ATTENTION Great Lost Kinks fans

I've been resisting buying one of the CD boots of the Great Lost Kinks Album for the last 10 years or so in the hope that Ray would somehow manage to get an official version out.

(Un)fortunately temptation, impatience and ebay finally got the better of me and I picked up the 30 track boot known as "Neue Revue Great Lost Kinks Album" (digipak version) which pops up quite often on ebay and sells for about $25. In a collection of 3,000 CDs it's my first boot.

Forget the first 15 tracks, but the next 15 are pretty great and include all of the yet to be officially released Great Lost tracks except Dave's Groovy Movies, plus lots more.

The sound quality on these tracks is about as good as any officially released 60s Kinks CD, so I'm absolutely (relatively) thrilled.

How wonderful it is to hear tracks like "Till Death Us Do Part "and "Where Did My Spring Go" etc again after all these years (having owned it on vinyl).

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

 

Hey, Peter, can you give us a little history of this boot? I have all of the officially released Kinks on CD and have thought about buying this one on occasion but haven't bit so far. Is this a record that they recorded but chose not to release, a collection of singles and such that have been pulled together at some point, or what? Inquiring minds want to know...

 

Todd and Peter,
I own an original mint Reprise Records lp (1973) of this album. One of my most cherished albums. Haven't heard or seen the Cd boot.

Here's a quote from the John Mendelsohn's insert included with the lp:

" The title of this album refers to the fact that in early 1969 Reprise was about to release a Kinks album that they knew as RS6309 and that the public would know as Four More Respected Gentlemen. For reasons not known to your kronikler, that album was never released, and came to be known by the name we've given this one, although this one is not RS 6309 (several selections of which were included on The Village Green Preservation Society, but rather a collection of never-released-in-America tracks from a whole buncha different places."

 

The Great Lost Kinks Album LP was not a bootleg. It was released by Reprise around 1972 or 73, as sort of a follow-up to The Kink Kronikles. It was a compilation of Kinks songs heretofore unreleased in the US: some were tunes the Kinks had recorded for the soundtracks of various British TV shows, some tracks from the (unreleased in the US at the time) Percy album, some b-sides, some outtakes, even one British a-side which hadn't made it over here. It was compiled by John Mendelssohn from whatever he was able to scrape together from the Reprise vaults. Kinda similar in concept to "Who's Missing" and "Two's Missing."

Anyway, the compilation was put together without the Kinks' participation or approval (after they had left Reprise for RCA), and Ray Davies was unhappy enough with it that he took legal action to have the record removed from the marketplace. (Davies was apparently also unhappy that in the liner notes Mendelssohn took some potshots at the Kinks' newer albums for RCA). Anyway, as a result the LP went out-of-print in the mid-70s and is moderately rare in vinyl form. It has never been officially released on CD, and given Davies' distaste for it, most likely never will be.

About 2/3 of the tracks on the LP have not been officially released on CD. The highlights to me are the hilarious "When I Turn off the Living Room Light" and the stereo mix of "This Man He Weeps Tonight". Robert Christgau kinda snottily rated it "the best Kinks album of the 70s" and he may have been right.

 

Hmmm... I actually have "When I Turn Out the Living Room Lights" on an old WB Loss Leader* album called LooneyTunes.

*Remeber them? They were advertised in the inner lp sleeves, 2 lp's for 2 bucks. Had some pretty good stuff on 'em too....

 

Some more info and comments.

The essential 9 previously (at the time) unreleased Ray tracks on GLKA come from the following sources:

3 are Something Else Outtakes.
2 are Village Green outtakes.
4 were recorded in 1969 for a six part BBC TV show called Where Was Spring.

Of these 9 tracks Mr Songbird and When I Turn Off The Living Room Light are now available on official releases.

The important thing is that all 9 tracks are absolutely essential Kinks. Brilliant songs each and every one of them.

The rest of the album as mentioned above is made up of b-sides, one a-side (plastic man), a Percy track and Dave tracks. Less essential.

Also importantly the sound quality of the 9 essential tracks on the boot is pretty good.

Tangent,
I also have the LP (cherished also) but as I don't play my LPs anymore I sought out the boot.

Czeskleba,
I'm not sure about Ray's distaste for the material. In the last interview I read with Ray he said he was doing everything he could to get the material released. I think his distaste was probably with the album having been released without his approval, rather than the material itself.

 

Loss Leader LPs

Yeah, I believe I have a few Loss Leader LPs. One titled Troublemakers was all punk/new wave, and contains a couple live tracks by the Sex Pistols, which AFAIK have never shown up elsewhere--including the renamed "Anarchy in the USA."

 

I could have sworn I read an interview (Goldmine, maybe, about 10 years ago?) where Ray had some negative comments about the unreleased material on this album. Well, not so much the songs themselves as the performances. I think he said he felt the tv tracks were recorded hurriedly and they could have done better on them. That doesn't mean he hasn't changed his mind, of course. I know he also was not pleased with Mendelssohn's liner notes, and that may have been a big factor in getting the LP withdrawn. It is indeed a fine album, regardless.