Taking Sides: Ray Davies vs. Dave Davies

Sorry Dave but landslide for Ray.

But the pants!!!

Always a natty dresser, for sure

what was his taste in guitars, aside from being an early adopter of the flying v?

The second-most memorable piece of gear is his Harmony Meteor, one of those cheapo guitars that retro-fetishists would cream their pants at nowadays. It's his very first guitar - and also the guitar you hear on You Really Got Me. He also played the Meteor live while his bandmates already played the usual, much more expensive ofFenders (Ray: Telecaster, Quaife: Rickenbacker). He also played a Guild guitar (which looks nice, see cover of Kink Kontroversy) and a Fender 12-string back when electic 12-string music was associated with Rickenbackers.

I'm such a nerd

do any of the Ds in your name stand for 'dave' or 'davies'

yes, Davies Davies Davies

Dave Douglas Davies

When I saw them in 1993 Dave was playing a new dual-humbucker Telecaster (possibly Fender, but may have been a Schecter) through a solid-state GK stack. Sounded awful.

I've always admired Dave Davies' fashion sense! Especially in this picture but pretty much all the time. Hard to choose a Davies.
http://vinylmania.net/files/dave-davis-dave-davies-hits.jpg

Ray's a bit like Lou Reed, obv. a complete arse but the talent is hard to ignore. Dave seems a bit spaced out these days, judging by the last time I saw him interviewed.

i would like to know what happened to his old clothes and also what size he is

Ray's a bit like Lou Reed, obv. a complete arse but the talent is hard to ignore. Dave seems a bit spaced out these days, judging by the last time I saw him interviewed.

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Tuesday, December 31, 2013 10:39 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dave had a pretty bad stroke about 10 years ago.

Dave's better at guitar riffs. Ray's better at singing and songwriting.

Ray's better at singing in racially insensitive accents. Dave's better at writing mean songs about chicks he liked to fuck 'til they went and got themselves knocked up.

obv it's ray -- he's maybe the best songwriter of the '60s. you need both of 'em, of course.

Xp - Is that what Death of a Clown is about?!

You mean Mindless Child of Motherhood?

Yes. That slut went and lost the thing that's good. It ranks up there with David Crosby's Triad for self-centered rock star anthems.

Who wrote "You Really Got Me" riff? Cos that is the first thing I ever learned on guitar.

probably depends on which Davies brother you ask?

I had the other Dave Davies hit from quite young.

Used to think the first line was "Ossoso so so chuck a budgie"

It isn't

Long, poignant documentary about Dave Davies. Absolute must watch for fans...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ZFOB2w8Sw

(six parts total, all on YouTube)

Watching Ray on the Hootenanny.

Do Not Reform The Kinks plz

Small in-between TS: Loutallica vs. Ray + Mumford and Sons

That documentary is great, btw. Cool footage of Dave getting his hair done and Ray taking a bandmate's tissue and stomping it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

not a word on this thread about dave's fantastic harmony vocals and yelps. shame on you all. dave also looked, and acted, 20 times cooler onstage. ray's corny showman persona was irksome. but in the end, while dave lived "two sisters," ray wrote "two sisters," so him.

nothing wrong with Dave, except that really sad free outdoor show I saw last June, but Ray

It's not about who wins the poll (that's obvious), it's about how many people are willing to show their appreciation for Dave

But from what I've read about Dave's carefree attitude, he would be okay with not being appreciated that much.

Obviously the best Davies was Jimi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WR3gF9J0hQ

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

oh man this is sad
but not surprising

Welp

Starting this poll as a Dave Davies fan was basically like putting a "kick me" sign on your own back. Love ya, Dave, but you never wrote "Days".

Thought this result would be closer tbh.

As it stands, it's like if a 'TS: Damon Alburn vs Graham Coxon' poll came out as a landslide in Damon's favour.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bfjru-RIAAAKGw6.jpg:large
Brian Eno and The Kinks' Dave Davies at Heathrow Airport in January 2014

BBC Headline:

Kinks' Davies to join Hall of Fame

Now, what's wrong with this headline?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26150373

This Man He Weeps Tonight is top-notch Dave. Like it even more than Death of a Clown.

As always, continuing to be good friends. Ray says this:

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/26/366813240/naive-yet-revolutionary-ray-davies-on-50-years-of-the-kinks

And then Dave goes...

https://www.facebook.com/TheKinksOfficial/posts/780267375353329

If you can't read that second one:

THE KINKS' DAVE DAVIES RESPONDS TO RAY'S RECENT COMMENTS RELATING TO DAVE'S GREEN AMP SOUND -
My brother is lying. I don't know why he does this but it was my Elpico amp that I bought and out of frustration I cut the speaker cone up with a razor blade and I was so shocked and surprised and excited that it worked that I demonstrated the sound to Ray and Pete. Pete didn't even like it and laughed and said it sounded like a dog barking. Ray liked the sound and he had written a riff on the piano which formed the basis of the song You Really Got Me and I played the riff on my guitar with MY new sound. I ALONE CREATED THIS SOUND. Ray wrote You Really Got Me and we used my guitar sound to embellish the song and riff. He never stuck a knitting needle or anything else in my amp. I wouldn't let anybody come near it. My amp was the ONLY amp we used to create this sound and I don't know why only in the past few years Ray has started changing the whole concept. I am just flabbergasted and shocked at the depth of his selfish desire to take credit for everything. I never once claimed songwriting royalties on You Really Got Me yet this song would not have happened without my guitar sound. - Dave Davies November 26, 2014

It's a monster caveman riff, I think it would have sounded amazing played through any guitar amp.

Oh Dave, Give it up and just tour with the boy. We get it you were there you contributed.

The innocent choice would be George Davis

Dickie

Dave's archival album 'Decade' came out Friday, collecting unreleased stuff from the 1970s. Pretty damn good imo.

Having just ploughed my way through Johnny Rogan's Ray Davies biography, I'd like to change my vote to neither. I already knew Ray was a dickhead but Dave comes across much of the time as a dangerously unhinged fuck up. You wouldn't want to meet either of them down a dark alley. Lots of gruesome laughs to be had though.

Might give that another go at some point. It was just too exhaustive for my general level of interest.

It's a bit much, I skimmed a lot of it.

Perhaps there is a Richie Unterberger book to read instead. Oh wait.

There are several Ray biographies of different lengths, the Rogan one is the most thorough. He wrote a very short paperback on the Kinks in the 80s if you just want the highlights.

Richie Unterberger doesn't really write biographies, but he is good at what he does, so I don't understand the put-down?

Ray's miserliness is absolutely hilarious... unless you're married to him. He basically got shot in the leg in New Orleans because his girlfriend's bag contained his cash and his credit cards and his first thought was to chase after a gunman and get them back. Then when he was told they'd have to cut his trousers to treat his wound he protested, "But these are new trousers!"

Think I may have met that girlfriend.

More of a dig at Dave and Ray not at Unterberger, think he is very good at what he does, just sort of shaking my head imagining how wearying a full-on Unterberger Kinks day-by-day might be to read.

I believe someone did do a Kinks day-by-day book, though!

Re Ray's tight-fistedness: in one of the biographies, his first wife pleads with him in vain for money to buy a winter coat.

I think it's even worse than that, I believe she wasn't asking for money to buy a winter coat but to take it out of the dry cleaners.

Larry Page said you always had to remember to take a heavy coat when visiting Ray because he never turned the heating on.

Wait, Larry Page?

A Kinks manager, not once but twice. There's another Larry Page?

Um, yeah.

No-one as important as Larry Page though.

Larry Page said you always had to remember to take a heavy coat when visiting Ray because he never turned the heating on.

LMAO, just like my parents, especially my Dad. Bet Ray doesn't even keep the boiler pilot lit.

I'm sure I've always read that Ray & Dave Davies had Welsh ancestry - as the name Davies suggests. However, it turns out that the name Davies came from their father's stepfather and that his real father's name was Kelly (so maybe they had Irish ancestry!) I don't think any of this was in the Johnny Rogan biography despite him stuffing the book full of every possible fact imaginable about the Davies family.

Unrelated…

Apparently Ray pronounces it Day-viz or Davis and Dave pronounces it Day-veez…?

The second is the correct pronunciation. Which Ray would know if he was actually Welsh.

Ah. Dave recently tweeted out that when people call him Davis he thinks they’re talking about someone else .

Ray pronounces it so as to rhyme with Maurice Gibb.

Some years ago I figured out the actual Maurice pronunciation but with Davies I grew up assuming Day-veez bc every American says it that way. But then I heard an interview with Ray where he insisted it was pronounced the other way, so I thought just like with Maurice I've been a rube all this time saying Day-veez... and then that tweet from Dave appeared.

Somebody on X just asked Dave what he thought of the Raincoats Lola cover and he said he wasn't familiar. He checked it out and declared it the best version.

Ray tricked me too. He had me misprouncing Terence Davies last name last weekend at MoMi.