Jeff Beck, Ron Wood and Rod Stewart
Stuart Troutman
It was slightly surprising to me when I received a note recently
from a
fellow Kinks fan (no less than Dave Emlen) who had tracked me
down across
many years and a long path back to the beginning days when
Neil Ottenstein
was just starting his original Kinks-focused email
distribution list. unbeknownst to me, I was among the very first persons
to respond to Neil's
subscription offer back then in 1990. This really
takes me back to what now
seem like ancient times....which indeed they
ARE, from the perspectives of
younger folks who are accustomed to the
modern internet and now-common things
like web newsletters & magazines,
specialized web sites, file-sharing
services, and that silly term that I
refuse to use, "blogs". My first email
address was given to me sometime
around 1989, back when the "World-Wide Web"
was more often referred to
as the "Information Superhighway" (how many of you
remember that term?).
As a music fanatic, the first thing that drew me
to
internet-based communications with others was the simple desire to
share
particulars of music interests with like-minded souls out there. It
was
especially intriguing to imagine and then realize the sudden ability
to
have this shared experience in near, if not actual, "real time",
across
not just city/county/state borders, but trans-continentally, even
around
the world (with only native language barriers...something which
would
come to annoy a dumb monolingual US citizen like me). So, somewhere
in
the joyous hazy discovery of music-oriented electronic "bulletin
board
services" ("BBS", another antiquated term), Usenet 'newsgroups', and
the
like, that's where I chanced across something sent out by Neil
that
alerted anyone who cared to read of a new shared information
email
distribution service devoted to one of my favorite bands, The Kinks.
I am among the lucky horde of old geeks who got to be alive and
aware
during the glory days of "The British Invasion" and the subsequent
Rock
Renaissance that grew out of the mid-60s (now I really AM venturing
into
ancient history!). And of course, The Kinks were right at the
forefront of
all that. There were those prized rare moments when fuzzy
black & white
American tv 'variety shows' would present a brief glimpse
of one of the new
British bands, and I've since seen the blurred
preserved footage clips of a
couple of those live performances by The
Kinks that I watched as a kid in my
family home den. I once did a little
self-analysis to try to dig back and
unearth my earliest attractions to
the sounds of electric guitar, and I know
for sure that two of the first
guitarist names that I memorized were Jeff
Beck and Dave Davies, circa
'65. And I have a vivid memory of sending some
simple clipped-out coupon
to a postal address with a Money Order, then
receiving in return a
monochrome copy of one of the very first editions of
the new "Crawdaddy"
magazine from journalist Paul Williams. This edition
happened to feature
a cover photo of Ray Davies, as a promo for the inside
feature interview
and article on the current state of what is now justifiably
known as the
creative zenith of Davies and his Kinks.
Their
monumental string of great albums from '66 to '71 will
forever stand as a
collective landmark achievement in that Renaissance,
and the ultimate
expanded remastered cd releases of all of them years
later are now a
particularly favorite part of my "private collection"
(aka 'the home
landfill'). These albums are all timeless treasures from
beginning to end. I
finally got my chance to catch The Kinks live in
concert around '73, and
despite the hideous acoustics of the venue, they
were superb, especially
Dave. To fast-forward to modern times, anyone
else notice how much the lead
singer of Franz Ferdinand sounds like
vintage Ray?
It's been a joy to
run across fellow Kinks enthusiasts, all of
whom seem to share this view, and
Neil's email list and its evolved web
site have functioned as an essential
heartbeat center for people of this
variety. For this reason alone (I'm sure
there are other reasons!), I
say a huge "Thank You" to Neil Ottenstein, and
by extension, to Dave
Emlen. Everyone who enjoys these services should remind
themselves that
folks like Neil and Dave didn't & don't ever have to
provide these
things for us; we're purely fortunate they choose to do this
stuff.
Bless 'em.
Stuart Troutman (originally from greater Boston MA,
now in Charlotte NC)
Stuart Troutman
It was slightly surprising to me when I received a note recently
from a
fellow Kinks fan (no less than Dave Emlen) who had tracked me
down across
many years and a long path back to the beginning days when
Neil Ottenstein
was just starting his original Kinks-focused email
distribution list. unbeknownst to me, I was among the very first persons
to respond to Neil's
subscription offer back then in 1990. This really
takes me back to what now
seem like ancient times....which indeed they
ARE, from the perspectives of
younger folks who are accustomed to the
modern internet and now-common things
like web newsletters & magazines,
specialized web sites, file-sharing
services, and that silly term that I
refuse to use, "blogs". My first email
address was given to me sometime
around 1989, back when the "World-Wide Web"
was more often referred to
as the "Information Superhighway" (how many of you
remember that term?).
As a music fanatic, the first thing that drew me
to
internet-based communications with others was the simple desire to
share
particulars of music interests with like-minded souls out there. It
was
especially intriguing to imagine and then realize the sudden ability
to
have this shared experience in near, if not actual, "real time",
across
not just city/county/state borders, but trans-continentally, even
around
the world (with only native language barriers...something which
would
come to annoy a dumb monolingual US citizen like me). So, somewhere
in
the joyous hazy discovery of music-oriented electronic "bulletin
board
services" ("BBS", another antiquated term), Usenet 'newsgroups', and
the
like, that's where I chanced across something sent out by Neil
that
alerted anyone who cared to read of a new shared information
email
distribution service devoted to one of my favorite bands, The Kinks.
I am among the lucky horde of old geeks who got to be alive and
aware
during the glory days of "The British Invasion" and the subsequent
Rock
Renaissance that grew out of the mid-60s (now I really AM venturing
into
ancient history!). And of course, The Kinks were right at the
forefront of
all that. There were those prized rare moments when fuzzy
black & white
American tv 'variety shows' would present a brief glimpse
of one of the new
British bands, and I've since seen the blurred
preserved footage clips of a
couple of those live performances by The
Kinks that I watched as a kid in my
family home den. I once did a little
self-analysis to try to dig back and
unearth my earliest attractions to
the sounds of electric guitar, and I know
for sure that two of the first
guitarist names that I memorized were Jeff
Beck and Dave Davies, circa
'65. And I have a vivid memory of sending some
simple clipped-out coupon
to a postal address with a Money Order, then
receiving in return a
monochrome copy of one of the very first editions of
the new "Crawdaddy"
magazine from journalist Paul Williams. This edition
happened to feature
a cover photo of Ray Davies, as a promo for the inside
feature interview
and article on the current state of what is now justifiably
known as the
creative zenith of Davies and his Kinks.
Their
monumental string of great albums from '66 to '71 will
forever stand as a
collective landmark achievement in that Renaissance,
and the ultimate
expanded remastered cd releases of all of them years
later are now a
particularly favorite part of my "private collection"
(aka 'the home
landfill'). These albums are all timeless treasures from
beginning to end. I
finally got my chance to catch The Kinks live in
concert around '73, and
despite the hideous acoustics of the venue, they
were superb, especially
Dave. To fast-forward to modern times, anyone
else notice how much the lead
singer of Franz Ferdinand sounds like
vintage Ray?
It's been a joy to
run across fellow Kinks enthusiasts, all of
whom seem to share this view, and
Neil's email list and its evolved web
site have functioned as an essential
heartbeat center for people of this
variety. For this reason alone (I'm sure
there are other reasons!), I
say a huge "Thank You" to Neil Ottenstein, and
by extension, to Dave
Emlen. Everyone who enjoys these services should remind
themselves that
folks like Neil and Dave didn't & don't ever have to
provide these
things for us; we're purely fortunate they choose to do this
stuff.
Bless 'em.
Stuart Troutman (originally from greater Boston MA,
now in Charlotte NC)
