‘On 23 May 1967 the Boscabel-Denmark case started in the High Court. The case was heard in front of Judge Widgery (who later became Lord Chief Justice).
Judge Widgery sat patiently while he heard the testimony of Larry Page, followed by Sam Levy and Eddie Kassner. The following day it was the turn of Robert Ransom, David Dane, Kassner’s accountant, and Robert Wace. During Dane’s testimony, he produced a crumpled piece of paper, a note I was alleged to have written some time the year before when I ran down to Denmark Street in an abortive attempt to sort out Brian Somerville and the rest of the world. The letter, which was almost illegible, said that I was sorry for all the unhappiness I had caused: the type of confessionals people under stress tend to write when they are pushed completely over the edge. Denmark’s counsel waved the piece of paper around, asserting that I was a confused and manipulated young person who had been swayed into leaving Denmark Productions. Then the scrap of paper was handed over to Mr Fisher, and I expected him to dismiss the note as the incoherent rantings of a tormented soul. He too waved it in the air, but as if to indicate that it was a piece of inconsequential evidence. Andrew Bateson tipped his barrister’s wig forward in a cocksure manner, leaned over and joked that Blackie Campbell had been waving the note around frantically because the ink had not dried sufficiently. Dave made a particularly good impression on Judge Widgery when, cross-examined by Blackie Campbell, he replied to a devious question as to whether he was doing well financially by saying, ‘Very well, Guv, can’t complain.’ I was astounded by the confidence of my younger brother, still only nineteen years old, and yet already a seasoned musician, playboy and litigant.
The following day, I, Raymond Douglas, was in the box. Not only did I discover that I was on oath, as if speaking in front of God, but when the end of the session came for that day, I was informed that I was not allowed by law to speak to anybody about the case, and about my evidence in particular. I was amused to see that everybody, including Grenville and Robert, turned away when I asked if they were going for a drink afterwards. That night, I went home to discover that ‘Waterloo Sunset’ had gone into the Top 10. I sat alone in front of the television and watched Glasgow Celtic beat Milan and become the first British team to win the European Cup.
Klein and Machat were orchestrating backstage because, regardless of the outcome of the Boscabel-Denmark case, it did not touch on the matter of the record company dispute, which was about to erupt between the Kinks and Pye Records.
The following day I was asked by Blackie Campbell why, if I had such distrust and loathing for Kassner and Page, had I, in my moment of madness after the confrontation with Brian Somerville, gone directly to their offices next door to seek refuge? It was a good question. I felt a little ashamed to say that I was being pursued by the police, and if I had said that I felt emotionally confused at the time, it would have opened a can of worms that undoubtedly would have been used against me. So I looked up at my inquisitor and explained that it had been a sunny day, and on a sunny day I will talk to anybody. This seemed to me a truthful enough answer, but it produced a slight titter around the courtroom, as if I had made some sort of blunder. I looked at Bateson, who by now had tipped his wig over so far that it completely covered his eyes, and I suddenly remembered his words of warning about being poetic and vague. Suddenly the image of the gallows loomed. But I felt that all in all, my answer was sufficient.
Judge Widgery looked me up and down, as if to study the depth of my honesty; then he turned across to look at the so-called parties in dispute. After a short pause for thought, he pronounced wisely that ‘Mr Davies is what this case is about, because what we are dealing with here is a dispute over his publishing.’ I looked around the courtroom. At last somebody had grasped the truth, and it happened to be the judge hearing the case. Kassner was gritting his teeth; Page was glaring through his large black-framed spectacles; Grenville had his usual raised eyebrows; and Robert merely stared straight ahead impassively, as if he were on a golf course somewhere trying to decide which iron to use on his approach shot to the green.
Judge Widgery added that even though this was his assessment, this was not the case which had been put before him. Later that week, after a brief adjournment, he gave his decision. Nobody had won. All I remember was that the judgement was greeted by shouts of ‘appeal’ and ‘costs’ as one counsel shouted across the courtroom to the other. I slumped down in my chair. I couldn’t quite understand the somewhat ambiguous result.
The effect of this decision meant that my finances as a writer would be frozen and held in escrow until the appeal at least. We were informed later by Mr Fisher that the other side had indicated to him that they would take the case to the House of Lords if they had to. I went back to my mother’s house with Dave and sat in the front room while he strummed a song we had recorded called ‘Death of a Clown’. We were both shell-shocked from the courtroom dramas that had surrounded us both. I watched Dave, in the same front room where he had been born, and where I had written ‘You Really Got Me’, as he strummed. I suggested that it sounded a little bit like a Bob Dylan song.
As he played it through, he kept missing out the bridge. I assumed that Dave was just playing the parts of the song which comforted him after the courtroom ordeal. The lyrics were singable and heartfelt, but without the bridge the song sounded repetitive. I went over to the old upright piano and played the bridge in E flat. This had been the first song Dave and I had co-written, but on the recording session Dave had not bothered to write lyrics to my section and so Rasa had simply la-la’d her way through.
The song still sounded Dylanesque, even with the bridge, but Dave liked that. I had always distrusted Dylan as a songwriter, in the same way that at college I had distrusted Picasso as a painter.
I had the feeling that both men were great artists but creative chameleons. In Dylan’s case I suspected that he wanted to be the new Woody Guthrie, but had deviated when he got access to early Beatles’ records. As far as Picasso went, he dabbled with Impressionism. He tried his luck as Braque and sometimes even surpassed him. And by the time he achieved greatness, he was already copying himself. As a cynical art student the only work I respected of his was Guernica. I was totally bowled over by that. (Perhaps if I had seen Bob Dylan live, I would have felt the same way.) When I saw the print of Guernica as an art student, I imagined the actual painting to be enormous; when I saw it many years later in New York I was amazed at how small it was compared to the emotions and events it depicted. Maybe, like all legendary works of art, it did not seem as large or as small as I imagined it to be. This started me thinking about the rest of Picasso’s work, which I had dismissed as bullshit when I was an art student. I suddenly saw the humour in it: that he was so talented that he could have a painting taken seriously while he was in fact laughing at the hypocritical art world. It wasn’t until later that I started to feel the same about Dylan. He was also making fun of all the fashion victims who were calling him a great poet. The only thing I had against him was that he had changed his name; but then I guess that was his privilege. Even Picasso was usually marketed without the Pablo. Dylan and Picasso: two giants of twentieth-century art, both giving a new meaning to the expression ‘piss artist’. Why shouldn’t they take the piss? They were both masters of their art.
So there was Dave trying to come to terms with his own art by playing that sad little song. ‘Death of a Clown’ was autobiographical in the sense that Dave Davies, the great raver and womanizer, was contemplating marriage to a Danish cousin of Pete Quaife’s wife. He made only one comment on the matter, ‘I’ve met a girl who smiles when I make love to her.’ The soon-to-be Lisbet Davies was a gentle woman and would turn out to be a long-lasting friend with seemingly perfect manners and an inscrutable, almost oriental smile that was seldom removed. In later years the ever-curling corners of her mouth constantly curled further upwards as new babies were born. Her fixed grin and slightly squinting eyes on a rounded face, accompanied by a Danish person’s attempt to speak English, gave her the impression of being a Danish geisha girl. Dave was married sometime in 1967 in Denmark with none of my family there. And ‘Death of a Clown’ was a nominal attempt on Dave’s part to become a respected married man. But not only can you not teach a dog new tricks, Dave was destined to remain a clown both to my joy and despair, because in Dave’s case Mr Hyde had already taken over and Dr Jekyll made the occasional appearance as did an inferior publicist at births, weddings, funerals. ‘Death of a Clown’ would not mean the end of Dave Davies. It was released shortly after ‘Waterloo Sunset’ descended from the charts.
By this time, I was being hailed as one of the better British songwriters of the period. Upon the release of ‘Death of a Clown’, Ned Sherrin, producer, broadcaster and founder of the sixties satire movement, summoned me to dinner at 3 Bywater Street, in Chelsea, the habitat and general pit-stop for many of London’s so-called ‘swinging celebrities’. Ned’s tiny terraced house was the watering-hole/confession room of some of the brightest people in London, and for me to be invited was considered a major feather in the cap of my socially aware management. Ned Sherrin was not only the godfather of satire but godmother to many of its aspiring young actors and writers. As I arrived the legendary and statuesque Mr Sherrin stood on the steps above, his monumental chest puffed up like a giant pigeon during mating season, his eyes piercing down at me with a hypnotic gaze. He addressed me as he would have done a plumber or window cleaner who had just completed their duties to his satisfaction. Sherrin had a clipped, musical, upper-class voice that was remarkably high-pitched for such a large man.
‘Raymond Douglas, I assume. I thought “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” worked rather well, and your baby brother’s little number is quite a singable ditty.’ As he spoke he ushered me up the stairs and into the house. The strains of ‘Death of a Clown’ could be heard in the background. As Dave had been promoting ‘Death of a Clown’ dressed like a regency dandy, with heavily made-up eyes, I was convinced that the wrong brother had been invited to dinner. At the same sessions as ‘Waterloo Sunset’ the Kinks had also recorded a ridiculously camp tune called ‘Mr Pleasant’, about a man who’s kind to everybody on the exterior but doesn’t realize the pitfalls and traps involved in being superficially happy, because Mrs Pleasant is having an affair. For some reason ‘Mr Pleasant’ was released in Holland and went straight to Number 1, with ‘Waterloo Sunset’ at Number 2. Perhaps that was a problem for many people including Mr Sherrin. I was two people at once: a Romantic with strong ideals on one hand and at the same time a cruel observer with no mercy. Nevertheless, I was greeted with warmth and affection and the champagne flowed as long as I could stand up. After a short while it was clear that Ned had invited the right brother to dine.
Avory’s pursuits, meanwhile, were of a less artistic but equally flamboyant nature among the more squalid surroundings of the transvestite bars of Putney and Earls Court. Not that Avory knowingly sought out such places. It just seemed that every large-breasted actress led, ultimately, to a late-night drinking club frequented by drag queens. In order to bed the lusty maidens, Avory invariably ended up at the Widow’s apartment in Notting Hill Gate, where, after a pint of lager laced with an aphrodisiac, he would finally achieve his heart’s desire either in front of a one-way mirror or with the drag queen in bed with himself and a busty actress. After several such encounters Avory had built such a reputation for himself that the Widow O’Brian decided to turn him into a male model.
Later, Avory dragged me and John Dalton to O’Brian’s flat, but even after many lagers were consumed, the Widow found Dalton – to Dalton’s great relief – too butch; even though she was ‘mad about Dalton’s thick white ankle socks’, and ‘mental for the Davies’ limbs’, ultimately she was a slave to ‘the Avory body’, declaring that even though she was a slut and was anybody’s after a lager, ‘an old queen must know where her true lust lay’, and in her case, the Widow O’Brian was eternally devoted to ‘Miss Avory’.
This turned out to be a disappointment for O’Brian, as Avory was straight and therefore a permanent relationship had to be sacrificed while, in the words of the Widow, Avory pursued, ‘big-titted plones’.
During the summer a little hunchbacked man came to the house twice a week to do my back garden. He was the same hunchback I had seen walking the streets when I was a child. Although he was older in years, his stooping posture made him appear as young as he had always been, in that afflicted people always remain like children: his handicap outshone his age. He tended the garden with loving care, and as the seasons changed he swept up the dead leaves and prepared the garden for the next life cycle. Watching him always made me feel optimistic about the future; that there was always a better day coming. As a child he had symbolized everything that I feared. Now I was a man, he could not only be my friend, but share in my accomplishments. As I watched the friendly old man stoop over his hoe, I thought back to the Harley Street doctor who in February of that same year had suggested that in order to stop the pain in my middle back, a leather brace should be worn, similar to a corset, in order that I would not be a hump-backed cripple by the time I was thirty. Also, I was to refrain from any physical activity. I looked at Charlie as he endured his predicament and felt at one with him.
Soon after the release of ‘Waterloo Sunset’ Rasa drove me to a kennels where we purchased a puppy, a wire-haired fox terrier which I christened Georgie. By this time meetings between me and Georgie, the film teacher, were taking place in the absence of Frank Smythe. Georgie or Georgina as she was christened, was of Eastern European extraction, and her beauty was contained within a face that displayed a life of hard living. For all intents and purposes, the few secret meetings we had could have easily been attended by Frank Smythe, as they were inevitably held in pubs. Our entire relationship could have been held in a telephone box. It required no additional physical space as the only bodily contact, apart from the touching of hands, was an alcohol-tainted kiss of friendship at the end of the evening. I was losing touch with my world of dreams and Georgie was holding out a thread of hope that one day I might find it in myself to write the perfect rhyme. Then start making my rhymes turn into moving pictures.
Georgie the dog presented another set of problems altogether. Wire-haired fox terriers are pedigree dogs and require a good deal of attention, far more than the usual mutt that I was more accustomed to during my childhood.
Whether or not it was Georgie the person or the sudden introduction to Rasa’s distant relatives (who had arrived on a short holiday from Lithuania), it cannot be ascertained, but after ‘Waterloo Sunset’ and ‘Death of a Clown’ faded from the charts, I found a new passion for vodka. I waited until Rasa was asleep and then crept downstairs to find the vodka bottle. Several glasses later, I phoned Georgie, who always picked up the telephone immediately and, without waiting to hear who was at the other end of the line, said, ‘’Allo, what’s the matter?’ After a long pause I replied, ‘I’m afraid.’
I was afraid. Alan Klein had persuaded Warner Brothers and Pye to renegotiate their contracts with the Kinks. After the High Court judgement, Klein had come over to London, where he held court in the penthouse suite at the Hilton Hotel where a string of attorneys from Pye were ushered in and out. To say that he bullied them into a new deal with the Kinks would be an understatement. Doing deals was Klein’s passion as well as his living. Colin Wadie attended these meetings and was disturbed by some of the tactics used by Klein and Machat. But in the mid 1960’s, the gulf between the English solicitors and the American attorneys was clearly apparent, as was the manner in which they negotiated contracts. At one point Colin walked out of the meeting. I ran, after him and grabbed him at the doorway. There were actually tears in the solicitor’s eyes as he asked whether or not I wanted him to handle this litigation. His voice was shuddering. Klein’s tactics were alien to him. I replied that of course I wanted him to continue. In the background I could hear Klein raising his voice to somebody. It was not clear if he were addressing a barrister or room service.
Colin left and I walked back into the room to join Klein, who was negotiating two deals at the same time. In the case of the Kinks the general thrust of the argument was that we’d been coerced into entering into an agreement when we were under age. Klein had formed a company called Bethevan, which on paper acted as manufacturer of Kinks records in America, as an intermediary, when in reality it was there to pass the Kinks’ product from Pye to Reprise. In return for this, Alan B. Klein partially secured an advance of around $16,000 to the Kinks for each Pye album delivered through Bethevan. Just before the deal was to be signed, I got cold feet. For some reason, I had always imagined that while in London Klein would actually meet up with my mother and she would tell him in no uncertain terms to piss off. Unfortunately, that encounter never took place. It would have been a true clash of the Titans.
They call the closing of the deal ‘consummation’. To businessmen it’s like coming. The thought of money. The thought of tying up people’s lives in contractual bliss. Copyright. Mechanicals. An orgasm of money. A contractual orgy. After I had signed the papers, Marty Machat took me into his bedroom where he was packing to go back to New York. Machat put on that characteristic rational tone of voice which was compassionate and very persuasive. As he spoke, he paused mid-sentence and took out a Havana cigar which he put into the top pocket of my jacket. As he patted my pocket, he continued to rationalize about the deal; then he took out another cigar and repeated the process. I suddenly imagined I heard the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ playing in an American movie as the Great Eagle swooped up and surveyed his domain. America had got me and once it gets you, you belong to it forever. The only way to get out of one deal is to get into another. Provided you have enough baggage to carry all the cigars.
The group had been restored to its position as one of the most consistent chart bands in Britain, and even though the Musicians Union ban was still in force in the United States, ‘Sunny Afternoon’ had become a Top 10 hit over there. They may have been able to stop us touring, but they couldn’t stop us making records. Yet.
My publishing royalties were still in dispute and my writer’s earnings frozen until the outcome of the management court case. I felt grateful for just being allowed to continue to write songs. I had achieved everything I had set out to do creatively and I was twenty-two years old. Perhaps the money would arrive before I collected my pension.’
*
That night after leaving R.D., I went home with every intention of starting to do some work, but I found myself listening to the Face to Face album by the Kinks. This album was the first recording made under the new deal which had been set up by Klein and Machat. I sat back and listened. The opening track, ‘Party Line’, started with a telephone ringing and the voice of Grenville Collins saying, ‘Hello, who’s that speaking, please?’ The music sounded deceptively happy at first, but songs like ‘Too Much on My Mind’, ‘Rainy Day in June’ and ‘Fancy’ gave away the fact that a confused and troubled mind was at work. I imagined Collins and Wace receiving the $16,000 cheque from Alan Klein, while Peter Grant sat in their office in a large chair. I soon found myself listening to the next album under the deal, Something Else. The title suggested that R.D. was already on a treadmill. This album started out with the engineer Alan MacKenzie speaking down the intercom: ‘This is the master.’ R.D. then counted the song in backwards, possibly in honour of his lost love from Bergen, then the Kinks started playing ‘David Watts’.
I look over at my message-light flickering on and off but before I can get over to it I start to drift off into a deep sleep. In my dream I hear the song ‘Waterloo Sunset’ being played in reverse. Then, I dream again. Pleasant images, no nightmares at all. I travel in time back before my birth to the land of green fields and warm summer days. I see R.D., who is ten years old, walking down a path carrying a fishing rod, going to join his father who is sitting by the river. This moment fades gently into another image of Rasa asleep in bed in R.D.’s semi in North London.
Rasa sleeps and dreams of having babies and a bigger house, somewhere in Cheshunt, or maybe Weybridge; of a new Lancia sports car. Downstairs Georgie, the wire-haired fox terrier, sleeps by the radiator, full stretch. He twitches in his sleep as he dreams of the pursuit during the hunt for food. I see R.D. drinking vodka from a bottle while rubbing his knees to keep out the autumn cold. I observe him as he quietly dials a number on the telephone. He whispers to the invisible Georgie, ‘I am afraid.’
By now Georgina, being a woman not only of great wisdom and compassion, is beginning to display a need for physical commitment. My dream continues as on a damp afternoon R.D. attempts to get drunk enough to go back to Georgina’s flat. I see him flat on his back while Georgina straddles her legs across his shoulders, like a wrestler pinning her opponent to the ground for a count of three. With amazing agility she manages to contort herself so that her head is next to R.D. From his point of view her mouth seems as large as the Grand Canyon and as he runs his hands along her black tights it is apparent that she wants this to be more than just a platonic relationship. R.D. cannot function. Georgie whispers that they both may as well wait until the next world. After realizing that any form of sexual foreplay is futile, Georgie suggests artificial insemination. Then, in my dream I think of Julie from my office, her pale white skin and thick head of hair. My dream flashes back and forth, up and down, forward and reverse as I’m thrown between R.D. and Georgie, Julie and myself. I eventually wake up covered in sweat with my bedclothes thrown on the floor… My mind floats as my present catches up with R.D.’s past.
I returned to R.D. at his studio later that morning. I wanted to tell him about my dream, but I preferred to let him continue without any further disturbances.
He drank his tea from his old Coronation mug and continued his tale.
‘As autumn turned into winter, and Christmas went by, a few meetings with my friend Georgie took place and Frank Smythe reappeared in the scenario, along with John Philby, an old college friend of mine. Rasa had still only met Georgie the dog at this point. There were still walks in Hampstead where Georgie and I breathed alcohol on each other to keep out the cold. There were discussions about the poems I intended to write and the films I wanted to make and all my dreams as yet unfulfilled. Then it struck me. The difference between getting pissed and taking the piss. I just wanted someone to hear my fears and talk about lost causes. For all the care and attention I had given in return, I may as well have been talking to my dog. On New Year’s Eve I made an excuse to go out so that I could make a telephone call to Georgie which simply said ‘A Happy New Year’. She said, knowing there was no commitment in my voice, ‘Thank you for the posh meals and the drunken nights and unfulfilled dreams.’ I felt ashamed. ‘Thank you for the days.’ I think it only cost a few pence to make a telephone call in those days. That’s all it cost me to say goodbye.
A few weeks later I arrived home after a recording session to find Rasa crying. I thought somebody had died or the house had been burgled or, worse still, someone had stolen her new Lancia. Rasa ran up to me and threw her arms around me. Her voice was choked with emotion.
‘Georgie. Somebody has stolen Georgie. He was a pedigree. The police say that we’ll never get him back.’
I tried to console her but unsuccessfully. Poor thing. She didn’t know that there are lots of Georgies in this world.
You’ve got to understand that I never manipulate situations to achieve artistic ends. I try my utmost to depersonalize what I write, but sometimes things stay in the subconscious and you have to bring them too the surface. It was then that I really began to become afraid regularly. It seemed that the law-suits would go on forever. One night out of sheer desperation I took a large bottle of vodka – finished it all – while I wrote the lyrics to a song called ‘Wonder Boy’. Vodka seemed to bring out something macho in me. After writing these lyrics, I wanted a son. I staggered up to bed. ‘Wonder Boy’ would be like a parting gift to a kind soul, and to friendship, something to be treasured.
I’d reached the point where even though I knew that ‘Wonder Boy’ would not be a gigantic hit, I was more concerned with what I had written than with what it had sold. I think the record died in the 20s, but Grenville said that someone had seen John Lennon in a club and he kept on asking the disc jockey to play ‘Wonder Boy’ over and over again. I guess that approval from my peers meant that ‘Wonder Boy’ had not been a complete mistake. Sometimes when you write inside yourself you have no idea whether you are sane or not. When the rest of the world acknowledges your work, somehow they condone your insanity. In the case of ‘Wonder Boy’, it felt that the people who bought the record had not understood my own little subtext. They were buying a Kinks record. To me it was a cry for help. Later, the full impact of what had happened finally hit me.
A similar thing happened when I recorded ‘Days’, though I didn’t realize that what I was writing would be the most significant song in my life so far. The song predicted the end of the group. Before we recorded the song I was convinced that Quaife had decided to leave the band forever. We had made the back track, I had recorded the vocals and Nicky Hopkins was putting on a keyboard part. Quaife walked over to me with the box that would contain the master tape and substituted the word ‘Days’ with the word ‘Daze’. I think the anger that I felt for him was really anger at myself. It was conceit on my part; my work had become too precious to me. The truth was that as proud as I was of the song, I was literally in an emotional daze about where I was, who I was and who I wanted to be with. Maybe Quaife was as well.
One night, in the back room of my semi I played the finished tape of ‘Days’ to my mum and dad. My sister Gwen and Brian, my first tour manager, were also there with their kids. Their young daughter Janice sat and looked out into the garden with a sorrowful look in her eyes. The expression on Janice’s face was telling me that something was about to end but she was probaly just upset because she wanted to go into the garden to play. I knew that ‘Days’ was telling the world that it was the end of the group. All that was left to do was to make The Village Green Preservation Society, as a farewell gesture.
When the album was written, I thought that the Kinks would never get back into the States after the ban. While everybody in the world was gravitating towards love, peace and San Francisco, the Kinks were in a London suburb making this strange little record about an imaginary village green.
You see, I think that when Quaife left the band, some of the original impetus and determination fell away. We got replacements sure enough. Dalton was a good man, but the original band was gone and when Barry Wentzel took those last cover shots outside Kenwood House in Hampstead, he was documenting the end of the band. I’ve got mixed feeling about the follow up LP Arthur. The record had some musical high spots, and was undoubtedly the first genuinely constructed musical play by a rock band, but as a whole I remember it for what it might have been, rather than what was eventually realized.
The Village Green Preservation Society had attracted a certain faddish following, even though the album was a commercial flop and received almost no airplay in Britain. When it came out in 1968, there were hardly any pirate stations left to act as alternative radio. The illustrious government had outlawed them, those stations that were the last of the truly independent outlets. Now the BBC monopolized the airwaves, and for many of the emerging DJs, the Kinks sounded too English. While everybody else thought that the hip thing to do was to drop acid, do as many drugs as possible and listen to music in a coma, the Kinks were singing songs about lost friends, draught beer, motorbike riders, wicked witches and flying cats.
We had also parted company with our flamboyant agent Arthur Howes, and after a brief spell with agencies whose names elude me we ended up at the MAM organization; a company that was supposed to be co-owned by Harold Davidson and Tom Jones’ management. Barry Dickens, whose father Percy had run the NME, became responsible for us. Although Barry became a close friend to the Kinks (he had even seen us perform at a youth club in the East End when Robert was our vocalist) and the whole organization seemed more professional, Arthur Howes’ personal touch was missing. It was the passing of an era.
Before I had written The Village Green, Rasa and I had moved out of the little semi in north London and taken up residence in a manorial mock Tudor mansion in Elstree. This was partly at the insistence of two of my sisters, who felt that someone who had written so many hits should indulge himself in a luxurious house. The house looked grand and sprawling on the outside, but turned out to be far from luxurious, with old solid-fuel central heating which made clanging noises, and a large panelled dining room that was riddled with woodworm and dry rot. The night we moved in, I decided that the house was not suited to myself and my young family. (Louisa was just two and Rasa was pregnant with Victoria.) Eventually, I had an extension built on to the old house in Finchley and we moved back into the semi. However, most of the Village Green and Arthur had been written in that large, woodworm-infested property.
Robert and Grenville were persuaded by our new agency that a career move was in order. We were booked into a series of northern nightclubs to see how we would fare as all-round entertainers. Up north the cabaret audiences dressed up in evening clothes and gambled in an upstairs room, using cash instead of chips. Then they ate potato chips and scampi when they went downstairs to watch the cabaret.
The ‘career move’ proved to be an immediate and unmitigated disaster as we played too loud for both the audience and the management. On one notable occasion Dave played the opening of ‘All Day and All of the Night’ so loudly that the scampi and chips on a nearby table were blown off by the reverberations from the amplifier.
It was a bright spark producer called Jo Derden Smith, who approached Robert and Grenville about the Kinks recording the first rock opera for Granada television. Derden Smith, who was as tall as Grenville and Robert, took us all to lunch in a smart Soho restaurant and asked what I wanted to write about. He was like many intellectuals of the time who decided that they could turn rock and roll, which was the voice of the proletariat, into an élitist art form. I thought why not take advantage of him taking advantage of me? Derden Smith knew so much about the pop culture and was so incredibly well informed about current trends, that he was a complete fashion victim; indeed, I fantasized that he changed his musical tastes as frequently as he changed his underpants. The only thing that remained the same was a long black leather overcoat. I knew that The Village Green was about the decline of a certain innocence in England, and when I suggested that I go the whole way and write about the decline and fall of the British empire everyone, without exception, thought that it was the perfect subject matter. Derden Smith strutted around in his full-length leather overcoat and suggested various writers with whom I should collaborate with on the script. To be fair, Derden Smith had the courage to embark on subject matter which he must have known was not fashionable, but at least I started to believe that I could deliver the goods and that was all that mattered. I had seen Forty Years On at the theatre and thought that Alan Bennett would be a good choice. Someone else suggested Sir John Betjeman, who was not only the poet laureate at the time, but his work, in the opinion of Derden Smith, echoed my own feeling for a world and a way of life that was disappearing. This all seemed a little depressing and slightly melancholic, and eventually someone suggested a writer in the mould of Colin Maclnnes who had written several cynical but well observed novels. The other writer they suggested was Julian Mitchell.
During this period, which can only be described as uncertain, our new road manager was Ken Jones. He was a quiet man from Northern Ireland with a keen sense of economy, which in our uncertain financial state made us feel at ease. We began to let him make decisions about our travel plans, even though normally Grenville and Robert had done this. But Robert just laughed and referred to Jones as the travel agent. However, Ken often encouraged us to play concerts in faraway places, simply because he wanted to experience the satisfaction of going there with all travel and hotel costs thrown in.
One notable venue was Beirut, Lebanon. Robert and Grenville were sceptical, because we were in the middle of recording Arthur and the world was expecting war to break out any day in the Middle East. Jones said that the Lebanese promoter had promised ‘the trip of a lifetime’ and half the money up front. Reluctantly we went, and were greeted by a friendly promoter dressed in a western business suit. He took us to a hotel he owned, showed us the concert venue which was conveniently located outside the hotel next to the swimming pool.
Robert had disapproved of the trip, but felt that at least we’d get paid. However, problems started to surface at the television studio the next day. We were supposed to play to promote the next day’s show, but neither Dave nor Dalton had arrived in time for transmission. The director told Mick and me to ‘spread out’. We walked out. The promoter, now in full Arab dress, demanded that we fulfil all sorts of promotional obligations, none of which had been mentioned before. Having my photo taken in the harbour smoking a hookah was one thing, eating goats’ eyes and calves’ brains in the promoter’s restaurant was another. He was insulted.
Beirut at this time was the Las Vegas of the Middle East, and Avory insisted that the promoter lead us on a tour of every club in the city. Our only problem was that the promoter had put guards on every floor to prevent us from taking girls to our rooms. I devised a method of distracting the guards while Avory took a woman up the emergency stairs, only to be foiled when two guards followed us into the room. The promoter was now totally outraged and threatened us with imprisonment.
Ken, meanwhile, was enjoying himself, sunbathing by the pool. Despite warnings about the heat, he was there all day wearing only his underpants and a pair of leather moccasins. He said he had served in the RAF in the Far East and was used to the climate. The morning of the concert Ken was nowhere to be found. Eventually hotel security opened his door and we found Jones curled in a foetal position looking like a blown-up lobster. Poor Ken was in such pain that he begged for someone to give him a shot of morphine – or kill him – anything to put him out of his agony.
Robert simply said he expected him to have the equipment set up in half an hour, and walked out of the room. This turned out to be unnecessary when we discovered that the promoter had decided to abandon the concert and impound our equipment. The lobby was full of Lebanese men waving their arms and shouting at Robert in Arabic. Eventually someone from the British embassy came and through an interpreter we were advised that if we did not pay back our advance we would all be imprisoned and never see the light of day again. The promoter had clearly run out of money and was trying to find an excuse not to mount the concert. When pressed by Robert for compensation, the promoter said that he was also in the confectionery business and would pay off the remainder of the fee with Mars Bars.
We decided to cut our losses, forget about Mars Bars and head for the airport. At passport control an official said that as the dispute had not been fully resolved we would have to leave someone behind as a token of good faith. The people of Beirut were already learning the value of taking hostages. We immediately suggested leaving Ken Jones and offered to help take his luggage off the trolley as his sunburnt arm was still in a sling. However, we relented when he threatened to commit suicide in front of us. Eventually Robert managed to get us all on the plane and Ken Jones’ journey of a lifetime was over.
On our return, Derden Smith and I met in Julian Mitchell’s smart terraced house just off the King’s Road and talked about my ideas. By now I wanted to centre the whole story around an ordinary man like myself, who had been a small cog in the empire and had watched it pass him by. After several meetings I trusted Julian enough to mention my brother-in-law Arthur. We both agreed that he would be an excellent choice, particularly as the name Arthur would also conjure up connections to King Arthur and the Round Table, the Holy Grail and all that. We were, however, convinced that our story should be about a family that was being torn apart because some of the children were emigrating to Australia. In our scenario Arthur was to be much older, he was to have served in the Great War and it was he who was being left behind in an old world that was in decline.
I immediately started writing lyrics and showed them to Julian, who then wrote scenes around them. When Robert read the lyrics to ‘Some Mother’s Son’, a song about a young soldier killed in the war, he looked at me and exclaimed that I would probably be treated as a serious writer after this album came out; at last he had seen lyrics that showed I was back on form. He even referred to them as poetry. He added that he doubted it would sell, but to keep up the good work. I felt on a creative roll. The word back from Granada television was that the commissioning editor was very excited about what had been submitted so far and casting had already begun. A director called Leslie Woodhead had been assigned to the programme, but I suspected that the ambitious Jo Derden Smith would be firmly in control because he had all the necessary rock credentials, including a full-length black leather overcoat.
The album was finished and ready to be released. The final script was given in. Sets were designed. Animation sequences filmed. Frank Finlay was shortlisted to play Arthur. Then, mysteriously, the plug was pulled by Granada. Grenville was livid, threatening litigation. (I was still in dispute with Kassner and so another law-suit was all that I needed.) The story was that Derden Smith, who had been involved in documentaries about the Doors and the Stones in Hyde Park, went to Granada and had fallen out with them over our programme. The upshot was that the powers that be pulled the show. A month or so later the Who came out with ‘Pinball Wizard’. A month or so after that, nearly the same time as Arthur was to have been transmitted, the Who released the concept album Tommy. A record with a loose story line, not as thoroughly plotted or worked out as Arthur, but a record which, nevertheless, went on to be hailed as the first rock opera. Once again, we were beaten to the punch.
The critics were kind to us. ‘Shangri-La’, the first single, was a song that demanded the listener’s attention. Tony Blackburn, a Radio 1 DJ, played ‘Shangri-La’ and at the end pointed out that the record, at over five minutes, was so long that you could go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea while it was playing. The same DJ had been heard to say that ‘Dead-End Street’ was too depressing as subject matter for a pop record. There were a few good guys left, but I got the feeling that they were playing our records for old times’ sake rather than because they believed in the music. ‘Shangri-La’ disappeared from the airwaves after the second or third play. Later on ‘Victoria’ went on to become a small hit, but overall the BBC did not take to the album. Jo Derden Smith had also disappeared, along with his full-length leather overcoat. Thinking back, I suppose I was creatively conned. The work was good – I was pleased with what Julian had written – the songs were good, but I somehow felt that the music was serving the subject matter too much, and the first rule of rock music is that the music must always come first. Also, the band was not the same. Before we recorded Arthur I tried to persuade Quaife to stay but this time he had decided to quit for good. John Dalton played and sang well on Arthur, but I can’t help feeling that the record would have been better if we had kept the original band. I also felt that in some strange way I had betrayed my class: ironically I had sold out to a corporation like Granada, that had built its whole empire on an image of the common man. Coronation Street was a classic example. Working class, hugely successful, cheap television.
But the album Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) was receiving good reviews in America. Yes, America of all places; where the Pod people from Invaders from Mars, the cult sci-fi movie of the fifties, seemed to use Martians as a metaphor for the ‘Commie threat’. The same America with its gun laws that ended up killing JFK. The same America with its fear of rock bands who wore hunting jackets. The rednecks were waiting. The acid heads. Nuclear families. Perfect postwar suburbia. Grass-fronted houses for middle-class whites. Ghettos for the blacks. The same America that had marched to Washington with Martin Luther King and later had him shot along with Bobby Kennedy. The America that was proud of its Bill of Rights and yet lynched anyone who spoke out against it. America, where pornography and drugs was big business and preachers went on television and begged for money. America, that had banned and therefore harmed the Kinks for no apparent reason and as a result cost us the best years of our lives. America. All of it was waiting in its zoned out, freaky, pot-smoking, stupefied splendour. We couldn’t wait to get back there.’
I looked over towards Raymond Douglas, who had gone silent, and I noticed that dark cloud reappear and move towards him. As it hovered behind Raymond Douglas’ chair, he looked at me and said that his father had known the same darkness; when he was weak he would allow it to engulf him in total despair. Suddenly Raymond Douglas grinned and explained how he was visited in a dream by his father’s mother, who told him that all he had to do was to look the cloud in the face and smile at it. Then it would become discouraged and disappear: it is a negative force and can only thrive on despondency. Raymond Douglas looked up at the cloud, which was about to drop down on his head, and gave the broadest grin. The cloud dispersed above him and drifted into a corner of the room.
The endless hours he had spent in this room during his long career had obviously taken their toll; it seemed to be his only haven from the realities of the outside world. Time stood still in the small mixing laboratory. For my part, I felt dissatisfied with the progress I had been making. The Corporation would be reassured to a certain extent: I had extracted enough from Raymond Douglas to make a reasonable start on his life story. My only problem was that I, a Corporation employee, personified everything the old rock and roller despised. The world had changed since he was a young rebel in the sixties. My generation had been brought up to serve the Corporation in much the same way Raymond Douglas had been bred as factory fodder. My generation had learned to love the corporate ideal; total ownership of product; individual ambition satisfied as opportunities to climb the corporate ladder were clearly defined; pension schemes; sexual and marriage guidance offered as part of the school curriculum; marriage contracts negotiated by independent lawyers who all worked for different firms, but all under the umbrella of one corporate entity. My world was so well planned compared to R.D.’s and yet I felt that I had missed out on some of the independence aspects he had enjoyed during his life.