Suggestaholic!

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 The Kinks were with us for a long time. In fact, I believe President Lincoln was watching one of their early shows the night he was gunned-down by Shirley Booth, at Ford Fairlane Theater in Washington D.C. Of course, I might be mixed-up on some of the details…

One thing’s for sure, though: the band had more distinctive eras than most.They started as one of the harder-rocking British Invasion groups, taking full advantage of global Beatlemania. They produced their fair share of energetic pop hits (including the perennial “You Really Got Me”), destroyed a bunch of amplifiers, and wore snappy matching outfits.

Then, when most of their contemporaries were dabbling in psychedelia (maaan) and trying to out-freak each other, the Kinks let loose a string of quieter albums that examined everyday lives of “common” people, and seemed to celebrate (long for?) the Britain of earlier days.  

When they sang about afternoon tea, the Kinks actually meant afternoon tea. It wasn’t some wink-wink insider code-phrase for hallucenogenic mushrooms, or whatever. How utterly uncool…

Eventually the band started dabbling in concept albums, with mixed results. And from there they transformed into a big-guitar arena rock group. They had some hits, kicked some ass, made some money, etc.

And then it was time for the long painful slide into relative mediocrity, and public disinterest.  The band’s leader, Ray Davies, was still capable of knocking out the occasional blast of brilliance by this point, but few fans had stuck around to notice.

Finally, the Kinks called it a day. Or more precisely, they made a record and just never got around to making another one. That’s the way it all ended, as far as I know; they just never got around to continuing.

The Kink Kronikles is one of the finest compilations ever. It respects the group’s distinctive eras and doesn’t try to wedge different styles of music together in a clumsy bastardization. So, it’s got that going for it. But it’s the songs, of course, that really make it great.

The two-disc set is culled from the second era of the band’s existence, when Davies was at the height of his creative powers. And it illuminates, in spectacular fashion, the least-known phase of the Kinks’ career.

And holy crap is it good. When I originally bought it, way back in the days of vinyl, I was almost completely oblivious to the years between “You Really Got Me” and “Lola.” And after a few listens I realized I’d been missing out on the best part.

Compiled by a Kinks-obsessive named John Mendelssohn, it’s not a greatest hits package, but a true best-of. In fact, I think the band had a couple of minor British hits during the period that were left off, because Mendelssohn didn’t believe they were worthy.

Ray Davies remains an accomplished songwriter, but never was he better than 1966 – 1971, the years covered by The Kink Kronikles. It’s just one incredible hunk of brilliance after another on the thing. And it only improves with use, like the British equivilant of an old baseball glove, or something. After a while you find yourself putting it on, and feeling like you’re home.

Casual fans of the Kinks, like I used to be, will likely be unfamiliar with 90% (or more) of the 28 songs included here. It seems to be one of the most overlooked stretches of creative overachievement in all of recorded music. Especially among bands as well-known as The Kinks. I don’t even understand how such a thing happened…

But once you start living with it, your days of being a casual fan will likely be over. I predict you’ll start wondering how you made it to your current age without knowing these songs. And then you’ll need more. Perhaps there should be a warning label, making consumers aware of the risk of dependency?

When I was 23 I got a job out of state, and left home in a hurry. I was frantically throwing clothes into a suitcase, and left behind all but the most necessary items. The only music I took along? The Kink Kronikles, on cassette. And it served as my spiritual anchor during a traumatic period of transition.

Years later, when I was suddenly transferred to southern California, and forced to live apart from my family for several months, I took refuge in the Kronikles again. It’s a source of comfort that’s never far from me.

My only small complaint? The CD needs to be remastered. It doesn’t sound horrible, but could most certainly sound better. The neglect of the Kinks’ second era, even by their record company, is baffling. I mean, what’s a guy gotta do to get some respect? Isn’t six years of impossible genius enough? Shit!

The Suggestaholic strongly suggests The Kink Kronikles, and better living through Ray Davies.

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 In 1996 I moved from Atlanta to southern California, and was forced to learn a slew of new phrases; things like “sig alert,” “looky-loo,” “tri-tip,” and “earthquake weather.”

Almost immediately I was also awarded a speeding ticket (who knew there were places where speed limits are actually enforced?). And I found out I could keep the points off my record if I attended a so-called driving school, where the instructor was also a professional impressionist(?!), and told us about freeway merging and whatnot in the voices of Jimmy Stewart and Johnny Carson.

So, needless to say, I was a tad disoriented.

I worked a lot of hours then, and would often find myself driving home after dark. On one of those nights I was doing the radio version of channel surfing, and finally settled on a talk show that sounded promising.

The host was interviewing a man who’d written some sort of outrageous book (I can’t remember the details), and the longer I listened, the crazier it got.

When I arrived at our apartment I couldn’t turn off the radio, and sat in the parking lot as this unknown program devolved into full-on anarchy.

At one point it sounded like three or four people were talking at the same time, there was merry-go-round music playing in the background, and someone kept scratching himself into a phone receiver. Or possibly with a phone receiver.

This shit went far beyond looky-loo.

I went inside and told my wife about what I’d just heard, and she didn’t care. She had a crying baby on her hands, and fixated on the wrong part of my story. She kept saying, “You were sitting outside for the past fifteen minutes - listening to the radio - while I was dealing with all this?” Completely missed the point.

Over the next few weeks I found myself seeking out this “Phil Henry,” or whatever his name was. And by the second or third night I began to suspect things weren’t exactly as they seemed. I decided it was some sort of comedy troupe, or improvisational team, or something. But still appealingly absurd…

I think I read in a newspaper article that Phil Hendrie, in fact, did all his guests’ voices. I didn’t understand how this could be true, but that’s what the article said. It seemed like host and guest would sometimes talk over each other, but upon closer inspection I realized they never did.

Amazing.

As incredible as it was, however, the vocal acrobatics wasn’t what turned me into a Hendrie obsessive. It was the laughter. I mean the show was almost dangerously funny…

I can remember driving on the 405 freeway at night, heading toward LAX, and one of Phil’s “guests” said something that caused me to nearly black-out. No exaggeration. I was laughing so hard I got lightheaded, and was on the verge of losing consciousness behind the wheel. For a few seconds it was literally touch-and-go.

One of my wife’s friends also tells a story about nearly crashing her SUV into a bridge abutment while listening to Phil Hendrie, and having to stop in a fast food parking lot to pull herself together. She warned other mothers to NEVER listen to the program with kids in the car, because it was far too dangerous.

Indeed, I have little doubt people have died because of the Phil Hendrie Show, and that’s not a joke. In fact, I think it might be a compliment.

So I became a huge fan. I learned the characters and their personalities, and the whole thing just kept getting better and better.

When I moved with my job to Scranton, I promptly subscribed to the Hendrie website, and began listening to the previous night’s show every day at work. And every day I marveled at the sustained genius of it all. How did he do it, night after night??

Then it ended. With no warning Phil Hendrie retired from radio. And we not only lost Phil, but also the entire crackpot universe he’d created.

I was nearly despondent. How could we continue without regular visits from Bobbie Dooley, and Lloyd Bonafide, and Vernon Dozier, and all the other regulars? It was like a bus full of my favorite people had gone crashing through a guardrail, and everyone was lost.

I couldn’t believe it; I was genuinely sad.

Then I switched to hoarding mode (I think it was my way of coping), and found myself on a mission to own copies of every show I could get my hands on. I now have thousands of hours, all housed on a dedicated Phil Hendrie hard drive, and backed-up at an off-site location.

I listen to the program as much as I ever did (my iPod is essentially a Hendrie Show delivery device), and it’s still the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. And mister, I’ve heard a lot…

Phil, of course, eventually came back to radio, but his new show isn’t quite the same. It’s still good, and he does the characters now and again, but it’s mostly current events and (God help us) politics. The spell, it seems, has been broken.Luckily for all of us, however, huge caches of the old program remain available in mp3 format. The official Hendrie archive is still in operation, and well-worth the $6.95 per month it costs to subscribe. There are also several good mailing lists, where collectors can share audio files. Sign up with any of them, and it’s possible to build an impressive collection in short order.

Just be careful listening while driving. ‘Cause you might end up on the roof of a Best Buy store, naked, on fire, and holding a steering wheel. …And still laughing your smoldering ass off, of course.

Phil Hendrie Show website

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  Music, as we know, has the power to transport us. We hear a song, or even a sliver of a song, and are taken back to a different part of our lives. This can happen with the other four senses as well, but music seems to be especially potent.

I had a pile of 45’s when I was nine or ten, for instance, and if one of those tunes come wafting my way (more than three decades later!), I instantly remember how I felt when I was nine or ten.

Oh, I don’t feel like a kid exactly; I don’t have an urge to go out and jump a stack of cinderblocks with a Schwinn Stingray, or anything like that. I just recall the general attitude I had toward things at the time those songs were a part of my life.

And just as quickly as it arrives, it goes away. Which always makes me a little sad… ‘Cause carefree, safe, and happy ain’t a bad place to be.

Dinosaur Jr.’s Green Mind falls into the same category for me. I was living in Atlanta when it was released, in a terrible apartment in a terrible neighborhood, trying to recover from a long-term relationship that had recently gone straight down the ol’ crap-catcher.

I don’t do break-ups very well, they generally send me ass-over-tits. So the previous few months had been very dark indeed. But by the time I got my hands on this CD, I was coming out of it and living again. I could finally see the color of the trees, and taste the coffee in the mornings.

It’s a great feeling, emerging from a three or four month self-pity wallow, it really is. And in 1991 Green Mind was the soundtrack to that entire process for me. I played the thing constantly, and loved every squalling, maniacal minute of it. I was certain it was a stone-cold masterpiece, and never changed my mind on the subject.

Today, when I hear the first few notes of “The Wagon,” then J. Mascis’ strange warble, I feel instantly better, healthier. It’s an amazing thing.

It would be easy to believe my attachment to the album hinges on the timing of its release only; that whatever I happened to be playing during that period would leave a pleasant aftertaste…

And that might be partly true. But I think it’s more of a case of me reacting to a great album, and all the possibilities that represents, at a time when I was feeling especially optimistic and strong myself. I seriously doubt, say, Richard Marx would’ve resonated in quite the same way.

Whenever aging hipsters discuss Dinosaur Jr. they always mention You’re Living All Over Me and Bug (and rightly so), but rarely Green Mind. I have a hard time understanding this. Sure, it was their first major label record (SELL OUT!!), and Lou Barlow was gone, and occasionally you can hear (gasp) acoustic guitars.

But I don’t know what to tell you… The thing is freakin’ amazing — one of the finest albums of the 1990s, in my estimation.

The songs are the best Mascis ever managed to collect together in one place, it has a better flow than the other records, and there’s a certain depth and atmosphere the band never accomplished before, or since. It’s also aggressively loud, with over-the-top batshit guitar, and makes a person feel happy to be alive.

And yes, it also makes for one hell of a great post-wallow celebration.

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 Since I was young I’ve daydreamed of somehow traveling back in time, and just walking through my hometown for an afternoon in the 1940s; not doing anything earth shattering, necessarily, just having a leisurely look around.

I’m not sure why the ‘40s exactly, but that’s the way the fantasy always goes. Maybe it’s as far back as I can take it, before things become radically different? Any earlier and you start to get the grim clothing, the weird hats, the ludicrous facial hair, the underwear with buttons… 

And I can’t have that.

No, I believe the 1940s is as far as I could go in my imaginary time machine, and still feel I have a connection to the place. I think I could blend-in there, with little trouble. I’d just have to remember to say things like “And how!” whenever someone mentioned they were hungry, or whatever.

But decades have passed, and as far as I know they haven’t made even the slightest advancement in time travel technology. Not even that creepy Virgin Records guy in the hot air balloon. Wotta rip-off!

I have a feeling this book is as close as any of us are ever going to get. It’s not the same, of course, but it’s pretty good. Especially when you consider this particular time machine is constructed of nothing but ink and paper…

Time and Again is supposedly science-fiction, but I’m not convinced it technically qualifies. The sci-fi aspect of it really only serves to explain how (and why) the main character, Si Morley, travels back and forth between “modern-day” New York City (the book was originally published in 1970, so its modern-day was almost forty years ago), and the New York City of 1882. Once Si arrives in the past, none of that matters much.

Indeed, the plot isn’t what you’ll remember about the book. And it has little to do with the fact Time and Again has never gone out-of-print, or enjoys an enthusiastic cult following to this day. It’s all about a modern man being dropped into an earlier time, and just having a leisurely look around.

The author, Jack Finney, was obviously fascinated with the New York City of the late nineteenth century, and has his protagonist observe and make note of even the tiniest of details.

Some complain there is, in fact, too much information, that parts of the book are dragged down by it all. Others, including myself, believe just the opposite. Because we recognize in Si Morley the same kind of curiosity we’d exhibit if placed in such a fantastic situation.

I’ve read more than my share of time-travel books, and this one is the most satisfying; it’s simple and pure, and deals with human reactions to amazing discoveries. It’s also atmospheric, and causes the reader to feel they’re along for the adventure. I read it every five years or so, and think of it as comfort food at this point.

The Suggestaholic suggests Time and Again, because it’s as close as any of us are ever going to get.

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