Kinks - the amplifier |
The 
web-site presentes some cuts from the web.
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There are many important turning points in the
history of rock and roll: Bob Dylan goes electric. The Beatles
release "Sgt. Pepper." Jimi Hendrix plays the Monterey
Pop Festival.
But before any of that happened, a 16-year-old English boy
named Dave Davies was sitting in the front room of his parents'
house in Muswell Hill in 1963, frustrated at the tinny sound
coming from his small, 10-watt green amplifier.
Desperate for a new sound, he slashed the speaker cone with a
razor blade, shredding the material. After that crude motivation,
the little amp sounded fuzzy, distorted, nasty. It sounded like
what it was; an amp was falling apart. That little sonic
experiment might have gone unnoticed by the rest of the world, but
Davies' older brother, Ray, had written a catchy little song
called "You Really Got Me" on the family piano. Dave
played the riff through his little green amp. The brothers formed
a band called The Kinks and recorded their song.
http://kinks.it.rit.edu/misc/articles/ddsdiego.html
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He told of the Kinks' first amp, "The Green
Amp," an eight-watt formica box that he, Dave and Pete
Quaiffe all played through at once. It's the same amp on which
Dave invented the fuzz-guitar sound by running the speakers clean
through with a knitting needle. "And this was before he did
drugs," joked Ray.
http://www.post-gazette.com |
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| Ever since that day in the front
room when Dave slashed the
speaker cone of the Elpico with a razor
blade, producing the 'distorted and jagged roar' we refer
to as the Kinks' Sound,
rock and roll has never been the same. Join us in celebrating four
decades of the most intelligent, most creative, and most
consistent rock and roll on the planet. Cut from the Kinks
Preservation Society, the Internet home of Kinks fans. |
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Davies expects to release "Unfinished
Business," an anthology of his work, in mid-June, and he  said
the Kinks probably will be back in the studio themselves soon
enough, and then back on the road as a full band. The Kinks were
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and both
Davies brothers agree Dave's little green amp should be on exhibit
there. But in their typical style, they still find something to
disagree about. Asked earlier this month about the amp, Ray said
it is in a family member's possession. Dave says it's been missing
for years. Ray says the amp's cones were shredded with their
mother's knitting needles. Dave says he used a razor, then adds,
"Who are you going to believe?" "It's difficult
working with family," Davies say. Ironically, one of the most
tumultuous relationships in music also is among the most stable.
Along with the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones and the Ventures,
the Kinks remain one of the few bands of their era that has
remained together in some form since inception, and they did it
largely while being unaccepted in the music industry, Davies said.
"It helped give us a little special place in rock and
roll," he said. "We're not like everybody else."
http://kinks.it.rit.edu/misc/articles/ddsdiego.html
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