Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Kinks Chronicles: Fans Share 60 Years of Stories [Episode 248]

Transcript

Kinks Chronicles: Fans Share 60 Years of Stories [Episode 248] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll.
0:04
Speaker 2: I think I'll leave you.
0:05
Speaker 1: You're reading Little Hands says it's time.
0:07
Speaker 2: To rock and roll.
0:09
Speaker 1: I totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the
0:17
Speaker 1: podcast for those about to read and rock online. At
0:21
Speaker 1: Booked on rock dot Com. Every episode in both audio
0:24
Speaker 1: and video. Exclusive video highlights from episodes. Blog the latest
0:28
Speaker 1: rock book releases, and you could check out the all
0:30
Speaker 1: new Booked on Rock store. Pick up a hat, t shirt,
0:33
Speaker 1: tote bag, sweater, hoodie at Booked on Rock dot Com.
0:37
Speaker 1: My first time guests on the podcast, Chris Kocher is
0:40
Speaker 1: here to talk about his new book, Thank You for
0:41
Speaker 1: the Days. Fans of the Kinks share sixty years of
0:44
Speaker 1: stories and Thank You for the Days. Fans from around
0:47
Speaker 1: the world share how The Kinks have inspired and shaped
0:49
Speaker 1: their lives, from unforgettable concerts and of stage encounters to
0:54
Speaker 1: enduring friendships forged through a shared love of the music.
0:58
Speaker 1: Whether you're a dedicated follower, acual fan, or just a
1:01
Speaker 1: lover of rock history, you're going to find something in
1:03
Speaker 1: this book that will inspire you, make you laugh, or
1:06
Speaker 1: even tell get your heart, much like the Kinks music does.
1:09
Speaker 1: And we're going to hear some of the stories from
1:10
Speaker 1: inside of the book. Today with our guest Chris Kocher,
1:15
Speaker 1: put together a playlist of the Kinks, and you can
1:17
Speaker 1: find it in this episode's show notes. Chris, Welcome to
1:21
Speaker 1: the podcast. Thanks so much for being here.
1:23
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me here. It's great can
1:25
Speaker 2: be here with you.
1:25
Speaker 1: What a great idea for book, one that's told from
1:28
Speaker 1: a fans perspective. What led to the idea.
1:30
Speaker 2: I've been a fan of the Kinks for about thirty years,
1:34
Speaker 2: and I've been involved in the online Kinks community for
1:37
Speaker 2: almost that long, so I've heard a lot of amazing
1:41
Speaker 2: stories over that time. And I remember at one point
1:45
Speaker 2: I had this vague idea that these stories would make
1:49
Speaker 2: a great documentary. But I don't know anything about making films.
1:53
Speaker 2: I don't have those kills, so that idea just kind
1:56
Speaker 2: of died off. But the real main inspiration for the
1:59
Speaker 2: book was in early twenty twenty three, the Kinks had
2:03
Speaker 2: a private event in London where they kicked off the
2:06
Speaker 2: celebrations for the sixtieth year of the band, and Ray Davis,
2:11
Speaker 2: Dave Davis McK avery, the three original guys from the
2:14
Speaker 2: band who are still with us, were all there, A
2:17
Speaker 2: lot of fans and friends were there, and I read
2:20
Speaker 2: about it online and I was kind of jealous, to
2:23
Speaker 2: be honest. I mean, I thought, man, wouldn't have been
2:25
Speaker 2: coolgo have been there? But then I started thinking, well,
2:29
Speaker 2: what could I do to kind of mark the sixtieth
2:32
Speaker 2: anniversary of such an amazing seminal band in rock and roll?
2:37
Speaker 2: It's such a huge milestone. I'm a writer, I'm an editor,
2:40
Speaker 2: so that's kind of where my brain goes. And there
2:43
Speaker 2: have been a lot of great books about the Kinks
2:46
Speaker 2: over the years. Rain Dame of Each written two autobiographies.
2:50
Speaker 2: There have been biographies written by other people, other books
2:54
Speaker 2: and analyzed the music, from the lyrics to the cultural content,
3:00
Speaker 2: especially in the context of Britain in the nineteen sixties,
3:04
Speaker 2: and how the Kings fit into all of that, you know.
3:07
Speaker 2: But I'm thinking, what can I do this different? What
3:09
Speaker 2: hasn't been done yet. For a while in my career,
3:13
Speaker 2: I ran the editorial page of the daily newspaper here
3:17
Speaker 2: in Binghamton, New York, where I'm from. And you might
3:21
Speaker 2: think that's kind of a thankless job, and in some ways, frankly,
3:24
Speaker 2: it was kind of a thankless job. But one thing
3:27
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed was the process of letters to the
3:31
Speaker 2: editor and off ad pieces, like taking somebody who isn't
3:36
Speaker 2: a professional writer. They're submitting something and I work on
3:40
Speaker 2: it with them to help make it publishable. So that's
3:44
Speaker 2: kind of where my brain went. And I also tend
3:47
Speaker 2: to gravitate toward projects that give other people a chance
3:51
Speaker 2: to shine. That's just kind of how I am. I
3:54
Speaker 2: want to boost other people, give them chances that maybe
3:57
Speaker 2: they wouldn't have. So I realized there's been no real
4:01
Speaker 2: organized effort to collect Kinks fan stories, so my brain
4:05
Speaker 2: started going in that direction, and I ran the idea
4:08
Speaker 2: past a few Kink's friends and they agreed it'll be
4:12
Speaker 2: a cool thing to do. I thought, maybe it will
4:14
Speaker 2: be a self published book that I decided to pitch
4:18
Speaker 2: it to a few publishers and music books. Luckily, Stephen
4:22
Speaker 2: Lamb from Sonic Vond said, it's not the kind of
4:26
Speaker 2: thing we usually published, but let's do it. So I
4:29
Speaker 2: just wanted to give a quick shout out to Stephen
4:31
Speaker 2: for given this book a chance. Again, it's not like
4:34
Speaker 2: anything else Sonic Vond has ever done, so hopefully I
4:39
Speaker 2: won't let him down.
4:40
Speaker 1: Do you get a lot of these stories that come
4:42
Speaker 1: from online people that you already knew online. How did
4:45
Speaker 1: you get all of these stories put together?
4:47
Speaker 2: I kind of put the word out. As I mentioned,
4:49
Speaker 2: I've been part of the Kinks fan community online for
4:53
Speaker 2: longer than there have been pictures on the Internet. Let's
4:55
Speaker 2: put it that way. So you know back in the
4:58
Speaker 2: day when it was only text.
5:00
Speaker 1: Well, is there a main website because I know as
5:02
Speaker 1: a fan Healen fan, there's vh links is the big
5:04
Speaker 1: one where you can go and all the fans are there.
5:07
Speaker 1: Is there one that you could go to and you
5:09
Speaker 1: put the word out and you get tons of stories
5:11
Speaker 1: that come your way.
5:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, the best ones that I did. There are several
5:16
Speaker 2: good Facebook groups for Kinks fans that I posted the
5:20
Speaker 2: information too, but mainly there's a wonderful fan his name
5:24
Speaker 2: is Dave Emlin, who runs a website called Kindakinks dot net,
5:28
Speaker 2: which is the big fan site that's on the internet.
5:32
Speaker 2: It's been there again for years and years and years,
5:36
Speaker 2: and Dave's a great guy. And I went to gave
5:38
Speaker 2: he was more of the ones that I mentioned the
5:40
Speaker 2: book idea too, and I said, well, do you mind
5:42
Speaker 2: if we hosted all of the submission info on your website,
5:47
Speaker 2: because I didn't want to have to repeat everything over
5:51
Speaker 2: and over again, like on all the Facebook groups and
5:53
Speaker 2: everything else. So it was just easier to say, go
5:56
Speaker 2: to this link, read what it's all about, and make
5:59
Speaker 2: it easier that way. And Dame said, sure, I'd love
6:01
Speaker 2: to do that, and a lot of people found it
6:04
Speaker 2: that way or through social media. But yeah, as you said,
6:07
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of them are people that I've
6:08
Speaker 2: known for many years. I've heard some of their stories,
6:12
Speaker 2: but still had some really amazing stories to tell them
6:15
Speaker 2: that I didn't know about, and it was it was
6:18
Speaker 2: great to collect all those and get them ready for publication.
6:22
Speaker 2: I mean, and I say this with love. Some of
6:24
Speaker 2: them their English was not their first language, so that
6:28
Speaker 2: was kind of interesting. I say it with love because
6:30
Speaker 2: I only speak English. So anybody who can speak more
6:33
Speaker 2: than one language is, you know, doing much better than
6:37
Speaker 2: I am. I don't know how their brains work that way,
6:40
Speaker 2: So it took some work, but a lot of them
6:43
Speaker 2: they're all very incredible stories.
6:45
Speaker 1: They've really are. There's some some heartwarming stories, there's some
6:48
Speaker 1: funny stories. There're just there's there's a wide range. You
6:52
Speaker 1: did say you didn't want it to read like a
6:54
Speaker 1: laundry list. You mentioned that in the introduction, so just
6:56
Speaker 1: talk about how it's laid out. I wanted to avoid.
6:59
Speaker 2: Entries that were something like, yeah, I saw him at
7:02
Speaker 2: this venue in nineteen sixty eight, and then I saw
7:04
Speaker 2: him again in nineteen seventy two, and then in nineteen
7:07
Speaker 2: seventy nine, and I thought, man, that's going to be
7:10
Speaker 2: boring over a whole book. But like, I wouldn't want
7:12
Speaker 2: to read a book like that because there's no real
7:15
Speaker 2: heart to it. There's no real it's more like a
7:17
Speaker 2: laundry list of different times where I'm seeing a band
7:20
Speaker 2: and this is when I bought this album, But I
7:23
Speaker 2: want to know why you bought that album. One of
7:25
Speaker 2: the things that I really took inspiration from was something
7:29
Speaker 2: that National Public Radio here in the United States MPR
7:33
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands. They get a thing that
7:35
Speaker 2: was called the National Story Project. One of my favorite authors,
7:39
Speaker 2: Paul Oscar, who sadly left us earlier this year, was
7:42
Speaker 2: involved in that project, and they asked listeners to send
7:47
Speaker 2: the one remarkable story from their lives, like the most
7:51
Speaker 2: amazing story that they had, and Paul would select them
7:56
Speaker 2: and read them on the air, and there were so
7:58
Speaker 2: many great stories about mysterious and unknowable forces that kind
8:03
Speaker 2: of control our everyday lives. Paul Oster's books are very
8:07
Speaker 2: much about coincidence, and they're very much about the power
8:12
Speaker 2: of these forces that just kind of come into our
8:15
Speaker 2: lives and steer us in ways that we never expected,
8:18
Speaker 2: things that happened to just ordinary people. And later Paul
8:22
Speaker 2: Osker edited them into a book that I would highly recommend.
8:26
Speaker 2: It was called I Thought My Father Was God, which
8:29
Speaker 2: was based on one of the stories in the book.
8:31
Speaker 2: So kind of inspired by that a little bit, I
8:34
Speaker 2: said to people, give me your one defining story from
8:38
Speaker 2: your time as a Kinks fan. Tell me about how
8:42
Speaker 2: you became a fan, or about a concert that changed
8:45
Speaker 2: your life, or how you met a soulmate or a
8:48
Speaker 2: friend because of the music. You know, maybe they met
8:52
Speaker 2: a band member, but they didn't necessarily have to. I
8:55
Speaker 2: mean a lot of the stories in the book are
8:57
Speaker 2: about meeting various members of the band in some way
9:01
Speaker 2: or another. But it didn't have to be like that.
9:03
Speaker 2: It was whatever they felt was the story that they
9:07
Speaker 2: could tell was their best story. And I asked everybody
9:10
Speaker 2: to pin their story into a particular year, a specific year,
9:14
Speaker 2: so that I could put everything in chronological order, because
9:19
Speaker 2: that seemed like a good way to organize things, otherwise
9:22
Speaker 2: should kind of be a little chaotic, So, you know,
9:24
Speaker 2: you go from nineteen sixties, nineteen eighties, nineteen seventies. You know,
9:29
Speaker 2: so at least if I'm asking for one defining story,
9:33
Speaker 2: then it would have to be pinned to a particular year,
9:36
Speaker 2: and that way I could put them in a chronological order,
9:39
Speaker 2: and it'd be sort of read like an oral history
9:42
Speaker 2: of the band. Almost.
9:43
Speaker 1: Well, let's go back to the year you became a
9:45
Speaker 1: Kings fan. How did you become a fan?
9:48
Speaker 2: My path to becoming a fan, And I don't really
9:50
Speaker 2: get into this in the book, but I had a
9:52
Speaker 2: really good friend in high school in the late eighties
9:54
Speaker 2: early nineties who was a big fan talked about the
9:58
Speaker 2: Kinks a lot, but he never really sat me down
10:01
Speaker 2: to make me listen to the songs. And I really
10:03
Speaker 2: wish he had. Back in the day, things might have
10:06
Speaker 2: been very different for a lot of parts of my life.
10:09
Speaker 2: So it wasn't really a kill. Around nineteen ninety five
10:12
Speaker 2: or so that I really finally bought a few albums
10:15
Speaker 2: on my own and I got into them. I'm an
10:18
Speaker 2: unrepentant Anglo file in other parts of my life, so
10:22
Speaker 2: the Kinks really fit right into that part of my
10:26
Speaker 2: brain where you know, I really like British culture and
10:28
Speaker 2: British TV and all of that stuff. I mean a
10:31
Speaker 2: lot of my favorite other songwriters and authors and TV
10:35
Speaker 2: shows are all British, so it all kind of plugs
10:38
Speaker 2: in there.
10:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. I always feel like the Kinks are among those
10:40
Speaker 1: bands when you become a fan of rock and roll
10:43
Speaker 1: there are the essentials. The Kinks are one of those
10:46
Speaker 1: bands you have to you have to listen to, and
10:49
Speaker 1: if you do, you will embrace them. For me, I
10:51
Speaker 1: got on early, probably early to mid eighties because of
10:55
Speaker 1: MTV come Dancing, the videos, and then I think it
10:59
Speaker 1: was I Got the Best of that had the live
11:01
Speaker 1: version of You Really Got Me, which I was blown
11:04
Speaker 1: away by. There were fans that came along going back
11:07
Speaker 1: to the sixties right through up until probably today. I'm
11:10
Speaker 1: sure there are kids and grandkids who are listening to
11:13
Speaker 1: the music going back to the early years. We go
11:16
Speaker 1: back to sixty four to sixty nine. So many great
11:20
Speaker 1: stories and there's one from a fan who didn't just
11:22
Speaker 1: get to meet Kink's original member and bassis is Pete Quaif.
11:26
Speaker 1: Is that how you pronounce yeah, yes, quave Pete kwaif.
11:29
Speaker 1: Pete came to her home. Share this story from Olga
11:34
Speaker 1: Ruoco of Essex, UK and this takes place on Friday
11:38
Speaker 1: November twelfth, nineteen sixty five, which I love the exact
11:41
Speaker 1: dates too, It's really cool.
11:43
Speaker 2: Well, Olga is one of the great longtime Kinks fans
11:46
Speaker 2: in the UK. I call her Game Olga because she's
11:50
Speaker 2: really one of the fans who's been around the longest.
11:53
Speaker 2: But more importantly, in my mind, she's one of the
11:56
Speaker 2: friendliest and most helpful fans you'll ever meet. She kept
12:01
Speaker 2: great journals and diaries back in the day. That's how
12:04
Speaker 2: she can specifically say November twelfth, nineteen sixty five, because
12:09
Speaker 2: I'm sure she still has all of her diaries from
12:12
Speaker 2: back in the day. When I first came into King's fandom,
12:15
Speaker 2: I was in my mid twenties and some of the
12:18
Speaker 2: longtime fans weren't always friendly of the young and eager
12:21
Speaker 2: punks like I was at that point. But Olga has
12:25
Speaker 2: always been kind, always been gracious. She would go to
12:28
Speaker 2: UK album signings and pick me up an extra coffee
12:33
Speaker 2: and mail it to me, you know, and you know
12:36
Speaker 2: stuff like that. And when I thought about putting together
12:39
Speaker 2: the book, I mentioned earlier that I had talked to
12:42
Speaker 2: some Kinks fans about whether it was a good idea
12:45
Speaker 2: or not. I thought of them as my unofficial counsel
12:49
Speaker 2: of advisors, and Olga was on it along with some
12:53
Speaker 2: other trusted fans to help advise and give ideas about
12:58
Speaker 2: how I could generate for the book. So Olga has
13:02
Speaker 2: known all the Kinks pretty much from the beginning.
13:05
Speaker 1: So she's a treasure for Kings.
13:08
Speaker 2: You could make a whole book of stories from Olga.
13:11
Speaker 2: I mean really, like I've heard some of them. I'm
13:14
Speaker 2: sure there are many of them I haven't heard, but
13:16
Speaker 2: you know, the one that is in the book, as
13:19
Speaker 2: you mentioned, is about how original bassist Pete Quay for
13:22
Speaker 2: the Kinks knew where she lived from getting the fan
13:26
Speaker 2: letters that she used to send to him, and just
13:29
Speaker 2: showed up at her house one time and had tea
13:33
Speaker 2: with her and her mother. Like there was a knock
13:35
Speaker 2: on the door and she thought, oh, well, maybe maybe
13:38
Speaker 2: it's somebody from the Kinks who were here to see me.
13:41
Speaker 2: Ha ha, And it turned out it really was Pete
13:43
Speaker 2: Quay Wow. And I don't even know if there was
13:46
Speaker 2: an official fan club at that point. There might have been,
13:49
Speaker 2: but somehow she figured out how to get in touch
13:51
Speaker 2: with all of them and would have letter exchanges with
13:57
Speaker 2: him for his entire life. That she would trade letters
14:01
Speaker 2: with him. Even after he left the band in the
14:03
Speaker 2: late sixties, they all kept in touch. But when they're
14:07
Speaker 2: having tea together again, she remembers all of this because
14:10
Speaker 2: I think she must have written it down at the time.
14:12
Speaker 2: You know, they talk about all the band's adventures touring
14:16
Speaker 2: around the world in nineteen sixty five, which was really
14:19
Speaker 2: the year that The Kinks became international. But it was
14:23
Speaker 2: just like he was stopping at the friend's house for
14:25
Speaker 2: a social call, and they were friends in a lot
14:28
Speaker 2: of ways. I mean, her and Ray and Dave and
14:31
Speaker 2: Mick are still friends to this day. It's a bond
14:34
Speaker 2: that hasn't really weakened in the sixty years since they
14:38
Speaker 2: have known each other.
14:39
Speaker 1: What a different time when a band can be that
14:41
Speaker 1: close to their fans Nowadays, I don't know if you can.
14:44
Speaker 1: It's more you get closer to them through social media,
14:47
Speaker 1: and the members of the bands can communicate with their
14:50
Speaker 1: fans that way. But there's a lot of safety precautions
14:53
Speaker 1: now and you got to get through the bodyguards.
14:56
Speaker 2: And it is fun to think about those early days
14:59
Speaker 2: of rock and roll where everything was still kind of innocent.
15:03
Speaker 2: Oh in a lot of way. Absolutely, you know, you
15:05
Speaker 2: could just have a Kink just show up to your house,
15:08
Speaker 2: have tea with you and your mom, and it's amazing
15:11
Speaker 2: to think about. And of course, you know, London was
15:15
Speaker 2: not a huge city, so he probably lived just down
15:18
Speaker 2: the road and he showed up on his mestma and
15:21
Speaker 2: just was a friend to her.
15:24
Speaker 1: Podcasts. We'll be back after this, it.
15:27
Speaker 2: Can I go all right, you sit down, I'll be
15:30
Speaker 2: right back.
15:33
Speaker 1: When did the Kinks get their first hit single? Was
15:36
Speaker 1: it around sixty five?
15:37
Speaker 2: You Really Got Me came out in August sixty four,
15:40
Speaker 2: I believe. So sixty five was when they really broke internationally,
15:46
Speaker 2: like in America, and they did their tour of America
15:49
Speaker 2: that turned out to not go very well, and that's
15:53
Speaker 2: how they ended up getting banned in America for a
15:55
Speaker 2: few years. But they still toured around the world other
15:58
Speaker 2: parts of the world and they gone you Really Got
16:01
Speaker 2: Me in all day and all the night and you
16:03
Speaker 2: know a lot of those early hits cooked them tired
16:05
Speaker 2: of waiting for you.
16:05
Speaker 1: Who. Yeah, they were not an unknown band when this
16:08
Speaker 1: guy was in inner house streaking tea.
16:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:13
Speaker 1: When I think of pirate radio, I think of the
16:15
Speaker 1: Kinks too. Do you think of pirate radio at the
16:17
Speaker 1: height of its powers? Just for those who may not
16:19
Speaker 1: be familiar, the UK allowed only state controlled radio from
16:22
Speaker 1: the twenties through the mid sixties, but then by the sixties,
16:25
Speaker 1: the post war baby boom filled the UK with millions
16:28
Speaker 1: of teenagers who were eager to hear the rock and
16:30
Speaker 1: roll records that the BBC declined to play, and one
16:34
Speaker 1: of them was a fan who makes your book again
16:36
Speaker 1: help with the pronunciation here. Rude Kirstine's Rude Yeah, I
16:40
Speaker 1: Got It Right from the Netherlands has a story from
16:44
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. He starts with quote, some events in
16:47
Speaker 1: your life leave an indelible impression for me. It was
16:50
Speaker 1: the first performance of the Kinks that I attended. I
16:53
Speaker 1: was seventeen years old, still living at home and listening
16:55
Speaker 1: to the pirate radio stations that broadcast from the North
16:58
Speaker 1: Sea Radio, Veronica Radio, Nordsey Radio, London and many more.
17:04
Speaker 1: That's how I first heard the music that I continue
17:07
Speaker 1: to love to this day, most importantly the Kinks. And
17:10
Speaker 1: then he goes on to tell a story takes him
17:13
Speaker 1: backstage in the Kinks dressing room. I'll leave it to
17:17
Speaker 1: you to take it from there, share this story.
17:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, Before I share that, I just want to say
17:21
Speaker 2: one interesting thing is that submissions for the book were
17:25
Speaker 2: obviously open to anybody anywhere in the world, but they
17:28
Speaker 2: came from three main countries, the UK obviously, the US,
17:33
Speaker 2: and the Netherlands. I mean, there are so many passionate
17:36
Speaker 2: Kinks fans in the Netherlands. I mean, fun fact, the
17:40
Speaker 2: band had more number one hits in the Netherlands than
17:44
Speaker 2: in the UK. Really, So yeah, there are so many
17:47
Speaker 2: great Kinks fans in the Netherlands and Rude is just
17:50
Speaker 2: one of them. Rude managed to talk his way backstage
17:55
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight at a concert because he managed
17:59
Speaker 2: to strike up a conversation in the bar with a
18:02
Speaker 2: journalist who was sent there to interview the band. Now,
18:06
Speaker 2: the journalist didn't know which Kink was which he was
18:09
Speaker 2: still learning who was who in the band, so Rude
18:13
Speaker 2: offered to help him and said, take me backstage. With
18:16
Speaker 2: you and I'll point out which one's Ray, which one's Dave,
18:19
Speaker 2: you know, which one's Mick. And together, Rude and this
18:23
Speaker 2: journalists got to meet the original lineup with Ray and David,
18:28
Speaker 2: Mick and Pete Klaif, and Rude happened to have his
18:32
Speaker 2: camera with him and got some really amazing candid photos
18:36
Speaker 2: in the dressing room of them just hanging out and
18:40
Speaker 2: you know, before the show, and you know, I think
18:42
Speaker 2: somebody's having a smoke and you know, it's just I mean,
18:45
Speaker 2: there are a couple of photos in the book that
18:48
Speaker 2: Rube took from that that's a scene out of a
18:50
Speaker 2: movie right there. Yeah, it's great, you know. And then
18:54
Speaker 2: eventually the bodyguard or somebody from the venue realized Rug's
18:59
Speaker 2: not really professional. Churhold really shouldn't be in there. He's
19:02
Speaker 2: only a seventeen year old kid who has a camera.
19:05
Speaker 2: So there are several stories in the book about fans
19:09
Speaker 2: kind of sneaking their way backstage when they probably shouldn't
19:13
Speaker 2: have been there. And there's even one fan who managed
19:16
Speaker 2: to sneak his way into Cox Studios, which is the
19:20
Speaker 2: North London studio where a lot of The Kink's records
19:23
Speaker 2: were made. And he just kind of talked his way
19:25
Speaker 2: in there until somebody realized he really shouldn't be in there.
19:29
Speaker 2: And I don't know that I could be that bold,
19:33
Speaker 2: that I could talk my way into it. I would
19:36
Speaker 2: get nervous and I would blow it, like within the
19:38
Speaker 2: first ten seconds. But yeah, people must be much more
19:41
Speaker 2: cool than me.
19:43
Speaker 1: Recently, I had someone tell me a story of a
19:44
Speaker 1: journalist tell me a story about he would go to
19:46
Speaker 1: the film or in San Francisco and he would bring
19:49
Speaker 1: a guitar case with him and pretend he was with
19:51
Speaker 1: the band and they'd let him go right in, go
19:54
Speaker 1: right backstage. It's amazing. Let's go to the seventies. Now.
19:59
Speaker 1: There was a dip in popularity in the late sixties
20:01
Speaker 1: for the Kings, but then they start the seventies off
20:03
Speaker 1: with Lola and they are back on top, and that's
20:05
Speaker 1: one of their most iconic songs. There are stories in
20:08
Speaker 1: the book that speak to how the Kinks save teenagers
20:10
Speaker 1: from difficult home lives. Lynn kill Him from North Carolina
20:14
Speaker 1: shares a story of seeing the band in nineteen seventy one.
20:17
Speaker 1: This is the first of forty Kinks concerts she went to,
20:21
Speaker 1: and she writes quote the Kinks enriched my New York
20:23
Speaker 1: City years. I think they saved me from an alcoholic
20:26
Speaker 1: parent and the stressors of late adolescents. The music, which
20:29
Speaker 1: I played repeatedly until the vinyl was Potato Chip thin,
20:33
Speaker 1: was complex yet straightforward. Ray's voice could change from a
20:36
Speaker 1: soft lilt to a roar as he switched up musical
20:40
Speaker 1: styles on every song. The Kink's music was original and magical,
20:44
Speaker 1: and so were their concerts.
20:45
Speaker 2: Obviously, one of the great things about music is how
20:49
Speaker 2: it less has escaped from our lives for three or
20:52
Speaker 2: four or five minutes. I mean sometimes best driving the
20:56
Speaker 2: work or walking in the park or doing mindless every days,
21:01
Speaker 2: I'm willing to do almost any stupid, mindless task as
21:04
Speaker 2: long as there's a song. I'll wash the dishes, I'll
21:07
Speaker 2: do some ridiculous task at work I don't necessarily want
21:11
Speaker 2: to do that's repetitive. As long as I gotta tune on,
21:15
Speaker 2: I'm into it. I'll get through it, you know.
21:18
Speaker 1: But I can't imagine a life without music. Yeah, I
21:20
Speaker 1: can't imagine. Well, is there a Kink song? If you're
21:23
Speaker 1: down and you need, you need to listen to some
21:25
Speaker 1: Kinks music to pick you up. You got any song
21:27
Speaker 1: or songs that come to mind that will always do
21:30
Speaker 1: it for you. There's a lot of great upbeat songs,
21:33
Speaker 1: you know, like something like do It Again or Yeah,
21:38
Speaker 1: that's a great song to kind of pump you up
21:40
Speaker 1: a little bit.
21:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an energetic song that has a great message
21:46
Speaker 2: of you know, sometimes you have to keep going. You
21:48
Speaker 2: just have to. There's a lot of great songs that
21:51
Speaker 2: Ray Gavis wrote that are about keep going until you
21:55
Speaker 2: fake it, till you make it. Yeah, just keep going.
21:57
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you I mentioned Van Halen Andvan Helen
22:00
Speaker 1: was huge fans of the Kinks. In fact, during their
22:02
Speaker 1: club days they had like twenty of their songs. They
22:05
Speaker 1: would play. You know, where Have all the Good Times Gone?
22:08
Speaker 1: Was not just You Really Got Me? But where Have
22:10
Speaker 1: all the Good Times Gone? They opened their diver Down
22:13
Speaker 1: album with from nineteen eighty two and then you have
22:15
Speaker 1: You Really Got Me. Funny stories about that too, where
22:18
Speaker 1: Dave he handled it well because it was at one
22:21
Speaker 1: point people just thought Van Halen was the band who
22:23
Speaker 1: wrote You Really Got Me, and fans would come up
22:25
Speaker 1: to the Kinks in the late seventies like, hey, you
22:27
Speaker 1: guys did a great cover of Van Halen's Really Got Me,
22:29
Speaker 1: you know, and Dave's just like, yeah, okay, okay.
22:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a great live album from nineteen eighty and
22:37
Speaker 2: it's called One for the Road. Yes, and there's a
22:40
Speaker 2: reason why there are songs on there like you Really
22:44
Speaker 2: Got Me and others that had been covered by other
22:48
Speaker 2: people around that time, and it was almost like the
22:52
Speaker 2: Kinks were reclaiming those songs for themselves a little bit,
22:55
Speaker 2: reminding people that they were the ones who wrote them.
22:58
Speaker 2: Sure so, yeah, but from what I've read, and you
23:03
Speaker 2: would know more as a big Van Halen fan, but
23:05
Speaker 2: they used to play like the tire sides of like
23:08
Speaker 2: the King's.
23:08
Speaker 1: Greatest Hits, k tell Kink's Greatest Hits, I think David
23:12
Speaker 1: they owned or whatever?
23:14
Speaker 2: You know.
23:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, how of fans who went to extremes to just
23:18
Speaker 1: get to a Kink show. Julie evil Seizer from Alabama
23:22
Speaker 1: saw the band in nineteen seventy five. She was nineteen,
23:25
Speaker 1: She couldn't drive, had no money. Her and her friend
23:28
Speaker 1: scrapped enough money together to travel by bus to Mississippi
23:32
Speaker 1: to see the band, and she says, quote, we arranged
23:35
Speaker 1: to stay at the shabby motel across from the bus
23:37
Speaker 1: station and walk to the venue. It was a small
23:40
Speaker 1: place down near the river. Members of the Children of
23:42
Speaker 1: God cult hung around outside, and when we told them
23:45
Speaker 1: the story of our trip from Tuscaloosa, they said they
23:47
Speaker 1: could use such devotion in their group. That's hardcore. Any
23:53
Speaker 1: other stories like that from the book that stand out
23:55
Speaker 1: for you?
23:56
Speaker 2: There are some really good stories about fans going extreme
24:00
Speaker 2: lengths to get to concerts. The one that sticks out
24:03
Speaker 2: to me is one from a guy named Stephen Vergess
24:06
Speaker 2: who drove with his wife and a couple of friends
24:10
Speaker 2: through Virginia in sixteen inches of snow. Now, of course,
24:14
Speaker 2: Virginia of sixteen inches of snow is like eight feet
24:19
Speaker 2: of snow in the Northeast.
24:21
Speaker 1: Like.
24:21
Speaker 2: I don't know how they got through, but this was
24:24
Speaker 2: in early nineteen eighty two, and they had all kinds
24:27
Speaker 2: of car trouble along the way. What should have been
24:30
Speaker 2: a four and a half hour car drive ended up
24:33
Speaker 2: taking him about ten hours to get to where they
24:37
Speaker 2: wanted to go, which was also in Virginia, so it
24:40
Speaker 2: wasn't even in a different state. They got there just
24:42
Speaker 2: in time or the end of the concert. Luckily, they
24:46
Speaker 2: managed to see something like twelve songs because the Kings
24:49
Speaker 2: did a whole bunch of encores at the end, so
24:52
Speaker 2: they still managed to see a good number of songs.
24:54
Speaker 2: But it's just crazy, like they had engine trouble and
24:58
Speaker 2: you know they're driving through the snow and hardcore again,
25:04
Speaker 2: like maybe more hardcore than I would be. I would
25:07
Speaker 2: have to think that maybe the rogues in Virginia after
25:10
Speaker 2: sixteen inches of snow, because they don't never know what
25:13
Speaker 2: to do in Virginia when when it snows, or North
25:16
Speaker 2: Carolina or anywhere in the South, they freak out.
25:21
Speaker 1: Book on podcasts will be back after this. The time
25:24
Speaker 1: has come for someone to put his foot down, and
25:27
Speaker 1: that foot is me. Chris Coker is here to talk
25:33
Speaker 1: about his new book, Thank You for the Days. Fans
25:35
Speaker 1: of the Kinks share sixty years of Stories. A late
25:39
Speaker 1: seventies show that highlights I always say Ray Davies, but
25:41
Speaker 1: it's Ray Davis, right, that's.
25:43
Speaker 2: The Ray Davis. Although you know Ray Davies is very common.
25:48
Speaker 1: We heard yeah this late seventies show and highlights Ray's
25:51
Speaker 1: sense of humor. He came out in a Nixon mask.
25:54
Speaker 2: Well during the rock opera era of the Kinks, which
25:58
Speaker 2: was around the mid seventies, they did an album that
26:01
Speaker 2: was called school Boys in Disgrace and there was a
26:05
Speaker 2: character in that. It was based in a boys school
26:08
Speaker 2: where there was a big scandal. One of the boys
26:10
Speaker 2: gets a girl pregnant and basically gets expelled from the school.
26:15
Speaker 2: There was a character in the story that was called
26:18
Speaker 2: the head Master. He had a big number that was
26:20
Speaker 2: called The Hard Way, and it was basically a whole
26:23
Speaker 2: song about how the boy who got the girl pregnant
26:26
Speaker 2: was useless and was getting thrown out of school. And
26:30
Speaker 2: Ray would come out wearing like a head Master mask
26:34
Speaker 2: for that song. I think that's maybe what one fan
26:38
Speaker 2: is remembering as a Nixon mask. It is kind of
26:40
Speaker 2: like a big, big, exaggerated Wrinkley mask. I mean, I
26:44
Speaker 2: didn't change it from a Nixon mask. I almost did,
26:47
Speaker 2: to be honest, but I didn't because I wasn't there.
26:50
Speaker 2: So maybe he did come out in a Nixon mask.
26:52
Speaker 2: I have to think maybe he's remembering his head Master mask,
26:55
Speaker 2: which may have been a Nixon mask. I've seen pictures
26:58
Speaker 2: of it, but not very close up. But there were
27:01
Speaker 2: just outrageous moments like that that happened. I mean, I
27:04
Speaker 2: feel like the sense of humor that is part of
27:07
Speaker 2: the Kinks is really something that appeals to a lot
27:09
Speaker 2: of fans. I like to say about my own endemms,
27:12
Speaker 2: the things that I do in my own life. They're
27:14
Speaker 2: serious about the work, but they're not always serious about
27:17
Speaker 2: how they do it. The story of how Graham Morford
27:21
Speaker 2: of Plymouth, UK scored a ticket to a show in
27:23
Speaker 2: March of eighty four is so great. It really is
27:26
Speaker 2: a cool story. He works at a construction site in
27:29
Speaker 2: London and he just spontaneously decides he's going to clock
27:34
Speaker 2: out of his job for the afternoon. He tells a
27:37
Speaker 2: coworker to tell the boss that he's going to see
27:39
Speaker 2: his accountant. I don't know if that's some kind of
27:41
Speaker 2: British choke that you know, like I think you could
27:43
Speaker 2: go see a man about a dog. I don't know
27:45
Speaker 2: if you know that one, but yeah, you know. But
27:47
Speaker 2: he decides he's going to go to see this Kink
27:49
Speaker 2: show at Guildford, which is maybe an hour train ride
27:53
Speaker 2: from London. He doesn't have a ticket, but he thinks
27:57
Speaker 2: that there will be some extra tickets on sale. What
27:59
Speaker 2: he gets there, he made a call ahead of time
28:02
Speaker 2: and they told him at the box office that there
28:04
Speaker 2: might be some extra tickets available. So when he gets there,
28:07
Speaker 2: it turns out there aren't in the extra tickets after all.
28:10
Speaker 2: He's sad about it, and he decides he's already in Guilford,
28:15
Speaker 2: he might as well hang around backstage, you know, at
28:18
Speaker 2: the stage door during the soundcheck. So he hears the
28:21
Speaker 2: soundcheck through the stage door. He gets to hear a
28:24
Speaker 2: couple of songs, so it's not really a wasted trip.
28:27
Speaker 2: So while he's waiting there, members of the band start
28:31
Speaker 2: coming out of the back door. After the soundcheck, Ray
28:34
Speaker 2: comes out and there's a road manager who's handing out
28:38
Speaker 2: tickets to some German fan club members who have made
28:42
Speaker 2: some prior arrangement to come to the show. The Roague
28:45
Speaker 2: manager have all their tickets and he's handing them out,
28:48
Speaker 2: and Graham really wants one of those tickets, man, like
28:51
Speaker 2: I can just see him there, Like I don't get
28:53
Speaker 2: one of those. So he pulls out this ultimate ace card,
28:57
Speaker 2: which I love, but he was clearly real luck to use.
29:00
Speaker 2: And he tells Rarey, you know, your dad and my
29:03
Speaker 2: grandpa were best friends, And it turns out to be true.
29:06
Speaker 2: And when he tells him his grandpa's name, Ray remembers him,
29:10
Speaker 2: and Ray's like, oh, yeah, how's your granddad do? And
29:13
Speaker 2: unfortunately his granddad had died a few years previously to that,
29:17
Speaker 2: But Ray says, hey, give this guy a ticket. Wow.
29:22
Speaker 2: You know that's how Graham gets a ticket to the
29:24
Speaker 2: Show's Grandpa, there's a great gig in the sky, which
29:28
Speaker 2: I like to think there is. I like to think
29:30
Speaker 2: Grandpa was smiling down at Braham and being like, good
29:34
Speaker 2: job boy, your connections on that one and you made it.
29:37
Speaker 1: Happen hooked him up from heaven into the nineties.
29:40
Speaker 2: Now.
29:41
Speaker 1: A frightening story from Igor Znidarsic. I believe I got
29:45
Speaker 1: it right from the Netherlands. He talks out seeing the
29:48
Speaker 1: Kinks on August fifteenth, nineteen ninety and it could have
29:52
Speaker 1: been the last King's concert he ever went to.
29:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is kind of a scarier story. Egor found
29:57
Speaker 2: himself in a pre bag su Actually there was an
30:02
Speaker 2: outdoor concert in this large town square, but it clearly
30:07
Speaker 2: wasn't large enough for the crowd that ended up showing up,
30:10
Speaker 2: and the crush of people got really intense, and Igor
30:13
Speaker 2: was worried that he might end up rock and roll casually. Really,
30:17
Speaker 2: it sounds like it was a poorly planned event from
30:20
Speaker 2: the promoters or the town or whoever organized the whole thing,
30:25
Speaker 2: And there were barricades that were set up and it
30:28
Speaker 2: was just crowding everybody in. I remember when I was
30:31
Speaker 2: a kid. This is a side story, but when I
30:33
Speaker 2: was a kid, I was in a similar crowd like
30:36
Speaker 2: that once, and I understand the panic. I was at
30:39
Speaker 2: like a county fair that had gotten too crowded. There
30:42
Speaker 2: was a bottleneck in a particular part of the fair.
30:45
Speaker 2: People were pushing and it was scary, you know, sure Cinnati,
30:51
Speaker 2: Well absolutely, I mean luckily, yeah, luckily I was not
30:54
Speaker 2: in that kind of situation. But yeah, it's like that's
30:57
Speaker 2: how it can get. Absolutely, I mean, these those things
31:00
Speaker 2: have happened. That's the most famous example, but obviously there
31:04
Speaker 2: are others. He manages to get out safely because somehow
31:08
Speaker 2: he has a part on him that shows that he's
31:12
Speaker 2: a journalist. He writes for not even a music magazine.
31:16
Speaker 2: But he managed to pull this card out of his
31:18
Speaker 2: jacket and hold it up and be like I'm pressed,
31:20
Speaker 2: let me through, you know, And somehow everybody parts and
31:24
Speaker 2: he manages to get out of that chaos and get
31:27
Speaker 2: out of there safely, and everybody else was safe eventually. Anyway,
31:30
Speaker 2: probably soon afterwards the promoters realized what happened and tried
31:34
Speaker 2: to fix it. But the end of the story is
31:36
Speaker 2: Igor says to his friend dying at a king's cosser,
31:39
Speaker 2: it could be worse. Sure, that's not a bad way
31:42
Speaker 2: to go. And they they're trying to decide what song
31:45
Speaker 2: they'd like to hear. You know, it's their last song. Yes,
31:48
Speaker 2: so you know, it's funny to laugh at in hindsight,
31:52
Speaker 2: but I'm sure at the time it was really stressful, sure,
31:56
Speaker 2: and scary. You know, it could have been a lot
31:59
Speaker 2: more tragic, But in hindsighted, you know, it was kind
32:02
Speaker 2: of funny for them.
32:03
Speaker 1: I think he was saying to he wrote for the
32:05
Speaker 1: weekly newspaper, and I think he just covered like town
32:07
Speaker 1: hall meetings and stuff.
32:08
Speaker 2: You know, that was it.
32:09
Speaker 1: But he's like, yeah, with the press, Yeah, I'm with media. Yeah.
32:13
Speaker 2: And you know, in ni king Agi there was still
32:16
Speaker 2: enough trust in the media there that would actually work. Now,
32:18
Speaker 2: people would just get lost and hang on the finger
32:22
Speaker 2: or whatever, and or they shove him harder, maybe kind
32:26
Speaker 2: of crowd.
32:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get to the photos. There's a fee I
32:30
Speaker 1: want to ask you about. One is from Rude. Kirstine's
32:32
Speaker 1: in it says it's from May sixty eight at the
32:35
Speaker 1: concert in the Netherlands. It looks like they're playing in
32:38
Speaker 1: a classroom. Yeah, you can see the chalkboard behind him, right.
32:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. We talked them about Rude's experience earlier. I mean
32:45
Speaker 2: those were photos that he took during the concert, like
32:48
Speaker 2: after he got thrown out of the dressing room, when
32:50
Speaker 2: he snuck his way back there to get photos. He
32:53
Speaker 2: took some photos during the concert. I'm not really sure
32:57
Speaker 2: of the size of that venue. I did actually Rude
33:00
Speaker 2: an email to ask him. But you have to keep
33:02
Speaker 2: in mind that the Kinks by nineteen sixty eight or
33:06
Speaker 2: so had lost some of their audience for various reasons.
33:09
Speaker 2: I mean, they weren't selling their singles as well. They
33:13
Speaker 2: had become more of an album kind of act in
33:16
Speaker 2: some ways, but many people still thought of them as
33:18
Speaker 2: a singles act in the UK around that time, I know,
33:22
Speaker 2: they were playing shows on the cabaret circuit because wow,
33:27
Speaker 2: in some ways they were somehow already kind of an
33:31
Speaker 2: oldies act, even though they had only been around for
33:35
Speaker 2: four or five years at that point. The irony of
33:38
Speaker 2: course about that is it was sixty eight when they
33:42
Speaker 2: were recording some of their best music, like the Kinks
33:45
Speaker 2: of the Village Green Preservation Society album, right, the Arthur album.
33:50
Speaker 2: That were amazing pieces of music, and they've been rediscovered
33:54
Speaker 2: since then. But at the time they weren't really selling
33:57
Speaker 2: like the earlier hits were selling because it's the classic.
34:01
Speaker 2: I don't hear a single on his album, right, you know,
34:04
Speaker 2: So they weren't selling the singles, So the albums weren't selling,
34:07
Speaker 2: and they weren't getting the support from the record company.
34:10
Speaker 2: And to circle back to the photos that Ruth Cook,
34:13
Speaker 2: you know, I'm really glad that he sent those in
34:15
Speaker 2: and that they're in the book because I imagine a
34:18
Speaker 2: lot of venues putn't have allowed photos like that. But
34:22
Speaker 2: Rude had already taking photos in the in the dressing room,
34:26
Speaker 2: so he was bold. He was bold as a seventeen
34:29
Speaker 2: year old, so he probably getting carries like I'm just
34:31
Speaker 2: going to snap some photos anyway. I imagine a lot
34:34
Speaker 2: of the photos have been lost the time, just because
34:38
Speaker 2: people have died or lost them, or there's a flood
34:41
Speaker 2: or there's a fire, or you know, they moved fifteen times,
34:44
Speaker 2: and they lost them somewhere along the way in the
34:47
Speaker 2: last fifty years. But I'm really glad that Ruthe sent
34:51
Speaker 2: those pots and that we have those photos of a
34:53
Speaker 2: concert from the sixties Showtkins, which for many fans, especially UK,
35:00
Speaker 2: we're really like the heyday of the Kinks, the best
35:03
Speaker 2: period of the band.
35:05
Speaker 1: Another one just below that one is Rich Tannenbaum. He's
35:08
Speaker 1: got a mural outside of his dorm room.
35:11
Speaker 2: Rich decided to paint some artwork inspired by that King's
35:14
Speaker 2: album that I mentioned earlier, Schoolboys in Disgrace, which has
35:18
Speaker 2: an album cover where the headmaster is disciplining the student.
35:24
Speaker 2: The album cover is actually the student pulling out his
35:28
Speaker 2: pants or trousers depending on if you're in the UK
35:32
Speaker 2: or the US or both in this case, and getting
35:37
Speaker 2: spanked for his indiscretions. That picture from Rich is sort
35:42
Speaker 2: of inspired by that. It's not exactly the album cover,
35:45
Speaker 2: but it's inspired by that. I can't imagine what he's
35:48
Speaker 2: cool thought about that one. But when he moved out, like, ye,
35:52
Speaker 2: did he have to pay some kind of spee to
35:55
Speaker 2: have it? Paying it over right? I mean, did they
35:57
Speaker 2: leave it for the next students. It's it's an interesting
36:01
Speaker 2: choice to put up as a mural in your dorm.
36:04
Speaker 2: But it is amazing to me, you know, how fans
36:08
Speaker 2: managed to show their love for the band even in
36:11
Speaker 2: absence of like official merchandise, posters or things that might
36:15
Speaker 2: have been harder to get. Even in the seventies, people
36:19
Speaker 2: found a way to show their fandom. And of course
36:22
Speaker 2: now people get tattoos. You know, that's another way to
36:26
Speaker 2: kind of show your your fandom in a different way.
36:29
Speaker 1: That wouldn't be a bad tattoo. That album cover, it's
36:32
Speaker 1: a great album cover cartoon. No, that would start some discussions.
36:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know I've seen discussions of unfortunately online.
36:43
Speaker 2: You know, what are some of the worst album covers
36:45
Speaker 2: in rock? And I've seen that one on some of
36:49
Speaker 2: them and I don't agree. I mean, it's amusing in
36:52
Speaker 2: that it keeps with the spirit of the album. The
36:55
Speaker 2: Kinks made a heartfelt yet amusing album about a discretion
37:00
Speaker 2: in a public school. But the case are not known
37:03
Speaker 2: for having the best album cover sometimes, So that was
37:07
Speaker 2: I kind of liked that one myself.
37:10
Speaker 1: Book on podcasts, We'll be back after this. Yeah, I
37:18
Speaker 1: always love hearing about a young fan of a band
37:19
Speaker 1: who's been around for a long time. Evan Spelman of Kirkland, Washington,
37:24
Speaker 1: was eight years old when his mom took him from
37:26
Speaker 1: Colorado to Massachusetts to see Dave Davis play. And it
37:31
Speaker 1: doesn't end with the show. Evan and his mom got
37:34
Speaker 1: a huge surprise after the show. Yeah, I mean, Evan
37:37
Speaker 1: was a very lucky young man. I think we can
37:38
Speaker 1: agree on that.
37:40
Speaker 2: His mom is Mary Anne Spelman, who I've known in
37:43
Speaker 2: the kingsmandom for a long time. She also has a
37:46
Speaker 2: story in the book. She actually took two of the
37:48
Speaker 2: photos that you see on the cover of the book,
37:51
Speaker 2: the ones from the nineteen eighties, and the story of
37:54
Speaker 2: how she took those photos is her story in the book.
37:58
Speaker 2: She's an amazing for top for a long time fan
38:02
Speaker 2: and friend of the Kinks. She's gotten a lot of
38:05
Speaker 2: concert photos from them and many other people over the years.
38:09
Speaker 2: She lives in Seattle area now and actually had an
38:12
Speaker 2: exhibit recently of many of her concert photos from over
38:18
Speaker 2: the years. But because she knew the Kinks well, she
38:22
Speaker 2: always managed to get a little bit closer to the
38:25
Speaker 2: stage than maybe some other people did. Ye.
38:28
Speaker 1: But addition's early two thousands, I think this story takes
38:31
Speaker 1: place right.
38:32
Speaker 2: This story from Evan is early two thousands, and Evan
38:37
Speaker 2: tells a great story from his perspective as a young
38:40
Speaker 2: kid who has grown up with Kink's music all around him,
38:45
Speaker 2: but hasn't ever really seen a live show. I mean,
38:47
Speaker 2: by the early two thousands, the Kinks were no longer
38:50
Speaker 2: touring as a fan, Ray and Dave Davis were touring separately.
38:55
Speaker 2: His mom takes them to a show to see Dave
38:58
Speaker 2: perform at a small club. He even gets to go
39:00
Speaker 2: backstage afterward and meet Dave, meet the fan, steal food
39:06
Speaker 2: from the craft table. The band laughs at him because
39:10
Speaker 2: he's like eating all the ham slices or whatever. And
39:13
Speaker 2: he's a little baffled by the whole thing because he's
39:15
Speaker 2: just a kid, you know, and he's got all these
39:18
Speaker 2: adult friends of his mom hanging around, you know, and
39:22
Speaker 2: we might think his mom's friends are cool, but you know,
39:24
Speaker 2: he's eight. You know, he's kind of like, Noah, you
39:27
Speaker 2: know they're cool, but you know, I don't quite know
39:29
Speaker 2: what to make of this whole situation. And he tells
39:32
Speaker 2: the story very well about how he had an amazing
39:36
Speaker 2: time at the show and yet was still from that
39:39
Speaker 2: eight year old perspective of going to a rock and
39:42
Speaker 2: roll show, maybe for the first time, and seeing somebody
39:47
Speaker 2: on stage that he had only ever seen in pictures
39:50
Speaker 2: and he kind of says, oh, look, Dave's real. He's
39:53
Speaker 2: a real guy. Check it out. And we all have
39:55
Speaker 2: those moments with some of our favorite bands, I'm sure
39:59
Speaker 2: where you can always see them for the first time
40:02
Speaker 2: and they're they're real. They're up there. That's really Bruce Springsteen,
40:06
Speaker 2: or that's really Van Halen, or that's really Billy Joel
40:09
Speaker 2: or whoever. You kind of know that they're real. But
40:12
Speaker 2: that's the moment where you realize those are actual people
40:15
Speaker 2: making actual music, and that's an amazing moment.
40:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's now what late twenties, thirty, early thirties, now,
40:20
Speaker 1: sure he's got that story to tell. And then there's
40:23
Speaker 1: a story of meeting Ray Davis in twenty ten. This
40:27
Speaker 1: is from fan Steve Goldstein, Redondo Beach, California. Here's a
40:31
Speaker 1: guy who had been to over sixty Kinks shows since
40:34
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, as well as numerous solo gigs by Ray. This,
40:40
Speaker 1: I would think topped all of those experiences. He did
40:43
Speaker 1: share this story.
40:44
Speaker 2: Steve and his wife Jennifer bid on a charity auction
40:49
Speaker 2: to get a backstage meeting with Ray after the concert.
40:53
Speaker 2: Steve does not say how much he paid for this experience,
40:56
Speaker 2: but he won the auction, so he must have spent
40:59
Speaker 2: a good How could change. I would think they got
41:02
Speaker 2: to have a nice chat with Ray and they got
41:05
Speaker 2: some photos together. But to me, the most important moment
41:09
Speaker 2: is Steve got to tell the man himself thank you
41:12
Speaker 2: for writing the soundtrack. In my life, how many times
41:15
Speaker 2: have we wanted to meet the musicians that we really
41:19
Speaker 2: love and to be able to tell them that in
41:22
Speaker 2: that moment, I mean, that's an amazing moment to get
41:25
Speaker 2: to be able to do that. I'm sure it was
41:28
Speaker 2: worth every penny that he gave to charity in order
41:31
Speaker 2: to do that. Fans didn't need to have a personal
41:34
Speaker 2: meeting with anyone from the band to be in the book,
41:36
Speaker 2: but they are a bunch of great encounters like that
41:39
Speaker 2: one where people get a chance to say thanks directly
41:42
Speaker 2: to folks whose music has meant so much to them.
41:45
Speaker 2: And those moments really touched my heart. They were some
41:48
Speaker 2: of the ones that I really love reading. When those
41:51
Speaker 2: came in in the inbox, I thought, this is exactly
41:54
Speaker 2: what I had in mind when I.
41:56
Speaker 1: Decided to do this book. How many times have you
41:58
Speaker 1: seen the Kinks, Ray Dave Solo? How many shows have
42:02
Speaker 1: you been to?
42:03
Speaker 2: Here's my confession to you, Eric that I don't admit
42:06
Speaker 2: to many people I have never seen a Kink show live,
42:09
Speaker 2: because I usually say I have a weird kind of
42:14
Speaker 2: bad luck. Once I really get into something, it kind
42:18
Speaker 2: of is like the last few years of whatever that
42:21
Speaker 2: thing is. So by the time I discovered the Kinks
42:24
Speaker 2: in the early mid nineties, they were kind of winding down.
42:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. That's why I'm not
42:29
Speaker 1: too surprised. Yeah, they haven't given it a.
42:32
Speaker 2: Lot, right right, I mean, nineteen ninety six was their
42:35
Speaker 2: last official show together, so I never got the chance
42:39
Speaker 2: to see them live. They spent many years saying, oh,
42:42
Speaker 2: there's going to be a reunion. Of course that never
42:45
Speaker 2: really materialized for various reasons over the years. I really
42:48
Speaker 2: wish it had, But I get now that they're both
42:52
Speaker 2: older gentlemen now and they deserve to enjoy their retirement
42:56
Speaker 2: at this point. Sure, not everybody can be a Paula
43:00
Speaker 2: Hartney or a Bruce Springsteen and still be out there
43:04
Speaker 2: and doing it for two or three hours a night.
43:06
Speaker 1: It's very rare. I hope they get along these days.
43:09
Speaker 1: I don't know the specifics of their battles over the years,
43:12
Speaker 1: but I would hope that.
43:13
Speaker 2: They seem to have come to an understanding in the
43:15
Speaker 2: last few years, based on photos that we've seen or
43:20
Speaker 2: reports that we've gotten from them. I mean, I imagine
43:23
Speaker 2: it's gotten better in that they don't have to tour
43:28
Speaker 2: together anymore, because obviously, as we know for many rock
43:33
Speaker 2: and roll stories from various fans, things get a little
43:38
Speaker 2: crazy on tour where you are going from city to city,
43:43
Speaker 2: you don't maybe even know what city you're in that day,
43:46
Speaker 2: and you're stuck with the same people for days, weeks,
43:49
Speaker 2: months at a time, and things can get a little tense,
43:54
Speaker 2: to say the least. That's where people throw TVs out
43:57
Speaker 2: the window, or you know, all the classics stories of
44:01
Speaker 2: a band shenanigans and The Kinks were certainly known for
44:05
Speaker 2: their fights and shenanigans over the years, but honestly, that
44:10
Speaker 2: just seems to be part and parcel of being on
44:12
Speaker 2: the road and delivering that kind of energy to the fans.
44:17
Speaker 2: Is you know, once the stage life go out you
44:20
Speaker 2: still got all this luck over energy, What are you
44:22
Speaker 2: gonna do with it?
44:23
Speaker 1: It seems to be rare that brothers can continue and
44:25
Speaker 1: work together for a long period. To think Alex and
44:28
Speaker 1: Eddie Van Hilln is a rare story because the Oasis,
44:31
Speaker 1: Black Crows, the Robinson Brothers, the Davis Brothers, or the
44:34
Speaker 1: Kinks seems to be that way. But I don't know.
44:36
Speaker 1: Is it over creative differences? Was it one of those
44:39
Speaker 1: this is my band I call the shots. No, it's
44:41
Speaker 1: my band I call the shots type of thing.
44:43
Speaker 2: I mean, it could be fair. They could last thirty
44:45
Speaker 2: years together, so that's true. True, that's a lot of
44:47
Speaker 2: than a lot of marriages. It was, but I think
44:50
Speaker 2: that a lot of it was creative differences, and a
44:54
Speaker 2: lot of it was also the fact that they, as
44:58
Speaker 2: a fan were not getting the attention that they had
45:02
Speaker 2: gotten in the past from their record label or from
45:05
Speaker 2: the general listening public. I mean, there's always going to
45:08
Speaker 2: be a core of Kinks fans, and I'm obviously one
45:11
Speaker 2: of them who will follow them wherever they go. But
45:15
Speaker 2: you have to keep in mind, like the last King's
45:17
Speaker 2: album came out in nineteen ninety three, I mean, there
45:20
Speaker 2: was no way that a band that had been around
45:22
Speaker 2: for thirty years was going to compete with brunge or
45:26
Speaker 2: the other stuff that was going on at the time.
45:29
Speaker 2: It's unfortunate that it was like that, but that's just
45:33
Speaker 2: part and parcel of you know, the highs and lows
45:35
Speaker 2: and public taste in.
45:36
Speaker 1: My especially so around sixty years, there's going to be
45:40
Speaker 1: upright and downs right.
45:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, add another thirty years onto that
45:46
Speaker 2: and you know, we're we're still in that period. But
45:49
Speaker 2: I feel like they kind of didn't feel the support
45:53
Speaker 2: that they had gotten from the record label in the past,
45:56
Speaker 2: and they just decided it was kind of tough. There
46:01
Speaker 2: was no official breakup, like, there was no press release
46:05
Speaker 2: that said we are no longer a van. They just
46:08
Speaker 2: kind of stopped touring together and Ray went off and
46:12
Speaker 2: did his thing. He did a very successful thing for
46:14
Speaker 2: a long time based on his unauthorized autobiography that was
46:19
Speaker 2: called X Ray Great Interesting Book. He turned that into
46:23
Speaker 2: a one man show that eventually got can be called Storyteller,
46:27
Speaker 2: which was the inspiration for the VH one show Storytellers.
46:32
Speaker 2: He was the first episode of that. Oh wow, And
46:36
Speaker 2: so if you watch every episode of Storytellers, there's a
46:40
Speaker 2: special thanks in the credits to Ray Davis because he
46:45
Speaker 2: did the very first episode of telling stories and then
46:49
Speaker 2: singing songs and kind of set up the format for that.
46:53
Speaker 2: And I believe there was actually a lie in the
46:56
Speaker 2: actual episode where he said VH one is probably going
46:58
Speaker 2: to take this idea and then run with it and
47:01
Speaker 2: make a million dollars off it. And it turned out
47:03
Speaker 2: that show lasting twenty years, And then of course Dave
47:09
Speaker 2: went off and did his own solo thing, had a
47:12
Speaker 2: bunch of great solo albums, toured around the United States,
47:15
Speaker 2: especially where he was based, did some shows in the
47:18
Speaker 2: UK and elsewhere in Europe. They both have had successful
47:21
Speaker 2: diversion paths since then, and I imagine once you have
47:27
Speaker 2: that kind of success on your own, it makes it
47:30
Speaker 2: even harder to come back together because then you're like, well,
47:33
Speaker 2: who's really going to be in charge, who's really going
47:36
Speaker 2: to be running the show? Who is our backing band
47:38
Speaker 2: going to be? You know, is it going to be
47:41
Speaker 2: raised backing band, is it going to be gaged backing band.
47:44
Speaker 2: Is it going to be some combination of the two.
47:45
Speaker 2: You know. So it's the same old story for a
47:48
Speaker 2: lot of rock acts that kind of have two very
47:53
Speaker 2: creative people in the band who might have different views
47:57
Speaker 2: of what the music should be.
48:01
Speaker 1: Rock podcast. We'll be back after this.
48:03
Speaker 2: I think I need akak Okay, all right, Chris, let's
48:09
Speaker 2: finish with a rapid fire series of questions here.
48:12
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, favorite Kinks song.
48:15
Speaker 2: It's really hard to say, but I'm gonna be basic
48:17
Speaker 2: and today I'm gonna pick Waterloo Sunset.
48:19
Speaker 1: Okay.
48:20
Speaker 2: The last time I was in London a couple of
48:23
Speaker 2: years ago, I still go on Wireloo Bridge a Round
48:26
Speaker 2: Sunset and I played the song on my phone a
48:29
Speaker 2: few times and it was a very emotional moment for me.
48:32
Speaker 1: So that's awesome.
48:33
Speaker 2: I'm gonna pick that one.
48:34
Speaker 1: Awesome. Okay, favorite Kinks album, Tricky can pick one.
48:38
Speaker 2: But today I'm gonna say either the Village Green Preservation
48:42
Speaker 2: Society or the Muscwell Hillbillies album, which was the Kinks
48:47
Speaker 2: segue into sort of folk rock country rock. Every song
48:52
Speaker 2: on both of those albums is just brilliant. I mean,
48:54
Speaker 2: there's no songs on either of those that I ever skipped.
48:57
Speaker 1: All right, most underrated Kink song. I have my pick,
49:01
Speaker 1: I want it, all right, Let's hear your pick first. Okay,
49:03
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say around the dial.
49:06
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a great one.
49:08
Speaker 1: Love that song. I love it especially because I was
49:10
Speaker 1: a radio guy, so I had a little personal touch
49:13
Speaker 1: to it. So that's my vote for most underrated Kink song.
49:16
Speaker 1: What do You Got?
49:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great one. I mean, again, hard to say.
49:19
Speaker 2: I think the underdog status of the band in the
49:23
Speaker 2: rock world makes a lot of their songs underrated. But
49:26
Speaker 2: if I had to pick one today, I would say
49:28
Speaker 2: better things. It's a great song from what I be
49:31
Speaker 2: the early eighties. It's an uplifting song. It's funn sing
49:35
Speaker 2: along to. You'll catch me in the bar when it
49:39
Speaker 2: comes on, just rocking out and nobody else hopefully is
49:42
Speaker 2: watching me.
49:44
Speaker 1: Most underrated Kinks album.
49:46
Speaker 2: Again, I mentioned it. I've been a fan since the nineties.
49:50
Speaker 2: I kind of have a different view of some of
49:52
Speaker 2: these things, and I think the last couple of studio
49:54
Speaker 2: albums that the Kings did, UK Jive and Phobia have
49:58
Speaker 2: some great songs on air for a band that have
50:01
Speaker 2: been making music for twenty five or thirty years at
50:05
Speaker 2: that point. I mean Phobia especially, it's chock full of
50:09
Speaker 2: these themes about the burdens of modern life, in a
50:13
Speaker 2: world that's spiraling out of control, and that might be
50:17
Speaker 2: even more relevant today than it was thirty years ago.
50:20
Speaker 2: Things were crazy thirty years ago, but it feels alike
50:23
Speaker 2: they've only become infinitely more crazy since then.
50:27
Speaker 1: And always be careful. Just because an album may not
50:29
Speaker 1: do well in the charts doesn't mean that it's not
50:32
Speaker 1: a good album, because that's just a lot of just time.
50:34
Speaker 1: Like you say, grunge era for the Phobia album and
50:37
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine UK jive, we're talking hair band
50:40
Speaker 1: era Glenn Metal. All right, Last one, if you were
50:44
Speaker 1: to introduce somebody who's never heard The Kinks before, what
50:48
Speaker 1: would be the perfect gateway song to play them? And why?
50:51
Speaker 2: I think you have to ask what their favorite music
50:55
Speaker 2: is because one of the great things about the Kinks
50:57
Speaker 2: is that they have so many different eras, Like they
51:00
Speaker 2: had that sixties era, you know, the seventies kind of
51:03
Speaker 2: rock opera era, then like the Arena a rock era
51:06
Speaker 2: that you love that you when you found the band.
51:09
Speaker 2: You know, Cisco disco. They dipped into disco a little bit.
51:15
Speaker 2: They've done all kinds of great stuff, so they really
51:18
Speaker 2: love brit Pop. You gotta say, why are lou Sunset,
51:21
Speaker 2: something like Autumn Almanac. I don't know if you know
51:23
Speaker 2: that song. Great song. It's the song that Andy Partridge
51:28
Speaker 2: from XTC said he's been trying to rewrite for his
51:33
Speaker 2: entire career that you love that song so much. Check
51:36
Speaker 2: it out. It's one of those B side songs that
51:40
Speaker 2: is a classic. If they like heavier rock like you,
51:43
Speaker 2: you were into the Van Halen, I would pick a
51:45
Speaker 2: live version of All Game and All the Night from
51:48
Speaker 2: the eighties or nineties where Dave Davis just like rips
51:52
Speaker 2: it up on the guitar, brings it back to that
51:55
Speaker 2: Van Halen kind of idea and flips it around and says,
51:58
Speaker 2: we kind of invented this. Like it's great, and van
52:01
Speaker 2: Halen loves it and is making it to their own,
52:04
Speaker 2: but we kind of invented this, and here's why. And
52:07
Speaker 2: if they're kind of sentimental like me, sometimes maybe you
52:10
Speaker 2: pick a song like Cell you like Heroes. I mean,
52:13
Speaker 2: it's a great track about old time Hollywood and how
52:17
Speaker 2: we all dream of being film stars sometimes. So I
52:19
Speaker 2: guess I know this was supposed to be rapid fire.
52:22
Speaker 2: And that was a really long answer.
52:24
Speaker 1: There is wrong answer. There's long answers are okay, so.
52:28
Speaker 2: Maybe introducing people to the cakes. Maybe a mixtape. But
52:32
Speaker 2: you know, I'm kind of betraying my age there, so
52:35
Speaker 2: I guess whatever the new equivalent is a Spotify Spotify
52:39
Speaker 2: playlist might be you know, the way to the Way
52:41
Speaker 2: to Go, but you can probably hit three or four
52:44
Speaker 2: songs that way and just get them somewhere. You hit
52:47
Speaker 2: them somewhere in that spot in their brain where it
52:50
Speaker 2: really clicks and.
52:51
Speaker 1: You want more, and you want more. I'm gonna throw
52:53
Speaker 1: some more out there. Jukebox music is another great one.
52:56
Speaker 1: A rock and roll fantasy is another great one. We
52:59
Speaker 1: mentioned that wish I could fly like Superman. Catch me
53:02
Speaker 1: now I'm falling. We forgot to mention Destroyer do it again.
53:06
Speaker 1: You mentioned Living on a Thin Line. That's another thing,
53:09
Speaker 1: like great great Dave David song. Did you know that
53:12
Speaker 1: song almost was the theme song for the Sopranos. No, Yeah,
53:17
Speaker 1: weird because it's about the end of the British Empire,
53:21
Speaker 1: and yet the Sopranos it was almost the theme song. Wow,
53:25
Speaker 1: that's from eighty five. Living on a Thing. Yeah, they're
53:28
Speaker 1: just just weird endless. Now you got me, I got
53:31
Speaker 1: to listen to the Kinks now on my way into
53:33
Speaker 1: work to Yes, Jim, I've got it.
53:36
Speaker 2: I've got it.
53:38
Speaker 1: This is awesome, Chris.
53:39
Speaker 2: That was the whole point of this.
53:41
Speaker 1: That's the whole point of it. Chris Coker is here
53:43
Speaker 1: to talk about the book, which is out now. I
53:45
Speaker 1: believe right. It's in stores now. It's in the UK
53:50
Speaker 1: and in the US.
53:52
Speaker 2: It will be out in the US at the end
53:53
Speaker 2: of January or early Femorary.
53:55
Speaker 1: Okay, I had January thirty first in the US. But
53:58
Speaker 1: if you want to get the book now, you can
54:01
Speaker 1: get it through BURNINGSHD dot com. That's where you can
54:03
Speaker 1: find the Sonic Bond books and it's called thank You
54:06
Speaker 1: for the Days Fans of the Kinks share sixty years
54:09
Speaker 1: of stories and Chris Cocher, thank you for being on
54:12
Speaker 1: the Bookdown Rock podcast. I hope to have you back again.
54:15
Speaker 1: We got to have a sequel to this, or maybe
54:17
Speaker 1: another fan book for a different band. Maybe.
54:19
Speaker 2: Oh no, man, I've thought about that and I remember
54:24
Speaker 2: saying it Stephen from Sonic Bond. Maybe this could be
54:27
Speaker 2: a series and you.
54:29
Speaker 1: Could be like Ray with the behind the music series.
54:32
Speaker 1: This could be maybe they'll thank Chris Cocher.
54:35
Speaker 2: He leveled with me, and he said, I don't know
54:37
Speaker 2: that I would find somebody else who would do this
54:40
Speaker 2: much work for one book.
54:42
Speaker 1: I'm telling you I would do that for Van Halen.
54:45
Speaker 1: I mean it would be something I would Yeah, I
54:48
Speaker 1: would love to do something like that. It's a great idea,
54:51
Speaker 1: you and me. We should.
54:52
Speaker 2: That's it's a great Chris Stephen on the phone right now.
54:57
Speaker 1: Let's on the phone. We got Stephen. If you're listener
55:00
Speaker 1: right now, Chris is talking to you. Chris Cochers, Thanks man,
55:04
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
55:05
Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me on the show.
55:14
Speaker 1: That's it. It's in the books.