This is my weekly reminder to tune into Sinking with Sylvia (and Sometimes Todd) on Little Radio tomorrow (Thursday) from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM PST. Tomorrow their guest will be Jim Evens, the lead singer of local shoegazers, Helen Stellar. Expect questions about Cameron Crowe and what Jim did on his summer vacation. Since Jim works at Amoeba, hopefully he’ll share some choice musical selections.
Still playing catch up, my weekly pick for the show on September 6th was “Mister Songbird” by the Kinks. If you press me, I’ll probably tell you that my favorite band of all time is the Kinks. The biggest reason is Ray Davies songwriting. I can’t say that I love everything the Kinks ever did, but I do love the early singles and the albums from 1965-1971. That period was so fertile for the Kinks that The Kinks Kronikles and The Great Lost Kinks Album had to be released to pick up all the tracks that weren’t deemed worthy of being on the studio albums. “Mister Songbird” comes from the latter. The Great Lost Kinks Album was quickly in and out of print in 1973. It used to be pretty damn hard to track down. Most of the tracks from it have since been re-released on the expanded Castle editions of the studio albums, so it’s not quite the find it used to be.
When I first got my hands on it (I ripped a friends bootleg CD), I was blown away. Already being a huge fan, I couldn’t believe there were so many great Kinks tracks that I’d never heard. “Mister Songbird” doesn’t exhibit Davies acerbic wit (although anything’s arguable) or his nostalgia. It might not even appear on a list of my top 50 Kinks songs. But it’s a light-hearted, catchy as hell romp that gets my toe tapping and “helps keep my troubles away.” The whole album’s pretty great, but other standouts on the Great Lost Kinks Album are “Where Did My Spring Go,” “When I Turn Out the Living Room Light” and “There Is No Life Without Love.” I’ve since replaced my burned CD with a original vinyl pressing (picked up at Atomic in Burbank for $15) and an original copy of the 1998 Goldtone CD-R bootleg which adds a bunch of Dave Davies’ solo material (and which I found at some crappy used store in the San Fernando Valley for $9). Both of those will catch you a pretty decent penny on the internet, so if you see them for a decent price you should go ahead and pick them up.
I haven’t decided what I’m going to pick for tomorrow. Tune in and hear Todd make fun of it.
Make friends with Ray Davies on Myspace
Make friend with Dave Davies on Myspace
Watch the Kinks perform “Waterloo Sunset” (probably my favorite song) on Youtube
Still playing catch up, my weekly pick for the show on September 6th was “Mister Songbird” by the Kinks. If you press me, I’ll probably tell you that my favorite band of all time is the Kinks. The biggest reason is Ray Davies songwriting. I can’t say that I love everything the Kinks ever did, but I do love the early singles and the albums from 1965-1971. That period was so fertile for the Kinks that The Kinks Kronikles and The Great Lost Kinks Album had to be released to pick up all the tracks that weren’t deemed worthy of being on the studio albums. “Mister Songbird” comes from the latter. The Great Lost Kinks Album was quickly in and out of print in 1973. It used to be pretty damn hard to track down. Most of the tracks from it have since been re-released on the expanded Castle editions of the studio albums, so it’s not quite the find it used to be.
When I first got my hands on it (I ripped a friends bootleg CD), I was blown away. Already being a huge fan, I couldn’t believe there were so many great Kinks tracks that I’d never heard. “Mister Songbird” doesn’t exhibit Davies acerbic wit (although anything’s arguable) or his nostalgia. It might not even appear on a list of my top 50 Kinks songs. But it’s a light-hearted, catchy as hell romp that gets my toe tapping and “helps keep my troubles away.” The whole album’s pretty great, but other standouts on the Great Lost Kinks Album are “Where Did My Spring Go,” “When I Turn Out the Living Room Light” and “There Is No Life Without Love.” I’ve since replaced my burned CD with a original vinyl pressing (picked up at Atomic in Burbank for $15) and an original copy of the 1998 Goldtone CD-R bootleg which adds a bunch of Dave Davies’ solo material (and which I found at some crappy used store in the San Fernando Valley for $9). Both of those will catch you a pretty decent penny on the internet, so if you see them for a decent price you should go ahead and pick them up.
I haven’t decided what I’m going to pick for tomorrow. Tune in and hear Todd make fun of it.
Make friends with Ray Davies on Myspace
Make friend with Dave Davies on Myspace
Watch the Kinks perform “Waterloo Sunset” (probably my favorite song) on Youtube
1 comment:
I just posted on another blog about this album. I have that '96 'Goldtone' cd with the 12 Dave Davies tracks in addition to the usual 14 Lost Album ones. It was $8 used in a local shop. I haven't seen it anywhere else before.
What I am seeing are lots of different versions of The Great Lost Kinks Album. Compilations of assorted bootleg material. Original and remastered versions. Stereo and mono versions.
Some just have the basic 14 tracks, some have extra tracks, although not always the same extra tracks. Some of the '63-70 bootlegs have Great Lost Album tracks on them in addition to other stuff.
It's all made me curious to get some of this other material, and also different copies of the stuff I already have. I'd like to compare, see if the 'remastered' ones sound better, if the mono ones are superior to the stereo mixes, etc.
Mister Songbird is a good song. It's not really all that different from, say, 'Phenomenal Cat' from Village Green '68. Lots of the Lost songs are really good. Yes, they do tend to be a little slighter lyrically, and sometimes sound a little skeletal or a step or two from master. But they mix well with the Something Else and Village Green tracks.
Till Death Us Do Part, Mr. Reporter and Pictures In The Sand should've made an album. I think they just needed to be punched up a little more, percussively. Lavender Hill and Rosemary Rose are moody, semi-psychedelic mellotron numbers that sound very much like the Face To Face and Something Else songs.
I read that Village Green was considered as a double album at one point. It would've been interesting. I've got a European Village Green cd that has the original mono album as released and a shorter, 12 track stereo version with Days included.
Anyway, great looking blog you have here. Thanks
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