X-Ray (book)
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X-Ray (book)
''X-Ray'' (1994) was Ray Davies' first major attempt to write prose outside his musical career as founding member of the British rock band the Kinks. Robert Polito calls it an "experimental non-fiction" and describes Davies as "a prose stylist of Nabokovian ambition." X-Ray The book, subtitled as an "unauthorized autobiography," employs a nameless 19-year-old first-person narrator hired by 'the Corporation' to seek out and interview a slightly demented geriatric version of Davies himself ten to twenty years after the time of the novel's publication. Thus, while technically an autobiography, the work has an unreliable narrator. In many ways a work of fiction, it reveals many factual details concerning the Kinks and other important figures of the swinging sixties, but tends to do so in a literary fashion. By employing this narrative device, Davies was able to shed some light on the life of the Kinks without resorting to the usual pedestrian 'he said/she said' mechanics often ...
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Ray Davies
Sir Raymond Douglas Davies ( ; born 21 June 1944) is an English musician. He was the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and main songwriter for the rock band the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother Dave on lead guitar and backing vocals. He has also acted in, directed, and produced shows for theatre and television. Known for focusing his lyrics on English culture, nostalgia, and social satire, he is often referred to as the "Godfather of Britpop", though he disputes this title. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Kinks in 1990. After the dissolution of the Kinks in 1996, he embarked on a solo career. Early years Raymond Douglas Davies was born at 6 Denmark Terrace in the Fortis Green area of London on 21 June 1944. He is the seventh of eight children born to working-class parents, including six elder sisters and younger brother Dave Davies. His father, Frederick George Davies (1902–1975), was a slaughterhouse worker.London, Englan ...
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Pye Records
Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherhood of Man (1975–1979). The label changed its name to PRT Records (distributing as Precision Records & Tapes) in 1980, before being briefly reactivated as Pye Records in 2006. History The Pye Company originally manufactured televisions and radios. Its main plant was situated off what used to be Haig Road, in Cambridge, and it entered the record business when it bought Nixa Records in 1953. In 1955, the company acquired Polygon Records, a label that had been established by Leslie Clark and Alan A. Freeman to control distribution of the recordings of the former's daughter, Petula Clark. Pye merged it with Nixa Records to form Pye Nixa Records. Pye International In 1958, Pye International Records was established. The company licensed record ...
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1994 Non-fiction Books
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Mandela casts his vote in the 1994 South African general election, in which he was elected South Africa's first President of South Africa, president, and which effectively brought Apartheid to an end; NAFTA, which was signed in 1992, comes into effect in Canada, the United States, and Mexico; The first passenger rail service to utilize the newly-opened Channel tunnel; The 1994 FIFA World Cup is held in the United States; Skull, Skulls from the Rwandan genocide, in which over half a million Tutsi people were massacred by Hutu, Hutus., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 1994 Winter Olympics rect 200 0 400 200 1994 Northridge earthquake, Northridge earthquake rect 400 0 600 200 Sinking of the MS Estonia rect 0 200 300 40 ...
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Music Autobiographies
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect of all human societies, a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, and psychology. Music may be performed or improvised using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice. In some musical contexts, a performance or composition may be to some extent improvised. For instance, in Hindustani classical music, the performer plays spontaneously while following a partially defined structure and using characteristic motifs. In modal jazz th ...
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The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, north London, in 1963 by brothers Ray and Dave Davies. They are regarded as one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s. The band emerged during the height of British rhythm and blues and Merseybeat, and were briefly part of the British Invasion of the United States until their touring ban in 1965. Their third single, the Ray Davies-penned "You Really Got Me", became an international hit, topping the charts in the United Kingdom and reaching the Top 10 in the United States. The Kinks' music drew from a wide range of influences, including American R&B and rock and roll initially, and later adopting British music hall, folk, and country. The band gained a reputation for reflecting English culture and lifestyle, fuelled by Ray Davies' wittily observational writing style, and made apparent in albums such as '' Face to Face'' (1966), '' Something Else'' (1967), ''The Village Green Preservation Society'' (1968), ...
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Eric Weisbard
Eric Weisbard is an American music critic known for founding the Pop Conference, which is hosted annually by the Museum of Pop Culture (formerly known as the EMP Museum). He also organized the conference for many years. Career Weisbard serves as an associate professor of American studies at the University of Alabama. He is also the author of both a 33⅓ book entry about ''Use Your Illusion'' and the 2014 book ''Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music'', and a former editor for ''Spin (magazine), Spin''. With Craig Marks, he was also the co-editor of the ''Spin Alternative Record Guide'', and has also written for ''the Village Voice''. For ''Top 40 Democracy'', he received the 2015 Woody Guthrie Award from the International Association for the Study of Popular Music's United States branch. Personal life Weisbard is married to Ann Powers, a music critic for NPR. They were married in 1998. References External links

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Chrissie Hynde
Christine Ellen Hynde (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician. She is a founding member and the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band the Pretenders, and one of the band's two remaining original members alongside drummer Martin Chambers. Hynde formed the Pretenders in Hereford, England in 1978, with Pete Farndon, James Honeyman-Scott and Chambers. She has also recorded a number of songs with other musicians including Frank Sinatra, Cher and UB40. She recorded her first solo album, ''Stockholm'', in 2014. Hynde was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 as a member of the Pretenders. Early life Hynde was born in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of a part-time secretary and a Yellow Pages manager. She graduated from Firestone High School in Akron, but stated that "I was never too interested in high school. I mean, I never went to a dance, I never went out on a date, I never went steady. It became pretty awful for me. Except, of course, ...
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Acts 1 & 2
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message to the Roman Empire. It gives an account of the ministry and activity of Christ's apostles in Jerusalem and other regions, after Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension. Acts and the Gospel of Luke make up a two-part work, Luke–Acts, by the same anonymous author. It is usually dated to around 80–90 AD, although some scholars suggest 90–110. The first part, the Gospel of Luke, tells how God fulfilled his plan for the world's salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Acts continues the story of Christianity in the 1st century, beginning with the ascension of Jesus to Heaven. The early chapters, set in Jerusalem, describe the Day of Pentecost (the coming of the Holy Spirit) and the growth of the chu ...
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John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's work was characterised by the rebellious nature and acerbic wit of his music, writing and drawings, on film, and in interviews. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history. Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the Skiffle#Revival in the United Kingdom, skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1956, he formed The Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the smart Beatle", he was initially the group's de facto leader, a role gradually ceded to McCartney. Lennon soon expanded his work into other media by participating in numerous films, including ''How I Won the War'', and authoring ''In His Own Write'' and ''A Spaniard in the Works'', both collection ...
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British Invasion
The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Pop and rock groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Zombies, the Kinks, Small Faces, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, the Hollies, the Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Yardbirds, the Who and Them, as well as solo singers like Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Petula Clark, Tom Jones and Donovan, were at the forefront of the "invasion". Background The rebellious tone and image of US rock and roll and blues musicians became popular with British youth in the late 1950s. While early commercial attempts to replicate US rock and roll mostly failed, the trad jazz–inspired skiffle craze, with its do it yourself attitude, produced two top ten hits in the US by Lonnie Done ...
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Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One
''Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One'', commonly abbreviated to ''Lola Versus Powerman'', or simply ''Lola'', is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Kinks, recorded and released in 1970. A concept album, it is a satirical appraisal of the music industry, including song publishers, unions, the press, accountants, business managers, and life on the road. Musically ''Lola Versus Powerman'' is varied, described by Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "a wildly unfocused but nonetheless dazzling ''tour de force''", containing some of Ray Davies's strongest songs. Although it appeared during a transitional period for the Kinks, ''Lola Versus Powerman'' was a success both critically and commercially for the group, charting in the Top 40 in America and helping restore them in the public eye, making it a "comeback" album. It contained two hit singles: "Lola", which reached the top 10 in the US and UK, and " Apeman", which peaked at number five in the UK. In Octob ...
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Dave Davies
David Russell Gordon Davies (born 3 February 1947) is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was the lead guitarist and backing vocalist for the English rock band the Kinks, which also featured his elder brother Ray Davies. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 as a member of the Kinks. Davies is prolific with his innovative nature on the electric guitar, specifically in being one of the first to utilize electric guitar distortion and exposing the effect to the mainstream. His signature distorted power chord riffs on songs would heavily influence future heavy metal and punk rock acts. In 2003, Davies was ranked 91st in ''Rolling Stone'' ''Magazines list of the " 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Early life David Russell Gordon Davies was born at 6 Denmark Terrace, Muswell Hill, North London. He was born the last of eight children, including six elder sisters and an elder brother, later bandmate Ray. As children, the Davies brothers were im ...
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