Raymond Douglas sat back in his chair and he disappeared into the shadows.
‘I want to stop now.’ His voice tapered away and he sounded very old and very young at the same time. It was obvious that I was losing him again.
‘Surely you must remember your first visit to New York?’ I asked in fake excitement, just to hype him up.
There was silence for a few seconds, then he sprang back to life and leaned forward into the light. It took me by surprise. His head was no more than four or five inches away from mine, and for the first time I could see his craggy old face quite clearly. His hair was incredibly white, short-cropped. He leaned in even closer and his keen blue eyes seemed to look right through me. He frowned as if he were toying with my emotions. Again he knew that I was like a fish who had taken the bait; he became the angler playing with me on the end of the line, waiting for me to tire. He smirked, mocking me.
‘Oh yes, oh yes, the tits, the broads, the cunt, the excess, that’s what you want. You’re just a journalist, after all. I was a newly married man, what sort of a prick do you take me for? Besides I had elephantiasis, or some damned disease. I was bitten by some insect in Hong Kong and by the time I reached New York my left ankle had blown up like a balloon. This presented a problem to our promoters as we were due to appear on the Hullabaloo TV show, and we were supposed to do a dance routine. What a joke. At the first day’s rehearsal I pleaded with the producer not to make me do it but they were adamant that when the Kinks were introduced the camera would cut from the presenter Frankie Avalon to show the four Kinks dancing.’
Raymond Douglas paused and sat back in his chair, grunting like a dirty old man.
‘After rehearsals, Avory snuck one of the dancers on the show back to the hotel and was fucking her. Just as he was about to have an orgasm, a security guard burst into his room and pointed a gun at him. This put Avory right off his stroke.’
This made Raymond Douglas laugh so loudly that he developed a wheezing cough, and it took a few sips of cold tea for him to recover enough to continue.
‘When the Kinks arrived in the Big Apple, I felt a combination of excitement and fear in the pit of my stomach. Perhaps it was the food. Whatever. It was my first time in New York and I was too terrified to leave my hotel room. Later that night Avory and some of the others went out and visited the Peppermint Lounge, accompanied by Danny Kessler, an associate of Eddie Kassner’s. Kessler was a chirpy New Yorker who had helped promote Gary (son of Jerry) Lewis’ group the Playboys, and was eager to show us around the clubs. The Peppermint Lounge was the new hip nightspot – it had spawned the song ‘Peppermint Twist’, which had been a huge hit and was soon to be followed by a film of the same name. To New Yorkers, the Peppermint Lounge was the American equivalent of the Cavern Club in Liverpool. A whole spate of clubs had spread up and down Britain, and now America was beginning to feel the full impact of Merseybeat and the UK club scene. However the Peppermint Lounge was pure Americana, and the hipsters twisted into early hours displaying full-blown 1950s short back and sides, and quiffs the same as artists like Frankie (‘Got to Get Back to the Alamo’) Avalon and Bobbie (‘Blue Velvet’) Vinton. It’s no wonder that the mere sight of a Kink was guaranteed to attract a crowd, and then it was only a matter of time before police were called in to restore order. It was as if visitors from another planet had landed at Kennedy. Avory had done his best to make inroads into the local culture and break down social barriers, and he ended up with a visit to the nearest doctor to obtain a liniment to ease an attack of crabs, which were proliferating around his pubic region. The ointment became almost as essential to Mick as his drumsticks. His ritual of practising on his rubber drum mat before a performance was now accompanied by the twice daily application of ointment. No wonder he looked so miserable in those early black-and-white television videos. I was miserable because of my total fear and confused identity. Avory was miserable for entirely different reasons.’
R.D. smirked as he looked at me. ‘Is that what you want to hear about, sonny boy?’
I felt slightly ashamed, but I knew that the Corporation would eat this up. I was equally aware that R.D. was constantly playing emotional chess with me, seeing how I would react.
‘We conned the buggers, though, because on actual transmission of Hullabaloo they cut to the Kinks as rehearsed to discover me and Avory dancing cheek-to-cheek. The producer was outraged. I guess it was the first time they had ever seen guys acting like queers on American television. In a strange way I think it was that shot that started it all.’
‘All what?’
‘The character assassination, the plot to destroy us. To get us banned from America.’ R.D.’s voice went up a pitch as he got excited. ‘You see, the Kinks really did it. The Stones and the Beatles implied it, but we really carried it off and it was far too real for Americans to take.’
R.D. was beginning to annoy me with his petty attitudes towards some of his contemporaries. I felt like telling him to wise up and not be such a belligerent old bugger, but I buttoned my lip and let it go.
‘And you’re proud of that?’ I asked instead.
His voice became bitter and aggressive.
‘You see, it wasn’t just the music with us, it was a way of life. We rammed it right down their throats. We weren’t the smart people to hang out with. They wouldn’t invite Dave Davies to open an art gallery as they would Paul McCartney because they were scared that Dave would piss over the exhibits. You don’t understand, everybody keeps talking this crap about the liberated sixties and how free everybody was, but the reality was that everything still had to be done within the confines of the “adult” conservative world.’
R.D. sighed, then continued. ‘Still, we did the bloody Hullabaloo show, and, regardless of what the entertainment industry thought about us, the Kinks reached a young audience across America. All that crap with the American Federation of Musicians started around then, and haunted us for the rest of our careers. But you can find all that out from magazines and books. I don’t want to waste my time talking to you about it now.’
Raymond Douglas fumbled in his overcoat pockets and produced a small Yale key with a crumpled label attached to it with a piece of string. He held up the key in a limp manner and addressed me as if I were a servant.
‘Take this and go upstairs to the attic. There’s a filing cabinet there with all our old press clippings in it. I guess my brain cells are going. The time, the alcohol, the abuse, the women – I’m getting too old to remember details and you’ll find all you need up there. Now piss off, I’m knackered.’
I left R.D. and cautiously made my way down the dimly lit corridor, up a labyrinth of stairways, encountering the occasional cobweb on the way. It was as if the air in the attic was tainted with perfumes and odours from another era. A rat nibbled the worn-out carpet at the top of the staircase. The door to the attic was already open and in the corner of the room I could see the grey filing cabinet. I tried to unlock it but it was soon apparent that R.D. had given me the wrong key. Raymond Douglas was indeed senile, or confused by years of litigation and questions and answers and interviews, all blending into one another like an endless interrogation. I knew he was old but I preferred to think of him as confused rather than hopelessly senile. Even though he was a bitter old man – and at times an obviously outrageous liar – I liked him.
I tugged at the top drawer of the filing cabinet and to my surprise it opened. And there were the press clippings, just as he had said. I glanced at the cuttings on the top of the pile.
The New Musical Express had an article that started with the headline ‘Kinks return from their triumphant tour of Australia and Asia’. It said the Kinks were going straight into the studio to record their second album, already entitled Kinda Kinks. There was a sad little clipping from the Daily Mirror with a picture of Raymond Douglas’ first wife Rasa and some appallingly sentimental report which said ‘Kinky Ray’s newly wed pregnant wife awaits her husband’s return because she is “Tired Of Waiting”.’ In the short time I had known Raymond Douglas I was not entirely sure whether he was truthful, a liar, good or bad, but one thing I did know for certain, articles such as this threw him into a rage.
I was alone in the attic, and the building was empty apart from Raymond Douglas and the friendly rat feasting on crumbs at the top of the stairs, but I still had the feeling that somebody would burst in and attack me at any moment. Perhaps it was Raymond Douglas’ way of spooking me. He had tried the eye-to-eye technique, and now he was going for a more subtle approach! Perhaps he had already psyched me out. I took the opportunity and grabbed a bundle of newspaper clippings and magazines and stuffed it in my briefcase. As I turned to leave the room I looked up to the corner near the door and saw a small red light flashing on and off. A voice boomed out through a speaker; ‘Take as much as you want, they’re no good to me anymore.’ The rat stopped nibbling and looked up at the speaker. He knew his master’s voice. ‘Now make me a cup of tea the way I like it and get your arse down here, I want to talk to you, punk.’
By the time I scurried back into the control room with a Brown Betty full of tea, Raymond Douglas was ready to resume.
‘Hurry up, kid, you’re missing some good stuff. Ready? Good. Sit down and shut it.
After the tour I limped off the plane at London airport and, before I even saw Rasa, Larry Page rushed over to announce that we had studio time booked for the following morning. He was anxious to hear the songs for the new album. Ha. Anxious, my arse. It seemed to me that all the record company wanted were the sales from the follow-up. We could have recorded ‘Three Blind Mice’ for all they cared – provided it was a hit for them. I told Larry that I had this gammy leg but he assured me that so long as I could sing, nobody would notice it on record. Eventually I saw Rasa. Her little brown suede jacket was buttoned up to keep out the cold and there was a distinct bulge in her stomach – the baby was beginning to show. We hugged each other out of sight of everybody else, and she whispered ‘I love you’ in Lithuanian. As our little entourage left the airport an impish man wearing a flasher’s mackintosh stood holding a microphone in my direction. He said he was from a new radio station and his name was Kenny Everett. He wanted an exclusive interview with me ‘on my return to good old Blighty’. He was so frantically energetic it was almost annoying, but nevertheless he seemed keen and earnest and a thoroughly sincere Brit. But as I spoke to him my mind was on other things, such as getting back to my flat and making outrageously promiscuous love to my wife. Being in America had left me somewhat horny. Especially since as a devoted husband I had to watch on the sidelines while Dave and Mick ran rampant.
The interview over, we drove back along the North Circular towards home. When eventually we reached the little attic flat the weeks of sexual frustration and desire were soon stifled by the meek little phrase ‘We don’t want to hurt the baby’. As soon as the words were uttered I knew that she was right, but I couldn’t help thinking that, bizarrely, the only young woman in the world who wouldn’t and couldn’t have sex with me was my wife. The lust that stirred deep inside my groin, that had almost erupted with anticipation on the drive from Heathrow to Muswell Hill, slowly subsided and withered away into my sad underpants underneath my skintight hipster trousers. What remained of the evening was full of caressing, stroking and a newfound concern for this human being I had helped to create. However, there was also a feeling of dread, like a child who realizes that he has to share his toys with somebody else. Suddenly part of me belonged to somebody else. I felt both elated and cheated. While Rasa slept I watched her and wondered why she was there.
The next thing I can remember is limping down the stairs from No. 2 control room into Pye Studios. The release date for the record had already been set for the following month, which meant that the LP had to be completed in two weeks. And the fact that the publishers and managers wanted all the songs to be written by me made the prospect even more horrific.
I tried to think of myself as a professional. The songs we recorded were an amalgamation of all the music the band liked at the time, which was mainly Motown and more pop-orientated soul. As I sang ‘You Shouldn’t be Sad’, Dave, Pete and Rasa sang the back-up vocals. In my head, I thought we sounded like a cross between Earl Van Dyke and Martha and the Vandellas. Unfortunately, on playback we sounded like us. We double-tracked my vocal, which was horribly out of sync with the original, and when I pleaded with Shel Talmy, who was producing this somewhat shabby epic, to let me have another try to get it more in sync, he said that we just didn’t have the time to make it perfect. I knew that we were under tremendous time pressure, but I couldn’t help feeling that it was Shel’s revenge after I had got my own way and rerecorded ‘You Really Got Me’. The whole track was a mess.
Avory had to hit a crucial snare beat, but due to a combination of jet-lag and the amount of alcohol consumed on the flight from America the night before, he missed the drum completely and what should have been a triumphant thud to herald in the second verse sounded like a whimpering click as his drum stick rapped the edge of the drum. Unlike my hard-on, which had been forced flaccid, Avory’s lust for life must have been satisfied in a dingy club somewhere the night before. Or perhaps over the pages of Penthouse in his mother’s house in East Molesey. Avory had once confided in me that some years earlier, after a similar act of overindulgence, he had fallen asleep on his bed with his trousers and underpants around his ankles. He found when he woke in exactly the same circumstances that his mother had left some tea and biscuits on his bedside table while he was asleep.
This small anecdote aside, the whole album suffered from slovenly, callous disregard for our music. Listening to some of the mistakes made my toes curl, and will do so for the rest of my life. When I wrote ‘You Shouldn’t be Sad’ it was intended to be a celebration of being in love and wanting to get home to my pretty wife. But due to commercial realities on the part of our record company, to get the record out in time to take advantage of what success we had, the recording was rushed and had turned the song into a joke. Kinda Kinks went straight into the LP charts and got to at least Number 2. It would have stayed there longer but for the good taste of our fans, who must have realized that while the songs showed promise, the record was a disaster. It was as though everyone around us was cashing in, making as much money as possible before we lost the golden touch.
The upshot of these sessions was that the release of the first single from the album, ‘Everybody’s Gonna be Happy’, which was our tribute to the Motown bands we had worked with on various tours. It was a comparative flop compared to our last single and it only reached the lower regions of the Top 30. This created a flurry of anxiety throughout the management, publishers and other interested parties. There were murmurs that it had all come to an end and we had shot our collective wads. On the other hand the group was enjoying ever greater success at live concerts, and the B-side of the single, ‘Who Will be the Next in Line?’, was later flipped over to the Aside in the United States, where it became a minor hit. In some ways it could be said that this single was very successful, in that it contained two minor hits on the same disc rather than one big hit on the A-side. That’s how we said we felt, but deep down we were very disappointed. People were saying ‘You’ve lost that Kinks sound.’ To this day I’ve no idea what they meant by that.
While we were recording Kinda Kinks, we were playing gigs on our days off. Driving up the M1 towards Coventry, we were listening to the BBC and heard what we first thought was a Kinks record. We turned up the volume to hear the DJ announce the new single from a band called the Who, entitled ‘I Can’t Explain’. We were all surprised and confused: why would a band bother to try and copy our sound? These emotions were compounded with anger when we discovered that the Who had been produced by a certain Mr Shel Talmy while we were away on tour. Then we found out that the Who had originally been called the High Numbers, and were the same band that had supported us on a few of our shows, including the Beatles’ show at Bournemouth the previous year. That made Mick laugh. ‘That fucking drummer’s great but he’s as silly as arseholes.’ Dave said, ‘So what if they’ve copped our sound, at least they’re a good group.’ Quaife seemed reluctant to comment at all, whereas I felt a bit pissed off at others using the sound we had fought so hard to get. But then when I thought about it, I knew I’d got my vocal sound through hearing other people sing, and everybody in the world has tried to play the guitar like Chuck Berry. So what’s new?
In spring 1965 we embarked on a short Scandinavian tour. We were scheduled to play two concerts in the Tivoli Theatre in Copenhagen. The Rolling Stones had played the same venue two weeks previously, and it was anticipated that the Kinks, who were earning a reputation for being a rowdy stage act, would incite the teenage audience to riot. On our arrival in Copenhagen, the promotor held a press conference in a smart art gallery. We were treated as potential invaders, bringing pagan, uncultured attitudes to a country renowned for its etiquette. That is, if you didn’t count the marauding Vikings, who had pillaged and raped their way across Europe ten centuries earlier, before they had discovered how to make furniture. One elderly man, an intelligent, elegantly dressed writer, pointed out that the fear shown by some of the Danish press was based on the fact that Denmark had been occupied by the Germans during the war, and the sight of a policeman in uniform at a pop concert would bring back bitter memories. I was unsure and possibly not enlightened enough to understand what he meant until the following night. Dave played the opening chords of ‘All Day and All of the Night’, the kids rose to their feet to cheer what was already for them a teenage rock anthem, a side door opened and a mass of police with truncheons at the ready rushed into the auditorium. It was a matter of seconds before a riot started, a pitched battle between the police and the audience. The whole building erupted. We were rushed into a small room backstage and locked inside. We sat in stunned silence for what seemed like hours while the fans and the police fought outside. Eventually it was safe for us to leave, and we saw that the theatre had been almost totally destroyed. Perhaps the Vikings had passed this way after all. To my amazement, the only item to survive the battle of the Tivoli theatre was a small display of records and photographs of the country singer Jim Reeves. While all the rock fans had been battling with authority, the sad tribute to the late great singer had remained miraculously intact. As I picked my way through the beautifully designed auditorium, I made a mental note that if I ever became a Scandinavian furniture designer and was asked to design a theatre for a rock concert I would not use glass. A woman swore at us in Danish and then shouted in English, ‘Why can’t you be good boys, like the Rolling Stones?’ The next day the Politiken newspaper ran the headline ‘2000 unge i pop-tumult’, and went on to say that the Kinks could possibly be responsible for Copenhagen banning rock and roll entirely.
We were informed that the following day’s concert would be cancelled. Instead we were confined to our rooms at the Europa Hotel, as it was considered dangerous for us to go out into the streets, where we might provoke a riot. In the evening I heard shouts coming from the end of the corridor. Apparently out of sheer boredom and frustration at being ‘grounded’ Dave had consumed an entire bottle of whisky and then thrown the bottle through the window. Within seconds the lift on our floor opened, a squad of riot police ran into Dave’s room and dragged him out by his hair. My first concern was that, as he had been with a girl and was only wearing his underpants, he might catch a cold. One of our road managers went to try and help Dave and was promptly beaten to the ground by the police, who were dragging Dave out of the building. We eventually discovered that he had been arrested for ‘inciting a riot’ at the concert the previous day and would spend the night in the cells. We were due to fly to London the next day to play at the NME Poll-Winner’s concert, and we were told that we were going to get an award, for Best New Group. Grenville Collins tried to explain to the Danes that we had to go to play a major concert at Wembley, but in the commotion our Danish promoter had suddenly forgotten how to speak English. The only words he could come up with were that Dave would be ‘slightly’ beaten up and then possibly be released in the morning. Flights had to be cancelled and rearranged. By morning there was still no news of Dave. It seemed that nobody in Denmark was prepared to talk to us. Grenville phoned our publicity agent in London and explained that we might have to miss the concert. Then, out of the blue, Dave marched into the hotel accompanied by Brian Longstaff, complaining only of a ‘fucking hangover’. We were marched through the airport accompanied by armed police. Everywhere we turned we saw faces sneering at us. Avory summed up the whole trip: ‘Good riddance. They give you one slice of bread and call it a sandwich.’
We drove to the Empire Arena, Wembley straight from Heathrow but arrived there late. Dave bruised and battered, Grenville displaying quiet, aristocratic panic, Mick worried about his drum kit not arriving. He was reassured by Brian Longstaff that the Beatles would let us use their equipment. When I heard this I exploded: ‘It took us years to get our sound, and I don’t want to use their ponced-up equipment! Besides, they’ll only blame us if we’ve changed all the controls when they go on.’
‘Oh, you’re not going on before them, old boy,’ Wace said casually. ‘You’re closing the show, you’re going on last, after the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.’
I continued to complain about the equipment, particularly as the show was being televised live.
‘You don’t understand, old boy,’ explained Grenville. ‘This means that, as of now, you are bigger than the Beatles.’
We sat in our dressing room and listened as the various acts played. I was still complaining about the equipment, and, naïvely, I also wanted to know if they would take our award away from us because of the bad publicity we had received in Denmark. We were all shaken by that incident and would rather not have played, award or no award. If pain-killing injections were available, I would have been first in line to receive mine.
Suddenly there was a roar from the auditorium as the Rolling Stones started playing ‘This Could be the Last Time’ I commented that the previous year the Stones had received the Best New Group award, and at least it was worth going on because this year it was our turn. Time passed. Avory practised on his rubber drum-pad. Our red hunting jackets had been retrieved from the chaos of the Tivoli concert, our frilly yellow shirts had been hurriedly washed and pressed. Then we heard another roar as the Beatles announced their new single and the unforgettable opening guitar phrase of ‘Ticket to Ride’ was played by George Harrison on his new 12-string Rickenbacker. They sounded great. By the time we went on, however, we were prepared for just a gesture of a performance. To our amazement the audience gave us as good a reception as ever.
But when we went over to receive our award, I turned to find Maurice Kinn, who was associated with the New Musical Express, holding four little awards. I asked him what they were. ‘Runners up for Best New Group of the year.’
I shouted back to him, ‘Runners up to who?’
‘The Rolling Stones, of course.’
I was stunned that the Rolling Stones could be Best New Group two years running, and I stormed off the stage without accepting my award. I felt that this was a total deception, and tantamount to a slap in the face by the music business. From that day on, I re-named the New Musical Express The Enemy. The Kinks had refused to join the musical establishment; it was obvious to me that we would have to fight on regardless or quit. And I decided to quit.’
Raymond Douglas went into a trance-like state. His face showed all the disappointments of a lifetime. It was obvious that receiving what was for him second prize, had been a humiliation, and truthfully the whole thing sounded a little rigged, but just the same it was clear that by alienating the music-biz establishment the Kinks were doing themselves no favours. Then he suddenly dropped into this slurred, surrealistic monologue. By now I felt as though I was inside with him. I closed my eyes. I saw images, stills, slow-motion, black-and-white, of the Beatles, the Kinks, the police in Denmark, angry faces. Then, runners at the start of a race. R.D. verbalized my thought pattern.
‘Running. Everybody’s got two legs, right? Except those poor motherfucker cripples. My sister Peg had the use of only one arm, but people with two legs and two arms can stretch themselves physically through pain and at least give themselves a chance of winning. For some reason I found myself being forced to run in slow-motion while everybody around me was allowed to run at normal speed. When you’re in control there’s a chance that you can work hard enough to get in a situation where there’s some possibility that you can win. But suddenly, I saw myself crossing the finishing-line first, only to be given a silver medal. The photo-finish proved conclusively that I had won. But because they, whoever “they” were, decided to disqualify me, I found myself in a situation where I had to run, to train harder, to take myself through another barrier. Something I said, or was reported reported to have said, somewhere in some half-arsed periodical may have got up some son-of-a-bitch’s snout. Gimme that scrapbook!’
R.D. grabbed the book from me and skimmed through the clippings. He pointed at an article. ‘It says here: “The lead singer of the Kinks says he can sing better than Frank Sinatra.” I said that, yes, but not the way it was implied in the article. What I had actually said was that I could sing “You Really Got Me” better than Frank Sinatra. Here is another lie: I was quoted as saying that I thought Adolf Hitler was a “good guy”. What I said was that Hitler certainly knew how to sell out a stadium. Surely that could not be misinterpreted to suggest approval of Hitler, yet misinterpreted it was. And so it’s understandable that certain Jewish people in the music industry took offence. But hell, my parents had been bombed by the Germans, I had married a girl whose family had been driven from their home by the Nazis – surely it was obvious that this was a misquote. A lie? Surely if they thought about it they would realize that the statement was made by a nineteen-year-old who’d had a run of success based on giving a “screw-you” sign to the establishment. But I guess some middle-aged fat fuck always took some goddamn offence. Anyone would think that I had pissed on the Mona Lisa. Whatever I did, or imagined I did, or somebody else imagined that I did, has always awoken that little hunchbacked man inside me. All my insecurities started to come back. After the humiliation at the NME concert, I drove back from Wembley and the rosebud that once grew in my chest turned into a hard, bitter, prickly nettle.’