September 24 – Ssssh.

As I am a woman of my word, I did exercise tonight to Ten Years After’s Ssssh. It is on the Ram 20 list after all, but I confess it is being used this evening as a shill. It’s code for ssssh, don’t tell anyone we’re talking about the Kinks again.

My post of ten days ago, a not so stellar assessment of one of the many Kinks’ compilation albums out there, that was accompanied by a brief account of seeing Ray Davies in concert during his Storytellers tour, prompted some person with a website dedicated to the Kinks, to which he posts daily, to find my innocent little blog post and provide the link on his daily list of stuff he finds on the web that has to do with the Kinks. I’ve had over 300 hits because of it. I know – Mazel Tov! – you’re saying. And I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I’m not particularly enjoying this. I feel invaded. Which, by the way, I did like the Kinks during the British invasion, they just don’t bowl me over. So then I get a comment from a guy, who wants to inform me that these are my limitations, and not the Kinks’. Who asked him?!? So, I was going to write something about this guy who probably has Kinks posters all over the walls of his parents’ basement, where he still lives, but then maybe because I didn’t post his comment or reply to it, he sends another that asks if I’ve read what Bowie and Pete Townsend have said about the Kinks, and says he trusts the opinions of the musicians and not of the smart music reviewers. Sorry, he adds. Now, I appreciate that he thinks I’m smart, and that I could even be considered a music reviewer, but it’s probably just a copy and paste deal. In any case, I think I’ll skip the second Kinks album, and return it to my friend who was nice enough to lend me the albums (thank you). He did tell me, after the fact, that Kinks fans are a different breed. Point well taken.

Even though my motives for putting Ten Years After on the turntable were less than honest, Alvin Lee still provides a good workout.