Monday, November 2, 2009

Kinks - Me And My Brother

(Frog, 19??)

One more Kinks review, and it’s a four-song collection of audience recordings from post-Think Visual tours, taped at various locations between May, 1987, and April, 1988. Happily, the rougher sound quality (and career-spanning song selection) makes this hodgepodge much more enjoyable than the band’s bland, glassy studio albums of the time, with a clunker like “How Are You” benefiting noticeably from a snappier tempo and cruder taping. The other three tracks are interesting novelties in that they’re all songs sung by Ray on the LPs and here handed off to Dave in the live setting. I’m certainly no rah-rah fan of the younger Davies’ voice, but he acquits himself well on both “Sleepwalker” and a raw “You Really Got Me,” even if he can’t quite give “Too Much on My Mind” the delicate treatment it needs. While hardly a spectacular boot, this is a nice companion to the not-as-awful-as-it-should-be The Road live alb that was recorded around the same time. Heck, if anyone’s dumb enough to ever reissue that unloved disc, these tracks would make for real fine bonus tracks. Worth considering, richie riches of the world.

1 comment:

ithinkihatemy45s said...

Recording details: "How Are You" - Live in Heidelberg, 5/25/1987; "You Really Got Me" - Live in Hannover, 12/8/1987; "Sleepwalker" - Live in USA, April 1988; "Too Much On My Mind" - Live in USA, April 1988. Also, given that the cover art is based on the sleeve for "UK Jive," it's probably safe to assume that this was released in either late 1989 or 1990.