Book review Ray Davies: A Complicated Life - biography with kinks
Internecine strife is a routine hazard of rock'n'roll life: bitter conflicts over writing credits, who's playing too loud, who's hogging the limelight, who sits where on the tour bus. Think The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. But most of all think The Kinks, where the usual animosities were amplified by the sibling rivalry between Ray and Dave Davies.
by Johnny Rogan
Bodley Head
Internecine strife is a routine hazard of rock'n'roll life: bitter conflicts over writing credits, who's playing too loud, who's hogging the limelight, who sits where on the tour bus. Think The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. But most of all think The Kinks, where the usual animosities were amplified by the sibling rivalry between Ray and Dave Davies.
The brothers' feud (still raging today) was carried over from their sprawling working-class family, in which they competed for the attentions of their parents and six elder sisters. They were polar opposites: Ray, the shy, sensitive insomniac; Dave, the happy-go-lucky youngest of the brood.
The Kinks was simply business as usual played out in public, although the siblings could unite against a common enemy, with mild-mannered drummer Mick Avory a particular target in the group's early days. A bloody onstage fracas duly ensued.
Tour manager Sam Curtis recalls the Kinks' US tour of 1965 when a brawl with a union official led to the group being blacklisted for several years: "You could say something innocent and finish up with the most unholy row… a punch-up, or they'd smash a few bottles or knock a table over."
It would take a decade or more before The Kinks conquered America, by which time their music had mutated into dull arena rock. Behind them lay one of the most inspired canons in pop history.