Although it probably won't budge the stubborn web-traffic needle, something very cool happened last Friday night at London's Islington Assembly Hall, and we think you should know about it.
The Kinks' Ray Davies and Dave Davies performed together onstage for the first time in nearly 20 years.
The unexpected—and spirited—reunion found the brothers performing a rousing rendition of the Kinks' summer-1964 hit, "You Really Got Me."
"We had a great night—it was a fun show—had a blast with Ray," Dave Davies tweeted after the gig. The Kinks hadn't performed together in any capacity since their 1996 tour, and it had been 20 years since the Davies brothers (Ray is 2.5 years older than Dave) shared a London stage.
Of course, this has longtme Kinks fans—myself included—hoping that the Davies boys will want to extend the magic of that one night into a full tour in 2016. Hey, we'll take 2017!
Everyone knows you sliced your amp’s speaker cone when recording “You Really Got Me,” but exactly why did you do it? What brought you to that point?
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I don’t know. I was always into science fiction and science, always tooling around with wires. I loved the mechanics of amps and things. Anyway, one night I just got really frustrated with my amp sound. Every amp sounded the same. I got really, really fed up. I didn’t think I’d actually done anything; I’d just “shaved” it. So I plugged into my AC30, and it really came to life. It was the first “effect pedal.” [laughs]
Is it true you weren’t crazy about Van Halen’s 1978 cover of “You Really Got Me”?
It’s an accomplished piece of work, but I thought it kind of lost some of the tension and struggle. It’s a bit too accomplished. It takes away from where it came from. It's like a piece of art: if you're copying the original, what does it end up becoming? I don’t like copying. It's hard enough to develop a style of playing. As a musician, you should always try to do something different. But I can’t fault them! And you know those guys have the “brother” thing like us, which is probably why they could relate to our music.
Did you ever meet Jimi Hendrix?
Yes. He didn’t say a lot, but he paid me a great compliment. He said he always felt “You Really Got Me” was a landmark recording. He was a total “feel” player, very organic and natural. But he didn’t talk much! [laughs]
Did the stroke you suffered in 2004 have any lasting effects on your guitar playing?
In some ways it is different, but in other ways it’s better. I don’t get that panic that I’ve always had.
Damian is Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World magazine. In past lives, he was GW’s managing editor and online managing editor. He's written liner notes for major-label releases, including Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'The Complete Epic Recordings Collection' (Sony Legacy) and has interviewed everyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to Kevin Bacon (with a few memorable Eric Clapton chats thrown into the mix). Damian, a former member of Brooklyn's The Gas House Gorillas, was the sole guitarist in Mister Neutron, a trio that toured the U.S. and released three albums. He now plays in two NYC-area bands.
