Last summer, my sister bought tickets for the two of us to go see Ray Davies in concert in Seattle.
Little did she know what this outing would bring about: the return of my obsession with Ray Davies and the Kinks -- a passion that has rather sadly been on standby while I have pursued being a mom, holding down a career, and basically living a grown-up's life.
It's not that music has been absent over the past years: we have plenty of CDs, and I have listened to a lot of my favorite musicians since I've lived in France. I've also gotten more into jazz, standards and French popular music.
And of course, I do own a nearly komplete kollection of the Kinks' albums: all on vinyl, sitting forlornly in my parents' basement.
Perhaps as part of my post-Obama euphoria (I'm part of Barack's generation, so I feel young again!) I have decided it is time to get the Kinks back into my listening habits. So I recently Amazon one-clicked my first Kinks CD order:
Something Else by the Kinks
Arthur or the decline and fall of the British empire
Lola vs. Powerman and the Money-go-round
Workingman's Café (a Ray Davies solo album)
And be warned -- I plan to bore you with the details of my rediskovery.
7 comments:
One of my faves long time ago too :-)
Last summer, my boyfriend bought Muswell Hillbillies, as well as an "ultimate collection" of Kings tunes. I downloaded those on my i-Tunes, and I am enjoying them immensely. Not an obsession like yours, but I do like their stuff quite a bit.
When it comes to music, I'll never grow old. I love new stuff coming out on the indie scene, and I also like older stuff.
I don't know that much "new stuff coming out of the indie scene," although I would like to. It just seems that all my music time is spend listening to the older stuff I like, and I can hardly keep up with that!
I'll have to check out your blog to see what sort of new things you listen to.
I think it's significant so that many of the fabulous new indie bands -- the Kooks, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight, Locksley, just to name a few -- cite the Kinks as one of their major influences. A bunch of 17-year-olds we were chatting with at the Ray Davies concerts last night came ther to see Locksley (wonderful nesw band) but they also knew most of the Kinks songs, and as one of them said, "Ray Davies is HUGE!" Perhaps this generation will give him the respect he so strangely failed to get 40 years ago.
Holly, at the Seattle concert I also chatted with some younger types at the bar and they were very high on seeing Ray (the opening act was insignificant, they had definitely come for Ray.) They were so excited and were telling me how they thought it was so great to get to see him in such a small venue. When I said I was a big fan and had seen the Kinks many times, their reaction was sort of "well like yeah, we figured as much!" Anyway, it was a nice exchange.
There is a brand-new box set too: http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?r=1&EAN=600753130490&ourl=Picture-Book%2FThe-Kinks
Looks great. Sounds like that Seattle show was really something to see.
Yes, Chris, I think I'll be buying Picture Book over the holidays. But I'm still going to continue my re-purchase of the albums.
Post a Comment