Comments on: The Kinks’ Music — Everybody’s In Showbiz

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:41:22 +0000

Interesting — I have multiple versions of most of the actual albums, but the only real compilation I have is the Picture Book box. Thanks for the info.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:27:25 +0000

It’s worth noting that the later compilation allbum – The Kinks Greatest: Celluloid Heroes – (1976) has a live version of “Here Comes Yet Another Day” that begins with the same “All right, let’s hear it for the Kinks!” intro that precedes Everybody’s in Show Biz’s live version of “Top of the Pops.” I dont’ have the record right at hand, but I recall that there are also alternate versions of a few other tunes off Muswell Hillbillies.

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:56:48 +0000

Some people have suggested that, but he started doing small appearances at the back end of last year. Micky Dolenz has even said that before Davy’s death they were planning a tour of all four Monkees, so it may just be that Nesmith finally felt like gigging.

I’d suggest concentrating on the First National Band albums — Nesmith has been talking about getting that band back together for a tour, so that material’s obviously on his mind.

As for the Monkees in 87, yes Pool It! was awful (though That Was Then… isn’t all that bad) but their tours around then weren’t at all bad (though the hip-hop version of Ditty Diego with Micky rapping in a Grover from Sesame St voice is best forgotten) — they used to do a great little acoustic set in the middle of the show, just the three of them singing with Peter’s guitar, and some of it’s just superb on the extant recordings. When Love Comes Knocking, for example, a song I’ve never liked much, gets turned into a ragtime-folk song. Certainly far classier than the shows the Beach Boys were doing after *their* late-80s comeback…

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:44:57 +0000

Nice analysis — not totally convincing, and it still doesn’t make me like the song, but it is an interesting reading.

By: Stephen Bray

Stephen Bray — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:43:53 +0000

Well, looks like I’ll spend the next few months researching Nesmith then in order to get as much out of this show as possible.

’87 Monkees. Ugh. I remember buying ‘Pool It!’ as a kid having not entirely hated “That Was Then, This is Now” (and you can’t mock me for that – if memory serves, your first record was Shakin’ Stevens!). I thus associate all Monkees stuff around that era with ‘She’s Moving In With Rico’.

Is there any suggestion that it’s Davy’s death that’s driven Mike to this? “Oh God, if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it!” sort of thing? Seems to be a commonplace sort of idea these days, with it being the reason Pulp and, I think, others got back together.

By: Duncan A W Smith

Duncan A W Smith — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 05:24:42 +0000

Lyrically, ‘Celluloid Heroes’ is a work of genius: it goes from from pathos to bathos and back. Where to begin?Why, on Hollywood Boulevard, that less-than-glittering, topsy-turvy place where you look, not up to the heavens, but down to the pavement to see the stars. The motion picture stars, that is, those other-worldly, ethereal beings from a “fantasy world” whose names here are mundanely “written in concrete”. There is throughout this song the constant interplay of the figurative and the literal, of the truly touching and the tritely tacky. If you look up from down here, you’re as likely to be looking up a lady’s dress as scanning the skies for celestial truths. Are we to believe that Bette Davis’ life was really that lonely, or is that just a wistful projection of the protagonist/singer’s own isolation? There’s a genuine depth of emotion suggested here. But then we’re crashing back to earth with the stock sentimentality and low comedy: covering the imperious George Sanders with garbage, avoiding Bela Lugosi’s vampire bite. Of course one can stomp on Mickey Rooney: because he’s so little–no, wait, we’re talking about a flat slab of sidewalk, not the diminutive actor; and everyone can be “tread on” here, even cinematic giants like “dearest Marilyn”, who we’re told was not made of “iron or steel” , but “flesh and blood”. But then we’re confusing her celebrity with her star which is set in concrete, just like the others. This song could be titled “Unreal Reality”, Part two. Appearance and reality: true identity vs. the mask of celebrity; real emotion vs. sordid sentimentality; villains and heroes vs. everybody on every street in every city; painfree immortality vs. “I wish I my life was….” I wonder…. Ray Davies, were you nervously walking hand-in-hand on the Boulevard of dreams with super-groupie Pamela Des Barres when you conceived this masterpiece? And if so, did you have any inkling that it would be a cautionary premonition of your immediate future? Marital strife, decreasing sales and critical approbation, attempted suicide…. Anyway, when analysing this song, be always on your guard: there’s more to it than meets the ear. So, it’s a masterpiece, say I.
(But I agree that “Sitting in my hotel” is pretty compelling too!)

By: Hal

Hal — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 21:52:27 +0000

Andrew, regarding your comments on Celluloid Heroes I think it is a pretty good song but you are *absolutely* spot-on about the length issue, it really *is* at least twice as long as it should be for the musical content and therefore seems to drag on for an age.
Your mention of Elton John’s awful Candle in the Wind (which became *truly* execrable in it’s zombified Diana version) and, earlier, the dubious “outrageous poof” line from Hotel got me thinking about Reg ‘n’ Bernie Torpid’s All the Girls Love Alice (from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road), that’s quite a good pop rocker but the *lyrics* are another thing entirely. While Glam Rock/Pop, the Kinks with Lola, and even Rod Stewart with The Killing of Georgie Parts I and II (although it um ends with the titular event sadly) had featured sexual, romantic, and gender ambiguity with characters who were *different* from the “norm” and for that difference to be celebrated or just *there* Alice opts for lesbianism to be treated as “wrong”, and for the title character to turn to it (and not just promiscuity but, apparently, prostitution) because her parents didn’t love her enough then to top it off she ends up *dead in a subway* for some reason. So instead of a lascivious pop song about a girl enjoying herself and her sexuality (which is what we’d likely have gotten if she was “straight” or a man) we get a grim song about a “confused” girl who dies which is a horrible depressing let-down considering the memorable tune and performance. However, what really irritates is that there seem to be very few people today who’d even think of writing upbeat mainstream rock/pop songs about non-straight protagonists *today* (then again is the mainstream interested in subject matter outside “celebrity” and the conventional now?). How boring and distressing.

By: TAD

TAD — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 21:11:42 +0000

I’d have to disagree with you about Celluloid Heroes too. A little overlong perhaps, but I don’t get bored with it, and it works even better in context (as an album closer).

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 19:34:37 +0000

Yes, I’m counting Percy. That will be slightly clearer when I collect these as a book, because the chapter on it will be there.

By: thisunrealreality

thisunrealreality — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 17:19:15 +0000

“A welcome return of Dave Davies as a songwriter, after two albums on which he didn’t have a single song”

Well, Dave has two songs on Lola, which are ‘Strangers’ and ‘Rats’. I don’t know if you’re counting Percy, a soundtrack album, if yes, sorry for that.