A Child's Garden of Kinks

And speaking as we were yesterday of Face to Face, i.e. the Shel Talmy-produced 1966 masterpiece by that quartet from Muswell Hill, please enjoy the opening spoken intro (celebrating a now vanished communication technology) to the album's infectious lead off track "Party Line."

I should add that said spoken intro is provided by the bands' then co-manager Robert Wace. Apparently -- according to John Mendelssohn's sadly out of print 1984 bio The Kinks Kronikles -- Wace was, as they say extremely posh, and the band was known to make merciless class-based fun of the guy behind his back.

I should also add that the aforementioned intro is now the ring-tone for the phone of a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance.

And speaking (again) of Face to Face, I would like to go on record (heh) as saying that its accompanying back-cover essay is, IMHO, the single most evocative piece of writing ever to accompany the posterior of an LP sleeve. Here it is for your enjoyment.

It has been said by mercenary-minded persons that upon setting out along life's road the bread, the filthy lucre of W. Shakespeare of highly regarded memory, would seem to be the thing to go for.

So if you accept the opinion of these aforesaid persons in the spirit in which it is given and get cracking you get the loot.

So what next?

So far on your passage through this vale of tears you have been a hick, a nothing and an unheralded nobody. To be a well respected man must be your next aim, and with the loot in your pocket and the wicked world being what it is, you become a well respected personage ere you know it.

Then comes dedication to the dictates of fashion. The Carnaby Street. The striped natty suiting. Touches of velvet upon the collar. Touches of lace upon the underwear.

And of course ties of polka dot and Persian-originated Paisley pattern.

Next? Country house, yacht, powered by sail and/or steam, with the motor car in lurid colour and with white walls to its wheels smiling in the golden gravel drive.

Ladies of course. Ladies with long legs and little bosom, hair the colour of corn, very mini, very skinny dresses. Status symbol ladies with rich dark sheen in the depths of the skin.

Dwindling in the end to one lady, one Special who gets in among the soul.

The trouble being that the perfect woman becomes a bore, like having Venus de Milo constantly upon one's hands.

As if this is not enough, fate flings its last custard pie.

The taxman cometh.

And you are left with the glass of ice cold beer, and the sun on the uplands with dappled shadows and all, which is much better, as the poet has it, than a poke up the nostril with a burnt stick.

(Now read on).

Raymond Douglas Davies, a musician, not forgetting David, his hith and kin,

Peter Quaife, bass guitar who once wrote a story about an embarrasing affliction from which Ray's grandfather suffered for over forty years,

And Michael Avory, drummer and the possessor of four shoes, two for each foot,

have continued the story. And stories parallel to his sad one.

About the frustration of the telephone, About rainy days and sunny days, about sessions men and dark ladies, about P.V.C. grass skirts in Waikiki, about memories, and dandies, and most of all about the breadwinner who was in the beginning, who lost all, sold his most exclusive residence, and passes into the bosom of his fathers. -- Frank Smyth

Wow. That's just lovely; in fact, I can't think of another jacket essay even half as perceptive, funny and poetic.

BTW, I'd long assumed that "Frank Smyth" was a pen name, but as it it turns out, he was a real person, i.e. a long-time publicist for the band. According to a posting Ray did at a Kinks fan board I discovered in 2011, when I first posted a version of this, the head Kink had lost track of him (after dismissing Smyth and a partner over some imagined slight circa "Lola"), but around the time of Ray's late 90s The Storyteller tour, he tried to get in touch with the guy -- to verify some 60s stories -- only to find that he had just died.

I was also surprised, recently, to learn that Ray absolutely hated the album cover back in the day; thought it was too psychedelic or something. That's as may be -- it certainly has a Yellow Submarine vibe -- but I still think, as I did in 1966, that it's utterly charming and apt. No idea who the artist was, however, so if any of you readers can help me out here...