Friday Night Videos

Best Christmas song? Or best Christmas song ever? The Kinks' "Father Christmas".

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Amadeus Electric String Quartet.

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Friday Night Videos

It's not really Christmas until the Kinks play "Father Christmas," so let me help you get into the holiday spirit!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Christine McVie.

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Friday Night Videos

Best Christmas song? Or best Christmas song ever? It's not a jolly holiday until the Kinks' play "Father Christmas."

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Royal Guardsmen.

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Friday Night Videos

On this date, 50 years ago, the Kinks released "Lola" and popular music would never be the same. That makes today "Lola Day" and I almost missed it. Yikes! Since I've shared the Kinks doing this song before, here's a cool cover from the MonaLisa Twins that they did specifically for #LolaDay. Is that great? That's great!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Buffalo Springfield.

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Friday Night Videos

Holy moly! I've never heard of Lake Street Dive before, but their cover of the Kinks' "Lola" is epic! It's just what I needed to hear today.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Dixie Chicks.

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Friday Night Videos

A conversation online reminded me that I hadn't featured The Kinks in a while, so today's song is one of the band's early Arista singles, the title track from "Misfits." It's a magnificent song, showcasing Ray Davies' brilliantly insightful, philosophical irony. It's a song that's both melancholy and uplifting. It wasn't a hit (very few of their Arista singles were) but it (and other songs from this and subsequent albums) found a home on album rock radio and helped fuel the band's revival that lasted well into the 80s. The video, unless I'm mistaken, is from their One For The Road concert film, which is well worth a watch if you've never seen it before.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Jerry Harrison.

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Friday Night Videos

The Kinks have been broken up since 1996, with only occasional solo albums from Ray or Dave to fill the void amidst perpetual rumors of a reunion. In light of that, new Kinks music is rare. We've gotten a few unreleased bonus tracks here and there on remastered albums, and the 50th anniversary of Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire brings us a new gem in the form of "The Future." It's a freaking do-wop song! It's a nifty number that has its charms, but it is easy to see why it didn't make the final album--the acapella harmonies simply don't fit with the sound of the rest of the album, even though the lyrics match the mood quite well. Fortunately, it's no longer unreleased. I wonder what other treasures remain hidden in the vaults?

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Mikaela Davis.

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Friday Night Videos

Anyone who's paid attention to me at all over the past 35-plus years will know I'm a fan of the Kinks. Huge fan. In 1984 I missed my one chance to see them live in the Sam Houston Coliseum by two days (although I've since caught Ray's solo show and almost saw Dave solo as well). I appreciate a good cover, but unfortunately most covers are either slavish remakes or distort the original song so much the integral essence of what made it special in the first place. That's why Mikaela Davis' cover of "David Watts" has me gobsmacked: her interpretation is so fresh and original and true to the original that I still find it hard to wrap my head around what she's accomplished. Bravo!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... João Gilberto.

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Friday Night Videos

It's not Christmas until the Kinks play "Father Christmas." You're welcome.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Guns N' Roses.

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Friday Night Videos

It's December 22, so that means it must be time for the Kinks' "Father Christmas," one of the greatest, most subversive, Christmas songs ever. Enjoy!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Charlie Byrd.

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Friday Night Videos

I haven't featured the Kinks here in a while, and that's completely unacceptable. So here's the classic "Sunny Afternoon" from back in the day. You've got to love the old black-and-white promo films, and Ray, Dave, Pete and Mick being "clever" with the video by filming it in the middle of winter, surrounded by snow. Simpler times. Sunny afternoon, indeed.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Sheb Wooley.

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Friday Night Videos

It's not Christmas without the Kinks. Have a good one, folks.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Straight No Chaser.

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Friday Night Videos

The Kinks. "Father Christmas." Merry Christmas, y'all.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Young MC.

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Friday Night Videos

If Christmas is just around the corner, then it's time to play the best rock & roll Christmas song ever. Yes, you know it can only be the Kinks with "Father Christmas!"

Previously on Friday Night Videos... MST3K.

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Friday Night Videos

Hey all, blogging from my hotel room in the Dominican Republic, and the power just went out. Predictable, huh? So I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. Here are the Kinks with, you got it, "Predictable":

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Men At Work.

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Friday Night Videos

You know what? It's time for The Kinks. And because gas prices are high, unemployment is high and we're all tightening our belts these days, here's a relevant classic from the '70s and early days of their arena rock years: Is anyone else on a Low Budget?



Previously on Friday Night Videos... REM.

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Friday Night Videos

God save the Kinks! With Pete Quaife's untimely passing, how can I not dip back into the vault of Kinks klassics for this week's installment of Friday Night Videos? "Sunny Afternoon" seems an appropriate selection, featuring a great bass line and poignant images of Pete in the promo video. I'm not entirely sure the reasoning behind making the band play in the snow for this particular song--the irony seems a bit forced--but it's still wonderful to see Pete rockin' the bass in his prime, along with pre-stroke Dave and his Flying V and pre-gunshot Ray being, well, Ray. Enjoy.



Previously on Friday Night Videos... Opus.

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Friday Night Videos

"To The Bone" was the final single put out by the Kinks prior to the band's... well, I can't call it a breakup, since they never officially stopped working together. Dissolution? Evaporation? Dispersal? In any event, the double-album of the same title was part of the wave of acoustic "unplugged" reinterpretations of artists' catalogs in the mid-90s. So, naturally, the Kinks defied that trend by electrifying some of the tracks. But still, if you are going to get only one Kinks album, "To The Bone" offers a great cross-section of their decades-long career, spanning from the early British Invasion days through the arena rock period, including as many great but obscure album tracks as big hits. Highly recommended.

But that's getting off-track. The single "To The Bone" (originally titled "12 Inches and Black" according to Ray Davies in a VH1 show) is one of two original songs on the album (the other being the quite good rocker "Animal"). To be blunt, "To The Bone" is a melancholy, bluesy piece of work that showcases some of Ray Davies' best songsmanship ever. For someone who's reputation in the music business is built upon his clever lyrics, that's saying a lot. I've always imagined the "old double-pack" album he refers to in the song is actually their mid-80s "best-of" collection, "Come Dancing with the Kinks" and although they don't go so far as to show this in the video, the fact that Ray himself is the cause of the relationship breakup echoes those self-referential vibes I pick up from the song. The video itself is odd, and Ray can't resist hamming it up in his post-hippie 1970s persona that he originally played in the "Predictable" video, but still. You'll just have to watch to understand.



Previously on Friday Night Videos... Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.

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Friday Night Videos

It can't really be Christmas without the Kinks, can it? "Father Christmas" is one of the most poignant, subversive holiday songs ever written, and puts to shame all those self-important, ham-fisted trainwrecks such as "Christmas Shoes" to shame. Almost brings a tear to my eye.

"Have yourself a very merry Christmas, have yourself a good time,
But remember the kids who got nothing, as you're drinking down your wine."



Previously on Friday Night Videos... Greg Lake.

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Friday Night Videos

For examples of why I consider Ray Davies on of the greatest songwriters of the rock era, an equal peer to the famed Lennon-McCartney and Bob Dylan (although, technically, the latter is really folk despite mainstream success) I don't generally point to the hit songs of The Kinks. Although they essentially created hard rock with the driving guitar distortion in "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," and "Lola" remains a gloriously subversive piece of brilliance that predated the height of David Bowie's gay chic androgyny phase, it's the songs of the Kinks that were not hits that I often find most powerful and moving. Songs that by right should have been hits at any other time, from any other band. But music's littered with shoulda coulda woulda and Kinks fans have long ago come to accept the fact that the Well Respected Gentlemen will always be among the second tier of rock royalty despite an extensively brilliant output and even membership in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That doesn't mean we ever stop preaching that Muswell Hills gospel, though.

Here's a particular favorite, "Misfits" from the album of the same name at onset of the band's Arista years. An uneven album (as were many of those with Arista) that nevertheless contained some absolutely marvelous music. The subject matter and lyrics are far beyond any "June with a spoon" lines breathlessly crooned by Brittany and her ilk today. But unlike a lot of so-called "message music," there's a focus on intimacy here, a crisis of an individual nature that speaks to many people separately as opposed speaking to broader social issues. I find that endlessly fascinating, and hope you do too. Enjoy.



Previously on Friday Night Videos... Book of Love.

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