Preservation I like this. I don't care about the riff stealing. That's part of rock n roll as far as I can see/hear. Dave gets a good work out with it, so that's always a good thing. But talk about fatigue...I'm so sick of hearing about Flash and evil and money and corruption. I don't care any longer. LOL If Ray wants to take the music and change ALL the lyrics I would say this song is a winner. but since that ain't going to happen, I like it well enough. But won't go out of my way to listen to it. I'm going to try and go through Preservation 2 tomorrow and pick out my faves (and not so favorites). But then after that, I'll be happy to not think about this musical for a bit. Some good stuff is on there, but if you're telling me this is a musical, then it needs to hang together and make some sense. and beyond that, have a story that grabs you. This doesn't. Still not sure why I should care about any of these characters.
“Nowadays I just steal the stuff. I don’t try and write in anybody’s style: If I hear a good lick… I’ll just pinch it and use it.” Thus spake Nick Lowe in 1978, remixing the famous maxim “talent borrow, genius steals.” Stolen from Pitchfork, BTW. Make of that what ya will
At the 18 second mark, I'm hearing Bachman Turner Overdrive's "Let It Ride," which had been a hit a year earlier.
I guess nicking riffs was just part of Ray's deal and let's face it, he stole from himself way more than anybody else as has been evidenced in this thread many times. The most blatant being his reimagining of the "All Day and All of The Night" melody for "Destroyer" in 1981. Green Day managed to turn the tables on him years later when the "Picture Book" lick was repurposed for their "Warning". They admitted as much at the time saying they'd been listening to The Kinks and The Who nonstop before their sessions for the album of the same name commenced:
I believe operas, operettas, musicals and concept albums mostly have this in common that the story is just a pretext for the music. A libretto is a success when it doesn't make you cringe enough to distract you from the music. There are few exceptions. Those are to be found among the works you were introduced to when you were a kid, I guess.
The Preservation single has been tagged as the 1st Track on my Act 1 CD and therefore falls out of favor with me immediately because it just doesn’t belong there. Who’s idea was this? Probably the record company. I guess the single per se was their idea as well. Probably someone confronted Ray that the whole Preservation plot is impenetrable, so they asked him to write a dumbed down summary of the story and put it out as a voice-over to some rock tune so that people have a chance to grasp it before plunging into a double album. Really the lyrics end up so simplified as if they’re aimed at school children. As for the stolen riffs, I interpret that move as a cheeky provocation as in „Okay, so sue me!“.
Preservation Concerts. In November of 1974 The Kinks started a series of concerts that highlighted the Preservation album. The band consisted of Ray Davies (vocals, guitar) Dave Davies (guitar, vocals) John Gosling (keyboards) John Dalton (bass) Mick Avory (drums) John Beecham (trombone) Alan Holmes (sax, clarinet) Laurie Brown (trumpet) Pam Travis (vocals) Claire Hammill (vocals) Nov 23rd 1974 - Colgate University, Hamilton New York set 1 Victoria Here Comes Yet Another Day Skin And Bone - Dem Bones Lola Dedicated Follower Of Fashion You Really got Me All Day And All Of The Night Celluloid Heroes Waterloo Sunset ? set 2 Morning Song Daylight Preservation There's A Change In the Weather Money and Corruption/I Am Your Man Here Comes Flash Demolition Money Talks Shepherds Of The Nation He's Evil Scum Of The Earth Slum Kids Mirror Of Love Alcohol Flash's Dream Flash's Confession Nothing lasts Forever Artificial Man Scrapheap City Salvation Road Preservation Finale Nov 24th 1974 - Palace Theater, Albany New York set 1 Victoria Here Comes Yet Another Day You Really got Me All Day And All Of The Night Sunny Afternoon Celluloid Heroes Slum Kids Skin And Bone/Dem bones set 2 Preservation Morning Song Daylight There's A Change In The Weather Money And Corruption/I Am Your Man Here Comes Flash Demolition Money Talks Shepherds Of The Nation He's Evil Scum Of The Earth Mirror Of Love Alcohol Flash's Dream Flash's Confession Nothing Lasts Forever Artificial Man Scrapheap City Salvation Road Preservation Finale Nov 28 1974 - Felt Forum, New York, New York set 1 Victoria Here Comes Yet Another Day Celluloid Heroes Lola Alcohol Skin And Bone You Really Got Me All Day And All Of The Night set 2 Preservation Morning Song Daylight There's A Change In The Weather Money And Corruption/I Am Your Man Here Comes Flash Demolition Money Talks Shepherd's Of The Nation He's Evil Scum Of The Earth Slum Kids Mirror Of Love Alcohol Flash's Dream Flash's Confession Nothing Lasts Forever Artificial Man Scrapheap City Salvation Road Preservation Finale Nov 30 1974 - Palace Concert Theatre, Providence Rhode Island set 1 Here Comes Yet Another Day You Really Got Me All Day And All Of The Night Celluloid Heroes Waterloo Sunset Sunny Afternoon Banana Boat song Lola Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues Alcohol Skin And Bone Good Golly Miss Molly set 2 Preservation Morning Song Daylight There's A Change In The Weather Money And Corruption/I Am Your Man Here Comes Flash Demolition Money Talks Shepherd's Of The Nation He's Evil Scum Of The Earth Slum Kids Mirror Of Love Alcohol Flash's Dream Flash's Confession Nothing Lasts Forever Artificial Man Scrapheap City Salvation Road Preservation Finale Although the band did a number of shows over the course of 1974, and each show had tracks from the Preservation albums, even prior to the release of Act 2, these four shows were the only actual whole Preservation album shows. Obviously some of those setlists may be slightly incorrect, and I am happy for anyone to correct any errors in them, but that is the best I am able to do based on looking around 48 years later. Listening to the Palace Theatre concert in Providence as I type this out, it is easy to hear why people have fond memories of these shows, Ray is obviously very animated, the band is tight, and the show comes across with more humour than the album did .... It almost has a parallel to the difference between a text conversation and a real conversation. The inflection and the feeling behind the song comes across a little more clearly in the concert setting and the band and audience have a closer and much better connection, so the chances for misinterpretation and misunderstanding are less likely. Ray plays the ringmaster and leads us through the album well. He also seems to lean more on a Cockney accent than the broad spread of accents and vocal deliveries on the album... which again, I guess for many would give the story more stability and come across as less Schizophrenic. We have two essentially new songs added to the set. The single we looked at yesterday, Preservation, and the very cool Slum Kids, that missed out on the album. As I think we have discussed prior, the first set of these shows was somewhat of a mini-greatest hits set, and then a short intermission followed by an elongated Preservation set the presented a slightly compressed presentation of both Preservation albums.... and although I personally like both albums, I guess there would be a pretty good argument that it would have been best if Preservation had just been released as one double album, rather than the essentially triple album set that was released..... Of course in this era, all I seem to hear from people is that so many classic double albums should have been single albums and blah blah blah, but for me there are very few, if any, double albums I would shorten at all. From wiki - While it sold poorly, (peaking on the Billboard 200 at No. 114), it received a warm response among some critics. John Swenson, writing for Crawdaddy, counted Preservation Act 2 as one of his favorite albums of 1974. [6] Ken Emerson, in Rolling Stone, also held out the album as an "underrated" one in the Kinks' repertoire. [7] The live performances of the material were much better received, with one critic going so far as to say that the Preservation shows were first successful fusion of rock and roll with theater: "Ray Davies has finally pulled it off-- the Kinks-based theatrical production of Preservation is a great rock concert and a perfectly coordinated musical."[8] Janet Maslin, reviewing the album for the New Times, described Preservation Act 2 as a "profoundly pessimistic" and "apocalyptic" tale, reflecting, "What Preservation does is provide him [Davies] with a chance to let loose through outright fictionalizing, escape the pain of his experience through the black humor of his nightmares." Hopefully some of you had a listen to the concert on Sunday..... it is Sunday morning right now for me, as I try and put something together for you all, about something I know very little of..... What I do know, listening to this right now, is if this was a live album, recorded properly for release, I would likely get it.... if it was a concert dvd/bluray, I would definitely get it.... It has all those things that appeal to me about the band.... the uniqueness, musicality and essentially the larger than life personality that draws me to this band in the first place. Anyway, I look forward to reading folks thoughts on this/these concerts and certainly any of the folks that were actually there, and whatever they can recall. Cheers Mark
30th November 1974 - Palace Theatre, Providence, Rhode Island. This is a pretty good sounding audience recording of this show, the last of four Preservation concerts staged in the US in November 1974. The Concert opens with the single Preservation which had just been released, and it sounds like they played the single here, as it seems to fade out and the audience responds to people coming out just before the modified Morning Song begins. Morning song is shortened and the male vocal that for me made it, is removed and we get the female singers bringing us in. Daylight comes in with the female backing singers, then we slowly build into the song. Ray and one of the back-up singers move into a dialogue that sets up the idea of a revolution. Then we launch into a quick time Change In The Weather. From the tape we have here it sounds like they did a remarkable job of this song. I can only assume they rehearsed this quite a bit before staging this production, which makes it even more of a shame they didn't run the show a little longer, and perhaps did some dates in the UK. Ray takes on the role of narrator in some regards, and being the frontman that makes complete sense, and in some regards that is possibly why so many find the live version presents better than the album. I think Ray has enough charisma to carry this off. Money and Corruption/I Am Your Man comes in, and the first thing I am noticing about the songs so far, is the fact that they seem to be arranged more as ensemble songs, and the band seems to be really tight. In fact in some ways, it seems like this album may have been better arranged as a live album/theatre piece/concert video. Here Comes Flash comes in hot and hard, and it is follow by Ray chatting to, and playing with the audience. He introduces the band and he actually makes it entertaining. Often band introductions can be a little bit of a lull in the show, but here Ray seems to really engage the audience. Demolition closes out the Act 1 tracks really well, like it did the album. For all the talk of Dave not really being into this, he seems very engaged and his playing comes over really well. Again the audience seems really engaged in the show, and Ray is hamming it up nicely. Money Talks gets a solid intro, and I think the song comes in nicely here. As I suspected I think this works well in the live setup. The trumpet sounds the announcement, and Ray takes the position of the narrator, and we launch into Preservation. For a live show, the arrangement here works beautifully. It is actually quite surprising to me how well they are putting these songs across. This works a lot better than I would have expected it to, and from the audience sound I can hear, it seems to be having the effect one would want to. This comes across quite well as a stage play/concert, and it isn't surprising that many seem to have fond memories of the show. He's Evil comes in, and the vocal lines seem to be shared by a couple of/few singers, and also we have ensemble singing as well, and it all seems to work really well. Dave rolls out some nice lead just before the big final chorus crescendo. Scum Of The Earth leads into Slum Kids and works pretty well. Ray is playing up to the crowd nicely, and you can see to some degree how far Ray had come from the earlier live performances, to be a very effective frontman that could control the flow and mood of the show. Mirror Of Love gets the female vocal treatment. We get another announcement trumpet fanfare, and Ray places Alcohol into the flow of the show, but it is a modified thing that is essentially Ray playing it up as Flash. This leads into Flash's Dream, apparently everyone's favourite track from the album.... it seems like it is part tape and part live, but please correct me on that, because it is hard to tell. Flash's Confession comes in really well. Nothing Lasts Forever is good, but doesn't quite have the ambience needed in a live setting. The Trumpet sounds another announcement and Ray mixes it up, giving a new spin on things. We move into the Artificial Man. This seems to be a somewhat extended version... It's awkward listening to this quietly on the computer while the wife and dogs sleep lol We move into a series of questions that establish that the experiment worked, and then get a sort of reprise of the song. Scrapheap City comes in with the girls rolling the vocals.... I wonder how many costume changes Ray did during the show? Dave takes a nice lead break. An excerpt of Salvation Road gets played, in a sort of swing version, and Ray as the narrator comes in and winds up the story saying Flash is gone forever and we never have to bother about him again, and then gives a modified version of the final announcement. Salvation Road comes in, and the horns start a bit slow, but when the band come sin they push them up to speed. The song probably ends up being a little fast, but it gets an enthusiastic delivery. It seems quite a feat to carry this off in a live context, and it still makes me wish there was a concert video of this. We get a bit of a wind up at the end, and the audience really seem like they loved this crazy piece of musical theater...... It makes me wonder how many people that didn't already have the album bought it/them afterwards. Set 1 0:00:00 01 Here Comes A New Day 0:04:59 02 You Really Got Me 0:08:09 03 All Day And All Of The Night 0:10:36 04 Celluloid Heroes 0:15:48 05 Waterloo Sunset 0:19:29 06 Sunny Afternoon 0:21:53 07 Band Intros 0:23:00 08 Banana Song -- Lola 0:27:42 09 Acute Scizophrenia Paranoia Blues 0:31:11 10 Alcohol 0:36:58 11 Skin And Bone 0:42:32 12 Good Golly Miss Molly Set 2 (Preservation) 0:46:16 13 Preservation 0:49:00 14 Morning Song 0:50:34 15 Daylight 0:53:15 16 There's A Change In The Weather 0:57:26 17 Money And Corruption 1:00:13 18 I'm Your Man 1:03:12 19 Here Comes Flash 1:07:48 20 Demolition 1:12:64 21 Money Talks 1:16:34 22 Shepherds Of The Nation 1:21:07 23 He's Evil 1:25:43 24 Scum Of The Earth 1:29:40 25 Slum Kids 1:33:15 26 Mirror Of Love 1:37:10 27 Alcohol 1:39:00 28 Flash's Dream -- Flash's Confession 1:44:14 29 Nothing Lasts Forever 1:47:27 30 Artificial Man 1:55:20 31 Scrap Heap City 1:58:17 32 Salvation Road -- Finale
Slum Kids. live, stereo mix, recorded Mar 1979 at (unknown venue) We're just slum kids, and we know it, And we never stood a chance. We were dragged up from the gutter, From the wrong side of the tracks. So how dare you criticize, When you don't know what it's like To be dragged up from the gutter, From the wrong side of the tracks. Why do rich kids get all the breaks, While the poor slum kids have to work, sweat, struggle and slave? Why, Lord, there's so much injustice in this world? Slum kids never stand a chance. Look at all the slum kids all around you, Oh, they never stood a chance. We were dragged up from the gutter, From the wrong side of the tracks. Why do rich kids get all the breaks, While the poor slum kids have to work, sweat, struggle and slave? Why, Lord, there's so much injustice in this world? Slum kids never stand a chance. Look at all the slum kids all around you, Oh, they never stood a chance. We were dragged up from the gutter, From the wrong side of the tracks. So how dare you criticize, When you don't know what it's like To be dragged up from the gutter, From the wrong side of the tracks. Written by: Ray Davies Published by: Davray Music? I'm not sure when this track was originally written, but it was certainly written for the Preservation project, but left off both albums. Instead it became a part of the Kinks live show for quite a while, and as we hear here, it is a pretty good addition to the set. For me it is a particularly good addition that gives Gosling and Dave a chance to stretch out and do a bit of playing. This is a pretty straight Blues/R&B track that pumps along with a nice laid back groove. Opening with the organ laying the foundation, we get the bass, guitar and drums come in with a pretty traditional chunking groove. We also get the bonus of Ray and Dave singing together quite a bit during the song, and as always, it sounds really good. Lyrically it is held in the same grounds as a lot of Ray's material, as a highlighting of the class divisions in primarily, but not only, English culture. For me the highlight of the track comes with the organ letting loose with some really nice lead work. I love a good lead from an organ player, and I think Gosling does a very good job here. Dave also sticks his head out to play some nice lead. Even as a guitar player, I am not really into "guitar solos", which are a distinctly different thing to a lead break in a song, but I am a big fan of an extended section for a player to improvise to some degree and add their personal little mark, or piece of flair in a live setting..... to me, that is all part of what a live show should contain. As the years have gone by, and concerts have generally become more cautious and less risky, a lot of these somewhat improvisational sections of a concert have gone by the wayside it seems, and we have sanitised concerts that have generally become fairly straight greatest hits replications. Anyway, there isn't really anything amazing about this song, and as for it being left off the album/s, I have no problem with that either. To me both Preservation albums were reaching for something a bit different, and again, for me, they achieved that..... I personally wouldn't change them, in spite of some contention in the smoothness of plotline and such... I think Ray manages to tell a story, and well, and I enjoy both albums, together or apart..... Slum Kids, although I enjoy it as a bonus track, or a live set sideline, doesn't really add anything to the story and isn't particularly musically challenging, although I guess it could have been used to add something a little more straight forward between some of the challenging tracks on the album. I know that some folks have found the Preservation period a bit of a challenge/bore/distraction or what have you..... so thanks for your patience as we looked at a period in the band's career that may not be the most popular, but certainly is still a good and valid period in the band's career.
OK, since I wrote that I've listened to Soap Opera (all the way through) and I don't think I'd ever heard it before. I think the album I couldn't get through before was Schoolboys in Disgrace. Soap Opera certainly has some good points and just as many posters have admitted that the Preservation albums weren't as bad as they expected, I might have to do the same with Soap Opera (up to a point)... and who knows, perhaps with every subsequent album too.
‘Slum Kids’ with that gospel/soul feel has always reminded me heavily melodically of Sam Cookes ‘Bring It On Home To Me’. I was wrong way back when when I opined that the soul influence on the Kinks disappeared after Kinda: it definitely made something of a komeback mid 70s. I used to think of this track (Slum Kids) as boring and derivative, but these days I really latch on to the righteous indignation of the dispossessed working classes that comes through in it. Very powerful and moving even if the vessel is rusty and second hand. Ray and Dave’s near co lead vocals are the bomb. Not surprised it became a live regular: I think it’s sung with ‘there but for the grace of God’ passion.
Where does Slum Kids fit into the storyline? Who sings it? Is it another attempt to exonerate Flash by saying he came from a poor background, he never 'ad nuffink, so don't judge him too harshly? Or is it the class rage of the villagers fed up at being treated so badly? Or, is it, as I suspect, the class rage of the Davies brothers? The song itself is OK, generic but listenable.
It’s definitely the first in terms of the storyline as presented on stage: it’s the second part of Flash’s defence after ‘Scum Of The Earth’. And it’s also the 3rd (Ray and Dave) outwith the story too, probably the reason it stayed so long in the set years later after all the primary Pres songs had gone.
Seems like another manifestation of Ray's identification with Flash, which again mitigates from taking the story too seriously.
Yeah, Slum Kids is really Bring it on Home To Me redux. Good vocals, shouty Ray is having some fun, Dave is in excellent tasteful voice on backing vocals, not overwhelming as he can sometimes be. Everybody sounds great, in a comfort zone. Gosling’s Hammond is pretty basic and not too inspired in my opinion (compared to his own shots at greatness on other occasions), but bass & drums and Dave’s guitar all sound pretty cool. I’m almost afraid to write the word “generic”, as I expect Mark to come at me under the false accusation of not liking another seventies Kinks “rock” song. For my defense, I was all in favor of Preservation yesterday, and it rocked too ! With a cow bell !! I wonder if the Sam Cooke origins of the song will get the same negative reactions from some participants as yesterday's Hendrix lift. I think it's muuuuch more pronounced this time ! On the LP, the Second Hand Car Scum / Spiv of the Earth combo hold this place better than Slum Kids ever could. And in the Kinks career, well, the place's also taken, by the likes of Dead End Street. So better not go the comparison route, then… But as a live track, it's fun, and certainly not anything I would've objected to if I'd had the chance to be in the audience. If only!
The small delusions of artists are fascinating. Ray mentions, at the start of the video, how people are always requesting to hear "Slum Kids." I would like to meet the person who clamored for this dullish song.
As it never really made its way into the album tracklist, I don't really feel the need to try and identify it as part of the story too much. I know they played it at the concert, but for me it is just a cool groove that gives Gosling and Dave a chance to play a little, within the constrains of a theatrical production. If I were to try and put it into a context of the album, I would look at it as an outside observational type song, not directly related to a character as such, but the outworking of of circumstances. Certainly all people react differently to different situations, but it is hardly surprising that when someone who has been, or feels deprived most of their life suddenly gets a lump of money or power, it is going to illicit some often negative responses.
"Slum Kids" It's OK - nothing spectacular, and I wouldn't see it replacing anything on Act 2, but I'm sure it would have been easier to play live than "Second Hand Car Spiv". It does bear some similarity to the Sam Cooke tune, but what I'm hearing melodically is a preview of "The Last Assembly". As for the live shows, I had a go at listening on Sunday but didn't get very far. Maybe I'll have another go when I have more time, but for me it's probably more a case of "you had to be there".
I didn't have time to listen to the bootleg, and I think I will do it later probably, if ever. I like Slum Kids, better than Preservation, but then this is a later live version. I had heard a 4 minutes something version that I thought was a studio version (no audience sounds), but probably wasn't. I wanted to make a comment for guitar players and amateur musicians like myself. It started with my obsessive theory that Nothing Lasts Forever was initially written in a different key. I played the song again in G this morning, and something bothers me : the second chord (I believe) seems to be a min7b5 (F# if played in G, but B in the original C). It's a chord I love, that I call the "McCartney chord" because I learnt it from "Here Today" (back in a time when written pop music was rare and expensive, and you had to rely on your ears and fingers...). It's a kind of 9th chord without the tonic, or a reversed minor 6th. But it's not so typical of Ray. There are several ways to play it on the guitar, my favorite being taking your 7dim position up one string... Like x2323x for a B, which seems to be what Ray is doing on Nothing Lasts Forever - even if he doesn't hit the B string that adds the D, so there's not a full min7b5 after all, but I just realized it and so my comment is partly pointless, but I've typed it now... My point here is 1) in G, Ray's second chord would not be that intuitive after all, which weakens my theory and 2) I don't seem to hear much of this particular harmony in Ray's songs, whil I think it would really fit the sweet side of his bittersweet songs. If someone cares and heard a min7b5 in Rays output let me know, for the others forgive me this silly waste of time.
As far as the live stuff goes, I will say this. The performance of the Kinks as heard on the Providence recording is a good deal elevated from previous years. Wolfgang's Vault has a number of soundboard recordings from the fall of 1972 (plus one from early 1973) available to stream (I am not sure if you have to pay to stream - you used to be able to stream without paying but now you may have to pay their subscription). Anyway, those shows are pretty ragged though the New York 1972-11-16 show is a very good one and Ray, obviously enjoys the New York audience - the version of "Alcohol" is nearly twelve minutes long and features Ray clowning with the audience. The early 1973 show on WV contains "One Of The Survivors". Putting together the Preservation shows required extensive rehearsal and the band sounds the better for it. The opening of the show with "Here Comes Yet Another Day" followed by "You Really Got Me" which segues into "All Day And All Of The Night" sounds like the band is in great shape. When I have seen performers perform whole albums (Lou Reed, Prince, Neil Young), they began with the album and played older material later. Here the Kinks do it the other way around. I was surprised to hear actual dialogue throughout the performance of Preservation and I feel it was an entertaining presentation - the energy of a live show enhances Preservation in my view. Of course those who do not care for audience recordings are probably better off with the 1974-07-14 BBC audio but it features a selection of songs from Preservation whereas with the Providence tape, you can hear the full production of Preservation.
