The Kinks Appreciation post

I am writing this post at about 11:51 pm on a SCHOOL NIGHT! Shock! What an un-heard-of time to be writing a post! Am I crazy? No, I'm just bored. Tonight is the last night of school holidays and unlike my peers who were either killing their brain-cells in a classy fashion or running around town way past school-night bed time, I spent my last evening of freedom attending a Jethro Tull concert with my father. I felt quite out-of-place as the demographic of the concert audience seemed to be totally fried 50 + year olds reminiscing about the 'old days' Fully equipted with the Jethro Tull fan get-up which consisted of black band T-shirt and moldy jeans worn way past use-by date. Despite the promising audience atmosphere, the concert was impressive. With Ian Anderson hopping around the stage with his fantasy-like flute bouncing up and down, I seemed to have been transported into the deeper depths of Mordor. As much as I would love to tell the rest of my evening and report on the other seemingly half dead band members, much like the title suggests, this post is dedicated to the kinks. ( I will talk about the concert in further depth in a later post)

In a completely unrelated note - upon my arrival home, I stumbled across a beautiful recording of 'Lola' online and I was inspired to create a post dedicated to this wonderful band.

Last year, I was first introduced to The Kinks listening to an illegally-downloaded copy of the 'Boat that Rocked' soundtrack. All the kids seemed to love that film and felt that because of the 'cool' clothes and dreamy actors (Tum Sturridge, you BABE) that the soundtrack would be worth a listen. This resulted with a new pseudo infatuation with the 60s British music era among my peers. Every where you went either 'Sunny Afternoon' was playing or a very badly-recorded early -pre-psychedelic/india/lsd -inspired Beatles creation. The Kinks influence was quickly inescapable and every high-school locker had the the kinks blazing from the 2 mega-bit Nokia phone-speakers, strategically placed so that the sound could be loud enough to be heard by students and soft enough to be kept hidden from the prying ears of the warden-like teachers that patrolled the halls promoting a 'Tranquil and peaceful learning environment' often followed by a bellowed growl coming from the nearest teacher that happened to catch a girl with her hair out or a small 13 year old boy running around the strictly marked, no running halls. I seemed to have been transported back in time and I was thankful that people had started to recognize 'good' music and basked in the fact that the latest auto-tuned computer crap was being replaced by music with good feeling and arguably, good composition. Where people once 'Got down' to 50 cent, they were now groovin' to the 60s and I felt like I was in a world of my own, I loved it. However, like all fads, this one quickly subsided and the godly music that once graced the year 10 locker room was once again filled with latest beiber hit. My audio-blocking headphones once again made their way to my ears in a desperate attempt to drown myself in The Kinks music that had been digitally deleted off of all mobile phone mp3 equipment and never to be heard of again. (Although, I was happy to stumble upon a recording of Dead End Street in my friend's ipod recently, which I was all to happy to find)

When I was thinking about how to exactly write a Kinks appreciation post a million ideas came to mind. Should I write about their rise to fame? Should I just post pretty pictures of the band with side comments expressing my love for Ray Davies?
How exactly do I write this fucking post?

well I found this recording of Lola that I thought I would share and I suppose that will assist in making this post... good? I suppose?


Disclaimer: After watching this video, pause for a minute and breath. Close your eyes and take a moment to appreciate the a) Cuteness of Ray Davies and b) The bored state in which the key-boardist seems to be in (Man, do you understand how many hot groupie chicks are dancing behind you?!?! )

My feelings can all be summed up with this one youtube comment

Parts of the video I would like to draw attention to:

• 0:27 dat smile, I could melt and 0:33
• 1:34 I really admire how Dave Davies seems to be 'gettin' into the song, his facial movements really help give the performance passion, the whole performance seems like the band really enjoys themselves, which is what I think attracts me to the performance so much
• 2:30 can I please ask, why the hell did BBC approve this song to be performed when the song's lyrics talk about a transvestite?