This is the last newsletter of 2013, and therefore an appropriate moment perhaps to thank you for your support over the last 12 months and wish you all the best for the New Year. The next time you hear from me, our first issue of 2014 will already be out – we’ll be on sale from Friday, January 3 – so here’s a brief taster of what to expect.
A musical based on The Kinks early career is set to open next year in London.
Sunny Afternoon will be staged at Hampstead Theatre next year and has been scripted by Joe Penhall. BBC News reports that cast details have not yet been announced. The play premiered at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, east London back in 2008 and was supposed to tour a year later, but failed to.
Ray Davies has responded to comments from his brother, Dave, who told Rolling Stone there was a possibility that the Kinks would play shows to celebrate their 50th anniversary.
Speaking to Uncut, Ray Davies said, “I’ve heard about the article but I haven’t read it. I saw Dave a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned the idea of doing a tour. I said, ‘Yeah, but you’re the guy who keeps saying it’ll never happen.’
Dave Davies has said there is a "50/50" chance that the band could reform and tour together next year.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Davis said that there was a possibility that the group would play shows to celebrate their 50th anniversary, but he also warned that it would depend on the relationship with his brother Ray and ruled out the chance of them reuniting to record a new album.
The Kinks have confirmed the tracklisting for the forthcoming deluxe reissue of their 1971 Muswell Hillbillies album.
The new 2-CD edition - which is released on October 7 through Universal - features five previously unreleased tracks, including "Lavender Lane" and early demo "Nobody’s Fool", as well as alternative song versions and BBC sessions. All have been re-mastered from original tapes.
Meanwhile, a new book by Ray Davies - Americana: The Kinks, The Road And The Perfect Riff - is published by Virgin Books this autumn.
From the beginning the Kinks’ career was intimately entwined with the BBC. In the year following the August 1964 success of “You Really Got Me” the band were called in to record eight radio sessions, broadcast to the nation and around the world. When the BBC commissioned Ray Davies to write topical tunes for shows like The 11th Hour and Where Was Spring?, we got the first inkling of the Kinks’ future direction, somewhere between Dennis Potter and Lionel Bart.
This comes in a cute Dansette-style box stuffed with ten albums of antique Kinkorama and Meet the Kinks!, a fab 1960s style booklet with rare fab pix. For complete retro-authenticity, everything is in mono, this being how the original records were released back in those sacred days (so sacred that “Days” itself is now the theme tune for a car advert).
