for those who never gave up their turntables
THIS IS THE SIXTH in a series of ten articles addressing the #1 records of the year on Cash Box magazine’s pop chart from 1960 through 1969. It was originally published as “Let’s Hang On To Our Ticket To Ride” in my publication Tell It Like It Was on Medium back on June 2, 2019. [Read more] “the #1 hit records on the pop charts 1965”
IT’S DIFFICULT TO SAY why the Kinks fell out of favor as hit-makers, but by the end of 1968 they looked like they were already a part of rock & roll’s history. They were making music that veered off from most contemporary music pathways and as 1969 opened, remaining a Kinks fan was almost an act of defiance. [Read more] “the kinks’ plastic man wants to be ten feet long like king kong”
AS WE BEGIN OUR STORY sometime in late 1970, the Kinks were in a bit of a bad way. Despite being one of the premier groups of the British Invasion of 1964, they had not reached the Top 40 in the US since mid-1966. Even in their homeland—their own Village Green, filled with Arthur and millions like him—it had been more than a year since they’d had a hit! [Read more] “the kinks on arthur and finding shangri-la”
IT WAS 1975, and I was out of my hippie wannabe stage. I was playing it straight; not out of choice, but necessity. (But that’s another story.) I was still as anti-authoritarian as all get-out—at least when it came to bosses who were really bullies with authority—taking crap from no one. [Read more] “meet the new boss (true tales from the men’s room)”
THE ORIGINAL TITLE to this piece on David Bowie was “Damn That Damn Disco Music!” But that was really an inadequate opening for the tone of this ‘true story’ about conversion. Then I dallied with variations on “The Day I Came Out as a David Bowie Fan,” which was an allusion to his androgynous Ziggy Stardust period. [Read more] “just how did david bowie affect your consciousness?”