It was back to the drawing board, and I think it was out of frustration
|
we wanted to sound as distorted as Chuck Berry's guitar on Memphis
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Tennessee. We played the record so many times on that old radiogram
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and so loud, that some of the speakers were crackling in the radiogram,
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completely distorted. And the valves were rattling in the machine.
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So, in fact, you know, God save the Queen sounded like Chuck Berry.
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Everything sounded really distorted. And Dave and I thought
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"How can we make the green amp sound that distorted?".
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So Dave took one of mums knitting-needles and he stuck it into the
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speakers of the little green amp. The Dave played a chord. Pfft.
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It sounded great, yes! Brilliant. That's the sound.
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Dave rechristened the green amp "the fart box".
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Now as I said the front room was a place where we had celebrations
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usually, singsongs.
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When we very young, when I was 13 years old, our oldest sister came
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back from Canada where she had emigrated after the war and she died
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in tragic circumstances. So at the age of 30 she was burried and we had
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a new experience in the front room: a wake.
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But Dave and I were surprised that these adults, still drinking and singing
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songs. We thought that was odd as they were all dressed in black,
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that it was a sad time.
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It's hard to describe the front room. It had a really magical quality to it,
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really spiritual in a way. I went to a church school, but the closest I felt to
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religion was not when I was singing in the school choir or when I was at
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Sunday school which I always went to. But it was more when I rehearsed
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with Dave in the front room.
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The Front Room (Dialogue)
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| Ray Davies |
