A Kinks Klunker and a Kouple of Klassiks

Call it The Establishment, Rock Royalty, whatever you fancy, but every songwriter has plenty skeletons rattling around their songwriting closet. For every Helter Skelter there’s a Frog Chorus. For every Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands there’s a Wiggle Wiggle. For every Heroes there’s a Laughing Gnome. If you dig deep enough you’ll find that no hero-worshipped songwriter is immune from it. They’ve all written rubbish at some point and some of it has even made it to vinyl.

Kinks ’83 model.

I came to The Kinks via 1983’s Come Dancing, but I was in denial about them for a long, long time. “The Kinks? Oh, they’re an old band.” said my mum. “I met Ray Davies in a pub in Arran once. Or was that Jeff Beck?” Like any normal 13 year old, anything my parents liked, I didn’t (or shouldn’t). If they hated Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood as much as they said they did, I was only going to buy the 12″ and play it non-stop for half a year. Ditto The Kinks’ Come Dancing. I loved it. I bought it. I played it to death when my mum wasn’t around to hear me playing it. Sometime later I borrowed the LP with Come Dancing on it (State Of Confusion) from the library and was massively underwhelmed. What’s all the fuss about those Kinks? This is pub rock. And not even good pub rock. George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Now there’s some decent pub rock for you. I was a good few years away from setting foot in a pub, but I knew. I did. 

State Of Confusion was so bad I didn’t even tape it. The band themselves seemed to be in some state of confusion. Were they rock? New wave? Acoustic balladeers? Nah, they were the bloody Kinks, mate. Only, they were going downhill fast without the brakes on. A severley diluted, sanitised version of the real Kinks that I had yet to hear. Of course a few years later I discovered the true Kinks and came to love them. Ray Davies doesn’t have to apologise for anything he’s written, recorded or released. You and I both know that. But the iPod threw up this stinker of a tune the other day. I had no idea who it was and was beginning to doubt my own taste in music. Then amongst the strangled power chords and strained vocals something jumped out at me. I recognised a wee bit of the voice. T’was only Ray Davies! On Disc 6 of Kinks box set Picture Book. Aye. Disc 6. The disc no-one will ever play more than once. Not The Kinks’ finest hour, that’s for sure. And lo and behold, the track I was about to skip was State Of Confusion, title track from the aforementioned 1983 elpee. It took me all the way back to when I thought the Kinks were Krap. Yuck! It’s a stone cold sure fire Kinks Klunker and no mistake. You have been warned.

I prefer my Kinks tight of trouser, modish of cloth and shaggy of hair. They were a fantastic garage band, a fact often overlooked in the clamber to place them at the top of the classic songwriting pedestal, but find a space in your heart and a few minutes of your time to appreciate the following tracks….

Here’s Sittin’ On My Sofa, Milk Cow Blues and I Need You. I’ve posted I Need You before (here), but You Need It. You Need All Of Them to be honest. As you listen, spare a thought for how they got that guitar sound. If you’ve read Ray’s X-Ray semi-autobiography, you’ll already know that brother Dave took a knitting needle to his amp one day in a fit of squabling sibling rivalry and burst a hole right throught the speaker cone. Cue much fuzzed-up distortion and the riff for You Really Got Me….

Ray and Dandy Dave