I grew up in a British household and 1968-1973, it was Beatles, Stones, Who. Virtually no Kinks. Somewhere along the way. I realized that I had missed out on a major band. One For The Road was a good entry point. Sure, I knew the hits but nothing more. Road was a good entry point for the Kinks - a double live album that draws material from their whole career. It includes "David Watts" (a sixties classic that the Jam had covered recently), "Stop Your Sobbing" (ditto- the Pretenders) as well as the band's signature song ("You Really Got Me") and one of their most popular songs ("Lola"). It also gives an overview of the Kinks career to that point. I have been listening to my concert tapes from this era and the Kinks were a great live act in my view - going to a Kinks show in the late 1970s would have been a lot of fun. So this was where I started getting into the Kinks. I have always been attracted to the live show. I learned much of Bob Dylan's sixties catalogue from the live albums Before The Flood, Hard Rain and At Budokan. That process for the Kinks was begun with One For The Road.
Yea, I loved albums, but very early on there was a huge appeal in double live albums particularly. I think Hard Rain was among the first Dylan albums I heard, and it really challenged my notion of who this Dylan character was.
One for the Road: I rushed out and bought this at the time. Double live album! You had to buy the double live album for your favorites recording artists. By the time The Kinks entered the fray, it almost seemed like a contractual obligation, based on the massive success of Frampton Comes Alive. Maybe it's because of that whole late 70s/early 80s trend that it hasn't stuck with me. I seem to remember really being into Aerosmith's Live Bootleg around the same time. (Now there's a band that's morphed into and out of many phases during a career. That was the twilight of their golden age.) I think I also touched on Ian Hunter's Welcome to the Club live album (with a side of studio tracks) from that time. Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan? It was a lively time. One of the main reasons I wanted it: it had "Prince of the Punks" (I never had the single b-side) and "Stop Your Sobbing" (at the time I was more familiar with The Pretenders' great cover). I do recall enjoying it but haven't felt a need to re-up to CD or digitally. I'll be curious to hear a lot of this again. I would start seeing the band on the next tour, so what they were doing here wasn't that far off from what I would soon see for myself. One thing I do recall is Ray's brief statement at the start of a song: "Rock bands have come, and rock bands have gone. But rock and roll will go on and on!" At the time, it seemed like perfect, common sense. How could it not? Started before I was born, grew into this massive cultural force over the course of my youth and was surely still going strong at the turn of the 80s. If only we had a crystal ball!
I was at the Nassau Coliseum show July 1979 and the set was very similar to the august 16 set mentioned above. I can’t help thinking how much better the album could’ve been if it contained the sleepwalker through sunny afternoon songs, but it may have had to be a triple lp set to include a full show. Maybe if it gets the deluxe treatment we’ll get those. I have always hoped for a live box covering preservation through misfits, full shows of course. Not many quality gray area recordings, I have 2 quality shows from winter land and Santa Monica from the sleepwalker tour, love to hear a misfits tour show and schoolboys. Maybe there are some in the vault?
Excellent write ups as always, Mark. But this part of your statement that I bolded jumped out at me. I was under the impression he was universally acknowledged as one of rocks great showmen...but maybe I live too much in a bubble.
I honestly don't know. I think the album we have was the wise choice for the time, although I don't understand the Sleepwalker omissions. I think they realistically knew that is they included they many early hits and favourites, they were a heartbeat away from being just a nostalgia band, which essentially means, career over, as far as new music goes. I bought a few boots early in my music buying days, but I generally can't be bothered trying to find the decent ones, and there is a lot of crap.... The first boot I ever bought was a concert of Pink Floyd The Wall, called Kabe... I didn't know it was a boot at the time... it was atrocious. Sounded like it was recorded on a really cheap cassette player, with loose tape.... that wrecked any chance of me paying exorbitant prices for rubbish lol
He could well be, but whenever I see people talking about great frontmen and showmen, I'm not sure I have ever noticed him getting mentioned. I would assume all Kinks fans would know it... but I'm not sure lol
Since you asked—and I knew that you would—I typed this up in advance: It’s unusual for me to remember four decades later a disc purchase the way I do this one, yet its release came right in the middle of me going through a roughly 2 year phase where fewer things in my life thrilled me more than discovering and absorbing Kinks music. Ah…sweet memories. If only my life had more moments like the rush of excitement I felt when I discovered One For the Road, newly released, at my favorite record store. It's like remembering a first kiss...all the details...in slow motion. I had no inkling that a new Kinks album was due out. I was simply following my habit of stopping by the record shop at the end of the week to see what was new and maybe peruse one of the niche music magazines that were available, it seemed, no where else on Indianapolis’s East Side. As I entered the store out of the corner of my eye was a vertical wall of magenta that I didn’t pay attention to. I just walked by it and started shuffling through the “K” bins when—what the what?—an unfamiliar LP wedged among Misfits and Lola V. Powerman? The thin strips of type on yellow that read “THE KINKS”…Eureka! A new Kinks album!! I held it up. It felt heavy in my hands, thick with content (e.g., 2 discs and a folded poster!). That’s when I truly noticed that wall of magenta at the end of the aisle: every single display rack was filled with “One For the Road” under a sign that read JUST ARRIVED: NEW LIVE KINKS ALBUM. It was like Christmas in June! I wrote about this record shop before on this thread when discussing Kinks Live at Kelvin Hall, my first Kinks album purchase. It was run by an old hippie who was evangelical in his passion to promote the Kinks, offering many titles at a discount. I had already built up a near Komplete Kollection thanks to this place. Glancing around the shop it was obvious a new Kinks LP was a cause for celebration. Every possible promotional item Arista had provided for this new release (mostly the enlarged cover) was peppered around the place. The hippie really, really, really wanted his customers to buy this record. I know I did not disappoint him…even though it, as a new release, was full price. Victoria! David Watts! Till’ the End of the Day! Are you friggin’ kidding me?!! What a set list—could it get any better? I couldn’t wait to get home and slap this baby on the turn table. It was summer in Indiana, daylight savings time, when evening to twilight was like the worlds slowest window shade being lowered in the span of four hours. I remember stretched out on my bed in my parents house, fully clothed, skull sandwiched inside headphones, watching that sun sink in the sky from 7 to 10 pm—sunshine to complete darkness— listening to all four sides again and again. My bedroom had one of two upstairs window air conditioning units. I was supposed to keep my door open to cross-cool the upstairs, but being a 20 year old who wanted my privacy, I usually didn’t. I remember shivering in that frigid room with the door closed, headphone volume cranked enough to do ear damage so as to drown out the rattle of the AC. Fully immersing myself in the live Kinks, savoring every second. Jumping around from track to track, acquainting myself with these new arrangements of old favorites. What a memory! I was doing an internship that summer at a large marketing firm, learning animation from a pair of guys not much older than me. In our little, tucked away office we listened to the #1 local rock radio station all day long and often called in requests. Occasionally, if we were lucky, they were honored. The live “All Day and All The Night” was in heavy rotation. My co-workers got to know it well, and I had to correct the one who insisted—nearly every time it came on—that the song was a rip off of The Door’s “Hello I Love You.” I told the guys there were other One For the Road tracks worth hearing. I phoned in multiple requests for “20th Century Man” several days in a row, but to no avail. Finally the DJ announced “one guy has been calling in a lot of requests this week for a track from the new live Kinks album. We can’t play the one he’s asking for, but here’s this…” and then played “All Day and All the Night” again. One of the guys theorized the DJ’s were only allowed to play the specific tracks from an album that had been approved by the program director. That fall I returned to Ball State for my senior year. “One For the Road” found its way to the the turntable at most parties. I turned many friends onto the Kinks, becoming a budding evangelist myself who would have made that Hippie record store owner proud. Sides one (Lola) and four (You Really Got Me) were especially popular. But I can tell you first hand that any song on this album can be accompanied with an air guitar. Especially by dozens of 18-22 year old Hoosiers crammed into an 8th floor dormitory room. Believe me, I know. I love this album..mostly for these memories. Strange, I hardly ever listen to it anymore. It had its time and place, but not the legs of other LPs I loved during my college years, or concurrent releases I have discovered since. I am seldom moved to put it on, much like “To The Bone” the novelty of live re-arrangements of preferred iconic studio versions have worn off. If I have the time and inclination I’ll get into that perhaps later today. And other angles, such as this being arguably the best album jacket design of all Kinks albums, or thanks to that Kinks video offer flyer that came enclosed with the purchase (thanks for posting it Mark) my first awareness that home videos were a “thing” (that’s in response to your observation, ajsmith.)
I think the lack of recognition or Ray as a great showman goes back to my last point: not enough high quality widely available evidence. Sure, you can find plenty of footage of The Kinks live at the click of a button on Youtube, but (in fact since the visual portion of the release we're discussing today, over 40 years ago) there has been no big tentpole artifact you can point to, like I dunno, a Queen At Wembley or a Rockshow or even a Shea Stadium or something you can hold up for new fans and say this is what it was all about. Sadly until something like that can be assembled and brought to the attention of enough people Ray as The Greatest Showman is a persona that exists largely in the memories of Kinks koncert goers from the 70s, 80s and 90s.
One For the Road I bought this album when it came out and played it to death. I've been enjoying it again this week and I still remember which song comes up next. So I loved it then and still love it now. I think it shows a heavier Kinks - at least on the songs with riffs: All Day and All of the Night is a great example. Dave is really into guitar hero mode. Like Mark, I don't think it matters that some bits were overdubbed. Nearly all bands did that for their live albums. One of the few exceptions I found was Status Quo's Quo Live which showed the band unvarnished. The fans loved that album but the band said they couldn't listen to it without hearing their mistakes .
I know Edgar Wright (who's fresh off making the Sparks Bros documentary) is, as he's used their music in a couple of his films. I can imagine though that a reason that not very much high profile Kinks visual stuff has ever come out is that Ray is a (I was gonna say frustrated but he has actually done a few film projects of his own) filmmaker himself, and so would likely rub up against any big name directors vision (that said, he seems to have worked with Julian Temple well over the years).
I think I have a very similar scenario to you with this album, except that it was my first Kinks album. Having so much music these days, many great albums sit awaiting for a turn on the spinning ride.... but I have also noticed that, for me, when i feel like enjoying a concert, i tend to pull out a video these days, so the bulk of my great live albums languish, with a feeling of rejection... Having gone through all the songs over the last week was somewhat of an affirmation, and the opening post was written prior.... almost as if in hope of the album living up to the posts declarations.... But there is no fear there... I'm not senile quite yet.... The whole experience of revisiting this album was wonderful... and although I realise many of the early fans may well be disappointed with the reworking of Celluloid Heroes and 20th Century Man, revisiting them reinforced my feeling that they are two of the most potent recordings in the Kinks catalog, and for what they lose from the original album versions, they gain in sheer beauty and power.... Even if the rest of the album was rubbish, those two tracks would elevate it to something special, but for me this is a total, carefully thought out package .... and I still love it. I'm looking forward to reading people's opinions on this album, and the songs as we go along, but I also realise I'm going to have to check myself, because this one's close to my heart, still, forty years later
@mark winstanley has outdone himself on today’s promotional introduction. Two full essays…or was it three! As always, full of enthusiasm with an added measure due to its special hold on Mark. Release date in the US: June 1980. I gotta think way, way back and place myself. And when I do I realize I was up in the mountains of northeastern Washington and am certain I wasn’t exposed to the album. I’ve already rattled off a bunch of my favorite live albums in the lead up to our discussion but think my enthusiasm for such was on the wane. But, because I didn’t have any prior Kinks albums, I could envision picking this up to serve as a best-of compilation. I listened to half of the album yesterday and enjoyed it. One song, better than the studio; and then another that I raised an eyebrow over. No question it’s different than the campy Showbiz live (that I refuse to acknowledge when rating the album!). I didn’t understand what you meant at first because I was certain I’d heard both those songs yesterday. But then realized you were talking about musical bridges (I was thinking “bridge between eras”!). Now I understand. As always, am looking forward to the discussion.
As I listen to Dan Lampinski's fine capture of the Kinks in Pawtucket (1977-12-03) I was reminded that along with the Jam and the Pretenders, the late 70s of course saw "You Really Got Me" and "Where Have All The Good Times Gone" popularized by Van Halen and the Knack covered "The Hard Way" about the time Road came out. So the live album arrived as others were in the process of revisiting the Kinks.
It might also be of interest to see the live picture from late 1980. This was called the One for the Road Tour. Their next studio album (Give the People...) wasn't released until mid-1981. At their New York Palladium show on New Year's Eve - which was recorded for radio broadcast - 14 of the One for the Road tracks were still in the setlist: Opening (YGRM instrumental), Hard Way, Catch Me Now I'm Falling, Lola, Till the End of the Day, Low Budget, YRGM, A Gallon of Gas, Celluloid Heroes, ADAAOTN, Stop Your Sobbing, David Watts, Pressure and Superman. "New" songs on the setlist (compared to the live album) were: Where Have All the Good Times Gone, Bird Dog (Everly Bros), Dead End Street, Imagination's Real (Dave), Nothing More to Lose (Dave), I'm Not Like Everybody Else, Come On Now, and Give the People What they Want [note: I loved it when bands played songs that they hadn't yet released]. As far as raw live shows go, that Palladium concert is one of my favourites. As they say, the band was on fire and the audience was going off. For the curious someone has posted the middle part of that show online:
When I seriously collected live shows I noticed there was very little from the Schoolboys or Misfits tours. However, among the very little there are a couple of pretty good ones. By good, I mean nicely recorded like those Dan Lampinski shows: 20 Feb 1976, Schoolboys On Stage, New Orleans, LA (1CD) 12 June 1978, Uihlein Hall, Performing Arts Center Milwaukee WI (2CD) [w/ Leonard Nimoy introducing the band] I got the latter from the guy who taped it, which was pretty cool. There are a couple of concert sharing websites where such shows are available. Send me a PM if you need a steer in the right direction.
Where Have All The Good Times Gone has already in the set in 1979: it's on One For The Road! I do think it's interesting how they only started playing I'm Not Like Everybody Else live in 1980: I don't think they EVER played it live before then: even though it didn't garner a high profile cover, I guess it's status as an anthem had grown to the point by then where debuting it made sense: latterly it would mature into something of a signature song if not mission statement for the band and both brothers, but from 1967-79 I don't think they gave it much thought.
That's a good observation. I wonder (and this is a long shot) whether it had something to do with the fact it became a minor chart hit in Australia in 1979 for new wave band Jimmy and the Boys. Caution- lock up your daughters
ONE FOR THE ROAD I'm not a big fan of live albums. I think my brother bought this and I listened to it a couple times. I saw the Kinks live twice (after GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT and STATE OF CONFUSION) and they were fantastic. Somehow without the visuals it doesn't translate as well to an album. I got the album used a few years later. It's OK, but not something I rate as high as most of the Kinks proper albums. I actually like their live album EVERYBODY'S IN SHOWBIZ a bit more as they do improved versions of songs like Alcohol, Skin And Bones, and Starrmaker. Most of the songs on ONE FOR THE ROAD are better on the regular studio albums.
This would have been the point when a certain percentage of forum members went to the bathroom! (And then, decades later after the song that they didn’t recognize and initially dismissed is recognized as a classic, proudly proclaim to have witnessed its initial unveiling. )
I was at the Providence Civic Center concert featured in the video, bought the T-shirt, the Time-Life videocassette by mail order (which took forever), as well as the very different LP…. And even had the Chew Bop version!! It was all a thrill, hard to recapture now…
Have never listened to One For The Road, looking forward to checking it out. Bummer we wrapped up AFL1 during the height of the work week, have thoughts but no time to express them. Probably just as well as general attitude here seems to be one of condescension; guitar wankery, amateurish, a little boy in a man's body, sheesh! Fortunately it matters not. I, in any case have a new respect for Dave as an artist and how he selflessly channels his considerable talent into the creation of great songs for Ray and the Kinks. Also, Wild Man rocks!
As I said several times already, I got my copy of One From the Road shortly after I graduated from high school in 1980 on one of my record store crawls through Cambridge. I got it at the Harvard Square Coop, who used to sell new records at great prices, $3.99 for a single and $6.99 for a double. Anyway, I brought it home and liked it a lot. I still have that copy, poster and all. I managed to find another copy of the poster and it graced a few dorm walls in several colleges the next several years. As for the video version, I believe that I first saw in sometime in the early 80s as a rental from one of the many video stores that popped up in Salem in those days, like the Kinks song of the same name. I remember that you either had to be a member or you had to plunk down a deposit of $50.00 in order to rent a video. I think I then had a copy until I finally got the DVD as part of a package w/the Kinks Greatest and Come Dancing CDs that Velvel/Koch put out called The Kinks Greatest 1970-1986, even though there was nothing from either 1970 or 1986, but I digress. Avid Martyj, did you and your fellow Young Hoosiers watch your fellow Ball State alumni David Letterman when he had that morning show in 1980? I remember a fellow dorm inmate from NJ watching it back then.
One For the Road I was 16 when I picked up One For the Road on cassette in summer of ‘84, most likely at the Sam Goody in Garden State Plaza, Paramus NJ. For me, between junior and senior years, it was the soundtrack to a hot summer filled with all-day stickball games at the high school parking lot. And other extra-curricular activities. Whether getting ready to go out or go to bed this tape was playing. The great energy in the performances made it perfect to drive or run to. Plus, the Mets, with Dwight Golden leading the way, went on to their first winning season since I became a fan and were actually in playoff contention. Days I’ll remember all my life.
