The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, Apr 4, 2021.

  1. zipp

    zipp Forum Resident

    You mean like when the British set fire to the White House in 1814?
     
  2. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Banana Boat song
    Baby Face
    A bit cringeworthy, right? Without the visuals and taking the show as a whole and not getting this cut up stuff, it maybe works, but not in this format. nope. Ray - release the footage(assuming it may exist). I'm beggin' ya!

    Skin and Bone
    I'm ok with this. It's not a highlight of MH and it's not a highlight of the live disc, but it's fun. No doubt a lot of fun to dance to while in the audience. But we're not in the audience, are we? Still digging the TRex sounding guitar sound. And the very end with the trumpet playing is my favorite part!

    "Lola"
    Definitely in quotes as this is not Lola. Pretty disappointing. Was Ray and everyone else friggin' drunk in putting side 2 together. Egads!
     
  3. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    oh no...you went there!

    :laugh:
     
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  4. Bungo

    Bungo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    Exactly! Not to mention the playful rough-housing from 1775-1783. :p
     
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  5. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    Well, when Ray played at the Old South Church in Boston in 1998, he looked around the interior and proclaimed "I shall reclaim this building for Britain!"
     
  6. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    I am so sad that I wasn't there to see this. Must've been awesome!!
     
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  7. Bungo

    Bungo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    Haha, nice job tying this longwinded tangent back into the main thread! I hadn't heard that Ray quote before. :cheers:
     
  8. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    Yes, it was Avid Wondergirl. I may have mentioned it before, but Ray was originally scheduled to sign copies of Storyteller and play a few songs at the Borders (RIP) in downtown Boston. So many people showed up that they moved the event across the street to Old South Church & Ray actually did an hour show w/his guitarist Pete. It was a great Kinks related memory.
     
  9. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Yes, you did mention it and I'm green with envy. I was just not "plugged in" at the time or else I would have been there. darn.
     
  10. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    The live Lola snippet I’ve always thought was a faded up edit too but here’s the kicker:

    Why was a full length live Lola from the same shows NOT included on the 2016 Legacy Deluxe set? Several songs on the original LP were repeated on the bonus disc in versions performed on the alternate night and yet no full Lola here. A mystery. They could have rectified that in 2016.
     
  11. Pawnmower

    Pawnmower Senior Member

    Location:
    Dearborn, MI
    Oh no, I've found myself 15 pages behind.

    "Celluloid Heroes" - I agree with Fortuleo's terms of "grandiose" and "majestic." Better than that standard "epic" I often use. I don't remember the first place I heard this song, but I don't think it was the album. It might have been the "Celluloid Heroes" Greatest Hits CD. It's an interesting topic for a song. The Golden Age of Hollywood is fascinating in many ways. All these names he's dropping have such weight in the culture, or at least they used to. Most of these are stage names, which was a bigger thing then than it is now. That fact adds an extra layer to keeping us from feeling we know anything about the real person beneath. The only song I know that makes me want to watch movies. It evokes sympathy for these people ("People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame, Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain") and has many poignant observations along the way.

    On to the live album. It always seemed unnecessary to me. It came across as poorly put together. Sloppy edits and questionable song choices. I remember disc 2 of the deluxe edition was a real surprise. I recall enjoying that on first play a lot, like where was all this great stuff when making the original album? But what we do get is better than I remembered it.

    Top of the Pops - Brainwashed - Mr. Wonderful
    Solid performances of the first two tracks. "Brainwashed" may have just been played really fast, because the song doesn't seem as long as the album version. I recall this performance helping me enjoy the studio version more because the "but you're brainwashed" line sticks out more here and I was able to learn of that hook. "Mr. Wonderful" sounds like the end of a longer track because I'm not sure why the crowd would react that favorably to a 30-second piece of music.

    Acute - Holiday - Muswell - Alcohol
    I'm enjoying these more than I remember. Could be the improved sound quality of the 2CD set. What a well oiled touring machine these guys were at this time. Four "Muswell" songs in a row that fans might not have wanted to rebuy after just getting them on the last album. I love the LP version of "Acute" and "Holiday" but the sound quality is much more enjoyable on the tracks here. "Muswell" is a much quicker, more country version. It's fine as an alternate but I kinda like the power of the studio version. "Alcohol" has a great vibe here.. really glad they brought the horns out on tour.

    Banana Boat - Skin and Bone - Baby Face - Lola
    Well, the live album was pretty solid until we got to this. "Banana Boat," like others have said, is just a snippet, which is more than anyone needs of this song. "Skin and Bone" is one of my least favorite Muswell tracks and this doesn't make me like it any more. "Baby Face".. I guess. Why. As for "Lola," I can only imagine how many people through the years saw the song on the tracklisting and took the album home just to be disappointed its just 90 seconds of the audience singing the chorus. Odd way to wrap this one up.
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2021
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  12. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Petulant bad decisions (that may come back to bite) by Ray & The band were nothing new, witness their first US Tour.
     
  13. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Either way, pouring was involved!
     
  14. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Speaking of the UK's track record, can i reprise their getting Fire & Red House in 1967?
     
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  15. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Til The End Of The Day.

    This track opened the March 2nd show, and it's great.
    We open with a crashing bashing guitar organ and drums section, then we get a tacet and Ray says hello and we get the stab of chords and again we get a tacet, and some more Ray teasing, and then we explode into a great high energy version of this song. Mick is going crazy apers, and the organ sounds like we're at a Deep Purple show. John Dalton is running all over the fretboard, while Dave is slashing away.
    It starts like an upbeat kind of ska and seems to keep picking up steam as we move along.
    We get this little slower section which has a daydreamy feel, and then burst into a double time slashing, driving outro.

    This would have been a great way to start off the live album in 1972, I love it.

     
  16. I spent years listening to the last few seconds of this track, when the band kicks in, trying to imagine what a true live "Lola" would sound like,
     
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  17. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    You're Looking Fine.

    Both nights this was the second song, and we get Dave up to the mic.
    We open up with a jam-like feel and some nice organ and guitar, the bass and drums are quite precocious too.
    Then we gather ourselves and move into the song proper.
    It is really cool hearing this played in 1972, taking us back to Face To Face.
    To me this songs amplifies the difference between what was released and what was played. Sure the band played the campy fun songs, but they also showed the could rock out with the best of the early seventies rock bands.
    We get Ray and Dave both having a sing. Dave gets carried away with himself early but it is a fleeting moment, and the song is top notch.

     
  18. "We can't start the record off with 'Til the End of the Day.' That's how The Live Kinks started. We don't want anyone getting confused and buying that one by mistake."

    That's how record companies thought in those days.
     
  19. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    This is a blistering opening, and to me it would have shown the band on par with any of their peers of the day.
     
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  20. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    It actually sounds like it might have been the closing song of the set.
     
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  21. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    the extra live tracks on the Legacy edition of this one show what could have been instead of what was.. instead of a half measure campy live bonus disc aperitif, there could have been some kind of 'Beach Boys In Concert' style 'this is us' varied hits and deep cuts definitive 70s live album capturing the group at their early 70s peak. And RCA would have got new versions of many of the old hits to sell it on while the Kinks got to show off the breadth of their catalogue and their newfound mastery of the live arena. A win/win. @CheshireCat mentioned above that that 'Lola' edit wasn't so much to troll the fans as I postulated above, as to troll RCA asking for the inclusion of a version of the mega hit, apparently in retaliation for them not funding his tour film.. talk about a lose/lose situation if that's really what went down. :(

    I'm thinking surely the 2016 Legacy edition of EISB with the extra live tracks restored must win the award for as 'most improved Kinks album through a reissue' in that (a bit like the 1995 Who Sell Out) the added tracks help it fulfill it's original potential as a record rather than being just bonuses or byways, to the point that the reissue seems like a more definitive version over it's original issue.
     
  22. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    It was the opener on the first night: see Mark's post on this page for the full sets: The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)
     
  23. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    It sounds like it could have been, but from what I can find it was only played the one night as the opener
     
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  24. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    I’m not one who thinks the snippets and interludes are bad in themselves, or the Lola singalong is “insulting” or whatever. But I do think they don’t make for a satisfying listening experience on the original Live disc, because they’re not integrated in a well sequenced flow. We don’t get a sense of what these shows were about.

    Now, hearing the rock’n roll power of today’s tracks is very exciting but in a way, it only makes me even more frustrated: as a fan and record buyer, what I really want to know is how they managed to make the whole thing work organically, where the interludes fitted, what song Mr Wonderful was following or announcing, if the horns players were still there for the encore(s), at which point Ray strapped his guitar on or put it away, how they managed to jump from straightforward rock ’n roll sections, to vaudeville parts or comedy tunes and back again, in order to elaborate a compelling emotional and dramatic “narrative” or experience, something Ray’s truly a master at.

    But in both the original live record and this bonus legacy CD, that’s not what they’ve given us. This is what I find disappointing, we just get these disjointed compilations of live tracks, and it’s not one but two missed opportunities. I mean, I really hope to get a 1974 George Harrison live set some day, but if they insert a couple of Indian numbers randomly between rock songs , it's gonna piss me off. That's not what I want to hear. Now, of course, it doesn’t take anything from Mick’s genius drumming or the electrifying guitar power on display today. But it’s still not the document I’ve been dreaming of.
     
  25. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Works as a closer too! I'm not a massive of "You're Looking Fine" as a song but both of these pretty much blow away the stuff that was actually released at the time.
     

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