The Smiley Smile Message Board

Looking through Ray Davies entertaining book Americana-I noticed that he included his 1977 diary in the book and he mentions that he went to Carl Wilson's house on the night of February 21 1977 and stayed till very late.  I wonder if they were friends or if it was just a one-time thing.

I don't know, but Dave Davies spoke quite highly of the Beach Boys' music in his autobiography (published in '95 or so). I think it's obvious both Davies brothers are fans! And - the Kinks opened some shows for the Boys in '72, as you (Ian) obviously know!  :)

It seems possible that Carl could have met Ray when he was producing Turtle Soup in 1969.

In Ray's book he describes the first time he met the Beach Boys. It was at the Hollywood Bowl, July 2/3 1965 when they were on the bill for the KFWB Summer Spectacular at the Bowl, with the Boys headlining. He and Dave were "genuine fans" of the Beach Boys' records, but the Brothers Davies got the cold shoulder from the Beach Boys backstage. Ray writes that Mike Love came up to him like he was going to say hello, made a gesture, but walked right past him. He said Dave tried to talk to another (unnamed) Beach Boy and also got the brush-off, which disappointed them both since they were fans.

According to Ray, he thought it was either part of the anti-British backlash he was getting in the US during that visit, or nerves from the Beach Boys, but whatever it was, it was a disappointment for the Davies brothers to be cold-shouldered.

Side note: Recently there were posts about silent 8mm film of the Beach Boys at the Bowl playing this show being sold at an auction. There is film from the same source of the Kinks at the Bowl, same show, July 3rd 65. These films were copied in bulk and sold out of teen magazines in the 60's. Whoever has a copy, it's not as rare as it was something that fans could order through those magazine ads and get a dubbed copy on 8mm.

Side note 2: Brian Wilson played at the Bowl for that July 3 show, as we know. But the next "Summer Spectacular" night in San Francisco, Cow Palace 7/4/65, turned into a debacle. Something like 1/5 of the capacity tickets had been sold, so it was less than 4,000 people in a 15,000 seat venue. In Kinks' lore, this is the show where depending on who goes on the record Ray was battling the promoters over the band's upfront cash payment (which the promoter couldn't deliver) versus getting a check instead, and the band was not allowed to perform. Or they refused...again, whatever the sources may say.

But they took the stage, and again depending on who tells the story, either gave a friendly wave and said they wanted to play but weren't allowed to before the soundman cut off their microphone, or they came out and flipped off the audience before the PA was cut. Either way they didn't perform. And they also lost their manager during all this as well, he walked away from the band.

Fascinating...I'm a Kinks fan, and it is certainly logical that members of the two bands would meet.

Glad to hear you're a Kinks fan, Peter - coincidentally, I just heard "Life Goes On", the closing cut from Sleepwalker, on Sirrius XM's Deep Tracks during my drive in to work yesterday. It was very much like running into an old friend. I know the late '70s wasn't perhaps their most creative of times, but what they were doing then was so much better than most bands, including many of their contemporaries, and those albums hold a soft spot in MY heart, as that's the era when I first really got into The Kinks, shortly before discovering the older and deeper pleasures of Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur. God Save The Kinks!  :)

Is there a recommended multi-disc anthology of the Kinks?

the 2-disc The Kink Kronikles is still the best.

Agreed - it covers the '60s and through 1970 quite nicely, with a few previously unreleased tracks thrown in. Maybe add Celluoid Heroes for an overview of the early-mid '70s, and top it off with Come Dancing With The Kinks for a taste of the late '70s/early '80s.

I guess you would still need something with the early hits ('64-'66), but such compilations are easy to find, as they are ubiquitous.

This is also the era when I became a fan. Saw the Beach Boys and Kinks play at Memorial Stadium, Seattle, July 1978. The Beach Boys' best work was already behind them; the Kinks Arista era is some of my favorite work of theirs, especially State of Confusion and Word of Mouth.

Of they definitely met, more than once. There's a great Ray Davies/Dennis Wilson story in The Beach Boys In Concert book (pg. 169) with first-hand quotes courtesy of Ed Roach. While the Beach Boys and Kinks shared a bill in 1972 Dennis and Ray apparently had quite a violent fight over a certain girl, it seems Dennis took a beating... but also took the girl.

It might be more than what you're looking for, but you can't really go wrong with this.

http://www.amazon.com/Anthology-1964-1971-Box-Set/dp/B00NJADEJ2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448150067&sr=8-1&keywords=kinks+box+set

Oh, I don't doubt Dennis got the girl! Ray never struck me as much of a girl chaser - Dave seemed more the partier of the two. Dave's autobio is very open - he never met a girl he didn't want to sleep with, never saw a drug that wasn't worth trying.

I recently bought the American book but I think I haven't otter to the Carl reference yet.......What page?

also, since we have slipped a kinks thread in here, I have to recommend to all Ray's exceptional solo CD O ther People's Lives.    I never tire of it.    classic Ray and a top notch album.   

I second this.  The best anthology of the Pye years which was their peak IMO.  Every essential track, lots of new and rare vintage mixes, a smattering of BBC tracks.

One-off or friends - it's cool either way! I mean, Ray could meet somebody else in show business, not Carl. That gives some food for thought, doesn't it? Regarding what GF said, I could never describe the Beach Boys rather than, say, Rolling Stones to be arrogant. I think they were rushing/ nervous inside. For young lads it was a big-scale show.
There was discussion of Dave & Dennis' similarities but nothing about Davies brothers being fans. How cool is that? :3d

Given that it excludes any track released before June 1966, this may be the most wildly inaccurate statement ever posted on this board.  ;D

So many Kinks/BBs parallels.  Siblings in the band (sensitive brilliant leader older brother -- Dave maybe combines aspects of Carl and Dennis).  Similar artistic/commercial success arcs.  Initial hits followed by ignored masterpieces later embraced.  70s touring resurgence -- seeing them or the Boys early to mid decade was as good as it gets. Followed by commercial resurgence,  And Brian and Ray have the same middle name!  One difference -- Ray is one of the great front men while Brian...bless him!

Kronikles is wonderful of course.  Face to Face through Lola vs contain amazing brilliance.  Village Green probably deservedly the "masterpiece" but I listen to Arthur and Lola vs just as much.  Muswell Hillbillies through Misfits and then again into the 80s every LP had gems.  Personal fave -- Schoolboys in Disgrace.  Very overlooked.

There are Beach Boys touches in a number of Kinks songs -- Don't Forget to Dance comes to mind.  The most overt -- Australia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef3beK367tA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef3beK367tA)

Yesterday at lunch, I had Sirrius' Deep Tracks on again - and right after Ray Davies' "Thanksgiving Day", they played "Heroes And Villains" (original mono mix). Can't be that!

It does seem that, these days, the hard core fans of both groups prefer those 1966-early 70's albums, the years when both groups were at low ebb commercially; the very early years are remembered primarily for the hit singles. I think the Kinks aged better as a band, though - they continued to release strong new material all through the 80's, while the Beach Boys could only come up with 2 studio albums for the whole decade. Interesting, too, that Dave D and Carl both went the solo route at rougly the same time, 1980-83, although Dave never did a solo tour to back up his 3 albums of the era. And the one Ray 'solo' effort in the 80's, Return to Waterloo,  became one only because Dave didn't want to play on it.

Ultimate Kinks is a really good collection too. 

46 tracks over two discs.  My only gripe is somehow Destroyer got left off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Collection_(The_Kinks_album)

It's on there, but for some reason they've titled it All Day and All of the Night.  ;)

HA  :)

I've never found that one comp that does it all for me regarding the Kinks; on vinyl, my choices would be The Kinks Greatest Hits (Reprise, 1966), the Kink Kronikles, The Kinks Greatest Celluloid Heroes, and Come Dancing with the Kinks.

Yes, "Schoolboys in Disgrace" --  "No More Looking Back":   http://youtu.be/5oteuNaL-4Q
And "Sleepwalker" --  "Life Goes On":   http://youtu.be/z7eg30GvV9E
"State of Confusion" -- "Heart of Gold":   http://youtu.be/wSyDnXTONC4
"Word of Mouth" -- "Living On a Thin Line":   http://youtu.be/Uorxycx4UD0
"Think Visual" -- "Lost and Found":   http://youtu.be/kB9WgnETXyo

Really, just pick up whatever you can!   :)

Many songwriters would kill for a song as good as "Lost and Found", and yet this is thought to be one of Ray's lesser works!  ::) Really, I love everything those guys did, right up to the end.

How's Waterloo Sunset as a collection?  Anyone heard it?  The track listing looks pretty good.  The album cover is similar to A Hard Days Night.

*and just because it's there, this has always struck me as Kinks-like: https://youtu.be/kb5rwG9e838?list=PLpIgVl7bfQHlgymAwfZ0vrKkMdOjPPG1W

Although, I haven't dug deep into the Kinks, I really like the stuff I've heard. The early stuff has a raw punk sound, then Water Loo Sunset and Sunny Afternoon are great, and Layla is interesting. :) The song posted above 'Australia' makes me want to dig deeper. Also seems very unBeach Boys to be rude to another band like that. Good to see that Ray got to hang with Carl. Though, not at Carl's best period, maybe not Ray's either?

By the way, are the Davies brothers twins? I saw a documentary a while back and have a hard time telling them apart. But I think Ray does the solo acts and is a bit more a serious personality and Dave is quirkier. Does that sound right?

Ray is 4 years older than Dave, as a result Dave has had to endure 'baby brother syndrome' all his life. Believe it or not, The Kinks were way more dysfunctional then The Beach Boys.

Ray Davies at his best was as great a songwriter as Brian at his best, and the run of albums from 1966 through 1969 (Face To Face, Something Else By The Kinks, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, and Arthur, Or The Decline And Fall of the British Empire) is as good as any four-album run out there.

The Davies brothers did look very similar in their youth, but they weren't twins -- Dave was the younger brother (they had six elder sisters, too). They've both toured and recorded solo for the past twenty or so years, but Dave's illness (he had a stroke and had to relearn the guitar) means that Ray has done far more. People above compared Dave to Dennis Wilson, and that's very true -- he's a rawer talent than Ray, more violent, slept around more, was the sex symbol of the group, had a rougher voice, and blossomed as a songwriter later.

(Another Beach Boys parallel -- Ray's wife Rasa, like Marilyn, often added backing vocals on their records).

As for multi-disc collections, which someone asked about earlier, there are three options depending on what you want. The two-CD "Ultimate Collection" mentioned earlier is pretty decent if you just want the hits and important tracks.

The Anthology 1964-1971, a five-CD-plus-vinyl-single box released last year and compiled by Andrew Sandoval, contains *almost* everything you could ever reasonably want from them. I say *almost* because it covers the period from the first single up to their departure from Pye, when they stopped having hits and had already released their last great album. But Muswell Hillbillies, the first album after that period, was still very good -- not great, but definitely worth a listen -- and there were a handful of good tracks scattered through the next few albums. Imagine a Beach Boys box set covering Surfin' Safari through Surf's Up and you'll have the idea. It has a lot of rarities, and has the very best sound quality of any Kinks release.

Picture Book is a 6-CD box from about ten years ago. That covers the band's whole career, which means it doesn't cover the 60s material in as much depth as The Anthology, but it does have the few essential tracks that The Anthology doesn't. But on the other hand the last couple of discs of it are the rather dull stadium rock that the band spent much of the last fifteen to twenty years of their career doing.

That's how Ray/Dave read it. Thing is, the Boys could be in a rush, nervous & stressing over their performance. I don't believe one bit any of them were rude.

Dave Davies has actually been much more prolific than his older brother since they split up in the mid 90's. Ray has released 2 studio albums, Other Peoples Lives and Working Man's Café. He also has a hit musical about the band called Sunny Afternoon and has written a couple of books. Dave also wrote a book, and has released several studio albums - Bug, Fractured Mindz, I Will Be Me, and Ripping Up Time. He's also done a couple cd's of experimental music with one his sons, released a documentary dvd about his spiritual and paranormal experiences, and has a couple discs of demos for sale on his website.

It was mentioned in Ray's book X-Ray. I have not read it in many years but from what I remember Ray caught Mike staring rather intensely at him, he then came over and kind of made a brief hello gesture at Ray before walking off.

Well, he might be a little arrogant but I wouldn't classify it as "rude".