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The Latest Breaking News from Kinks

“So, Dave, how do I slash the amp?”: Dave Davies picks up a razor and slashes a speaker on camera to demonstrate how he got the Kinks’ iconic proto-fuzz guitar tone

There are gear demos and then there are gear demos in which a guitar legend performs the most radical amp mod to show us how he got the guitar tone on You Really Got Me

MusicRadar

“The albums hadn’t been doing well. We weren’t doing great. Suddenly we kind of surprised people”: Dave Davies on how You Really Got Me saved The Kinks, those Jimmy Page rumors – and what he really thought of Van Halen’s cover

The guitarist who paved the way for rock and metal distortion breaks down the truths and myths of the groundbreaking 1964 hit

Guitar World

“I thought it was quite funny-sounding. It was very good as well, though. I’ve gotten used to it”: Dave Davies on Van Halen’s rendition of this career-making Kinks track

Van Halen covered The Kinks, not once, but twice – signaling the Eddie Van Halen-led outfit's respect for the band

Guitar World

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“I don’t think LSD had a real big impact on the songwriting or guitar playing… it was just that we saw brighter colors and got high!” Roger McGuinn on The Byrds’ influential guitar style, and why they didn’t follow The Kinks and The Who into distortion

The banjo-inspired Rickenbacker guitar icon recalls how Miles Davis got them signed and weighs up the merits of David Crosby and Clarence White

Guitar World

"We could have ended up as mementoes bricked up in his walls": The night The Kinks partied at John Wayne Gacy's house

The Kinks' US tour of 1965 was eventful even before the Killer Clown got involved

Louder

“Their version was very Middle America”: The Kinks could never fully get on board with Van Halen’s cover of You Really Got Me and here's why

The band’s famously chilled out frontman Ray Davies had a hard time accepting that people thought Eddie Van Halen & co. wrote his timeless classic

Louder

“The catalog proclaimed the instrument to be: ‘For the young artist with a flair for showmanship!’”: Guild Starfires appeared in the hands of The Kinks’ Dave Davies and Jerry Garcia, and shook up the electric guitar scene in the early '60s

By the late '50s, rock ’n’ roll was in full swing – and so for Guild, a ‘jazz guitar’ maker, it was time to catch up. Enter the Starfire electrics…

Guitar World

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“It’s the Kinks meets AC/DC. I had to play around with the riff because I didn’t want it to sound like You Really Got Me – you don’t wanna get sued”: Jim Babjak revisits 5 classic Smithereens riffs – and reveals the gear and stories behind them

New Jersey's finest have had their share of killer riffs. Here Babjak walks us through the catalog, talks trials by click-track, and reveals how A Girl Like You nearly ended up at the movies

Guitar World

“I left without a penny to my name. I was bitter for a while, but I’ve got a great legacy”: Though Pete Quaife gets credit for jumpstarting the Kinks bass chair, John Dalton and Jim Rodford pushed the band forward on many of their classic albums

From the powerful bass tone on You Really Got Me to 1979’s Low Budget, smart low-end was a key ingredient of the Kinks sound

Guitar World

Everyday people: the parking wardens, estate agents and more who inspired classic songs

After the death of Joe DePugh, the high school baseball player hymned in Springsteen’s Glory Days, we look at the ordinary inspirations for extraordinary hits

The Guardian - UK

“Mick Ronson came to see one of the Springsteen shows, and he was just so proud of me. He had a classic rock ‘n’ roll existence, but I love him for all that”: Shane Fontayne on the kindness of Ronson, serving the Boss –and playing Stairway for Jimmy Page

His career highs include surprising Stevie Van Zandt with an improvised part, jamming with U2, and playing Stairway To Heaven with the Heart sisters while Jimmy Page was guest of honor

Guitar World

“I didn’t know the solo was that iconic beforehand! It was only when I started seeing all the comments that I realized”: Shane Fontayne isn't “a Jimmy Page kind of player” – but he had to play the Stairway to Heaven solo… in front of Jimmy Page

As a member of the Kennedy Center house band, Fontayne – best known for his tenures with Bruce Springsteen and Lone Justice – played lead guitar on Heart's legendary cover of the none-more-iconic eight-minute epic

Guitar World

“It was a fantastic idea. I would have liked a ménage à trois with Brian Jones and his girlfriend”: The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies’ wild tales of Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin and more

Partying with Keith Moon, jamming with Jerry Lee Lewis, getting into a ménage à trois with Brian Jones –Dave Davies has done it all

Louder

"Something that was a big event for me had become an instrument of ridicule": The Kinks' Dave Davies on the double-edged sword of solo success

The artist formerly known as Dave The Rave explains how his disenchantment with Swinging Sixties culture spawned an unlikely solo hit

Louder

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Guitar World

“It was very simplistic compared to my later compositions”: It may have been inspired by the Kinks, but Al Di Meola's Race with Devil on Spanish Highway is one of the great virtuoso displays in guitar history. Watch the maestro play it with Steve Vai

This intimate rehearsal clip shows the fretwork of both guitar legends up-close

The Guardian - UK

Parkas, bucket hats and union jacks: how the Oasis reunion tour is fuelling a comeback for the Britpop look

With Noel and Liam set to return, the style they popularised in the 1990s is back in the spotlight – but what will the Insta-fashion-conscious Gen Z make of it all?

The Guardian - UK

Shel Talmy obituary

Music producer for the Kinks and the Who on hits such as You Really Got Me, Sunny Afternoon and My Generation

MusicRadar

“I’d like to think that there's a big studio in the sky”: Shel Talmy, legendary producer of The Who and The Kinks, dies aged 87

He produced My Generation and other classics

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BANG Premier

The Who and The Kinks producer Shel Talmy dies

Music producer Shel Talmy, who worked with The Who and The Kinks, has died aged 87.

The Guardian - UK

Shel Talmy, producer for the Who, the Kinks and David Bowie, dies aged 87

The American producer helped to craft a raw, immediate sound for British rock in the mid-1960s, with hits such as You Really Got Me and My Generation

Evening Standard

Shel Talmy, producer for The Who and The Kinks, dies aged 87

The US record producer died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

The Guardian - US

‘Played on over 250 albums’: was Nicky Hopkins the greatest unsung pianist ever?

He helped shape classic songs by the Rolling Stones, The Who and the Beatles but his influence on music has been largely ignored. A new documentary aims to correct that

Louder

Watch Rory Gallagher and The Kinks set The Midnight Special ablaze in 1974

Includes the fastest version of The Kinks' You Really Got Me you're ever likely to witness

The Guardian - UK

‘Only three more songs till I kick your ass!’ Rock’n’roll’s biggest onstage bust-ups

Jane’s Addiction’s future is in doubt after a mid-song spat last weekend – but from the Kinks to Oasis, such squabbles are extremely common

Guitar World

They may have lit the fuse for high-voltage rock, but The Kinks are much more than You Really Got Me – and Ray Davies’ inventive acoustic style influenced a generation of players, including Pete Townshend

Listen to the guitar work of the Davies brothers and you’ll gain a real insight into how it was all done back in the 1960s

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