I Won't Take All That They Hand Me Down

You know when you hear a burst of a song on the TV and then you have to go and play it in full? I was watching an episode of the PBS series The Vietnam War yesterday- it's half term, watching hour long episodes about the Vietnam War in the afternoon is what half terms are made for- and the episode in question was focusing on the first half on 1968 (in brief- the Tet Offensive, perceptions of who won and who lost the Tet Offensive, the execution of a VC suspect in the street by an ARVN general, problems piling up for Lyndon Johnson, the assassination of Martin Luther King, increasing anti- war rallies and protests, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy). At one point, as students fought with the police after occupying Colombia University in New York, this song played for maybe twenty seconds. 

I'm Not Like Everybody Else

I'm Not Like Everybody Else was the B-side (the B- side!) to Sunny Afternoon, written by Ray Davies but sung by brother Dave, a snarly, defiant act of non- conformity, a celebration of outsider status. Dave's guitar sounds wonderful, crunchy and fuzzy, and the song is a superb three minutes twenty three seconds of 1966 bottled. The A- side isn't bad either...

Sunny Afternoon

Sunny Afternoon shows Ray's music hall roots, the descending piano part straight from the pre- rock 'n' roll era, the lyrics all superstar ennui and complaints about paying tax (Ray's writing in character but he himself is in there too I think).

I watched a documentary about The Kinks a while ago. Their singles from 1964- 1968, songs like You Really Got Me, All Day And All Of The Night, Tired Of Waiting For You, Set Me Free, See My Friends, Sunny Afternoon, Dead End Street, Waterloo Sunset and Days are as good as anybody else's from the period, if not better. In the documentary they spent a lot of time focussing on The Village Green Appreciation Society, released in 1969, an album I've not really ever clicked with. It's funny (funny peculiar) that even in the heat of the mid- to- late 60s with all that forward momentum that music was providing Ray Davies was pining for a world that for him vanished, lamenting the loss of the London of his childhood and writing nostalgic songs about village greens and steam trains. 

Sixteen

The little girl in this photograph, our daughter Eliza, turns sixteen today (coincidentally also the day she takes her last GCSE exam). The toddler in The Clash t-shirt seems a long time ago now. In recent time honoured fashion she has booked a day ticket for the Leeds festival, a rite of passage for today's teenagers. Happy birthday Eliza- enjoy the physics exam and your last day at school.

For many years Eliza and her friend have gone to dance classes, joined the team and performed locally and at shows. I've often gone to pick them up in the car from the classes. On one occasion when they were both much younger I had Misty Waters by The Kinks playing on the car CD player. They latched onto it and started singing along. It then became a thing, playing Misty Waters and all of us belting it out on the drive back from dance. We were still doing it a few weeks ago.

Recorded by The Kinks in 1968 Misty Waters was an outtake- an outtake!- that failed to make it onto either Four Well Respected Gentlemen or The Village Green Preservation Society and only turned up much later on The Great Lost Kinks Album.

Misty Waters 

Amps cranked up and at double the speed, Billy Childish and The Buff Medways covered the song for their 2000 album Steady The Buffs, about the time I started to get into Wild Billy Childish and his enormous back catalogue.

Misty Water

Tastes Just Like Cherry Cola

Look out of your window- does it look like June? What should we do? How about spending three days under canvas in a field somewhere in North Yorkshire? Oh go on then.

The Raincoats played a kind of folky post punk, formed in 1977 in response to punk's opening blast. They were also, as everyone always says about them, Kurt Cobain's favourites, and various punk players passed through their ranks- Palmolive, Ricard Dundanksi, Kate Korus- along with the central duo of Ana da Silva and Gina Birch. This is their surprisingly straight cover version of The Kinks' Lola.

Lola

The picture shows Man Ray's 1924 portrait of Peggy Guggenheim, kitted out for dress down Friday.

I'll be back in a couple of days, probably with a drenched tent, some very soggy family members and a bootful of mud.


Camping's off, number 2 child is ill.

There's Too Much On My Mind

My head is currently fit to burst- workload and deadlines mainly. I drive home with thousands of things bouncing around my head. Chuck in all the non-work stuff and I don't know if my little mind can cope with it all. This song came on driving home yesterday, and though I've posted it before over two years ago, it seemed very apt. Ray Davies nails it with this absolute cracker. Plus it gives me an excuse to post the splendid advert for Terylene.

Too Much On My Mind

Terry Meets Julie And Tjinder

Waterloo Sunset is one of those songs that probably shouldn't be covered, it being some kind of high water mark for mid 60s songwriting. I'm not sure the original Kinks version can be improved on, and there's maybe not much you can do with it other than do it straight (a jazz-metal deconstruction anyone? Sixteen minute techno epic?). I suppose bands do it to pay homage or just because it's fun to play.

Cornershop's version, a bonus track from 2009's Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast, works pretty well though- recognisably Cornershop with Tjinder Singh's vocals and some sitar near the start without destroying the original's charm. Funny band Cornershop. Their breakthrough album When I Was Born For The Second Time was full of great little songs, a mish-mash of styles, and a real wonky charm. It also had that Norman Cook remix of Brimful Of Asha. I love the original, not am too fond of the remix. They seem to have spent the last fourteen years running away from it and success. I bought 2002's Handcream For A Generation but can't really remember much about it other than it had the dreaded Noel Gallagher collaboration and was glam rock in parts. Still, they don't repeat themselves, clearly have wide-ranging record collections and influences, and bring an Asian identity to parts of the music scene not known for cross cultural pollination, so good on 'em.

Waterloo Sunset (Kinks cover) Bonus Track.mp3

I Don't Want To Live My Life Like Everybody Else

A couple of Sundays ago BBC4 showed Ray Davies' set from this year's Glastonbury, where in a masterstroke of scheduling he was up against England playing in the World Cup. Luckily he's armed with some of the best songs written by one man, and knowing how poor England were the crowd that opted for Ray made the right decision. It was a greatest hits set with a huge choir joining him for several songs, and despite the band being a bit ploddy in parts Ray was on fire, the frontman England didn't have. I can live without the whole notion of 'classic rock', the greatest songwriters ever lists, the constant mythologisation of the 1960s, and all that nostalgia driven rock industry, but the set was a joy to watch.

He didn't play this song (it wasn't on the programme if he did) but it's one of The Kinks' best and firmly in the tradition of great bands chucking out great b-sides. It's also a brilliant outsider song, and maybe like See My Friends and the much more well known Lola an outsider song in terms of sexuality as well.

02 I'm Not Like Everybody Else.mp3

Holly Golightly 'Time Will Tell'

Holly Golightly has been making records since 1994, firstly as a member of Thee Headcoatees (a Billy Childish spin-off, who put out indie-garage classic Have Love, Will Travel), and then as a solo artist. She looks like the beatnik girlfriend I never had in the 80s. Inspired by the 60s scene, rhythm and blues and rockabilly she has released scores of albums, singles and e.p.s. This is a Kinks cover, from her well worth getting 2003 album Truly She Is None Other.

05 Time Will Tell.wma

The Kinks 'Too Much on My Mind'

A second great lost Kinks track, off their Face To Face album. This is a beauty.

04 Too Much on My Mind.wma

The Kinks 'Misty Water'

The Kinks wrote at least as many of the great songs of the 60s as anyone. They had great hair, and wore clothes second only to The Small Faces in their mod-nattiness. They also had warring brothers, one of whom, Dave Davies, nearly killed the drummer by throwing a cymbol at him at a gig. Their 1967 lp The Village Green Preservation Society is now routinely held up as their masterpiece but it sold pretty poorly at the time. Ray Davies had songs that he left off it, which were almost released in the USA as Four Respected Gentlemen, but that was then shelved. How anyone could leave this song, Misty Water, as an out-take is beyond belief. This has been covered by Mr Wild Billy Childish, who doubles the tempo and the noise. I might post it at some point. In the meantime, enjoy a lost song from pop's most mythologised decade.

Misty_Waters.mp3