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Last night, I hit a Kinks motherlode on YouTube — a collection of promo clips around the time of the release of the Kinks’ least-loved album, 1989’s UK Jive, for which I maintain a cockeyed affection.
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Of particular note is the VH1 documentary contained in these YouTubes. I watched this special when it first aired, and it was where my Kinks obsession began in earnest. It marked the first time I had heard “Waterloo Sunset,” “Dead End Street,” and other mid-’60s gems, and it was like meeting your best friend.
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Of course, there’s some embarrassing footage of latter-day Kinks, full of ’80s shoulder-pads and mullets. But there’s also a fair amount of insight into Ray’s creative process, and they managed to catch him on a day when he wasn’t consumed by bitterness over the band’s lot in life. Enjoy!
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I haven’t watched any of these clips so I don’t know how Ray expresses his bitterness but I gotta figure that in 2008 all that bitterness is gone. Assuming he didn’t give everything to Grenville and Larry, he ought to be rolling in it these days. Has anyone this side of The Who had more songs licensed to commercials and such?
I have it on good authority that Ray has been rolling in it for some time. The poor business decisions early in the Kinks career were apparently rectified before the band’s 80s resurgence. Ray has a reputation for parsimony, but whether it’s deserved or not he seems not to have pissed it all away.
In these videos I think Dave Looks very handsome. In that era he had a kind of gentleman’s mullet. In the second video at about 6:17 there’s a short performance sequence where Ray is wearing what looks like a fringed leather jacket. What’s up with that Look? Was it a joke? A character?
And hearing Come Dancing reminds me of the Britspeak thread from earlier this week. Was that the first time I noticed the term carpark?
The bitterness I was referring to was the sniping he occasionally partakes in regarding the Kinks’ lack of recognition, compared to The Beatles, Stones and Who. He’s been called out for this on occasion here on RTH.
I could never stand UK Jive, but I LOVE Think Visual — Video Store, Working At The Factory, Lost And Found, Rock And Roll Cities. And I did get to see The Kinks that year at a small Theatre in Atlanta and I think they avoided the UK Jive record completely that night
I am stealing “In the era of the Gentleman’s Mullet” So here’s your virtual $5 Big Steve
I finally got some time with these clips, Oats. Good stuff! I’m one who’s often complained about how uncomfortable interviews with Ray make me, but this time he’s cool.
Oats, as they say here in these hallowed halls, “Thanks for sharing”. These clips brought back memories of when I saw the Kinks at what was then Great Woods in Mansfield, MA when they toured behind UK Jive, although they really didn’t tour behind the album since the album didn’t come out until several months later, but that’s the Kinks for you. The two memories that I have was that me & my friends saw the Kinks on a Sunday night after having seen R.E.M. at the exact same venue the previous Friday night (it’s a long haul from the North Shore to Mansfield) & that the opening act for the Kinks was one John Eddie, an Eddie Money without the modest fame. He had a big dramatic moment in one of his songs when he spread his arms out Bono-like & exclaimed “If I was famous, you would be going nuts by now!”
As for UK Jive itself, I share Oats’ “cockeyed affection” for it. I enjoy “How Do I Get Close” as my (“only”) favorite example of the 80s power ballad, “Looney Balloon” reminds me of Robyn Hitchcock, “Now and Then” & “War Is Over” are great songs & “UK Jive” has a great rip off of “My Generation”. The front cover is even half-decent, unlike Think Visual’s. I have the demos to Ray’s musical version of Around The World in 80 Days which he was also working around the same time, which were pretty good. Finally, I would like to point out that Ray has a musical out in England called “Come Dancing” which is doing pretty good & that the Kinks will finally have a career-spanning box set come out in the UK in December (some 15 yrs. too late, but that’s the Kinks for you) called Picture Book.
John Eddie and the Front Street Runners were a popular, Philly answer to The Boss Lite Movement from the early ’80s that never achieved the notariety of, say, the Beaver Brown Band.
I was in a hotel in Orlando a few years ago, and John Cafferty and – I presume – the Beaver Brown Band played a show in the hotel lobby. But it was one of those premium guest shows, so you either had to pay or join to see the show, leading them to put up a curtain around a section of the hotel lobby that Cafferty played behind, which made the whole thing seem like some weird stunt that Joe Patoliano’s character would have put together in Eddie & The Cruisers.
Which reminds me of a conversation I had with someone this weekend about how the guy who finds Eddie and wants to learn to play guitar from him in Eddie & The Cruisers II: Eddie Lives is the worst character in any movie about music, ever.