I love it! Somewhere in here, I have mentioned my love for Canadian hard rock bands. I’m pretty certain in my haste though, I left triumph out of that list. They are huge favorite of mine and the thunder seven album (from which this song is drawn is definitely a favorite (as is this song). Anyone on here who doesn’t know them, I would simply say if the idea of a three man band with Rush virtuoso style playing, mixed with Journey’s more pop centric songwriting style sounds remotely appealing (guessing that won’t appeal to many on here but hey, who knows). anyway, thanks for posting that song. I dug hearing it this morning!
Bon anniversaire, @l'homme en retard, j'aurai 52 ans le mois prochain, we should get a beer sometimes when back in Paris, don't you think ? Think Visual will always be a favorite of mine. Not “top tier”, nor a masterpiece but I’ve always loved It because it’s their poppiest album of the eighties and that’s what I was looking for in Kinks music at the time of purchase. Pop. Melodies. Tunefulness. It's always a great feeling when a record meets your expectations, especially a 1986 record from a classic sixties band. Masterpiece or not, you get along with it right away. If not, you’ll struggle with it. That’s the reason Think Visual was an instant favorite of mine, whilst Low Budget took much much longer, waiting for this Thread to happen. Timing and expectations… Of course, I understand that the exact same reasoning (in reverse) will bring others to favor Low Budget because of opposite expectations, the notion that the Kinks were punk pioneers or hard rock inventors. We’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: it’s to the band’s credit that they’re not just one important thing but many. And it’s to the band’s credit that with Think Visual, they became yet again something else and unexpected : the best eighties version of a great sixties band. Agreed with @pyrrhicvictory's nod to the Moodies (allow me to add The Other Side of Life, Want to Be with You and Deep to his list of top eighties sounding Moody tunes, the best being The Voice forever and ever) and with @fspringer's wonderful post about the difficulties of being eighties or dying the slow death of nostalgia acts. This LP's more polished, less kutting perhaps, with more synths, more FM grooves, but Ray's profound and lucid enough not to do it only to fit in with the new sounds and scenes. He does it because it's his mid-life record in which he really reaches out, talks about himself, old wives, old lovers, his own experience, in a very unusual way. Still crazy after all these years. Him, the distanced observer, puts himself on the spot like almost never before, in Lost and Found, How Are You, even the blank page panic of Natural Gift or the anthemic metaphor of Working in a Fac-to-ry. And in doing so through updates of older songs, he acknowledges the fact that he was there all along, hidden in plain sight. Anyway, I’ll admit that it’s the only album since Misfits that hasn’t gained in stature thanks to this thread, but that’s only because I’ve always held it in very high esteem and affection. A favorite, then, definitely.
You have nearly a month. 80 Days comes in after The Road, and that is a very enjoyable balloon ride. Will The Kinks get the best ever unreleased album award?
True. Triumph did go down the toilet once on MCA, but not with this first MCA album (at least in my opinion). The next one was where they went paws up. Thunder Seven was actually my favorite album by them, along with Allied Forces.
When You Were A Child Very good Dave track to close the album that doesn't really sound like the Kinks or Dave either for that matter, which is I guess is a roundabout way of saying it's very much a Dave track (he of no set style or sound in his writing to this point - eclectic and all over the map). However, this one does continue in his more fast developing mature writing style we saw with "Living On A Thin Line" and some of Chosen People. His songwriting is getting more consistent is what I'm saying, "Rock 'N' Roll Cities" notwithstanding. Think Visual Going through every album track by track day by day as we do here sometimes enhances or reveals things we may have missed or overlooked and helps us appreciate said album even more. The opposite can happen as well and this album is that for me. The one song at a time listen actually reveals and exposes its flaws or missteps to a greater extent. We know Ray had a short period of writer's block at the start of this project. While he did find his mojo again, some songs here sound underdeveloped or weaker than normal as I guess they had to deliver an album to their new label by a certain date. He toys with a couple of themes for a few songs (every day working man repeating his time killing routine who becomes nostalgic upon seeing an old friend, computer leaning guy visualizing enhanced data management while starting a side business as a video shop owner) but none of these themes sustains as a whole. Dave's songs don't really fit at all despite one of them being a highlight as I say above, but the other one... I've said before that when listening to an album as whole, its weaker songs or spots are easier to overlook and ignore as long as the album as a whole is a satisfying listen. Think Visual is this for me. I never skip tracks when listening to albums so now that we're done with the one song a day listen, I'll never do this again for the album and can go right back to enjoying this as a whole album next time I put it on and will not notice or care about these "flaws" again. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ None of the three albums they released on MCA/London has ever been reissued since their initial release dates in the late 80s which is quite shocking actually in this day and age of reissuing and remastering things every ten years with an extra track or two to entice the completists like me to buy the same album yet again. If they ever get around to Think Visual, there are a couple of extra tracks that could be gathered. There is that 1986 new recording of "Apeman" by this version of the band that was used in the film Club Paradise but not included on that movie's soundtrack (and to date never issued on any vinyl, CD or download release. We discussed this version back in the 1970 "Apeman" discussion last year). Reportedly, there are a couple of other unreleased tracks that were finished and mixed at this time too: "Possession" which has never been heard about since unless it was re-written and recorded as something else, and "The Informer" which would be resurrected and re-recorded for Phobia in a few years.
Which actually seems quite logical. The push for a Dave solo album in the sixties seemed to break him. Then the seventies were very sparse. We hit the late seventies/early eighties, and he starts writing quite a lot again... It is generally the case where when you write more, you improve your methods and techniques... I'm very interested as to where it goes from here. Dave's material from here on is a complete blind spot for me, but the next album has some good Dave stuff on it, as far as I can tell, so far.
"When You Were A Child" I actually love this song in all of its cheesy 80s glory. Yesterday, I mentioned it reminds me of one of those 80s aerobic dance classes. If I had any YouTube uploading skills, I would put this song alongside one of those videos. This is far better than the other Dave song on the album. It also sounds nothing like The Kinks, so I'm not sure it would have been a good single. This is possibly the most 80s sounding the band ever got. It sounds like a long lost 80s one hit wonder. A perfect song for your Walkman, while you roller skate to the arcade, in your neon mesh shirt and parachute pants. THINK VISUAL This one will be hard to rank. It's not as good as the previous album, but it's a pretty consistent set of songs. It's lacking the high points of the last few albums, but I feel it has less really low points. The only two songs I don't care for at all are the songs they chose for the first single! Perhaps, it's a little on the safe and bland side, but it's a pleasant and enjoyable record for this stage of the game. With a different album cover, and a better choice for a single, this could have been seen as one of their best albums of the 80s. Instead, it became destined for the cut-out bin. It turns out that it's a much better album than its reputation.
When You Were a Child Great closer……. for a Dave solo album. Just kidding. I’m not one to play with track order, so maybe it was the best spot for it on this Kinks album, and it is a nice change to give brother Dave more than his usual chance to take the spotlight. I like this one a lot. In addition to the general loss of innocence theme, I’m still hearing the loss of his innocent first love. It’s a great melodic song, with a great lyrical theme, and, not having listened to these late career songs before, not a style I would have expected on a Kinks album. The 80s is probably the least represented decade in my cd collection, probably because the music of my formative years came from the decade before. I hated synthesized strings, drums, and orchestral instruments for the longest time. It took me a long time to hear them as what they are, musicians using the latest technology. I no longer have any problem with the 80s production style, so it’s possible I would have liked this song less if I heard it when it was first released, even though I really like it now.
Catching up after a trip up and down the California coast (where, yeah, it's been 90-100 degrees F, until you get close to the sea, where it becomes a pleasant 70-80, and even gets a bit chilly at night). Happy belated birthday to @The late man. Killing Time Yes, a nice natural voice for Ray, with those interesting almost middle-eastern trills, and the same intimate feeling I get from a lot of his singing on this LP. & thematically, it fits in well with the other Think Visual tracks. I've gotten to the point where I realize that a few listens to songs from this period aren't going to lead me to any definitive conclusions. Killing Time sounds quite good now -- in a month, it may be one of my favorites, or it might be a skip. But for the moment, quite pleasant. When You Were a Child Never scream again, Dave. You've got a fine voice in its natural range. I love when you use it in the context of a coherently structured song. & though, yes, your compositions often stick out a bit and disrupt the flow of your brother's thoughts, this one works well thematically -- the way *they,* or this, or that -- history or capitalism or digitization or repetition -- robs people of what's best in us. Nice work. Think Visual This is a strange album, and I haven't reached any kind of final evaluation of it yet -- is it going to be something I wind up forgetting and neglecting, or is it going to become a cherished addition to my Kinks collection? For now, I really like it. Natural Gift is a stumble (although, god knows, maybe it will grow on me), and Repetition gets a bit... uh, you know the rest -- but Working at the Factory has really grown on me, as have Sleazy Town, Video Shop, and Lost & Found. How Are You went straight onto the playlist and I'm betting it'll stay there. Think Visual and... yes... Rock and Roll Cities are making a surprise move up the charts, Think Visual with a bullet. This seems to be the closest thing to a quasi-concept album since at least Give the People, maybe since Sleepwalker. The theme isn't new -- society is becoming more and more unnatural and repressive, beautiful things are disappearing, dull routine is taking over our lives and smothering our imaginations. But RD doesn't sound ('60s) wide-eyed, ('70s) disillusioned, or ('80s) angry about all that anymore. In (agreed) the most personal and intimate way, he seems wistful, regretful, bloody but unbowed... mature. Musically, it doesn't feel like the band's groping for some big arena cash-in. They may not be making straight-out concept albums or experimental LPs full of unprecedented brilliance, but they're pulling sounds and structures from everywhere, a bleep bloop here and a soaring chorus there, sprinkling little half-pieces of genre in unexpected places -- not in a misguided effort to blend in with whatever's on the charts, but kind of -- for fun. To see what happens. Because it's there. In that sense, Think Visual could be one of the most Kink-esque of Kinks LPs since Schoolboys in Disgrace. What's most interesting to me, though, is Ray's singular creative journey. Lord, as hundreds of other '60s musicians had burned out, faded away, given up, or dropped dead, Ray managed to continue experimenting and building upon his natural gifts. His voice alone on this LP tells me he's still here, still vital, still with us, still sharing his own completely unique take on life, even as his half-ironic, half-optimistic grin becomes a bit sadder, a bit more tempered with experience. So for that alone, this is a crucial Kinks LP. Ray is still watching the world change with a keen eye, still showing us what those changes are doing to ordinary people and rock stars alike, but now he's exposing a bit more of how he's changing as well. So I'm still on the journey with him, & will be until and unless he gives up.
Thanks ! Yes, a September beer, definitely (I'm away until then). Especially since this could be my last September in Paris. When You Were A Child: my only complaint about this song is the ending: the fade-out is much too fast for a closer. Think Visual: really good 80s album, probably my favorite Kinks album of the decade, not counting my Word of Mouth/Return to Waterloo mashup. I'm not sure about UK Jive anymore, I gave it another try today, and it lacked the mellowness of this one.
Here's an unexpected twist: Killing Time is going around in my head, as expected, but another song keeps segueing in and out of it. No, not Tom Petty, but Bob Seger's You'll Accomp'ny Me.
When You Were A Child This is a pretty good Dave Davies written song. Certainly light years better than "Rock And Roll Cities"! I hear a bit of 80's Moody Blues in the sound of this one. I like it. THINK VISUAL (album) Having never heard this album before, I wasn't sure what to expect. While there is no song as strong as "Do It Again", I think overall this album is comparable to WORD OF MOUTH. Of course I don't think WORD OF MOUTH is that great of an album, so thus THINK VISUAL would also fall into that category. But it is not bad. The middle of the album had the strongest songs and the closer is decent. And considering how much of a drop there was from STATE OF CONFUSION to WORD OF MOUTH, I think having this album be on a par with the previous album is a decent accomplishment at this point for the Kinks.
Think Visual Another very pleasant surprise of a late career Kinks album for me. I like the variety of styles, the fact that it still sounds like the Kinks in spite of the 80s production style, and that there are discernible thematic links between some of the songs. While Ray and maybe even Dave return to themes they have written about before, it feels like they haven’t hit a creative dead end. Shouty Ray only appears on one song, which is a good thing for me personally. And my top two or three favorites on this album would hold their own against any but my top favorites from the Pye, RCA and Arista era songs. I’ll definitely be returning to this album again.
I find the summer temperature complaints pretty amusing. High today was 91 F (33 C) which is exactly on average for my South Carolina city in July. That’s the long term historical average over at least a hundred years. I bet the last ten years that average temp is even higher. Where I’m at 100 degrees is pretty common in the summer. You always hear the old cliche about the humidity, but it’s true here. I’ve stated before I fast walk/run 3 miles everyday and this time of the year I have to do it at at the crack of dawn as it’s just too damn hot to do it any later. Even so with lows only in the 70s I’m still soaked with sweat when I finish. Winter I can wait and do it during working hours. At it’s worst, all you have to do is walk outside and stand for a few minutes doing no activity and you still start sweating. Thank goodness for air conditioning! The converse in winter is true of course when I’m complaining about 30 F as an overnight low temp . It’s all relative, right?
As a free form Sunday, and because we've covered Natural Gift a couple of days ago, featuring Ray's most open Lou Reed parody vocals, will you allow me to entertain you with my personal "Lou Reed was not nice and a master at not being so" story ? It's May 1996. I'm at the Cannes film festival, attending the screening of a (good) Peter Greenaway film called The Pillow Book. I'm very young and quite excited to be there. Enter Peter Gabriel with a group of friends in the theater. They sit. Well, I never was an autograph kind of guy but come on, Peter Gabriel's just entered the room ! I borrow a pen from someone, get myself some face and courage and here I am, right in front of him handing my film ticket for him to sign. I ask politely, I'm very impressed, really nervous, low-voiced, looking at my shoes etc. Just as he welcomes me with a friendly smile (relief!), a guy sitting two seats further to his right starts to grumble nastily "oh no, here it comes, is it too much to ask for some peace ?". And just like that, I realize that the guy in question is Lou Reed (whose autograph I would've never left my seat for, let me tell you, not brave enough !). Anyway, Peter Gabriel takes the pen and ticket, says "don't be like that, Lou, he’s asked nicely, you’re being too harsh here". He writes "Hello" in the middle and signs. Just as I'm thanking him sheepishly and try to get my pen and ticket back, he… hands them over to the woman next to him, sitting between him and Lou. And now I realize that said lady’s Laurie Anderson… She writes "Hi", signs the ticket and, to my astonishment and shame… hands it to her grumpy husband!!! Who in turn, ostensibly overplaying an attitude of royal grandeur and spite, puts down his wool cap to cover his eyes and, blindfolded, manages to scribble "Bye" on the left end of the ticket, with a mock signature. But in a way, he was being generous : he gave me more than a Lou Reed autograph, he gave me my own little Lou Reed anecdote.
Lou was both mercurial and a work in progress. I don’t know if I’ve told this one here before, but a few years after your story, Lou and Laurie had dinner with my mother at a friend’s house in Manhattan. Lou could not have been sweeter, or funnier, even when my mother made the inexplicable comment that her KIDS would be so excited they were having dinner together. A couple of years after my mother passed away, Lou was a guest vocalist with Gorillaz for a gig in London. My friend Mick Jones, along with Paul Simonon, were at that point in the live band. Everyone, including Damon Albarn, and Paul, who usually isn’t fussed about much, was in a panic that when Lou arrived, he would be irascible and impossible to deal with. They were scared to even meet him, though Lou had performed on a song for their record. Lou showed up for sound check with the late Hal Wilner, his record producer, and a friend of my family’s, especially of my late father’s. They spotted Mick onstage and made a beeline for him. Lou was shy, but threw his arms around Mick in a hug. Hal mentioned that Mick was a close friend of mine, and Lou and Mick spent fifteen minutes trading stories about my family. Lou sound checked the song, did a great job, and was lovely to all. For this, Mick was deemed a hero. Of course, every situation is different. It might be expected that Lou would be more at ease having dinner at a friend’s, but the sound check situation could have easily gone south. When my sister was a concert promoter in Los Angeles, Lou performed in 1989 at the venue she booked, several years before his encounter with @Fortuleo. He was one of the most difficult acts she ever dealt with (Van Morrison was unsurprisingly perhaps the most). Think Visual is a decent enough album. When it came out, I still had expectations that the Kinks would put out something at least partially great. I don’t think anything on the album is great. There are some good tracks, and some decent ones, but it might be the first Kinks album I didn’t think there was anything actually great on, and listening now, I still feel that way. Not sure there’s anything quite great on the next one either, but both Columbia releases and the Konk ones (and Storyteller) have higher peaks for me coming up. And 80 Days!
First off and most importantly, get well Avid Zeki. What a great story, Avid Fortuleo. You did score a victory in that you did get Lou to sign your ticket, even though he did it in such a negative and funny way. I really would rather meet and hang w/anybody and everybody on this thread over any celebrity or star, even including Ray and Dave.
When You Were a Child I really like this one - helped by the fact that Dave is singing rather than screaming. It chuggs along at a merry pace and doesn't overstay its welcome. And it's a good way to sign-off the album. Think Visual (album) It's been a different experience for me going through this album because it was the first Kinks album since I became a fan in the late 70s that I didn't buy when it came out. I'm not exactly sure when I bought it (which is unusual for me) but I probably picked it up six months later by stumbling upon it in a music shop. Listening back has been a positive experience - there are a few songs here that stand up very well to Ray's best post-seventies work. The only albums I remember buying in 1986 (a year I was really busy with work, football and girlfriends) were Dirty Work, Invisible Touch (each seemed like a good idea at the time ), Life's Rich Pageant and Oz classics Human Frailty, Working Class Man and Gossip. I've since bought some good albums I completely missed then (not least Skylarking) but at the time I was in a very narrow listening groove.
When You Were A Child: Lovely Dave song. Everyone has covered my thoughts adequately: (i) 80s sound, but largely unobtrusive: Check. (ii) Vocals can be heard by both people and dogs, not just dogs, on this one (which is a plus): Check. (iii) Sounds like 80s Moody Blues (i.e.: Gemini Dream, The Voice etc (which is a good thing according to both my beloved Granny and me): Check. (iv) No aliens (or sex with aliens) (not sure if that's good for Dave, I know nothing about sex with aliens, it may be great [guess I'll need to ask Dave?]) but rather a song concept that even the non-aliens on here can understand and empathize with: check. (v) Not really a typical or great Kinks' album closer, but overall a pretty great song: Check. Me, I would have had this one open side 2 and then substituted Violet Dreams (off Dave's solo joint Fragile, from the same time frame) in place of R&R Cities as the closer (nothing against R&R Cities, I like dumb R&R songs about R&R etc etc). Fine song here from Dave.
Think Visual Summer ‘87 Tour Funny things are bound to happen if you loiter around concert venues long enough. The Kinks played Pier 84 on June 27th. Pier 84 was situated along the Hudson River between the battleship Intrepid and the venerable Circle Line. This was the infamous show when Ray went off on MCA after meeting with them earlier that day. I must admit, it was only after the show, speaking to other Kinksists that I was clued in about his wrath. I had assumed he was upset with the stage monitors, or something akin to that. Prowling around 12th Avenue, around 3:30, I spot commotion at a fenced area, ostensibly the stage door. Out comes Steve Jones, with band in tow, charging toward me. The Steve Jones Band were the opening act that evening, and I had recently purchased his new album, Mercy (on MCA). The following exchange takes place without him (or band) breaking stride, and me trailing them like a cub reporter at the courthouse steps. As he approached me, he noticed my Kinks tee shirt from the March tour; Here for the Kinks, wrong decade, lad. Turning to follow, I tell him, ‘I like Mercy a lot.’ Implying great album, when I meant great song. I honestly did like the title track, the rest of the album I thought was rubbish. We’ll play it for you later. Now, Steve Jones can be quite intimidating, and this dialogue may come across as boorish, but it was nothing of the sort. There was a twinkle in the eye and he was clearly having a laugh. Anyone who listened to his charming and witty Jonesy’s Jukebox radio show on KLOS in Los Angeles, perhaps @Brian x, can attest to his modus operandi. Then they all barreled into a wood-paneled station wagon, idling on the sidewalk, and went g-d knows where. Lovely bloke. As I walk back to the entrance I see another lovely bloke, Ian Gibbons, who is going walkabout. Now, the way Steve Jones fled the scene, and knowing what I know now about his history, I’d have thought he nicked some gear or something. But even then, at 17, something about his exit moved my antennae. I asked Ian, ‘Did they split?’ Ian calmly told me, No, beer run. Guess Ray wasn’t in sharing mode at soundcheck. Although, he might not even have arrived there yet; possibly sitting in a boardroom getting told ‘No’ over and over by MCA suits. I see my friend Rafaela, the Kinks Kontroversy head honcho, outside after the gig. She’s going to the after show party at Tunnel, in Chelsea, and would I like to go? Does the Pope sh-t in the woods? In’87, Tunnel had only recently opened, so it wasn’t infamous, yet. Discerning minds (over here, @All Down The Line) might grok that the Tunnel moniker could mean different things to different people, not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind. A unique, long and narrow space. In a couple years, the ghost train scene in Ghostbusters II would be filmed inside. Well, we didn’t know for sure if Ray would even show after his on-stage blow-up. But he did; all the Kinks were there. Here is Ray blowing off steam. The woman, one of a precious few in attendance, was badgering him to dance every other song. As were some men. Ray finally relented, the day’s music machinery wearing down any remaining will. Here is Dave, looking every inch the English rock star, greeting Rafaela and I at Jones Beach, about a week later. We had been watching Ray, and, if memory serves, Ian, play tennis on an adjacent court. Ray was wearing tight, cherry red shorts, and I urged Rafaela to start snapping pics, pronto. She didn’t, thought it’d be impolite, yet she was gazing at his derrière like she was R. Crumb. I kept watch to see if Ray had tennis skills (he did). It’s probably for the best that my good friend didn’t attempt any shots, as the copious dribble snaking down her chin would have undoubtedly caused her Konica to malfunction.
It's funny you comment on this because I've been unpacking boxes of books and just this evening accidentally stumbled on a Dave "interview" of sorts in one of my boxes of rock magazines (MOJO, Uncut, Record Collector, the Word - yes, I'm a hoarder). I'm not unpacking magazines yet, so why did I open that box? Something mystical must have been at work because this was the only magazine I opened and there was Dave. Anyway, in Uncut of May 2011 (Fleet Foxes on the cover) there is a series of 13 photographs of Dave and the Kinks for which Dave provided commentary. Photo 11 shows a happy and surprisingly young-looking Dave playing guitar "on tour in America, 1980s". Dave: "That was a real high point, to get really big in America. What we failed at in the '60s, we made good at in the '80s. That's a wonderful time. Big tours, big arenas. Support bands like Blondie. Oh, it was phenomenal, the power you felt you had. When you have that many people in front of you, it does things to you. It makes you feel huge, like that's what you're born for. I'd decided to integrate my spiritual life with my job. Put that picture next to the '71 one and it's scary." Photo 7 shows a serious-looking, long-haired and bearded Dave playing guitar "on tour, 1971". Dave: Oh God. Seeing that scares the living sh-it out of me. Because I'm going through hell. Internally and spiritually, I was going through an immense transformation. And yet I was still in that world of getting up there and playing the hot riffs....I came very close to jumping out of a window in New York. I still had to play the game of what people expected me to be. I was 24. Pretty young." So while we tend to look at Dave's output in terms of career progression, he seems to look at it in terms of his mental health and happiness at different times. He was a lot more messed up in the seventies than I realised. Ironically, it was Ray who was taken to hospital in 1973 (in Dave's words) "to get his stomach pumped from all the stupid sh-it he'd taken all day, because he was going to kill himself."
