This post began as a comment responding to a comment:
RGM of DeadManS OrcheStra says:According to Ray, when the Kinks went into the studio to record You Really Got Me, it was decided (by who precisely, i forget) that Mick Avory wasn't a good enough drummer to record, so there was a studio durmmer, who apparently wasn't really ready for what was going to happen.
Dig that drumming in the beginnig of that first vid!
As they rehearsed and worked out arrangements, he came up with a nice little drum fill to go after the opening guitar chords.
Comes the actual session, Dave cranked his performance amp up to about 17.
The clip here is only the intro to *You Really Got Me*, just to illustrate the storyDave's amp for this track was a little 12 watt unit the Davies brothers had bought cheap; even new, when you cranked it up to max and fed it a hot signal, it distorted so badly that Dave named it the "Fartbox." After he slashed the speaker cone a few times and taped it back together... Well, let's say it sounded nasty, as anyone who's listened to that early recording can attest.
It wasn't until the fuzzbox had been perfected that anyone much else managed such a distorted sound. (In fact, the label people were sure that something was wrong with the tape, and asked Ray if they had a safety copy...)
So this drummer's sitting there with his sticks poised, and Dave blasts out with "Daaa - daa - daa - daDAHHH!!!" and the poor man's carefully planned fill went right out of his mind - he just slammed down the sticks in one almghty "CRASHH!"...
And that's been the standard arrangement ever since...
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Posted on 05/17/2008
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My Trusted MOGs
I never knew that. That's a great story.
My Trusted MOGs
I'm pretty sure that Ray tells the story in his "unauthorised autobiography", X-Ray if that's not where i got it it was the first time i saw him solo - at which time he was still doing the full version of his "Storyteller" show. (When i saw him again a couple years later, he was doing a much shorter verson of the same show.)
My Trusted MOGs
Great story. The "decider" was the producer, Shel Talmy. There's a story that when Jimi Hendrix first landed in London, when he met The Kinks the first thing he did was ask Dave Davies how he got that incredible sound on "You Really Got Me".
My Trusted MOGs
Not surprised.
I remember a friend at just about the same time (we were 16 or so) asking me how to stop his cheap amp from sounding like that...
My Trusted MOGs
There's another great amp story I just recently read about. That amazing guitar sound Keith Richards gets on "Gimme Shelter"? He was using a new transistor-based amp in the studio and after about 3 hours it overheated so much it started to make that sound. It last about 45 minutes before the amp shut down and wouldn't work until it cooled off. So he started working around that 45 minutes. The more I hear about Keith the more my estimation rises. And it was always pretty high.