Post by phobia on Jun 7, 2008 4:23:34 GMT -5
INTERNATIONAL MUSICIAN & RECORDING WORLD – Jan 1982
Chris Welch & The Kinks at Konk
Heard that new band The Kinks? That’s how they like to think of themselves. And their fans feel much the same. They have only vague memories of that raunchy little r n’ b group that stumbled warily into the Sixties.
Regeneration was wrought by their decision to cut out the frills, play their hits and tour as hard as they could. They’ve swept away theatrics and concept albums and, says Ray Davies: “We are all much happier now”.
Respect between the brothers has provided the basis for longevity. They have doubtless had their arguments over the years, and they maintain separate identities, in their roles as lead guitarist and composer. But teamwork has held The Kinks together and also has enabled them to set up the famous Konk Studio, which serves as the groups London HQ, and provides a service to others.
The studio is housed in a large, rambling house built into the side of a hill, which accounts for some interesting passage ways and odd shaped rooms. The control room is comfortable and impressive with a large new desk which had to be installed through the windows. The studio has been home to many celebrated clients, as well as The Kinks who recorded their last album Give The People What They Want there with Ray producing.
The band’s original drummer, Mick Avory, appeared momentarily during our guided tour, looking very suntanned and fit after a holiday, which he claimed he needed after their last American tour. The band’s present bass player is Jim Rodford and they have added keyboard player Ian Gibbons.
Dave is particularly excited about the way The Kinks have established themselves as a band which can be accepted by new young audiences, and not just a dwindling hard core of old faithfuls. Their last U.S. tour had lasted ten weeks and built on the impact made by their 1980 breakthrough, when they released their One For The Road double album.
“We played Madison Square for the first time – ever. Which was quite….nice.” Dave grinned at the understatement. “We made our breakthrough with that album Low Budget which turned things around for us, after slogging for years.”
“We’ve always had a cult following in the States anyway, but it’s only recently, after the last two years that we’ve got really big crowds, from 14 to 30 year olds. It’s been quite a cross-section of people. The 14 year olds think we’re a new band! Ray even introduces ‘You Really Got Me’ as a song that was made famous by Van Halen. Some of the young kids don’t go back much further than that. We’ve been going a long time. What is it – 17 years? I think we started 6 months before The Who.”…
Did Dave think the band sound better now than it did in the ancient early days?
“Nah!”, smiled Dave. “Actually it’s sounding better now than it has for a long, long time. We’ve been through a lot of diversions, and used a lot of different musicians over the years.”
During the mid Seventies they lost keyboard and bass players and switched from RCA to Arista. It was all part of a process of making the band tighter, more basic Rock & Roll unit.
“We went back to the roots,” says Dave. “The concept album period was interesting but because of our limited budget, we felt we should get back to fundamental Rock.”
Which was there last “experimental” album?
“I think all of them were!” laughed Dave. “But we did try to fuse theatrical ideas with Rock & Roll, and that was interesting, but it got on my wick a bit, doing it. At least the live performances did. There were so many people flying about on stage. I enjoyed it for a while, but thought it was getting away from what we were supposed to be doing. Now we feel, particularly in America, that we are a four year old band.
"The Kinks did feel it was like starting over again, but they had the advantage of hindsight and experience to guide them, which they lacked when first coping with the complexities and treacheries of the music business."
“When we were kids, none of us really knew what we were doing. We woke up one day and we were playing! It was really creative because of that. We were carried along on a euphoric wave of “newness”.”
“It was only towards the end of the Sixties that people started to think of their work more seriously, hence the Sgt. Pepper’s and all that. Initially the music was very explosive and spontaneous. That’s what we have tried to create with our live shows. They are special to us and it’s difficult to keep a certain kind of excitement going, but I think we have done that now.”
Dave the rocker is convinced that “live” shows are really what it’s all about, and that has probably let to some disputes over the years with Ray, whose writing ambitions have led him to seek different areas of fulfillment.
Dave is a self-taught guitarist who loves his instruments and grabs every chance he can to play. In fact he announced that he had not played a guitar for three days which seemed to him a quite shocking lapse.
“I got back from touring and had to pick up a guitar again, I’ve got a ’54 Tele, that I don’t take on the road with me and it was great to pick it up and start playing. I don’t like to practice a lot – like scales. I used to practice them but now I just play around. I’ve got a little Peavey amp which I use at home.”
Dave carries a cassette player with him to put down ideas. He talks and screams into it often when driving around in traffic in London. His mind begins to race with the enforced idleness, and snatches of song burst upon his lips, disturbing for neighboring drivers and passing pedestrians.
He doesn’t boast a huge collection of guitars, but he has just bought a Gibson Victory, which he is having modified.
“I really like the sound but I am having the fretboard altered as I didn’t like the action. It’s a really good guitar though, one of the best new ones in a ling time. It looks a bit silly, like the old Burns shape.”
Dave uses a Gibson Artisan guitar on stage which he says is like a Custom Les Paul.
“Artisan means a skilled craftsman, doesn’t it?” said Dave. “I’m not so sure about that! Not in my case. I don’t have any trouble remembering tunes on stage, it’s trying to forget them, that’s the problem. I do try and put new things into the old tunes and try and change them a bit. Otherwise I think I’d go potty!”
Dave disarmingly refers to this art as “f**king about a bit”, which is not quite the phrase Segovia would have chosen, but it emphasized his desire not to slavishly reproduce every song note for note.
“It’s bad enough in the studio when you have to work on the same song for three or four hours. You start copying yourself and that defeats the object really. Music must have rules and regulations but I don’t want to be stifled..”
Was there any one particular Kinks classic that Dave gets fed up with playing?
“All of them!” he announces cheerfully. “I hate rehearsal most of all. But you have to do it, to get the cobwebs out and get used to each other again. Mind you, we don’t get much of a lay off now. We are pretty much a hard working road band. It’s surprising how much you can forget in the arrangements after a while off the road, but nine times out of ten it comes together.”
Brother Ray has an excellent memory for all of their back catalogue of tunes but Dave can still find difficulty just remembering the running order for the set. In the middle of a show, just when the excitement is mounting and the fans are cheering, Dave’s memory goes blank and he yells to Mick or the bass player: “What are we supposed to be doing next?”
On stage Dave uses a Mesa Boogie amp and Roland speakers and he says the 100 watt Mesa Boogie head is “really pokey”. He used to use another make of amp but complained they were always going wrong, either valves or speakers packing up on him in the most embarrassing places.
“The speakers would be really driving and at their best, but you’d know in ten days’ time they go. I had capacitors burning out – all sorts of peculiar things.”
“But I really like the Mesa Boogie, in fact I’ve got two of them. I don’t go for distortion necessarily. I suppose my sound is a different kind of distortion, it’s a much warmer and authentic valve sound. Transistors tend to sound like fuzz boxes and I can’t relate to them. Sometimes I use feedback, but it can be a bloody nuisance. I used that on a couple of our early records, by accident! Everybody says ‘yeah, sounds great. Leave it in!’ I still use feedback some nights. Depends what sort of mood I’m in. Some nights it’s just a din, while other nights it sounds great.”
Dave avoids gadgets, although a few years ago he went through a phase of trying echo units, flangers, etc. but found they got in his way. He prefers to keep his experimentation in the playing rather than the hardware. He admits it is hard to keep on top with his playing, night after night on the road, especially when exhausted from all the traveling.
The Kinks have quite a lot more work lined up. Dave is planning another solo album, which Ray may assist on, and The Kinks are also expected to go to Australia and Japan.
Chris Welch & The Kinks at Konk
Heard that new band The Kinks? That’s how they like to think of themselves. And their fans feel much the same. They have only vague memories of that raunchy little r n’ b group that stumbled warily into the Sixties.
Regeneration was wrought by their decision to cut out the frills, play their hits and tour as hard as they could. They’ve swept away theatrics and concept albums and, says Ray Davies: “We are all much happier now”.
Respect between the brothers has provided the basis for longevity. They have doubtless had their arguments over the years, and they maintain separate identities, in their roles as lead guitarist and composer. But teamwork has held The Kinks together and also has enabled them to set up the famous Konk Studio, which serves as the groups London HQ, and provides a service to others.
The studio is housed in a large, rambling house built into the side of a hill, which accounts for some interesting passage ways and odd shaped rooms. The control room is comfortable and impressive with a large new desk which had to be installed through the windows. The studio has been home to many celebrated clients, as well as The Kinks who recorded their last album Give The People What They Want there with Ray producing.
The band’s original drummer, Mick Avory, appeared momentarily during our guided tour, looking very suntanned and fit after a holiday, which he claimed he needed after their last American tour. The band’s present bass player is Jim Rodford and they have added keyboard player Ian Gibbons.
Dave is particularly excited about the way The Kinks have established themselves as a band which can be accepted by new young audiences, and not just a dwindling hard core of old faithfuls. Their last U.S. tour had lasted ten weeks and built on the impact made by their 1980 breakthrough, when they released their One For The Road double album.
“We played Madison Square for the first time – ever. Which was quite….nice.” Dave grinned at the understatement. “We made our breakthrough with that album Low Budget which turned things around for us, after slogging for years.”
“We’ve always had a cult following in the States anyway, but it’s only recently, after the last two years that we’ve got really big crowds, from 14 to 30 year olds. It’s been quite a cross-section of people. The 14 year olds think we’re a new band! Ray even introduces ‘You Really Got Me’ as a song that was made famous by Van Halen. Some of the young kids don’t go back much further than that. We’ve been going a long time. What is it – 17 years? I think we started 6 months before The Who.”…
Did Dave think the band sound better now than it did in the ancient early days?
“Nah!”, smiled Dave. “Actually it’s sounding better now than it has for a long, long time. We’ve been through a lot of diversions, and used a lot of different musicians over the years.”
During the mid Seventies they lost keyboard and bass players and switched from RCA to Arista. It was all part of a process of making the band tighter, more basic Rock & Roll unit.
“We went back to the roots,” says Dave. “The concept album period was interesting but because of our limited budget, we felt we should get back to fundamental Rock.”
Which was there last “experimental” album?
“I think all of them were!” laughed Dave. “But we did try to fuse theatrical ideas with Rock & Roll, and that was interesting, but it got on my wick a bit, doing it. At least the live performances did. There were so many people flying about on stage. I enjoyed it for a while, but thought it was getting away from what we were supposed to be doing. Now we feel, particularly in America, that we are a four year old band.
"The Kinks did feel it was like starting over again, but they had the advantage of hindsight and experience to guide them, which they lacked when first coping with the complexities and treacheries of the music business."
“When we were kids, none of us really knew what we were doing. We woke up one day and we were playing! It was really creative because of that. We were carried along on a euphoric wave of “newness”.”
“It was only towards the end of the Sixties that people started to think of their work more seriously, hence the Sgt. Pepper’s and all that. Initially the music was very explosive and spontaneous. That’s what we have tried to create with our live shows. They are special to us and it’s difficult to keep a certain kind of excitement going, but I think we have done that now.”
Dave the rocker is convinced that “live” shows are really what it’s all about, and that has probably let to some disputes over the years with Ray, whose writing ambitions have led him to seek different areas of fulfillment.
Dave is a self-taught guitarist who loves his instruments and grabs every chance he can to play. In fact he announced that he had not played a guitar for three days which seemed to him a quite shocking lapse.
“I got back from touring and had to pick up a guitar again, I’ve got a ’54 Tele, that I don’t take on the road with me and it was great to pick it up and start playing. I don’t like to practice a lot – like scales. I used to practice them but now I just play around. I’ve got a little Peavey amp which I use at home.”
Dave carries a cassette player with him to put down ideas. He talks and screams into it often when driving around in traffic in London. His mind begins to race with the enforced idleness, and snatches of song burst upon his lips, disturbing for neighboring drivers and passing pedestrians.
He doesn’t boast a huge collection of guitars, but he has just bought a Gibson Victory, which he is having modified.
“I really like the sound but I am having the fretboard altered as I didn’t like the action. It’s a really good guitar though, one of the best new ones in a ling time. It looks a bit silly, like the old Burns shape.”
Dave uses a Gibson Artisan guitar on stage which he says is like a Custom Les Paul.
“Artisan means a skilled craftsman, doesn’t it?” said Dave. “I’m not so sure about that! Not in my case. I don’t have any trouble remembering tunes on stage, it’s trying to forget them, that’s the problem. I do try and put new things into the old tunes and try and change them a bit. Otherwise I think I’d go potty!”
Dave disarmingly refers to this art as “f**king about a bit”, which is not quite the phrase Segovia would have chosen, but it emphasized his desire not to slavishly reproduce every song note for note.
“It’s bad enough in the studio when you have to work on the same song for three or four hours. You start copying yourself and that defeats the object really. Music must have rules and regulations but I don’t want to be stifled..”
Was there any one particular Kinks classic that Dave gets fed up with playing?
“All of them!” he announces cheerfully. “I hate rehearsal most of all. But you have to do it, to get the cobwebs out and get used to each other again. Mind you, we don’t get much of a lay off now. We are pretty much a hard working road band. It’s surprising how much you can forget in the arrangements after a while off the road, but nine times out of ten it comes together.”
Brother Ray has an excellent memory for all of their back catalogue of tunes but Dave can still find difficulty just remembering the running order for the set. In the middle of a show, just when the excitement is mounting and the fans are cheering, Dave’s memory goes blank and he yells to Mick or the bass player: “What are we supposed to be doing next?”
On stage Dave uses a Mesa Boogie amp and Roland speakers and he says the 100 watt Mesa Boogie head is “really pokey”. He used to use another make of amp but complained they were always going wrong, either valves or speakers packing up on him in the most embarrassing places.
“The speakers would be really driving and at their best, but you’d know in ten days’ time they go. I had capacitors burning out – all sorts of peculiar things.”
“But I really like the Mesa Boogie, in fact I’ve got two of them. I don’t go for distortion necessarily. I suppose my sound is a different kind of distortion, it’s a much warmer and authentic valve sound. Transistors tend to sound like fuzz boxes and I can’t relate to them. Sometimes I use feedback, but it can be a bloody nuisance. I used that on a couple of our early records, by accident! Everybody says ‘yeah, sounds great. Leave it in!’ I still use feedback some nights. Depends what sort of mood I’m in. Some nights it’s just a din, while other nights it sounds great.”
Dave avoids gadgets, although a few years ago he went through a phase of trying echo units, flangers, etc. but found they got in his way. He prefers to keep his experimentation in the playing rather than the hardware. He admits it is hard to keep on top with his playing, night after night on the road, especially when exhausted from all the traveling.
The Kinks have quite a lot more work lined up. Dave is planning another solo album, which Ray may assist on, and The Kinks are also expected to go to Australia and Japan.