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Post by noisyroom on Feb 17, 2008 20:54:45 GMT -5
the best is yet to come...
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Post by Situation Vacant on Feb 17, 2008 21:21:37 GMT -5
It really sounds great so far. I'm quite pleased.
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Post by Situation Vacant on Feb 19, 2008 7:26:59 GMT -5
I'm still working on my review. I really like the first five tracks. Imaginary Man is definitely a clunker, Peace in Our Time is not nearly as bad as the other reviewers have been claiming.
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Post by HollyH on Feb 19, 2008 14:24:59 GMT -5
Imaginary Man A CLUNKER? Oh, please, listen to it again, SV. Some days it's my favorite off the entire album!
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Post by nancyb on Feb 19, 2008 15:09:55 GMT -5
I am I am an imaginary man....I LOVE that song. It is one of my favorites.
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Post by rose on Feb 19, 2008 15:53:29 GMT -5
My fave!!!! Please try again, sv!!!
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Post by rose on Feb 19, 2008 15:54:41 GMT -5
From PLAYBACK: Ray Davies | Working Man's Café (New West) Written by Jim Ousley Monday, 18 February 2008 I'm not given to hyperbole, but let me state this for the record: Ray Davies is the most underrated songwriting legend of his generation. Of course, when I say his generation, I'm including peers such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards. The Kinks' chief tunesmith, lead singer, and rhythm guitar slinger released his first solo album, Other People's Lives, in 2006. If that album was about stepping outside the heavy shadow of his formidable history, Working Man's Café tackles the subject of living in America in a time of transition and turmoil. Comfortably dancing along the thin line between being preachy and entertaining, his songs have always possessed the dual charm of communicating social commentary while sustaining a clever and succinctly British sense of humor. Kicking off with "Cowboys in Vietnam," Davies immediately establishes the roots-pop musical tone for the 11 tracks that will follow. Clearly still processing the inspiration from spending time in New Orleans, the track is a swamp-boogie joy ride that takes feisty lyrical left and right hook jabs at globalization and all of its consequences. In "You're Asking Me," he plays the true-life part of the elder statesman, too cranky and jaded to offer advice to the up-and-comers kneeling at the rock altar, seeking his wise counsel. On the title track, he laments the loss of a mom-and-pop diner in the wake of alleged "progress," as a sentimental melody underscoring loss morphs into a triumphant and rocking statement of self-worth. "Morphine Song" is the album's centerpiece, and its twisting drug-hazed chorus will run laps in your noggin for days. The song is inhabited by such strong characters, rich in detail and subtlety, that the track is easily the most visual on the album. "In a Moment" and "Peace in Our Time" offer mid-tempo musings on time, love, and war, while the rockingly Kinks-ish "No One Listen" explores the bureaucratic fallout of the criminal justice system, no doubt inspired by the bullet he received in his leg in 2004. On the gothic "The Voodoo Walk," Davies ratchets up the creepy factor for a tune so thick in atmosphere that you can smell the leaves, hear the wind howl, and feel the humidity form sweat beads on your neck. Anchoring the 12 tracks is Ray Davies' voice, an instrument he has received too little praise for in the past. Particularly on this album, his voice offers nuanced color and shading to the stories, illuminating the already well-crafted tunes and giving additional shape to the melodies. As a fellow Ray Davies fan recently told me, "This album's like hearing from an old friend." I couldn't agree more. A | Jim Ousley
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Post by rose on Feb 19, 2008 15:56:44 GMT -5
FROM PHILLY DAILY NEWS: Artists create well-crafted albums By JONATHAN TAKIFF Philadelphia Daily News takiffj@phillynews.com 215-854-5960 These days, the sideshows of pop often earn more attention than the music itself. Who's talking tough? Who's looking hot - or not? Who's smashed their car into a tree? But this week, we're pleased to celebrate several new discs fixated on craft and reaffirming that the song's the thing. WORKING OUT THE KINKS: Best known as the lead singer/songwriter of the Kinks, Ray Davies doesn't just know how to write a terrific musical hook that gets you humming along. He's also one of the more astute, humane, subtle and artful of social observers, with a longing for the simpler days and world that have passed us by. "Working Man's Cafe" (New West, A) is chock-full of such magical moments. "Vietnam Cowboys" muses on the globalization of culture and commerce, while the title track waxes nostalgic for the non-franchised hangouts where working stiffs used to feel welcome. "In a Moment" argues that hope and despair, embrace and rejection all transition in a blink, so seize what you will while you can. Not getting any younger, Davies also contemplates the inevitable in "Morphine Song," a brutal glimpse inside a geriatric hospital ward. And he argues modestly in "Imaginary Man" that we've imbued him with attributes and acclaim that he doesn't really deserve. As ever, modesty becomes him.
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Post by rose on Feb 19, 2008 15:59:08 GMT -5
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Post by nancyb on Feb 20, 2008 8:04:45 GMT -5
Thanks Rose, as always for keeping us in the loop
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Post by Situation Vacant on Feb 20, 2008 18:36:09 GMT -5
The Washington Post 2/21/08
WORKING MAN'S CAFE
Ray Davies
After more than 40 years of conjuring up some of the most memorable characters in rock, from cross-dressing Lola to the sister who mourns her razed local dance hall in "Come Dancing," ex-Kink Ray Davies finally has something to write about. For the first time on record, he deals with his January 2004 pursuit of a New Orleans purse snatcher, which resulted in a bullet in the leg and a stay in the intensive-care unit. Also for the first time on record, he deals with Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans after he moved away.
With all this reality seeping into his work, the 63-year-old singer-songwriter fills his electric-guitar-heavy fourth (sic) solo album with pathos and warmth rather than the coy sarcasm that defines Kinks masterpieces like "The Village Green Preservation Society" and "Father Christmas." That's not to say he's gone happy. "No One Listen," inspired by the response to Katrina, carries this conclusion: "Call the D.A., call the National Guard, call the President/Call anyone in the land of the free/'Cause they ain't gonna listen to me."
The album feels deeper, less impish than usual, for Davies, particularly on "Morphine Song," the only track about his 2004 shooting. Rather than contemplating purses and bullets, the songwriter focuses on the aftermath, warmly recalling a nurse named Starr, a coughing alcoholic named Brenda, the comfort of strangers and a steady heartbeat. In "You're Asking Me," he wonders if wisdom is really enough in the end. Who knows? But it's nice to hear him eloquently working through the question instead of making like contemporaries Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton, who merely plow through old songs.
-- Steve Knopper
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catgrrrl
New Member
predictable
Posts: 36
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Post by catgrrrl on Feb 20, 2008 18:54:06 GMT -5
I'm still working on my review. I really like the first five tracks. Imaginary Man is definitely a clunker Oh dear! Do me a favor...load this song onto your ipod (or whatever), and take a walk at dusk. Don't pay any attention to what Ray is saying the song is about (some relationship bullnuts). This is a song about Ray's relationship to HIMSELF! and to all of us. It's a f**king anthem about how it feels to be someone in the public eye for a lifetime. Everybody thinks they know you so well and all of the sudden you realise that you don't even know the difference between the guy everybody else sees and who you really think you are! And when you think about it, we all go through that in our own little way. sorry, perhaps I think (or drink) too much.
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Post by Situation Vacant on Feb 20, 2008 21:27:23 GMT -5
I'm still working on my review. I really like the first five tracks. Imaginary Man is definitely a clunker Oh dear! Do me a favor...load this song onto your ipod (or whatever), and take a walk at dusk. Don't pay any attention to what Ray is saying the song is about (some relationship bullnuts). This is a song about Ray's relationship to HIMSELF! and to all of us. It's a f**king anthem about how it feels to be someone in the public eye for a lifetime. Everybody thinks they know you so well and all of the sudden you realise that you don't even know the difference between the guy everybody else sees and who you really think you are! And when you think about it, we all go through that in our own little way. sorry, perhaps I think (or drink) too much. It's starting to grow on me a bit.
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Post by Smiley on Feb 21, 2008 1:13:44 GMT -5
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Post by complicatedlife on Feb 22, 2008 15:16:47 GMT -5
from NYC's Village Voice...
Ray Davies' Working Man’s Café Wherein Ray finally figures America out by Edd Hurt February 19th, 2008 12:00 AM Ray Davies Working Man’s Café New West/Ammal The strangled guitar chord that opens Working Man's Café recalls the intro to the Kinks' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," one of Davies's most brilliantly trapped songs. But that was 1966, and this is now (or something like it), which means his latest set of songs washes up against America in a roots-rock bottle stuffed to bursting by Nashville producer Ray Kennedy. As usual, Davies inveighs against the death of culture and the inability of a songwriter to fit in "among the retail outlets," as he sings on the title track. Kennedy's Music City session cats construct a dense sound that's half British Invasion daydream and half hard-assed Texas shuffle, with Hammond organ and plenty of chiming guitars. It could have come across as professional formalism enhancing a half-assed satirist's latest free-market nightmare, but Working Man's Café adds lyricism to the reportage and makes itself useful enough.
"Morphine Song" finds Davies in New Orleans's Charity Hospital, where he ended up for real in 2004 after a mugger shot him through the leg as he strolled near the French Quarter. Down for the count, he observes "Brenda the alkie" and a citizen who sports a mullet and "grooves around intensive care strutting his stuff." It's one of his best songs in ages. Davies sounds genuinely pained on the chorus of "Working Man's Café," but it's hard to figure out exactly who he's talking about when he sings, "Don't you know, we were all working men"—it's a conceit whose truth is questionable, in London or in Tennessee. Still, he displays his enormous gift for the lazy hook on "In a Moment," where the arrangement ingeniously contrasts sections that go from minor to major, dark to light. "Everything around me's so transitional," Davies sings, which means he might understand America after all.
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