Everybody's in Show-Biz

In 1972 no one had really given any thought to the fact that their musical heroes spent the majority of their time on the road, away from their loved ones, performing night after night in towns unfamiliar to them. Led Zeppelin and the Who had yet to start making headlines destroying hotel rooms and we were still three years from hearing about The Allman Bros Ramblin' Man. Along comes the eternal realist Ray Davies and his drunken Kinks to weave a ten song cycle about the woes of touring and then following it with a (perhaps purposely) weary sounding live disc.

It perhaps works in his detriment that the mythology of groupies and orgies had not found its place in the pop psyche and may explain why this record is more profound and successful today. The pervading theme here is isolation and hunger. Beginning with "Here Comes Another Day" Ray wakes up tired and hung-over, ready to hit another show in an anonymous town. Underehearsed and undernourished he trudges on, certainly not painting a picture of a glamourous rock star, moving on the "Maximum Consumption" he finds comfort in the food and booze he can demand from venues, but is all too familiar with the pitfalls of too much. Things get worse in "Unreal Reality" when fantasy and fact blur from the un-rooted lifestyle. It becomes so depressing that Ray longs for his family and friends while "Sitting in My Hotel". The food gets worse the furthur from the metro area in "Motorway", the people colder in Dave's lament "You Don't Know My Name". One of the two singles from this record was called "Super Sonic Rocketship". It's a strange song seemingly dropped from space about a perfect place where race and class don't matter and there are no problems. I think it represents not only how much had Ray had come to despise touring and how weak his writing became under the circumstances. The record closes on a melancholy note with the FM- Radio staple "Celluloid Heroes", the hit that saved their carreers essentially and their biggest hit for seven years until "Superman" came along. In "Celluloid Heroes" the road for Ray ends in Hollywood and he stands on a cold day looking at the stars at his feet. He sees the fallen and sad like Garbo Valentino, Lugosi, Davis and Marilyn. Ray fears that he is doomed to immortality at a sad price, and warns those not to follow him. Heavy stuff for an audience that probably did'nt even know that bands toured for longer than the show they were watching. Sides 3 and 4 are a live show that aside from an entertaining version of "Alcohol" is dull and lackluster. Perfectly capturing the grey rain of Ray's road.

Unofficial Kinks Website