The Kinks

My sons, a few friends and I went to see Ray Davies of the Kinks the other night in Boston. I think I became a Kinks fan with the release of Sleepwalker in 1976. I have probably seen Ray or The Kinks 15 times since then. If you have never listened to much Kinks stuff I highly recommend checking them out in depth. I would put any of their 60’s British invasion songs up against any band of the time ( excluding the Beatles of course ). And as far as a song writer Ray is one of the best.

Pete Townshend said “The Kinks were much more quintessentially English. I always think that Ray Davies should one day be Poet Laureate. He invented a new kind of poetry and a new kind of language for pop writing that influenced me from the very, very, very beginning.”

After a few hits in the early 60’s, You Really Got Me, Tired of Waiting , All Day and All of the Night the group was banned from The US. The American Federation of Musicians refused permits for the group to appear in concerts in the states after their 1965 tour. Although neither the Kinks nor the Union gave a specific reason for the ban, at the time it was widely attributed to their rowdy on-stage antics. It would be four years before they played live again in the US. No touring meant no radio play so they were pretty much silent during the height of the British invasion. But they pressed on releasing a slew of great songs and albums in the 70’s. The 80’s and 90’s weren’t as productive but they still put out some great tunes.

Had it not been for that four year ban I think today The Kinks would be talked about in the same circle with The Beatles, Stones and The Who as one of the top five British groups.
By the way, the show in Boston was excellent, the old Orpheum Theater was rocking, paint chips were falling from the ceiling. Ray’s new songs are very good and he cranked out lots of Kinks classics.

Here is a list of what I think are some great Kinks songs. Some hits, some not, but all great songs. Also a couple of pictures I took of The Kinks many years ago.

No More Looking Back - Schoolboys in Disgrace
Moving Pictures - Low Budget
Set Me Free - Kinda Kinks
I Gotta Move - On an EP with All Day and All of the Night
Where Have All The Good Times Gone - The Kink Kontroversy
Get Up -Misfit
Sitting in the Midday Sun - Preservation Act One
Life Goes on - Sleepwalker
You Cant Stop The Music - A Soap Opera
One Of The Survivors - Preservation Act One
Victoria - Arthur
Waterloo Sunset - Something Else By The Kinks
Better Things - Give The people What They Want
Shangri-La - Arthur
God’s Children - Percy ( Soundtrack )
Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy - Kinda Kinks
Who’ll Be The Next In Line - Kinkdom
Im Not Like Everybody Else - Face to Face
Sittin’ On My Sofa - The Kink Kontroversy
She’s Got Everything - Days 7” Single or The Ultimate Collection
Star-struck - Village Green Preservation Society
Do It Again - Word of Mouth
Living On A Thin Line - Word of Mouth
20TH Century Man _ Muswell Hillbillies

And of course there is You Really Got Me, Apeman, Till The End Of The Day, Lola and the list goes on and on. A lot of these songs can be found on Compilations and you can sample most on iTunes, but some of the earlier stuff is not there.

Let me know what you think.

Earth Shoes 1970’s

Does anyone remember Earth Shoes? Somehow these things came up in a conversation the other night. Man they were the ugliest shoes ever made and I owned a pair. Introduced in the 70’s and unlike other shoes the front of the soles were thick and the heels were thin. “Negative heel technology” as they were called. I wonder if they were inspired by the keep on trucking guy of the 60’s. He looked like he was trucking uphill.

I did a little research and the company that made them is still in existence and has recently reintroduced “negative heel technology” shoes again. It is to be hoped that this time around they are much better looking.

Three Stooges

Now every hardcore Stooges fan has gotten into a conversation with someone who claims to be a big stooges fan. Sure they can recite “nyuk, nyuk, nyuk” and “why soitenly”, but when you throw a line at them like “did he say jail ? No Yale, I got a brother there, has two heads, they have him in a bottle” well that is when they look at you like you have two heads.

This blog is about all those great Stooges lines that rarely get quoted. The kinds of lines you recite to a friend who is as big a fan as you are and not only knows it but throws one back at you. Now these don’t have to be all one liners. They can be exchanges between Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp or between one of the Stooges and another character. I’ll start it off with a few.

Curly singing - “She was bred in old Kentucky but she is just a crumb up here”.

Moe selling Bright-O - “If you have a knicknack with a nick in it, we’ll knock the nick outta the knicknack with Brighto!”.

Curly shaving ice - “Were you wearing a pink bow tie ? No, well here is your lip”.

Curly “Oh, see the deer. Has the deer a little doe?”
Moe - “Ya, two bucks”. ( smack )

Prospective employer - “What would you do if you held the Queen alone ?”
Larry - “That all depends on when the King was expected home ?
Prospective employer - “Oh a bridge expert” !

Lady with a pie stuck on the ceiling above her - “Young man, you act as tho the sword of Damocles is hanging over your head”.
Moe - “Lady you must be physic”.

Curly - “I grow on people” !
Moe - “So do warts”.

Bailiff - “Drop the vernacular”
Curly - “Thats not a vernacular, thats a derby”

And they go on and on. Please blog in with your favorites.

Before getting into the business of restoring old soda machines, i was in the T-shirt business for many years. Me and a couple of friends started printing shirts in 1977 on my best friends parents porch. Although we would print anything to make a buck we really loved printing shirts of our favorite rock bands. It was right around that time we got into punk rock, and our favorite punk band was The Clash ! So a few years later when we got to do the printing for the official Clash at Bonds Casino gig in NY City we where ecstatic. We printed the shirts, drove them to NY City, sold them in the streets and even manned a concession stand in the show. Talk about a great time, hanging out in NY City, selling shirts and going to Clash concerts.

My memory is a little hazy, not sure how many shows we saw or how long we stayed in NY but we where there on May 30TH.

The Clash were originally scheduled to play eight shows: May 28, 29, 30, 31 and June 1,2, 3, and 5, 1981.

But on May 30TH the concert was canceled by the Fire Department because of over crowded conditions. The promoter sold far to many tickets than the place could hold and it almost caused a riot around the theater which was in Times Square. Police on horse back pushing people out of the streets, people running around yelling who knows what.

But eventually order was restored and no one was hurt and The Clash being a band of the people decided to honor every ticket that was sold and kept playing every night until all tickets where used.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and if you have any memories of when the Clash took over the Bonds Casino in NY City please share them here.

“White riot - I wanna riot White riot - a riot of my own” The Clash