Kontroversy [1965]

Featuring..."Milk Cow Blues", "Gotta Get That First Plane Home", "Till The End Of The Day", "Where Have All The Good Times Gone?", "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion"

In their early years The Kinks were more of an American Roots Rock and R'n'B-fueled band than the versatile Britpop band into which they would soon evolve, and I felt it was only right to include one of their early albums that reflects this rawer style. In this respect, The Kinks Kontroversy is certainly the strongest longplayer of the kind, with the more primitive songs like "Milk Cow Blues" and "Til The End Of The Day" mixing smoothly with the more sophisticated songcraft that would become Ray Davies trademark on songs like "I'm On An Island" and "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion". In the end however, it's the heavier Rock and Blues stylings that rule this album, a solid and satisfying representation of the classic Kinks sound, before they became absolutely legendary...

04: Something Else By The Kinks [1967]

Featuring..."David Watts", "Death Of A Clown", "Harry Rag", "Love Me Till The Sun Shines", "Waterloo Sunset"

Something Else By The Kinks was the last Kinks album produced by Shel Talmy, which seems like a good enough reason to include it on this list, rather than the equally good album, Face To Face...

The album sits at an pivotal crossroads for the band...They had quit touring, if for no other reason than they had been denied permits to tour America by the American Federation Of Musicians because of constant onstage fighting between band members...Off the road, sitting in England, Ray Davies had begun formulating ideas for the story which would eventually become Village Green...Meanwhile, he got the band in the studio to keep their skills sharp, and give Davies himself a chance to learn some producing and engineering skills from Talmy.

The Kinks had been a pretty prolific singles band, as alot of popular groups were back then in the UK, and Davies had viewed the songs recorded during this period of '66/'67 to be nothing more than singles and B-Sides, but wouldn't you know it, Davies had already been turning his lyrical eye more and more towards English life in all it's various glories and failures, and when some of these songs were collected to form Something Else By The Kinks, dammit if they didn't end up with a loosely conceptual album with a really solid form and personality...

And musically, this was also the period when Davies songwriting skills really started to develop, when his palette really expanded far beyond simple, straight-ahead Rock and R'n'B...

And it all ends, with the lovely and hopeful "Waterloo Sunset", which many Kinks fans, especially among the British, consider Ray Davies single best composition. I'd say "Big Sky" maybe, but no, I won't argue.

03: Arthur (Or The Decline & Fall Of The British Empire) [1969]

Featuring..."Victoria", "Yes Sir, No Sir", "Brainwashed", "Australia", "Shangri-La", "Mr. Churchill Says", "Arthur"

Another reason why The Kinks are perhaps my favorite band is that when they entered their most creative period in the late 1960's, starting with The Village Green Preservation Society, Ray Davies had fully embraced the "concept album", which is a term I kinda hate because I believe any and all albums should have some sort of conceptual threads running through 'em, however subtle they may be...A bunch of songs collected together on a single piece of media just because they were recorded during the same studio sessions is NOT an album in my world...That's artistically lazy.

Arthur (Or The Decline & Fall Of The British Empire) was the second concept album The Kinks delivered, a suite of songs about the life of a poor carpet-layer (Arthur) in post-war England, and the lack of opportunities for the working class...Arthur fondly remembers a brighter England before the wars, and contemplates the promises offered in Australia, where plenty of British people were emigrating after the wars...Once upon a time the sun never set on the British empire, but that simply wasn't true anymore...

Musically, there are some great songs here, including the hard-rocking "Victoria" and "Brainwashed", which hearken back to the band's early years, when they invented Heavy Metal. But mostly the songs are undeniably melodic, stylistically varied, and impeccably performed...Not quite as brilliant as it's predecessor, Village Green, but still an ambitious and incredible album in every sense of those words...

02: Lola Versus Powerman & The Moneygoround, Part One [1970]

Featuring..."Lola", "Top Of The Pops", "This Time Tomorrow", "Rats", "Apeman", "Powerman"

Arthur might very well be a "better" album than this one, Lola Versus Powerman & The Moneygoround, but this one's got "Lola"...

Plus, this might just be the heaviest album in The Kinks' entire catalog..."Rats" and "Powerman" in particular, are live wires, thin and hot and dangerous...

And yes, this is another concept album, this time a poisonous and funny expose of the music industry, wherein Ray Davies leaves no stone unturned, attacking managers, agents, record label accountants, vacuous television and radio personalities, publishing houses, unions unions and more unions, groupies, sycophants, and life on the oftentimes boring road for the fragile egotistical rockstars...Contenders and pretenders...

Great fucking stuff, and another suite of sophisticated rock music...Some of my absolute favorite Kinks tunes are here - the aforementioned "Rats" and "Powerman", plus the sweeping "This Time Tomorrow", the catchy island rhythms and singalong chorus of "Apeman", and the Country Rock closer "Got To Be Free"...The Kinks might have invented Country Rock.

Plus, this one's got "Lola".

01: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society [1968]

Featuring..."The Village Green Preservation Society", "Do You Remember Walter?", "Picture Book", "Johnny Thunder", "Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains", "Big Sky", "Animal Farm"

One of the five greatest rock albums ever made, wherein Ray Davies invents Britpop over the course of 15 brilliant songs that flow effortlessly from one to the next, slowly painting a vision of an older kind of British life that was being plowed over and under by the kids of that 60's generation, his own generation...A distinct loss of innocence, in the same way Vietnam and the explosion of psychedelics had fundamentally altered the American landscape...

Speaking of America, I always wonder how huge The Kinks might have gotten here in the States if they hadn't been denied those permits during the most artistically fertile 4 years of their career (1966-1970), of which this album is the stunning peak...It was still a pretty big world in 1968, and The Kinks might have been larger than life in the UK, but here they just couldn't find the big time...No stateside touring, no American TV appearances...No chance to show this great big land of ours just how fucking great they had become...It was nearly impossible to stake their claim to the British Invasion throne from the other side of the Atlantic...

But this is about The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, and what an essential album it is for any respectable record collection, nevermind how damned good it is - how irresistible each and every song is, how rich and colorful Ray Davies' lyrics are, how versatile and tight the band had become in a few short years...This is one of those albums that hooks you upon first listen, and before long, you find yourself humming melodies from this album in the bathroom at work, cuz a song like "Animal Farm" deserves that kind of acoustics...

A MUST!

Hotcha! Hank

Long Ago, Sideways Maneuver Was Clean

If you already knew The Fall covered "Victoria" by The Kinks, you knew this was coming...

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 100

For this, the 100th installment of S4TW, I thought I'd do something a little extra, and cull a song from each of my ten desert island discs...Simple as that...

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10: Pink Floyd: Animals: "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" [mp3] It was a girl that introduced me to Pink Floyd...It happened in 6th grade music class, when each of us had to present a 15 minute radio show LIVE in front of the class, and this girl, Suzy R_ played two or three Pink Floyd songs, which she had borrowed from her older sister's record collection...Long story short, my crush on Suzy faded fast, but my love for Pink Floyd, and the Animals album in particular, has endured...I have way too many memories of this album to recount here, but after 30 years I still listen to it with regularity, and it still mesmerizes...


09: Frank Zappa: Zappa In New York: "The Torture Never Stops" [mp3] I couldn't be deserted on that island without some Zappa, but I had a fuck of a time trying to decide which ONE Zappa album outta 78 official releases (as of 30 seconds ago) I was gonna bring with me...Sheik Yerbouti was the first Zappa album I ever bought, and I have a great fondness for that double LP, but in the end, I had to go with this one...It's LIVE, and that seemed important...It's got sophisticated narration by Don Pardo, and that's dynamite...It's got several filthy songs for my filthy mind, and it's got other songs for the perpetually young sophisticate in me...Plus+++Plenty of Frank shutting up and playing his guitar...

08: Sonny Sharrock: Ask The Ages: "Once Upon A Time" [mp3] Some of the most furious guitar shredding I've ever heard in my life is on this album, courtesy of Mr. Sharrock, and it's a Jazz album, not a rock album! Ask The Ages also has the single most beautiful guitar playing I've ever heard on the song "Who Does She Hope To Be?" which you can hear HERE...I chose this particular song because it features a lengthy drum solo introduction by the legendary Elvin Jones, and sometimes, ya just gotta give the drummer some...RIP, Sonny...RIP, Elvin...

07: Talking Heads: The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads: "Memories (Can't Wait)" [mp3] This album is also about a girl, at a party, up against an armoire, while the Talking Heads pumped and pulsed from the floor below...I love the Talking Heads, and this double live album not only documents some amazing performances by a stellar band, but works as the definitive greatest hits collection from those first four classic Talking Heads albums...

06: Elvis Costello & The Attractions: This Year's Model: "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" [mp3] I was twelve years old, and Creem and Rolling Stone magazines were telling me that I just had to listen to Elvis Costello, cuz he was the newest thing, and the realest deal, and so I listened, and I've been listening ever since...This Year's Model is his most perfect album to my ears, and anyways contains the most amount of EC songs I absolutely love...This song is one of 'em, and it's the last song on this list with parentheses in the title...

05: The Clash: London Calling: "Lost In The Supermarket" [mp3] I came to this album through the song "Train In Vain", which remains an all-time fave, which is exactly why I'm streaming "Lost In The Supermarket" here...LOL...What needs be said about London Calling? A perfect album?

04: The Kinks: Are The Village Green Preservation Society: "Animal Farm" [mp3] I came to The Kinks relatively late...Sometime in the mid-90's, I'd say, and I regret I didn't explore and embrace them sooner...I bought the Lola Vs. Powerman album first, cuz it had their biggest hit, and I found myself listening to the entire album from start to finish with some regularity...Same for the Arthur album, which came next...But it's the Village Green album that I have the most fondness for nowadays, and the one that makes me happiest when I want to listen to a Kinks album, and believe me, I have them all...

03: The Vapors: New Clear Days: "Spring Collection" [mp3] Again, it was a song, "Turning Japanese", that convinced me to buy the entire album, and it was one of the greatest decisions of my life...I've probably played New Clear Days more than any other recording in my entire life...I still listen to it at least once or twice a month...Everyone knows "Turning Japanese" but not nearly enough people know this entire album, and they really should...Their second and last album, Magnets, is pretty damn good, too...

02: R.E.M.: Life's Rich Pageant: "Begin The Begin" [mp3] I always say that R.E.M. are my "sentimental" favorite band of all time, and what I mean is that they may no longer be my absolute favorite band (That would probably be The Kinks these days), but once upon a time, and for several years, they meant more to me than any other band or musician has ever meant to me...I ate and slept and smoked and fucked and drove and wrote and showered to this band, and I believed that if I could unravel the mysteries of the band - Stipe's lyrics, Mill's bass, Buck's chords - I would discover something important. What that was, I had no idea...I'm still wondering, still searching...

01: Minutemen: Double Nickels On The Dime: "Two Beads At The End" [mp3] My favorite album of all time, another double LP, and didn't I get a super bang for my buck with this list of DESERT ISLAND DISCS???? This one's got 40, count 'em, 40 songs, PLUS+++Four car jams of exhaust...Breathe, babycakes...This is three dudes jamming econo, ranting about war and politics and partying, and it's sharp spiked songs at the brilliant intersection of Punk and Jazz, and I idolized D. Boon (RIP) cuz he ripped his Telecaster much faster than I could ever hope to...Me, with a slower hand than Clapton..."Do you want New Wave, or do you want the truth?"...This album is the definition of EPIC.

Hotcha! Hank

On The Third Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...3 Sitcom Pitches...Absolutely free...

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01: Crowd Of Drifters Based on a song called "Crowd Of Drifters" by The Magnetic Fields, this character-driven, single-camera sitcom follows the life of a 35 year old white man named Steve, who loses his job as a travelling salesman...A chance encounter with that crowd of drifters on his defeated retreat back home to Michigan offers him a chance to escape his job and life, and he takes that chance...These are his stories...Stories of scavenging, and hunting, and drinking, and trainspotting and sleeping deep in the woods of western America...All the while, still wearing his blue suit and carrying his black leather briefcase. What's in Steve's briefcase? And did you know, he left a family behind in Michigan?

02: TXR-28 And Me Meet Calvin. Calvin works in Sector 6-F of a microchip manufacturing plant. Meet the ensemble cast of 34 other workers in Sector 6-F. They all wear those "spacesuits" while they're working, so as you can imagine, communicating through those suits is difficult, and leads to many hilarious misunderstandings. But mostly they all work alone, lost in their own thoughts, inside their own helmets, some listening the greatest soundtrack of your fucking life on their iPods (product placement and music video-style montages that the kids just love), others simply lost in thought. Calvin works with a robot called the TXR-28 that he calls "Tex", and the funny thing is - Calvin believes Tex is sentient, and the two of them have long, weird talks all day long. (For the voice of Tex, I'm thinking Patton Oswalt). These talks lead to daydreams, in which we see Calvin doing all sorts of fantastic things. At lunch, all 35 characters (the biggest cast on TV?) congregate in the cafeteria, or out in the garden/park out back. More hilarity ensues, plus mild sexual situations and innuendo.

03: The Silver Hammer Isn't it about time we had another sitcom situated in a tavern? This time the place is called The Silver Hammer, and it's a British-styled Pub set in the city of Albuquerque, NM. The owner of the place is an eccentric British chap, and much of the humor is derived from him being a fish outta water out there in the desert Southwest...Naturally this will be an ensemble cast, and will borrow liberally from Cheers, of course. Featuring a Britpop soundtrack heavy on The Kinks.

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Sunsets

Four versions of "Waterloo Sunset" here, and believe me, I could post a whole bunch more, which speaks to this whole Ray Davies godhead thing I've been on this week...Anyways, that first video above is The Kinks themselves, natch...Next, we've got Ray Davies with Damon Albarn of Blur...As an added bonus, and quick verse and chorus of Blur's "Parklife" thrown in for good measure...





Here we have Elliot Smith...A very heartfelt and tender version, if a spotty recording...RIP, Elliot...

And finally, we have a band called Hai Lua, performing the song live all the way on the other side of the world...Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam...A great song will travel the world, and you know what? I think I might like this version best of all...

Hotcha! Hank

Nearly Broke My Sideways Maneuver

M-A-N-E-U-V-E-R. Sideways maneuver.

Lola versus Powerman. See previous.

Greatest songwriter off all time? Maybe...All I know is that I've heard this song a thousand times, and I might hear it another thousand times, and I'll sing along to the end every single time.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 85

The Kinks: Lola Versus Powerman & The Moneygoround: "Powerman" [mp3]


I still remember that sunny summer afternoon in 1995, when Geoff, the manager of Atomic Records, over on the fashionable east side of Milwaukee, pulled a handgun on me as I inspected the import CDs in the glass case/counter.

"The cash register's already yours," I said with a cracked voice, but Geoff barked back, "Who's the greatest songwriter of all time?"

"Huh?"

"Tell me who the greatest songwriter of all time is, right now, or I'm gonna empty this thing in your face."

"Jesus, Geoff, put that fucking thing away."

"I'm not joking, Hank. It's quite simple - I've got a gun to your head, and I'm asking you to name the greatest songwriter of all time. Just answer the fucking question."

I sighed heavily, and for dramatic effect...

"Alright, I'll say Mozart is the greatest songwriter of all time."

"Wrong!" Geoff screamed, "Try again."

I considered The Ramones t-shirt he was wearing. I don't think Geoff likes The Ramones. In fact, I think he wears the shirt as some sort of ironic "punk" statement. Irony sucks, and Geoff still has that gun pointed at my head. Maybe if I stall long enough, somebody's bound to come bounding through that heavier-than-fucking heavy door, and that bell is gonna ring and wake Geoff from this insanity, and either this scene is gonna come to and end with a whimper, or we're all gonna go down together in a bloody hail of bullets. Well, six bullets at most, I suppose, but then again, I have no idea what he has in his pockets. He probably has some cocaine in one of his pockets. I'm pretty sure Geoff likes cocaine. Man, managing a small but legendary indie record store must pay pretty fucking well if he can afford coke...I can't afford coke...I can't even afford these fucking Fugazi bootlegs...Who fucking charges $18 for a fucking Fugazi CD? Who fucking pays $18 for a fucking Fugazi CD? I betcha $14 of that goes straight up Geoff's nose...The Ramones...Who the fuck does he think he's fooling?

"Quit stalling, Hank...And don't give me another bullshit answer like 'Mozart'. Let's keep this in the 20th century, shall we?"

"Irving Berlin."

This answer pissed off Geoff so much that he laughed.

"You've got to be shitting me."

"Well, sorta, but maybe not...I dunno...The dude wrote thousands of songs, and dozens of 'em have become standards. White Christmas. God Bless America. Puttin' On The Ritz..."

"Well, that's only three, and the answer is wrong anyways."

"This is ridiculous, Geoff. Alright. You're favorite band is Depeche Mode, so I'll say, whatshisname...Martin Gore."

"Good answer, but that's just pandering. Martin Gore doesn't count. C'mon, one more time - Who is the greatest songwriter of all time?"

What a bullshit question, I thought to myself, or possibly out loud. Completely subjective, but Geoff expects some sort of absolute truth. Greatest songwriter of all time? Lennon and McCarthy? Jagger and Richards? Bob Dylan? Tom Waits? That guy from Abba? Elvis Costello? Robyn Hitchcock? The boys from REM? Paul Westerberg?

"Me and the gun are waiting, Hank."

Finally, I blurted out "Ray Davies."

"Ray Davies?"

"Yes, Ray Davies."

Geoff stood there motionless, staring at the wall of show flyers behind me, for what seemed like an eternity but probably just fourteen seconds. On that sunny summer afternoon I couldn't fucking believe that I was the only hipster doofus on the fashionable east side of Milwaukee that just wanted to flip through NEW RELEASES and talk trash with whichever hipster doofus was working the counter that afternoon, which just happened to be store manager Geoff that day, who still had that fucking gun pointed straight at my noodle.

"Ray Davies, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Meh, good enough for me."


Hotcha! Hank

EVERYTHINGATHON! March 2007

Tis the beginning of March, and it's Springtime For Davies, a horrible title for a superb episode of EVERYTHINGATHON! , my monthly podcast streaming over there at Thee Butterscotch Threshold.

Springtime For Davies is a solid hour of The Kinks and the return of our friend, Trevor Hastings, Podbot extraordinaire...Version 4.21, by the way, and he's hosting the whole shebang...

Outstanding.

Hotcha! Hank

The Kinks: Sunny Afternoon

Some people will tell you that The Kinks invented Heavy Metal (and possibly Punk) in July of 1964 when they went into IBC Studios and recorded "You Really Got Me", and ya know what? I'm not gonna argue.

Check out Dave Davies' Flying V guitar in this video. The Flying V went on to become one of the two or three truly iconic guitars of the Metal genre, and the only other guitarist slinging a V in 1966 would have been American Blues master, Albert King.

But "Sunny Afternoon" is not a Heavy Metal song, and there are no crying guitar solos ala Mr. King. This is simply a scathing indictment of the idle rich masquerading as a perfectly lovely 3 minute pop song that's fun to sing along with anytime, but especially in the summertime. That may not be Metal, but it certainly seems Punk. Whatever.

This also must be considered a very early music video, since the producers took the band off the stage and outta the studio, and had 'em playing in a clearing in the woods. In the winter. So cheeky. And what's with the car and the pack of dogs at the beginning? All I can figure is that our beloved Kinks are on the lam from the law, possibly for criticizing the Ruling Class, and I wonder if this video ended too soon, before a scene of the Davies brothers and their rhythm section being mauled by the dogs of law.

Anyways, what I love best about this particular render, is the fact that the video and audio don't synch, giving it a decidedly "lazy feel".

Also, I think I see where Panic! At The Disco stole their look.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 14

Ya know, I could stream The Kinks every Friday night and be quite happy, but I do realize that plenty of people just aren't as Kinky as I am, so here we are.

The Kinks: "Big Sky": 128k mp3

God is too big to cry.

Hotcha! Hank

The Dinks

Here's a photoshop thing I did about a year ago, that turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself...Enjoy!George (Or The Decline & Fall Of The American Empire)

This is a photoshopped image I created using Ulead PhotoImpact...

For those of you too young to know any better, here is the original album cover from The Kinks' Arthur (Or The Rise & Fall Of The British Empire) LP...

Hotcha! Hank