aah... the music of
the LooniSpheres


Let's hear it for




schiphol the Kinks Hook
Schiphol closed by fog...

... night boat Harwich-Hook
pete02 3kinks drum
grenvillecollins pete03 groupies
k01 ray01~1 pd
ray03~1 mick01 dave01
raysback

Life on the Road:
rubbish
These were made in 1965 when the Kinks first visited Holland. Their current hit was Sunny Afternoon. I had great fun that week-end driving around Holland's snowy, iced-over - put it in a nutshell, slippery, roads for Muziek-Expres, same publisher as Tiq.
As the fog was so heavy, the Kinks did not arrive by air but had to take the night boat to the Hook (Hoek van Holland), where they arrived with an 18 hours delay, rather green-looking.
The audience, by the time they arrived in Enschede, had stopped believing the group would turn up. The publisher had the sense to distribute old issues without, as usual, waiting for the end of the performance, but it took too long and the angry mob started shredding them to throw crumpled up balls of paper at the stage.
During the concert, at least two beer bottles were thrown on stage. Manager Grenville Collins merely commented he'd seen worse.
Mark those tiny Vox amplifiers... kitchen chairs... what a crummy back-stage scene. But I got hooked good and solid. By the way, nobody liked my pictures very much; but as time goes by, they seem to grow getting better and better. Not only, even even, to me.
Matter of fact, they are illegally popping up all over the net and one was even used on the cover of Pete's book Veritas 1—without the publisher bothering to ask my permission.


The Plot Thickens: YouTube Joins the Fun

Of course, everybody with a grain more sense than a pebble knows that Google and YouTube are only in it for the money.
But they keep acting like they're oh so noble. Just working to make life easy for us all.
A few years ago, some outfit uploaded a video (in 5 or 6 parts) calledThe Kinks - Biography Document. It made use of 5 of the pictures above, and even gave me credit as photographer. (Only misspelled my name as Harry.) But payment? That costs money!
I protested when I found out about it and the video was removed, to my surprise.

So, last week, I discovered that the production company, full of rat-shit chutzpah, had re-uploaded the same production. And of course, YouTube had accepted it. By then it had collected 230,000 viewings. Nice work, if you can get it. So I spent several hours, again, sending a copyright infringement claim to YouTube, and it took them less time that it had cost me to write back that the video, and several others, had been removed. End of story?
No! This morning they wrote me again that the video had been reinstated, and they wanted me to prove that my copyright in fact had been infringed. Had to go through the entire (almost 1 hour) production again, noting time stamps of my stolen photos with links to where they came from.
Haven't heard from them since sending that.
I also let them know that I'm totally disgusted with how they bend over to protect the "rights" of their clients, while not giving a flying fart about the rights of the copyright owners. Then, they hide behind the sorry excuse that they're not "publishers"—no, they're just pimps for copyright looters.
As long as their cash registers keep sounding those merry tinkles!


Dave Davies:
"We drew lots to see who would play bass guitar
and Pete lost."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jun/25/pete-quaife-obituary

Thank you ever so much for that tip, Pieter!

Pete died on June 23, 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

the group
The Kinks had just about the best drummer in the business, Mick Avory; best rhythm and lead guitar, Dave Davies; best bass, Pete Quaife; and best song writer, Ray Davies. Alas, Ray was not a real leader like Duke Ellington or Frank Zappa. Part of the reason Pete Quaife left so suddenly was that. Not putting down the excellent players who replaced him, the Kinks never really got over Pete's departure. There's the animus between the two Davies bros. I understand they're not even on speaking terms anymore. Dave now claims he has really written Lola (he has also had a revelational vision). Who could even guess?
No matter - the most interesting English rock group



Crooks and Thieves
You never get really used to it: in spite of the clear copyright © notice at the bottom of all my pages, these and other photographs appear all over the web, without even a link to where they were stolen from. It is simply impossible to keep track, let alone start expensive and time-consuming copyright claim procedures. I have had some success in closing down blogs and YouTube movies, when the bloggers or video-makers did not deign react to a friendly letter.
Now the publisher of Pete Quaife's book Veritas I had the chutzpah not only to use one of the photographs above on the front cover without my permission, but adapted the background (one more copyright violation); maybe in the foolish hope it wouldn't be recognized. I have tried to contact this woman via LinkedIn and Facebook, but she does not react.
I was perfectly prepared to surrender my fee to the dialysis research cause, just like Pete Quaife, but never got a chance. In fact, in my opinion this publisher Adrianne Roy is such a bungler that none of the book's profits will ever reach that destination, and that the second volume will never reach the shelves. Too bad: after the first few chapters Volume I gets really good. Not coïncidentally, that's when music starts playing a role. I would love to read the second volume.

For the record, in March 2012 I sent a link to this Tale of Rage to Pete's Fakebooc page—no response. After a two week wait I asked Facebook to remove the photos from Pete's page, which they obligingly did in a matter of hours; at my request, Amazon as well removed all those images from their pages at once.


Remember?
Fer chrissakes have a cuppa tea.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah Rosa Lee.

    

Ever wonder who that Rosie Lee is (apart from rhyming Cockney slang for "tea")?
It's Avril Angers in the 1949-1953 television show
How Do You View? hosted by Terry-Thomas
Her catch-line was "Would you like it now, or will you have it later?"

Book!
De Kinks Komen!
When Ray Davies was offered a copy of the book, he said:
"Where the fuck is Winterswijk?"
[sorry, in Dutch:]
Erik Meinen maakte handig gebruik van de gelegenheid
door niet alleen dit legendarische optreden te verslaan
maar begint met 'n grondige geschiedenis van de Nederbeat
met vooral het gebeuren in de Achterhoek.
En natuurlijk de schitterende foto's!
Je kunt het hier bestellen.

the Kings
Dey's the Kings, honeylam'!

List of recordings
The trouble is there are so many re-issues on the market in which old numbers
have been newly combined that it's hardly worth it to keep track.
Especially PYE's Marble Arch has been guilty of that, much to Ray Davies' chagrin.
The Kinks sites on the triple-double-u have a habit of disappearing, or I'd link to a Kink!

fairly complete list: original albums and their songs
The Kinks Kollektion
many are available on CD


X-Ray
Ray Davies
The Unauthorized Autobiography

"amusing" - "informative" - "pack of lies"



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