Ray Davies Live @ The Detroit TasteFest July 1st, 2006

Dear Ray,

It’s been a few years since we met, old friend… 1979 I believe. Yes, it was 1979 at Cobo Hall. You had just released Low Budget, your American album. And suddenly you were quite popular again and you found yourself playing arenas with a new muscular sound. Dave still played glorious yet precise heavy metal solos, not as sloppy as in the past, none of you were. You had a new haircut, short and athletic. You seemed trim and just a bit hyper, but so remote, not like in the past, back in ’70 at the Easttown when you revealed your whimsical and self-deprecating nature...that almost pastoral British charm. Hell, back then you could getaway with Harry Rag or Big Sky and just floor the audience with those incredible images. And you were so good at poking fun at yourself…your brother Dave …and the Kinks. But in ’79 you were a rock star in an arena band; imagine the KINKS…an arena band. It seemed that the Kinks got better, more proficient. But …damn, I missed the sloppiness and your irreverent British point-of-view. It was all to calculated, so serious. Something gained, something lost. I never thought it could ever return. In the nineties, you’re days were numbered and you seemed to retreat into your cocoon just as Dave got busy with an odd and delightful solo career. I missed his show a few years back at The Magic Bag in Detroit – not for any lack of trying, as soon as I heard about the Dave Davies Show I dialed up my friend Willie Wilson from WDET to get some special accommodation, i.e. tickets. And ‘ol Willie said he’d get me tickets but Dave’s show was yesterday and that I just missed it and that he drove Dave in from the Metro Airport and Dave was cool not a prick like legend would have it. Yeah, them Kinks are notorious, can’t remember any Michigan rockers from the sixties or seventies that had a good word to say about you guys, maybe it was just the times and maybe our remembrances have a plasticity that cushion our own shame at someone else’s expense, someone more famous and unable to defend himself. And maybe you were just a drunken prick. Well, I was a drunken prick too way back when, it don’t matter anymore ‘cos I’ve made peace with myself and I’ve come to terms with you, the Kinks and fandom itself And judging from this performance I think you have found something too - home…peace… a renewed musical vision. And let me tell you, it was one of the best shows I've seen in many years - you still got it.
I was able to see six or seven Kinks shows between 1970 and 1979 and though your group changed personnel several times during that era, I never saw you play without your brother. I know you miss him; I miss him to. I hope he’s OK... heard he suffered a stroke a few years ago.

Fondly Yours
Bo White

Lisa and I started the day early and left Saginaw by 1:30pm and by 4pm we were strollin' the boulevard down at the TasteFest, slurpin' up some tast vittles, a spicy Thai noodle concoction, an entirely lovely yet faintly odd lobster corn dog, red beens and rice and some tasty shrimp creole. Yeah...we did all right. The sun was intense and we were quickly overheated so we took shade at the only oasis in the entire area, a patch of grass and trees that guarded a small stage just off the street... and low and behold Tone & Niche were playin' - I LOVE TONE & NICHE. They opened for Lavel Jackson @ White's a few months back and floored me with Tone's pocket-sized pop masterpieces and his exceptional singing. And believe it or not the real diamond in the rough, the real star of the show was the drummer, Stuart Tucker. He was fuckin' awesome, a jazz cat who can snap off any old beat you need and can fill with lightning force clarity, really punches it up with class and incredible craft. Anyway, we cooled off with Tone & Niche and made our way through the madding crowd to locate the main stage and get ready to see and hear one of my heroes, a living legend. But there was an act before Ray Davies - Cat Power and the Memphis....hmmm ...Memphis something or other, guess some of the musicians played in Booker T. & the M.G's...kinda like sayin' you played with Zappa - or being six degrees removed from Kevin Bacon..."yep, I know Bacon, saw him in Flashdance". Anyway, the entire crowd stood the whole time Cat Power sang. I couldn't see her but I could hear her just fine and believe me she SUCKED. I think it was mass hynosis or mind control or something for all them fools in the audience to reverently stand and fawn through her entire show, holding hands and staring blankly...kinda like witnessing the effects of Lee Greenwood's patriotic mind control anthem, Proud To Be An American, at a free concert with a crowd of fat middle-aged white people mouthing along, holding hands and swaying back and forth on the off beat. Kinda funny; kinda scary. Time was not my friend and it seemed to slow down and laugh at me and say, "Take THAT, you fool of fools, how dare you not adore the pretentious calculated schlock of Cat Power." It was interminable...it felt like I was locked in a room with a car salesman or insurance man or an ATM hawker, you know...them modern carnival barkers - "Step right up sign your name on the dotted line, the incredible shrinking man and the bearded lady will promise you other worldly delights as you sign your life away and sink deeper into debt...SUCKER"....hmm, where was I, oh yes, off on a rant. Anyway, Let me tell you about Ray Davies...

Davies opened the show with an indefatigable and irreverent version of Low Budget, his paean to American consumerism. Looking fit and trim, Davies inexplicably - as it was something like 90 degrees outside - wore a brown wool jacket over his shirt. He was sweating just a bit and dancin’ around like some Carnaby Street dandy or a Kink or somethin’ and after a coupla songs he really got down to business removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. This cat meant business. He was here to rock and roll us - and to reveal a little bit more than just his songs. In fact, Davies said, “To understand my songs, you gotta understand me”. So True. Davies could have sang all night and most of the next day and still covered only a portion of his extensive catalog. Tonight he included Where Have All the Good Times Gone, You Really Got Me, All Day and All of the Night, an incredible extended version of 20th Century Man (with some great slide licks from Mark Johns), and Tired of Waiting - the Punks favorite along with Till The End of the Day, which he also performed. He also played a few tunes that were never or rarely played in public including Dead End Street, an obscure, almost Dickensian ode to class inequality, from 1967 that Davies turned into a playful call and response, scat and way-oh exercise and A Long Way From Home from 1970’s Lola Vs Powerman and the Money-Go-Round. Davies said it was written for brother Dave and it was about coping with the pressures of sudden fame. Davies narrated his performance with incredible anecdotes about Dave asking “What the Fuck is that”? after he first heard the riff to You Really Got Me; auditioning for record executives who hated their music, dismissing Dave’s guitar work as sounding like dogs barking. Davies remarked, “I thought that was a good thing”. A sound was born and the Kinks were part of that early vanguard…but they changed and Davies brief solo acoustic set with Sunny Afternoon and Well Respected Man illustrated the changes, with satirical lyrics and universal themes that nonetheless poke fun at the writer himself, all in all a good vibe with just a hint of regret. I was most interested in his new material from his first solo record, Other People’s Lives. I bought it a few weeks back and loved its quiet majesty. Don’t get me wrong, Davies still rocked on the record but it was a return to the more pastoral musings of Village Green Preservation Society, Big Sky, Autumn Almanac, and Waterloo Sunset (Davies’ masterpiece). He played several of the new songs including After The Fall, an older tune originally meant for the Kinks; the funky Tourist, about his life in New Orleans. In introducing Over My Head, a tune that begs the question “Is life Good to You?” Davies revealed that it’s about acceptance and putting your life in perspective that it reflects upon his own life, a life like so many others - both comic and tragic. The Getaway is a moody gem inspired by Leadbelly and Davies’ skiffle days. Before performing Next Door Neighbor he asked to no one in particular or everyone, “Do you wanna be my friend?”; repeated the question and then said, “Let’s go out and you can have a few drinks with me and THEN you’ll see how it works”…hmmm, the drunken prick alter ego? That aside Davies possessed a self deprecating charm, oddly endearing and so loveable. He took performance art to a deeper level – especially for rock n’ roll – and simply and exquisitely charmed the pants off the crowd. He closed the 90 minute set with Lola, a classic song that he could never sing, seems he wrote it way out of his range. Where’s brother Dave when you need him? Still, Davies proved he is a master, a songwriting genius that has grown comfortable with the stage. This was an inspired performance that was strangely reassuring. Maybe I’m not obsolete afterall. I left the TasteFest feeling renewed and enlivened. My wife Lisa and I hailed a cab and returned to our room at The Hilton Inn on Gratiot Avenue, laughing and goofin’...it was a good night
GOD SAVE THE KINKS

I arose early the next morning, a good hour or so before Lisa. I showered and then brewed some of that complimentary individually packaged coffee that tastes sooo bad and sooo strong but it sure gets me going, so I drink it anyway and I get fired up and I decide to take a stroll down Gratiot over to Ford Field and Comerica Park. I’d never seen these stadiums, homes to the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions, and I was stunned by their terrible over-the-top opulence, steel and concrete monuments to our cultural constipation and diversion as a way of life. I shivered at those lavish modern pyramids and wondered what future generations would think of us. It was an astonishing, somewhat sterile counterpoint to the funky down home ambience of the TasteFest.
I was alone on Gratiot as I turned toward the Fox Theatre. There were only a few random people around the corner, some shirtless, some with shoes but no socks; one missing a few teeth. As I walked back toward the Hilton, I noticed a young fella with his head in his hands, sitting on the church steps, oblivious to my passing eye. I imagined that something happened to him and I wondered if I should say something…but I didn’t. I was afraid for some reason, perhaps he reminded me of those times I was alone and cowering in fear. I shuddered and shook off these thoughts like a chill and continued walking. After awhile I started to feel invigorated by the morning sun and felt the quiet pulse of the city begin to pick up before the hustle and bustle returned to the streets. I went back to my hotel room and told my wife about all these things. She smiled and kissed me tenderly. It was time to go home…

Peace
Bo White
7/3/06