GET WELL SOON GEORGE KINNEY OF THE GOLDEN DAWN

Fans of 60s psychedelic wonders The Golden Dawn will be saddened to hear about the ill health of main man George Kinney. According to Texas Psychedelic Rock George has been diagnosed with liver cancer and requires expensive treatment and medication. A fund has been created to help with these expenses.

As best friends growing up in Austin, Texas, George and Roky Erickson wreaked havoc at school and as the local bad boy beatniks on the folk scene. George eventually formed The Golden Dawn and Roky of course gained notoriety and worse with the 13th Floor Elevators, and the pair remained close. It was with Roky’s help that the Dawn signed to International Artists in 1967 and cut their lost-now-found classic LP, Power Plant. The Elevators influence is striking but Power Plant stands on its own merits as its acid drenched tentacles maneuver themselves into the darkest recesses of one’s fragile egg shell mind. It may be slightly contentious but I’d say only one Elevators album surpasses this one.

When Roky was locked up in the mental home in the early 70s it was George who smuggled out the manuscripts - which he published - that became the book Openers. This publication has been credited with helping to secure Roky’s release, so he seems like a good egg to me.

Should you wish to donate to George’s treatment you can do so via PayPal to kinney777@gmail.com. If you’ve never heard The Golden Dawn, treat your ears to this – the incredible “Starvation”.

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THE DEAD QUEEN OF BOHEMIA by JENNI FAGAN

An ex-girlfriend had a tatty book that gathered dust in my old flat. It was called How Poetry Works. I flicked through it a few times but it could’ve been a computer manual from the 1980s for all the sense it made to me. I don’t know how poetry works. I don’t know how computers work either. I couldn’t care less; as long as they do. Music’s the same. Ray Davies on Arena the other week got all tetchy about documentary makers wanting to over-analyze artists when people “either like the song or they don’t”.

I like Jenni Fagan’s poems. They live at the dark end of the street, across the tracks, on the outskirts of town in a world inhabited by junkies, winos, weirdoes and whores. And they’re only the harmless ones. Fagan doesn’t romanticize them but is empowered by her own experiences and wears them proudly like a rusting pin badge rescued from the rain. Out of the human wreckage come phrases like “…the schizophrenic knew fifteen different ways to bring Satan through a crack in the wall like a great vagina of doom” that instantly leave their words stamped in the brain. But there are two sides of every coin and on the flip of Jenni’s feisty confrontations are glimpses of vulnerability and tenderness.

They work for me. They should work for you too.

The Dead Queen of Bohemia by Jenni Fagan is published by Blackheath Books, priced £7.50.

Blackheath Books Website.

SHINDIG! - ISSUE 20

When Reggie King died in October I was privileged to be asked by Shindig! to write an obituary. The result was more well meaning than well written but is published in the January/February edition. Despite the sub-heading claiming I was a “long-time friend and fan” I should clarify that although we met on a number of occasions I’m certain he never remembered me from one time to the next. I had planned to interview him again for a forthcoming project and am now kicking myself for dilly-dallying. A lesson learned. For The Action to lose both Reg and Mick Evans during 2010 was especially cruel.

The other 83 pages are filled with folk with great hair who weren’t afraid to experiment with music or fashion. I direct you to the photograph of 60’s chancers The Nerve in their suits of polythene and Sellotape. Wear your best underpants. I’ve never really got The Soft Machine but will give them another shot purely on account of how wonderful they look on the cover.

Shindig! is available from good record shops, discerning newsagents and via their website. Priced £4.95.

DECEMBER PLAYLIST

As usual, a sample of sounds that have rattled the walls of Monkey Mansions during the past month. I’ve not picked them for the lyrics but quoted them to save thinking of stuff to say. They all work better with the music, which you can hear via the Spotify compilation link below. Enjoy, and don’t be put off by the shocking discovery that four songs are from the 1980s.

1. Little Walter – “Dead Presidents” (1963)
“Well I ain't broke but I'm badly bent/ Everybody loves them dead presidents.”

2. The Hytones – “You Don’t Even Know My Name” (1965)
“Yes, you’ve got a whole lot of fellahs hanging ‘round your door/ So you never know just how my love would be, cos you don’t even notice me.”

3. The Kinks – “People Take Pictures Of Each Other” (1968)
“People take pictures of each other/ and the moment to last them forever/ Of the time when they mattered to someone.”

4. Jerry Jeff Walker – “Pissin’ In The Wind” (1975)
“And we're pissin' in the wind, and it's blowing on all our friends/ We're gonna sit and grin and tell our grandchildren.”

5. The Creatures – “Mad Eyed Screamer” (1981)
“With the chatter in the trees/ Your balls are freezing in the breeze.”

6. Orange Juice – “The Artisans” (1984)
“Gonna trade in my snakeskin boots/ Gonna trade in my rhinestone suit/ 'Cause I'm in cahoots with the Artisans.”

7. The Redskins – “The Power Is Yours” (1986)
“We spend our lives waitin' for someone other than ourselves to make a move.”

8. McCarthy – “Governing Takes Brains” (1989)
“You know to be able to run a government you need a bloody good brain/ To be an MP you must be someone well above the common man.”

9. The Flaming Stars – “Like Trash” (1995)
“Everyone tells you it’s the only way/ If you don’t like it you can go away.”

10. Art Brut – “Good Weekend” (2005)
“I’ve seen her naked/ Twice!”

Click for Spotify Monkey Picks: December 2010 Playlist

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COCKNEY KIDS IN CALAIS (1967)

YouTube user dorlec01 has uploaded a bunch of brilliant 60s and 70s news features, mostly London based. Here a bunch of eloquent herberts from Lauriston Primary School in Hackney take a trip to Calais in 1967.

6T’S CHRISTMAS PARTY at the 100 CLUB

With the future of London’s 100 Club shakier than my walk home after an all-nighter, this Thursday’s Christmas do by the 6T’s Rhythm and Soul Society is even more essential than usual. All those northern and R&B classics that have sat patiently at the back of record boxes all year get moved to the front and welcomed home like returning old friends.

I’m excited and as you can tell from my 1986 notebook I was pretty excited as a seventeen year old too, which translated into a terrible doodle of Jackie Wilson with his hand joined to his elbow and a funny little moddy bloke with Echo and the Bunnymen hair. The right hand page lists an edition of Peter Young’s Soul Cellar show from Capital Radio which I’d religiously record each week. (Click on the picture to enlarge).

This year’s party runs from 9pm until 2am, Thursday 23rd December, with the admission jumping from £1.50 to a somewhat less attractive £12.

RAY DAVIES at the ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL

Ray Davies, we are told, can be a cantankerous, contrary old sod so it’s best to approach these things with an open mind. With little idea what to expect beyond the Crouch End Festival Choir are involved I wondered whether Ray might “treat” us to a bunch of Christmas hymns or plug his new duets album by dragging out special guests to massacre “Lola”. I wasn’t expecting two sets crammed with classics performed acoustically, with a small band, and finally with a massive choir (well, I predicted that last part).

He started the first set accompanied by Bill Shanly and they transformed the vast hall into a warm informal get-together in a pub back room. Early Kinks punker “I Need You” was given a thoughtful new arrangement with neat interplay between the two guitarists, whilst more familiar big hits were casually tossed off with Ray in a chatty mood and keen to get the crowd singing along. With his music hall grounding and it being pantomime season I’ll let it pass but I’m never keen on audience participation. It makes me cringe. I want to hear you sing Ray, not these people looking like they’re sat in front of the telly. Do I ask you to come and polish my lathe?

One chap from the back bellowed for “Harry Rag” and was rewarded with a quick off-the-cuff version. If I could've picked one wild-card number to hear it would've been that, so thanks to them both. Another lesser-spotter Kinks moment came with a lovely folksy “Nothin’ In The World Can Stop Me Worryin’ About My Baby”. His small band emerged (they weren’t dwarves) during “Where Have All The Good Times Gone?” and kept things nice and simple before going into the interval with a thumping “20th Century Man”. Ray spent much of the time sat on a stall as his sparrow legs are so skinny they can’t support the weight when a guitar is hung around his neck.

That set had started with a song I didn’t recognize but was then - to the best of my memory - followed by I Need You, Apeman, Autumn Almanac, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, After The Fall, Nothin’ In The World Can Stop Me Worryin’ About That Girl, Well Respected Man, Dead End Street, Where Have All The Good Times Gone?, Vietnam Cowboys, Harry Rag, In A Moment, Tired Of Waiting, a bit of Victoria and the opening passage from X-Ray, and 20th Century Man.

When asked recently about a Kinks reunion Dave Davies said “I think the music is so beautiful it shouldn’t be tainted. It would be a shame. You don’t need to see silly old men in wheelchairs singing ‘You Really Got Me.’” An admirable stance but I wonder what he would’ve made of said song performed by brother Ray and a 50 strong choir during the second set. It was bizarre to see rows of well-to-do ladies and gents putting down their knitting and pipes to sing one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most primitive, guttural blasts from a music sheet. Not how I’d choose my music yet it gave an added dimension and though visually odd and sometimes distracting it was undoubtably effective on “See My Friends” and the selection from Village Green Preservation Society. If I wanted to hear them as per the records I could've stayed at home. There can be a fine line between adapting songs and ruining them but they were always on the right side.

As the dirty old river rolled in front of the Royal Festival Hall and millions of people swarmed like flies around Waterloo underground to the rear, “Waterloo Sunset” was especially emotive and although Ray didn’t mention it I couldn’t have been the only one to think then of Pete Quaife. Rest his soul.

So there you have it. No Santa hats, no Paloma Faith, just a thoroughly enjoyable selection of songs with glorious Kinks numbers easily rubbing shoulders with newer material. In a weekend when Davies wasn’t the only national treasure to perform in London (Paul who?), he was the only one who could top that earlier set with Celluloid Heroes, Victoria, Shangri-La, Imaginary Man, Village Green, Johnny Thunder, Village Green Preservation Society, Working Man’s Café, Sunny Afternoon, See My Friends, You Really Got Me, Postcards From London, Waterloo Sunset, Days, and All Day and All of the Night.

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