Stand Up Comic - I picture Austin Powers dancing around to this one. Great fun and I love that Ray just does what he wants. This succeeds on many levels.
‘Stand Up Comic’: “What do you think of it so far? (Rubbish!) I knew you'd say that You've been watching too much television” I think he’s asking, “What do you think of me so far?” And the mob response of “rubbish” elevates the rudeness of the yobs. Jack the Lad? Jack the Idiot Dunce? Brilliant song and I bet quite the challenge to sing due to the rapid-fire delivery. The invitation to head down to the pub vs sitting at home watching television. I’m guessing this is a commentary on human-to-human socializing vs being glued to the lowest common denominator type of entertainment? Maybe. Of course, this goes onto playlist.
Stand Up Comic Stylistic Ray is back but i have some bias as i had no sympathy or empathy for such English lads of the time and ilk. I'm a bit tired and befuddled after unusually spending 3 hours at the gym (I almost wrote pub!) so it's time to ramble on...... If I hear something from Land Of 1000 Dances perhaps it's the drum sound and or feel at the intro Mr Streett? Mark i do hear a few consecutive vocal lines that remind me a little of the phrasing on Long Live Rock by the 'Oo. Lastly some ascending vocal lines (eg: After the "so we go" parts) that are pure Kinks so I'm thinking perhaps a touch both of The Last Of The Steam Powered Trains (fitting as our charactor also emits hot air!) and Brainwashed (as that's how this lads followers appear to be) and that's that!
Stand Up Comic This is a really, really exceptional track in terms of what it's aiming for as a lyric and performance. While annoyingly some of the lyrics on a micro-specific level let it down a bit by not being quite as sharp as I'd like (I'm thinking of a line like 'you've all been watching too much television' which come off as diffuse and blunt and betrays the fact that 50-something Ray doesn't has his nose to the ground for the spice of cultural details like he once did) overall the way it uses the form of a comedy stand up routine to deconstruct and reveal the thought processes and collective assumptions behind such performances and what they mean is brilliant. I don't think it's gilding the lily too much to say that it 'stands' comparison with a Stewart Lee (that's a name that might not travel outside the UK) routine in terms of setting up a comedic outlook/shtick and then proceeding to dismantle and extrapolate from it. I think the key line, the one that was always the killer for me from the first time I heard it, is 'That's That'.. a tautological phrase I'd compare to Zappa's 'You Are What You Is' in how it expresses an innate comedic natural law that reality is often unpleasant or banal or depressing, and from the contrast of that essential truth with someone's aspirations/pretentions, thence the comedy arises, with the bananaskin punchline of 'That's that' .. on one hand it's a balancing force of levity, but on the other hand it can be seen as more sinister and working against human improvement and dignity, saying 'everything's sh*te, we're all just turds in the toilet, don't even try to aim for anything better, FART' This track explicitly announces itself as a response to 'lad' or 'yob' culture as propagated in 90s Britain, but even if it began as a reactionary take on same I think it ends up saying something a lot more profound than just a surface level moan about the state of the world these days (unlike 'Yours truly', imo anyway) The pop culture of the 90s/00s, esp the UK as I recall it was particularly harshly base, trashy and lowest common denominator in a distinct way it's not now (I'm not saying things are necessarily better today btw: we have a very different set of problems now, anchored to a complete different set of cultural biases) .. so to return to the point of this sleazy turn of the century culture: this is just one example of many of the kind of of thing and there's no reason that it sticks out other that it's a good case exemplar that's always stuck with me .. when Bee Gee Maurice Gibb was dying in early 2003, Graham Norton (a UK chat show host) made a gag on his show about Gibb's life support system playing 'Staying Alive' as his breathed his last.. so who cares about the life of the real Maurice Gibb, a man who lived and loved and created and the rest.. for the purposes of this moments entertainment he's a disposable meatbag whose life amounts to one cheesy riff: dropkick his coffin in a landfill and play a canned toilet flush sound, NEXT!. Yes there is value in levelling , grounding humour but I do not think it is, as is often assumed by some an innately good force, and we have to be careful that such 'grounding' humour doesn't end up dragging us beneath the dirt and into Hell with the weight of it's idiotic crassness. I do believe this was the kind of dehumanisation-through-pat-punchline-and-canned-laughter that Ray was gunning for here, armed with a formidable working knowledge of the mechanics of old school music hall performers he grew up on, if not so much with the cultural touchstones of the harsh new millennium. Truth be told, I'd call the end product only 3/4 successful at most, but there's nothing else like it in the Kanon, and I would venture to say probably not much else like it in popular music. Heck something like this is rare even in the medium of standup itself!
“Stand Up Comic”: Apparently we Avids haven’t been watching too much television judging from the fulsome praise of this song of which I will join in since I too like this song very much. I find it to be a very sarcastic song by Ray in his not holding back against the lowest common denominator mentality of modern culture. Although the lyrics are UK specific, I know enough to understand what he’s going on about and hey, it’s not like we don’t have the same thing here in the States. Anyway, it’s another great song and if you don’t agree w/me you’re nothing but a yob .
The music for ‘Stand Up Comic’ reminds me of something that I first heard on this forum. Elvis Costello? I think. Someone posted a Costello song overdubbed onto a video of Elvis Costello’s father’s band performance. Very cleverly done and a perfect fit. Today’s featured track reminded me of that song (that I don’t know the title).
Avid Rockford & Roll, it seems that every 67 69 Camaro that I see listed in the Hemmings is a SS or a Z-28 at expensive prices. I never see an ordinary 6 cylinder/307 V8 model for sale. Also, have you considered a late 70s early 90s Corvette? I see that the prices for those seem very reasonable. There must be a few in your area since they were built, as they still are, in Bowling Green. Have you ever gone to the Corvette museum?
Well, it's only other people's deaths, I guess. The main problem was not realizing that pushing the frontiers of dark humour could be a very funny private pursuit between friends who know they're joking together, but certainly not a valid endeavour for a public show.
By the way, I’m still reading the second volume of Veritas and it’s still a good page turner. Pete has his fictional band play a gig at Ray’s art school which is described in a humorous manner.
It took a long time for me to connect with Stand Up Comic, but in the end the music is irresistible and it's hard not to sing along with the Stand Up, Stand Up chorus. For some reason I get a kick out of Ray's accent when he says "D'you know why"? I get it to some extent, but I've never had a complete handle on the narrator; always hearing "yob culture" as "your culture" and "wide boys" as "white boys" didn't help; and after reading through the lyrics this morning, and the analysis here, I guess I still don't quite get it - maybe you had to be there. Still enjoy it though. The ending has always intrigued me, it seems unexpectedly understated that the stand up comic, the brash and uncouth performing clown, ends up alone in a pub, quietly minding his own business. Maybe Ray sees him like the reporter in Other People's Lives, selfishly making a trashy living by exploiting the worst tendencies of the masses?
The term 'Wide Boy' was also used as the title of a 1980 single by Godley and Creme, notable for having one of the most inventive early music videos of all time:
Thanks Avid DISKOJOE, I like Vettes OK but Camaros are my sweet spot. A buddy of mine had bees driving Vettes since high school. He sticks with the classic years. I’ve been to the museum and it’s highly recommended! For you and @All Down The Line , here is that car lot I check out from time to time: Used Cars for Sale Paris KY 40361 Central Kentucky Classic Cars
Stand Up Comic My favorite on an LP full of really good songs. But this one's crazy. I agree with @ARL : "But the little bit that was/was all that we had" is the key to the lyric. It isn't in the "stand-up comic"s voice (which Ray goes in and out of here) -- this is pure Ray Davies. Conversationally, it would be: "All England ever really had that made it any better than anywhere else was style and manners -- and we never had much -- but whatever little bit we did have has been subsumed by a vulgar mob of TV-addled idiot brawlers." It isn't new for Ray to sound like an old man complaining about modernity -- he's been doing it for forty years -- but it feels like he's gone from "everything was so beautiful and simple back then" (Village Green era) to "everything's falling apart in the most disgusting way possible!" (Give the People era), to this much more suave, sarcastic, cool (but not detached) observational style: "funny how everything's gotten so f*cked-up, isn't it? Wish we could do better; I'm going to the pub." But no matter which mode he's in, RD always adds an almost self-effacing black humorous kick -- be it Donald Duck, the president's brain, or a farting clown. He's angry, he's nostalgic, he's angrily nostalgic (the Germans must have a word for that), but he's also smirking at the whole thing, and at himself for being so worked up about it. What's amazing here is that, in his 60s, RD hasn't lost a bit of his fire, energy, cutting rage, or redeeming humor. It's all here -- this is not a tired, defeated, dulled, or compromised man -- he's joking, snarling, rocking, bringing it back to a groove, weaving in and out of legions of voices and characters like he's still making Preservation or Show-Biz. I was wondering, listening to this -- what if Ray had been big enough in the '80s-90s to join Jagger and Bowie and Phil Collins etc in the swamp of second-wave corporate branding? Would he have managed to maintain his adolescent refusal to accept the world as it is? Would all his complaints about mass culture seem hypocritical if they came from someone who'd been right at the center of it? Maybe that's why Ray (subconsciously, unintentionally) kept subtly undermining himself -- because remaining an outsider was ultimately more artistically crucial than having unlimited fame and money. PS. Another part of the Ray rant -- the great artists who have gone out of fashion -- in 1971 it was William Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci, and Gainsborough, now it's Wilde, Coward, a Working Class Hero (Lennon?), a well-spoken hero from yesteryear (I'm picturing Lawrence Olivier), and again Shakespeare. It's like he's challenging all of mass culture and its rolling amnesia -- don't you DARE forget the greats!
I wondered if it was somewhat in reference to most old school comics seemed to tend towards depression, isolationism?
Stand Up Comic Best track on the album but you knew I'd say that. This track is firing on all cylinders to combine the song and automobile themes we have going on today. It's of course obvious that Ray had lost nothing in the lyrical department with this album, that was apparent from the time of the album's release, even to a yob like me. He's still got all of the sophistication and nuance he always had, but he had also honed and refined these traits over the years as he learned what aspects of his writing worked best for what he was aiming for. No complaints in regards the album there. Musically is where some of this album left me a little disappointed at the time. Not so here with Stand Up Comic. Words and music at the top of his game and the performances by the clown himself and the band here are outstanding. From first listen of this song I understood the UK centricness (apparently that's not a word - why not? - I'll leave it in anyway) of the lyrics but did not understand the actual meaning of it all or understand the various references. But that didn't matter. This is true for lots of Rays work that focused on English themes over the years. It's so good with such depth, my lack of never experiencing or understanding some of it fully was and never has been a hinderance to my absorbing and loving the big picture of the work. It takes a special writer to be able to pull this off and he does it time and time again. Ha Ha - I too have heard "white boys" all these years and now I see that it's "wide boys", a term I was not familiar with. Did I mention I think this is the best song on the album? That pseudo-latin style drum pattern within the Kinks Kanon can be found back on Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy, but it's also true that it can be found in the lands of 1000 other songs, but it's a cool groove here and drummer Dylan Howe nails this track with tight crisp snare and hi-hat work. Love it! Wish he had been on the drums when I saw Ray in Atlanta.
"Stand Up Comic" Yeah, Baby! Great observation and I agree. It's a little too silly for me with all the belching and farting. I guess it's fitting for a song called "Stand Up Comic" to come across as a joke song. It does manage to blend every decade of Ray Davies into one tune. I can't say I love it though. It doesn't sound like it belongs on the album. Maybe as a stand alone single it would be more effective or maybe even as the opening track? Everyone seems to love it, but I find it slightly annoying. I like parts of it, but it doesn't make my list of favorites.
I read volume one years ago when first released. I'm going read both volumes once this thread is done.
Stand Up Comic 'What do you think of it so far? Rubbish!' It's not a personal favourite. It's OK for what it is on the album, but not particularly one for repeated listening. Well, no, it's certainly not rubbish - I don't think Ray could ever release 'rubbish'. But certainly unique in Ray's song catalogue. He doesn't swear very often in song does he? Certainly here, and with 'The Tourist' you feel they're a few years behind their time with the social commentary. The 'lad culture' of the mid-late nineties, the 'Livin La Vida Loca' of 1999. More than likely as that's when the songs were written. Holding them off and waiting for The Kinks to get back together... 'til eventually, 'sod it, it'll have to be a solo album...' A regular part of the concert setlist in the early part of the 21st Century, usually towards the end of the show. So, here it's towards the end of the album. A change of pace and style, which the album probably needs.
Ray coulda approached these guys: The Kast Off Kinks formed in 1994 to keep the music playing on, and it is what the name implies - the original line-up consisted of the band that played Lola (apart from Ray and Dave) - Avory, Dalton and Gosling - together In 2009, the line-up became the band that played Come Dancing - Avory, Gibbons and Rodford (respectively the Kinks’ longest-serving drummer, keyboard player and bassist) - still with Dave Clarke covering for the Davies brothers. Jim then became very busy playing with The Zombies and Argent, so John Dalton was persuaded out of retirement and went on to play very regularly with The Kast Off Kinks” (from their official website) I suppose they might not have been so receptive, though.
Those guys were really great. For my part, I had "wild boys" (corrected from "white boys" which I thought I heard but didn't make sense in the context). @Luckless Pedestrian : so it's Steve Howe's son, you said the other day ? He's good! I don't know why I feel some sort of satisfaction when meeting this particular brand of social reproduction, but I do. A natural taste for dynasties, maybe, and also being too lazy to remember too many names, to open new files.
