Brian
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Post by Brian on Dec 28, 2020 0:00:45 GMT -8
An alternate take of "This Time Tomorrow," previously unreleased.
I don't know about you, but I haven't stop loving "Lola" and "Apeman" -- worldwide hits that revived the Kinks' career -- since I first heard them in 1970, something I can't say about some Beatles songs. That goes for the entire album, "Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One," remixed this year by Ray Davies. "Get Back in Line" and "A Long Way from Home" are among the finest songs Ray ever wrote or recorded -- and brother Dave's "Strangers" ranks with them. And what about "This Time Tomorrow." I've heard that song played more in the past decade through all kinds of media than I heard it anywhere except my record player in the previous 40 years. Now my mind's blown with the little differences in that alternate take.
BMG has given this album the full treatment on its 50th anniversary, just as it did for "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)" -- polishing the 1960's analog tapes while adding rarities and redundancies. Various "Lola Versus Powerman..." configurations with CD's and LP's were released this month:
store.thekinks.info/
On Christmas Eve, I got the deluxe box set in the mail: three CD's, a fabulous hardcover book, two singles with reproductions of foreign picture sleeves and four small glossy band photos.
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anni
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Post by anni on Dec 29, 2020 9:26:20 GMT -8
The Montrose Peace Vigil message board has two more threads about the previous Kinks 50th anniversary editions: |
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Post by Sharon W on Dec 31, 2020 9:56:24 GMT -8
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Jan 25, 2021 0:35:54 GMT -8
The great lost Kinks song "Anytime" was first released on this compilation in 2014.
I spent the 1970's tracking down every Kinks album. Remember the Capitol Records swap meets? I made multiple trips to the parking lot at Vine and Yucca Streets after midnight on Saturdays before I scored their hardest album to find, "Face to Face," in both mono and stereo. I was a nut so I had to quit buying compilations -- I have dozens of copies of songs like "Lola" and "You Really Got Me" -- or I'd have hundreds of repetitions by now.
Early this century, Ray and Dave opened their vaults, releasing previously unheard songs on expanded CD's of their greatest albums, a five disc anthology covering 1964-1970, and lately the 50th anniversary deluxe box sets. I had to buy them all if I still wanted to own every Kinks song. Along the way, I also acquired more versions of "Lola," including mono mixes and alternate takes.
How does a song as good as "Anytime" -- recorded the day before "Lola" in May 1970 -- stay unreleased for decades? I'm not sure that Ray knows. In the New York Times story that Sharon linked above, he said he had felt that it was "too commercial for its own good." But in another interview, also given to promote the 2020 reissue, Ray told Mojo: "I was playing through the tape with my engineer and wondering why we hadn't used it, because it's well recorded and very well played, and then I realised the song wasn't finished."
Ray said that he then gathered some notes that he wrote during the pandemic lockdown in London, gave them to a mysterious female narrator and created a new track called "The Follower - Any Time 2020 (featuring Anytime by The Kinks)," which incorporates snippets of songs from the "Lola" album. And they made a video:
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Post by Brian on Mar 14, 2021 23:00:37 GMT -8
The unboxing video for the Deluxe Box Set of the "Lola" album.
I can be a little slow sometimes: I was certainly aware that European copyright laws mandated that artists release a work within 50 years of its creation to protect ownership, which explained why Bob Dylan has been sequentially releasing limited pressings of his studio tapes for years. In 2015 I passed up the 18-CD box set of every note Dylan played in the studio during the 14 months that he recorded three of his greatest albums from 1965-66, settling for the 6-CD box of outtakes. But it didn't occur to me that the Kinks were doing anything more than commemorating the 50th anniversaries of their albums and taking in whatever money aging Boomers who still like physical music are willing to spend before they die or CD's become extinct. That is, until I read the cardboard box the "Lola" Deluxe Box Set came in: BMG Rights Priority Project.
So it finally hit me that I had achieved completion of my Kinks collection, at least with the songs and instrumentals recorded in their golden period. Each box set has been diminishing -- "Village Green" had five CD's, "Arthur" had four and "Lola" only three -- and the last two box sets unearthed no new songs through 1970, although Ray supplemented the old albums with material recorded in the years since. And there have been alternate mixes, live versions, singles edits and demos galore, all beautifully remastered. By the time Ray and BMG were assembling the "Lola" box, the vault was relatively bare. To flesh out the second and third CD's, Ray played snippets of songs to Dave and recorded their conversations about them as "Ray's Kitchen Sink." Utterly charming, maybe historical, but not something that invites repeated listening.
Because the book would retail for $25, I consider the $80 I paid well spent. No one needs the pile of 45's I've been gathering with these boxes, so I hope Anni forgives me if I predecease her. The $22 2-CD set is an excellent value -- it will give you wonderful remastered sound of the album and enough of the bonus tracks. Unfortunately, the LP is a standalone product with no extras. |
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Post by anni on Mar 16, 2021 9:06:53 GMT -8
This song never fails to give me chills, head to toe. So thrilled to learn it's kept alive and thriving in the 21st century. Hopefully, this won't be the last post in this thread, but if there is to be a last word, let that word be Dave.
While searching for that remastered recording of "Strangers," we found an amazing cover version uploaded just last month. Eric Burton and Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas, one of the best new bands, collaborated with Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius, who have been performing the song onstage for years. This version was used in the documentary "Life in a Day," produced by Ridley Scott.
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