***Reprinted from UGLY THINGS #18***


To borrow a phrase from boyhood hero Nigel Molesworth: as any fule know, The Kinks are one of the greatest bands - ever. Even a halfwit like Peason wouldn't argue with that. When it comes to longtime favourite bands though, with the exception of a very select few (Pretty Things and maybe Pretty Things), my listening habits tend to go in phases, and it's been a good long time since I had a really rabid Kinky phase. However, a grand haul of CDs, scored from a generous insider at Castle Music/Essential, has provided me with both motive and opportunity to fire up those familiar sounds and reassess the entire Kinks' '60s katalogue.


Up until a few years ago, The Kinks' '60s music was only available either in the original pressings (at collectors prices) or on a variety of "Best Of" type packages, which gave you the hits, but offered little evidence as to the lesser-known chestnuts. Castle have now made everything available on their aptly named Essential imprint, and have gone about it in the only logical way: reissuing every original British album and adding to each the non-LP tracks and rarities from the same period. Significantly, too, the earliest albums are presented in their original mono form, because - as any fule know - the stereo mixes on those records - especially the US pressings - are absolutely atrocious. The packaging is well conceived also, presenting the numerous sleeve variations on each release, along with concise, intelligent liners, and full session details.

Their first album, THE KINKS (You Really Got Me in the States) finds them a group of spotty teenagers still clumsily banging out R&B covers and trying to find an identity of their own. Actually, with "You Really Got Me" - Ray Davies' first perfect creation - they'd already found it, but, with the exception of "Stop Your Sobbin'", there's not much else here to distinguish them from dozens of other British groups circa '64. Of the other early Davies compositions, "Just Can't Go To Sleep" is the best - a fine ballad showing his instinct for emotional dynamics - while "I Took My Baby Home" and "So Mystifying" are enjoyable but basically insubstantial Mersey-style fare. And as much as I dig the rough, playful bash of "Beautiful Delilah" and "I'm A Lover Not A Fighter", their attempts at R&B, which make up most of the album, are for the most part second rate. Only on "Got Love If You Want It" do they find the killer instinct, sinking their teeth in and shaking it for all they're worth.

The bonus seven-inch tracks boost things considerably. The first two misfire singles "Long Tall Sally" and "You Still Want Me" are timid and tinny (though not without charm), but then it's "All Day And All of The Night", "It's Alright", "I Gotta Move" - killers all - plus the estimable Kingsize Kinks EP (spoiled only by a crap "Louie Louie"). A faster, tougher unreleased take of "Too Much Monkey Business" is a cool, tongue-tied surprise, while an outtake from the "Long Tall Sally" sessions, "I Don't Need You Any More" sounds more like the Dave Clark Five than the Kinks. Never again though would they sound like anybody except the Kinks.

By 1965 the Kinks' sound on their singles was unmistakable. Their second album, KINDA KINKS, should have helped to expand upon and define that sound. Unfortunately it was not to be. Hurriedly written and recorded, it's a mixture of small triumphs, near misses and total flops. Two of the standout songs had already appeared on a single - "Tired of Waiting For You" and "Come On Now" - leaving eight "new" Ray Davies compositions (one, "Got My Feet On the Ground", co-written with brother Dave). Many of these fall into the "triumph" pile, including the masterful bittersweet love songs "Don't Ever Change", "You Shouldn't Be Sad" and "Something Better Beginning" and a couple of fine, yearning folk numbers, "So Long" and "Nothin' In the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl". "Look For Me Baby" and "Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight" are modelled on the Motown sound and are less satisfying, but they are at least preferable to the dire cover of "Dancing In the Street", which must rank as one of the worst ever Kinks tracks.

As the bonus tracks testify, the Kinks were still very much a singles band. In the middle months of 1965 they recorded some of their most brilliant songs: "Everybody's Gonna Be Happy", "Who'll Be the Next In Line", "Set Me Free", "I Need You", "See My Friends", "Never Met A Girl Like You Before" - all single A- and B-sides, included here, along with the great Kwyet Kinks EP, featuring the faves "Don't You Fret" and perhaps the first of Ray's topical "character" songs, "A Well Respected Man". The only unreleased track is RD's piano accompanied publisher's demo of "I Go To Sleep", later recorded by Peggy Lee and Cher, amongst others. Despite the so-so strength of the original album, the additional tracks make Kinda Kinks one of the most essential CDs in the series.

THE KINKS KONTROVERSY (recorded October 1965) is perhaps their greatest, or at least most consistent album - basically there's not a weak song on it. The opening "Milk Cow Blues" (the album's only non-Ray song) is kinetic rave-up R&B at its best. "Till The End of The Day" is the final, monster statement in the Great Krunchy Kinks Riff series. And Ray's cynical/sentimental, outside-looking-in perspective is in full bloom on "I'm On An Island", "Where Have All The Good Times Gone" and "The World Keeps Going Round". This is however one of the skimpiest CDs in the series: only 16 tracks compared with 20+ on most of the others. "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" and its cool but often overlooked flip "Sittin' On My Sofa" are bonuses, along with an unreleased stereo take of the former and a demo of "When I See That Girl Of Mine" - neither of which will change your life. One can't help but suspect that there's more significant unreleased tracks hidden in the vault somewhere - how about "This Strange Effect", for example? "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" really marked a change though in the Kinks direction, as Davies & Co left behind the strictures of Beat/R&B for a new form of pop music which combined wry, modernist social commentary with the melodic tradition of English Music Hall.

This new direction - once referred to as their "crushed velvet period" - found wings with FACE TO FACE in the Spring of 1966. The sly, humorous "Sunny Afternoon" is the linchpin hit single track, but the album has so much more to offer: mood songs ("Too Much On My Mind", "Rainy Day In June", "Fancy"), character sketches ("House In the Country", "Dandy", "Session Man"), stories ("Rosie Won't You Please Come Home", "Most Exclusive Residence For Sale"), and humorous observations about everyday life ("Party Line"). The target of "Session Man", Nicky Hopkins, adds much to the flavour of the album with his harpsichord parts, particularly on the brilliant "Too Much On My Mind". Other highlights include "Fancy", an effective flirtation with raga, and the upbeat yet inescapably yearning "I'll Remember." As if Face to Face wasn't strong enough on its own, there's a bag full of first rate non-LP bonus tracks, including the masterful big bad city two-sider "Dead End Street"/"Big Black Smoke" and everybody's personal National Anthem "I'm Not Like Everybody Else". There's also two unreleased tracks, the Ray-penned/Dave-sung gem "Mr Reporter" from May 1966 and a teasingly promising backing track, "Little Women", complete with mellotron, but alas, no vocals.

Released in September 1967, SOMETHING ELSE is cut from the same cloth as Face to Face, and although it's a great album it hangs together less comfortably somehow. The novelty value of the music hall singalongs "Harry Rag" and "Tin Soldier Man" wears off fast, especially when sharing company with that second perfect creation "Waterloo Sunset", but that said, there's plenty here to justify this album's status as one of the Kinks' best. Three of Ray's most subtly compelling and melancholic compositions are featured: "Two Sisters", "No Return" and "Lazy Old Sun", none of which seems to get much credit, while brother Dave steps up to the mic for "Death of A Clown", "Love Me Till the Sun Shines" and long-time fave "Funny Face" (which old roommate Bill Calhoun used to wake me up with seven days a week for about six months). Several Dave solo singles are amongst the bonuses, including the poignant, Dylanesque "Susannah's Still Alive" and the fairly forgettable "Lincoln County" and "There's No Life Without Love". A fascinating unreleased stereo take of "Lazy Old Sun" is a nice inclusion, and the set is rounded out with non-LP cuts including the great "Autumn Almanac", "Polly" and "Act Nice and Gentle".

Next came the scream-drenched LIVE AT KELVIN HALL (The Live Kinks in the US), recorded live in Glasgow in April 1967. Seldom discussed, it's significant as one of the few authentic live documents of the British Beat era. Recorded crudely without later doctoring, it's presented 'as it happened', with the group's overdriven amps battling gamely to be heard above the roar of the fans. There's bum notes, sloppy playing, and between song tuning, but the Kinks sound fucking magnificent, particularly on the supercharged opener, "Till the End of the Day" (mislabeled as "All Day and All of the Night" on original pressings), "You're Looking Fine" (with a brilliant wobbly guitar lead from Dave) and "Sunny Afternoon". The CD includes the full mono and stereo versions of the album. Take your own pick, but to my ears the less reverbed mono mix is the one.

THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY was the last album by the original Kinks line-up. At the time of its original release (November 1968) it made little impact commercially, but historical reappraisal has seen it elevated to close to the top of the heap. And not unjustifiably. While I'd personally rate Kontroversy, Face to Face and perhaps even Something Else higher, Village Green is an exceptional work and probably the last "great" Kinks album. This time it's all Ray Davies, who came up with 15 new songs, most invoking simple pleasures, or lamenting a lost past that could never be reclaimed - if it ever really existed in the first place. Amongst a bumper crop of memorable songs are such gems as "Do You Remember Walter", "Picture Book", "Animal Farm" and of course the wonderful title track (although I still question the - repeated - inclusion of Donald Duck amongst what is otherwise a very English checklist). The R&B driven "Last of the Steam Powered Trains" and the feedback-injected "Wicked Annabella" provide the only real "rock" content in what is a rather low-key, sentimental set of English pop music, but the album works perfectly with only the twee "Phenomenal Cat" weighing in below required weight for regular consumption. Castle's CD set includes not only the full 15-track mono album but also the original 12 track line-up withdrawn at the 11th hour by a dissatisfied RD. These bonuses are mostly stereo versions of the final album, with the exception of "Mr Songbird" (a nice enough pop song) and the ever superb "Days", which also appears in its mono 45 version. Markedly absent however is its killer B-side "She's Got Everything".

If the Kinks run of chart successes was on the wane, at least they'd succeeded in shaking their image as a singles band. After Village Green Kinks albums became conceptual affairs, none more so than ARTHUR OR THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE, which told the story of an English man's emigration to Australia, and encompassed a short history lesson in the decline of British imperialism. Lofty aspirations perhaps, but Davies turned out some fine songs in the process, two of which - "Victoria" and "Shangri-La" - were among his strongest to date, the latter ranking as two of the best evocations ever written about the British way of life. The rest are more loosely constructed and somewhat less convincing, but there's other bright moments, notably "Drivin'", "Nothing To Say" and the poignant "Some Mother's Son". Leave it to the singles tracks to raise the overall standard, especially "Plastic Man" and the Dave Davies solo two-sider "Mindless Child of Motherhood"/"This Man He Weeps Tonight", though the reviously unreleased Dave track "Mr Shoemaker's Daughter" and various alternate stereo and/or mono album takes are nothing much to write home about.

And then there was "Lola" - lalala Lola - and the Kinks were back near the top of the hit parade again (#2, July 1970). It was followed into the charts by "Apeman (#5, December 1970), which I remember digging immensely as a young lad when I saw it on Top of the Pops. I'm not really a huge fan of either song now I'm (allegedly) a grown-up, but they're two of the key tracks on LOLA VS POWERMAN AND THE MONEYGOROUND, the Kinks' album from November 1970. The aforementioned TV show also gives the title to one of several broadsides here aimed at the pop music industry; it also happens to be a great hard rocker. "The Moneygoround" meanwhile is a bitterly humourous piano-driven piece documenting Davies' publishing woes: "Do they all deserve money from a song they never heard?/They don't know the tune and they don't know the words/But they don't give a damn." Dave Davies' "Strangers" has a delightfully strained poignancy, and the wistful "This Time Tomorrow" is also good, but the album's highlight has to "Get Back In Line", which is the Kinks at their English, social class-obsessed, sentimental best, championing the underdog. The remainder is rather less memorable, and the three extra tracks don't add much: the "Cherry Cola" version of "Lola" and demos/alternate mixes of "Apeman" and "Powerman".

Whether 1971's PERCY is, as the liners contend "one of several great lost Kinks albums" or, even a "real" Kinks album at all is up for debate. Despite the presence of several great songs I'm leaning towards the latter. It was, after all, a soundtrack album to a film about a penis transplant - a comedy, I hasten to add. As such there's a fair amount of incidental filler material (mostly instrumental), alongside a few rather minor ballads - of which "The Way Love Used To Be" is the best. There are handful of minor gems however, namely "God's Children" (a protest song against transplant surgery!), "Dreams" and the satirical, Viv Stanshall-esque "Willesden Green". The CD is padded out to less than 40 minutes with mono "film versions" of a few tracks or fragments thereof. All in all, it's your ultimate Percy package (penis not included), but hardly an essential purchase.

Over the last four or five years, Castle have also accessed the Kings katalog for a variety of new 'Best Of' style permutations. The Kinks Remastered is a 3CD set of their most upbeat, popular songs from 1964-67, with "Lola" and "Apeman" thrown in for good measure. It sounds great thrown on at a party, but it's basically dispensable with no-frills packaging and zero rarities. It also commits the inexcusable sin of including "Dancing in the Street". Ouch.


The Singles Collection is self-explanatory, taking you chronologically in A-sides from "Long Tall Sally" to "Apeman". Strangely, Ray Davies is credited with "Production" on all of these, which I'm sure pleases Shel Talmy no end. It comes packaged with another disk, The Songs of Ray Davies: Waterloo Sunset, comprised of '80s outtakes and demos, many previously unreleased.


The Dave Davies 2CD set, Unfinished Business also combines '60s Kinks tracks with solo recordings from the '80s and '90s. For the umpteenth time there's "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" alongside '60s solo singles and Dave-sung Kinks tracks like "Milk Cow Blues" and "I'm Not Like Everybody Else". There's only two '60s vintage unreleased tracks: "Mr Reporter" can be picked up on the Face to Face CD, which leaves "Climb the Wall", a slide guitar-driven home demo from 1969-70 which could've slotted nicely onto Lola vs Powerman.


My favourite of the Kinks komps is The EP Collection, a box set with CD-size reproductions of 10 original '60s Kinks EPs including the familiar UK and French titles as well as the rare Kinks in Sweden. Am I gonna sit in front of my CD player sliding these things in and out when I have a perfectly good record player? Probably not. But they sure do look purty. Anyway, kudos to Castle/Essential for doing the Kinks right with their 1964-71 album reissues. Now I'm hoping they can dig deeper for an expanded reissue of The Great Lost Kinks Album along with the racks that escaped the reissue butterfly net so far, like "Did You See His Name", "Berkeley Mews" and "She's Got Everything". Dedicated followers of Kinkdom and St Custard's old boys demand it.