The day after Nicky died (September 6, 1994), Ian McLagan and his wife Kim were shopping in Austin and stopped to have a drink in Nicky’s honor. They chose a weirdly appropriate bar, with church pews as benches and coffins for tables, and ordered a round of beers. They were amazed when, without them lifting […]
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When reviewing the worst days in music history, why not start at February 3, 1959? Of course, that’s the day Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper died in an Iowa plane crash. If you know this date, it isn’t because you’ve been going through a Holly phase and were doing online research. […]
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“From about ’67 to ’68 it was really machine-like. I didn’t even know whom I was working for half the time. Anthony Newley was at one session, Sammy Davis Jr. was at another, maybe those two were for a movie soundtrack or maybe they were singles. I don’t know. I don’t even know if they […]
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Link to One For The Road video & annotated setlist below Back on July 4th, I annotated The Kinks‘ BBC-TV appearance from January 24, 1973. (Check out God Save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and Variety.) That show bookended the band’s golden age that I’d say began with the transcendent “Waterloo Sunset” single (released May 1967) and […]
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“I don’t like the hassling, silly things in rock. I want to keep writing very English songs.” —Ray Davies, 1967 A few days ago I praised Phil and Dave Alvin as a two-man, American roots music preservation society, offering them up as a bizarro version of The Kinks. Granted, instead of preserving village greens, […]
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