A Perfect Day for Second Bananas: Dave Davies's Sidekick Syndrome
by George Kalogerakis - New York Magazine - December 15, 1997
Pity the second banana. Names like Art Garfunkel, Ed McMahon, and Dr.
Watson
conjure up nothing so much as other names, those of their better-known,
more
accomplished partners. ("Andrew Ridgeley" conjures up nothing at all.
Some
bananas are more second than others.) Talented sidekicks have it worse -
their
relationships are unequal and competitive - and a blood tie really
complicates
things. So the long-suffering vice-Kink Dave is doubly whammied. (Wham!
That's
why Ridgeley sounded familiar.)
"Dave is a one-off," Ray Davies once told me genially, discussing the
recording-studio habits of his guitarist brother. "He'll get it the
first
time." Pause; smirk. "Eventually."
That's how it's always gone with the Davies boys-Ray, charming frontman
and
brilliant songwriter, and Dave, his comparatively underachieving kid
sib.
They've been at it professionally since 1963, personally a lot longer. A
few
years ago, they put the Kinks on hiatus.
Ray wrote an ambitious, well-received autobiography and toured, to
acclaim,
with a disarmingly intimate songs-and-readings act. Dave wrote a memoir
disclosing his interest in UFOs.
So even loyalists approached the lesser Kink's Thanksgiving gigs at the
Bottom
Line - his first New York solo concerts after 30 years as a pop star -
with a
mixture of affection and dread. Put Dave in front of a band, give him an
open
mike and plug him in, and anything is possible, not all of it pretty.
But how wrong the skeptics - the older brothers among us - were. Out
from
under Ray's thumb, Dave played winning, freewheeling, deftly chosen
sets. He
ignored his middling solo albums, performing instead the best of the
stuff he
wrote or sang for the Kinks, even dipping generously into brother Ray's
catalogue. He was, unaccountably, terrific. The irony: Between Ray's
solo
shows and now Dave's, Kinks fans get what they craved. No single to hype
or
album to flog. No smoke, lasers, or "Lola" sing-alongs. Just great
songs,
dozens of them. The Kinks are dead; long live the Davies brothers.
And long live second bananas. Some delicate equilibrium is upset, some
tacit
understanding betrayed, when these upstarts have the temerity to step
forward.
But the experiences can be liberating. Just wait till Beavis starts to
feel
his oats.
©1997 - New York
