I must just be easily pleased. The album art seems quite apt, and I have no problem with it. The play on Michelangelo's creation of Adam is pretty effective, with Starmaker's hand suitably attired, and the ever present seventies ducks on a wall just camp it up that little bit more. I like the gatefold design.... today's the first time I saw it. I like the little faceless entities in the little pictures. I guess it could be considered that the blue tones aren't bold enough, but I reckon it works.
A little catch up on the Dave stuff... Web of Time I agree with Mark said, I think this sounds like a rough demo that needs more work. Maybe there's a diamond in there. Hard to say. the applause coming out of nowhere is really...odd. In this form it doesn't do a lot for me. Mr. Moon I like this a bit better than Web of Time, but it really doesn't have a great hook to draw me in. I like how he sings "Mooooon" in a few places. that's all I got.
I think essentially, when a lot of us who got into the Kinks during the Arista years heard a lot of the theatrical albums, or material attached to it, it just seemed a bit .... flaccid... a bit too camp for a rock band. We discovered the band as a rock band. One For The Road was 100% rock band. The radio played the sixties rock songs. We new they did some great ballads, but most great rock bands did. I think the thing is though, as we have aged and mellowed, and gotten a broader appreciation of music across the board, it makes room for albums that challenged us when we were grit and grime teenagers, that just wanted grunt and grind music... a generalization of course, but you know what i mean.
i like this re-imaginging of Mr Moon quite a bit. Dave's voice sounds better and more in control. And it's got some great humor and the outrageous cockney accent.
VEry cool that you have this poster. I'm so glad WGBH played it. Can't believe it's basically impossible to see. Maybe they couldn't get rights to the music for a full-blown release. ??
Soap Opera/Starmaker I came at this album in an odd way. Around last year at this time I entered my Kinks fanatical phase (and am still there!) and found the Starmaker TV play on YouTube. The first time I saw it, I had that weird feeling I knew some of these songs and then I heard Have Another Drink and I started to sing along to it. So clearly this album was played around me by my aforementioned(earlier in this thread) friend's siblings back in the 70s. It's always a trip to hear a song that you haven't heard in 40+ years. Weird how the memory holds on to some stuff and not onto others. Anyway, the Starmaker show is a bit cringy and 70s. It's completely cornball, BUT i really enjoy it. I get to see Ray strip down. Hee! Considering that Ray is not a trained actor, I think he does a commendable job as Norman/Starmaker. By the end of the show it hit me that poor Norman has been spicing up his life with wifey by pretending to be a "star". thought it was quite clever and didn't see it coming. And of course all the confusion of Ray being a star and playing a star...and maybe desiring to get into the head of the "ordinary" man. As others have pointed out, it's a bit schizophrenic. Not sure if it's been mentioned (haven't read everything on here just yet), but the show Starmaker was supposed to be longer but it cut down quite a bit by the network, so no doubt that's why we lose things like Ducks on the Wall. too bad. I did feel really bad for the rest of the band just playing in the background like musicians for hire. And I know that's how they felt during the recording of this. And it came as a further surprise that this pre-dated the album. I thought maybe it was the opposite when I became aware of all this a year ago. Anyway, right now I know the songs more from the TV show than from the album, which I will be listening to in the next few days to get ready. I don't think this album will be for everyone. Will be interested to see what people think.
As I said before, I paid $50.00 towards the cost of releasing the DVD. They probably couldn't raise enough money to do so, unfortunately. A friend did make a DVD copy for me, which I still have. Maybe I should invite everyone to watch it .
Buckling up. Not sure I’m ready forSoap Opera. Maybe in the decades since I’ve last heard I’ll have opened up to it. I’m expecting an interesting next couple of weeks either way.
Let's have a watch party! There's enough Kinks fanatics in the Northeast US to make almost a crowd. I gotta reach out to Edgers though and get the scoop. He's currently at the Washington Post so probably easy to find.
We could rent out a local theater & play it there. The last I heard of Geoff Eggers was that he recently wrote a book about the Aerosmith/Run DMC collaboration, "Walk This Way."
After the fairly dour Preservation Act II (despite some great songs), Soap Opera is a breath of fresh air and.... fun! I've always wished that Pete Townshend had managed to keep more fun in his music post Sell Out.
Could be that you've got the cover of the next album in the back of your mind so this one doesn't seem so bad.
Hey folks. So we did finish it. I paid to license the film for film festival - the music cost about $30,000 - and it played around the world. But when we wanted to release it to a wider audience, Ray did not grant permission. The process (and sorry if eyes glaze over here) is to receive permission to license from the artist and then you negotiate a price. We could never get to that second level for general release. A couple of years ago - when COVID struck - I sent a request to Ray/Ray’s office asking if I could put it up on the internet for free so folks could enjoy for a short time. I never got an answer back. (It cost me some money to make but I’m glad we did it. I am not looking to earn back what we spent.) We did make a shorter, hour long cut that was broadcast on about 25 public broadcasting stations in 2011. You do not need licensing permission to air on a non-profit. Wish I could share but Ray has ever right to deny approval, though we’d love to know why. The poster is pretty sweet. I’ve still got a stack in the attic.
The problem with Mendelsohn is that he fetishized and built a shrine to a certain Kinks era and when Ray moved on he couldn't accept anything else afterwards. He put Davies on such a high pedestal for those works and then spent the bulk of his career slagging every Kinks album afterwards. I read his Kinks book years ago and unfortunately at the time I was somewhat swayed by his views. He does deserve credit for helping draw attention to the Face to Face through Lola era (but if I remember he was already lukewarm about the Kinks by Lola). He is the prototypical fanboy scorned by his favorite band.
No problem, Avid TOWAN. Just like to be helpful. I am a part time reference librarian. This is way off topic, but I notice that you hail from Cape May, NJ. There was once a bookstore here in downtown Salem, MA, whose owner always said that he would close it down & move to Cape May, NJ because he felt that it would be better to run a bookstore there. He said this for years. He did finally sell the bookstore, but I don't know if he ever made it to Cape May.
Thanks for sharing that mate. I have no knowledge about this except that I'd like to check it out sometime.... I hope for your, and all our sakes Ray eases back and allows you to proceed with something.
