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Living on a Thin Line Hardcover – January 17, 2023

by Dave Davies (Author)

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The all new, must-read memoir by legendary Kinks guitarist Dave Davies

'BOOK OF THE DAY' - Guardian

'This powerful tell-all from the Kinks guitarist puts the spotlight on his own bad behaviour, dalliances with the occult and his recovery from a stroke.' - Observer

'Heartfelt, hilarious, revealing, insightful and astonishingly candid. Boy, you really got me Dave. I can't wait to read it again.' - Mark Hamill

Dave Davies is the co-founder and lead guitarist of epoch-defining band the Kinks, a group with fifty million record sales to their name. In his autobiography, Davies revisits the glory days of the band that spawned so much extraordinary music, and which had such a profound influence on bands from The Clash and Van Halen to Oasis and Blur.

Full of tales of the tumultuous times and the ups-and-downs of his relationship with his brother Ray, along with encounters with the likes of John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, this will be a glorious read for Kinks fans and anyone who wants to read about the heyday of rock 'n' roll.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Headline
Publication date

January 17, 2023
Dimensions

6.22 x 1.26 x 9.29 inches
ISBN-10

1472289773
ISBN-13

978-1472289773
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Editorial Reviews

Review

[A] powerful tell-all―The Observer

About the Author

Dave Davies is the lead guitarist and occasional vocalist for legendary rock band The Kinks. As a solo musician, he has recorded several albums and toured the world. In 2003 he was named as one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Headline (January 17, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1472289773
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1472289773
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.19 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.22 x 1.26 x 9.29 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,030,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,656 in Rock Band Biographies

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Will K. Twork

Unexpectedly great read

Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2024

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I'd passed on this book for a long time. But after downloading a sample I was sucked in. I was a huge Kinks fan from the first time I heard "You Really Got Me" as an 11 year old boy in Detroit, Michigan. I loved the Beatles, but the Kinks and The Dave Clark Five gave them (as well as The Rolling Stones) a real run for their money because both bands were heavier than most bands of the era in my opinion. Detroit's hometown band The MC5 were among the acts influenced by the Kinks without a doubt! But after The thier first few albums I kinda lost interest. I never really listened to Village Green, or Arthur, or anything after Kink Kontroversy. Being from the Detroit area, we liked HEAVY ROCK, not the light stuff they began recording. Then in 1970 they released Lola as a single and I bought the album. I still love that record. But again, I lost interest until one day in the mid 70s I found their album Low Budget in a cutout bin at a used record store in Hollywood, and it too is a favorite.
But I'm getting off subject. Dave Davies was the first British musician I'd ever seen with really long (in 1964) hair! And on top of that, playing a Gibson Flying V on one of the American album covers! Dave was always a top notch guitarist, and one of the reasons I became a musician, and finally a professional stage lighting designer.
His story is all over the place, but truly fascinating. Well worth the price of admission. I'd downloaded a sample of Ray Davies book months ago, but the sample didn't interest me enough to buy the book. And after reading Dave's book, I've learned a bit more about Ray, and I'm not sure I like the guy enough to hear his side of things. Ray's a very talented song writer and I always loved his voice, but he's not someone I care too much about. When I worked for Brian Wilson we did a show in London (a festival?) And I found myself seated for dinner with Ray. I don't recall why he was there (perhaps he was on the bill?) but what I do remember, is trying to have a friendly conversation with him, and he ignored me. Oh well, I won't make any judgment, but he was cold.
Regardless, great read by an extremely underrated guitarist, song writer, and of course vocalist.

God bless the Kinks. Heaviest of the British Invasion bands by far. They influenced The Beatles, and The Who as well as many other acts. Long live Dave and Ray Davies.

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BOB

Navigating kinks on a tightrope

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2023

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I read Dave Davies’ first autobiography, ‘Kink’, about seventeen years ago and was quite impressed because there was so much previously unknown insight about Dave who, although he was the lead guitarist and backup singer of the Kinks, was always in the shadow of his older brother, Ray, the front man, singer, leader, and songwriting genius who wrote such classics as “Waterloo Sunset,” “Days,” “Lola,” “Celluloid Heroes,” and the iconic power chord rave-ups “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night.” That raunchy guitar sound was courtesy of three years younger brother Dave and those riffs are an essential part of the DNA of almost all riff-driven rock music that has followed, now going on almost 60 years.

I wasn’t terribly surprised to learn that Dave was a rowdy hell-raiser who led the rocker’s life to the fullest in those heady years of the 60’s, going through drink, drugs, and relationships and one or two-night stands with lovers of both sexes. I was a bit surprised to learn that he was heavily into mysticism and eastern spirituality and of his account of channeling positive energy into a previously listless crowd at a Kinks concert which, within a matter of minutes, became a roaring, cheering crowd. Brother Ray didn’t know how to react to Dave’s silent power but told him the next night, “Whatever you did last night, do it again.”

‘Living on a Thin Line,’ published in 2022, covers much of the same ground but from the perspective of a much older man who had a stroke in 2004, losing much of the use of the right side of his body. With meditation he focused his energy toward learning mobility again, including relearning how to play the guitar. He did have the advantage of all those years of playing which had built up reflexes and muscles that he could call back into action. He did physiotherapy, repetitive motion, stretching, and painting. Within two years he could play guitar again.
After he was released from the hospital he still needed help from loved ones, which led him to stay with brother Ray for two weeks:
‘My brother is very talented and gifted, and I don’t want to be mean so soon, but I sometimes feel he’s like a vampire the way he draws so much energy from people. True enough, that’s helped him become a great songwriter and he knows how to channel his ability to use people in a creative way. I’m glad he has always been part of my life, but you need to be strong around him. The way he was absorbing my energy during those two weeks, eventually I thought…Ray, I love you, but really I don’t have much to give at the moment.’

This is recounted in the first chapter and brings us back to one of the perennial themes running through Dave and Ray Davies’ lives and, in turn, through the career of The Kinks.

It has been a few years since I read ‘Kink’ so I didn’t mind reading about the large Davies family, growing up in the post-war years, the six older sisters, one older brother, and extended family of cousins and aunts and how music was always in the family, the early musical attempts by the brothers to form a band with friend Pete Quaife, the heartbreaking story of Dave’s teenage affair with his first great love Sue, how their parents kept them apart, which he could see in retrospect allowed young Dave to stay focused on a music career although it formed an emotional gap over subsequent years to pursue indiscriminate sex and drugs to fill that void, later learning that Sue had given birth to Dave’s child. The ‘schoolboy in disgrace’ portion of that story formed the basis for the Kinks’ album, ‘Schoolboys in Disgrace, which included several great songs, including Dave’s favorite, “Headmaster.”

I don’t recall Dave going into as much detail with his same-sex encounters, which he viewed as less serious than his heterosexual relationships, oblivious in his breakup with one who was truly heartbroken, when Dave minimized the emotional component of the relationship, viewing their sexual activity as a frivolous bit of fun.

In this book, Dave finally provides a partial explanation for why the Kinks, in the middle of their first whirlwind tour of the U.S. were banned by the musicians’ union from playing in the country for over three years. For one thing, their managers were not as dedicated to staying with them and ensuring they went through the proper paces, often leaving them to fend for themselves.
‘Only years later did we realise that each time we cancelled a concert, or pulled one of our stunts, like playing a twenty-minute set, or driving everyone nuts with forty minutes of “You Really Got Me,’ complaints were made to the union. Each time we had an altercation with a promoter or musicians’ union representative, it was held in evidence against us. We were innocents abroad who had no idea about the power of these union people. The expectation was that US tours by British bands would tick along flawlessly. The Beatles had managed perfectly well before us, but they had Brian Epstein on their side: all they needed to do was show up and play. We had no such luck. Robert and Grenville stayed home, Larry didn’t last the distance, we failed to keep our mouths shut when things didn’t work out. In short, everyone connected with The Kinks, band and management, went wrong.’

The Kinks were virtually shut out of a U.S. market during the years of greatest experimentation and growth, missing out on even the possibility of playing at high profile festivals like Monterrey and Woodstock. The advantage of this omission was that it forced them into mining their own British culture. If The Kinks had been performing in America alongside the Rolling Stones and The Who, they probably would not have made classic albums such as ‘The Village Green Preservation Society’ and ‘Arthur (or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire),’ at least not in the same way.

Dave is very perceptive about his shortcomings, but one fact he never quite comes to terms with is, despite his insistence that his children are the center of his life, why he would leave one wife with young children once he found another young beauty with whom he is smitten. He changes partners with the casualness of trading in a car for a newer model. I lost track of how many children he fathered and how many women he had either married or lived with for an extended period.

I can understand why The Kinks will probably never reunite and the main reason stems from the distance Dave needs to keep from Ray to maintain his own psychological equilibrium. The blood relation has probably kept them involved in each other’s lives more than they would have been if they had just been friends who formed a great and enduring band together. I have never heard any of Dave’s solo albums, only basing my assessment of his songwriting ability on what he contributed to the Kinks’ output: Dave will probably never be the songwriter that Ray Davies is/was. Like it or not, he will always be the younger brother/sidekick to the Kinks’ musical visionary, no matter how much evidence he produces to set the record straight. It may not be fair, but that’s the way it is. Each of them has written two excellent autobiographies, each bearing the unique stamp of their author. For the more complete picture of most of the same events, one has only to read the account of the other brother.

3 people found this helpful

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michael jencik

What a long strange trip he's had

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2024

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3 stars for the Kinks' history, not so sure about the debauchery, infidelity and excess. I wish Dave the best.

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2023

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When I first DISCovered DD had another book I had to purchase it. I read his first book "Kink" (1997). I heard little about DD with the solo tours, CDs on the internet and of course the Stroke. Best of all contributions to 5oth "Arthur" CD (which I can't find I might add... ) I've seen THE KINKS 17 TIMES IN 4 states and have seen Ray Davies twice. Met both brothers a few times and have been Kredited in 5 Kinks books - so my Kredentials of being a Fan are established.I enjoyed revisiting the KINKS past and brought up to speed about DD's life.DD's fills the reader in about all the evnts the average Kink fan may have missed- Awards, CD releases and tours. Dave made a solo album with one of his sons! Sadly- being reminded about past members of the Kinks is retold but this fan was unaware of some other trajedys (Gordon Edwards passing... and friends.) Dave tells the story accurately and I just Kouldn't put the book down. BTW the book Kame out July 7th. I ordered "Rippin Up Time" CD cause I just got reinspired!!!!

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Steve

Highly recommended

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2023

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I read Dave's first autobiography Kink, when it was first published. This new autobiography is equally a masterpiece. Dave's life is a nonstop adventure. If you love the Kinks or rock in general, you will love this incredible book. It is definitely not a boring read. I couldn't put it down.

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Sharon A. Franco

Oh Dave

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2023

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As a hardcore Kinks fan, Dave offers a good read but nothing new. The exception is his description of his time recording in various studios along with the many problems regarding contracts and such. It's a good fast read and surely worthy, but if you read Kinks, that about covers it.

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Top reviews from other countries

David B.

Revealing "Bio" Will satisfy Kinks' Fans

Reviewed in Canada on March 19, 2024

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Growing up in England the Kinks' were one of my favorite bands. Hits like You Really Got Me, Sunny Afternoon and Waterloo Sunset and many, more resonate to this day. So I really enjoyed this autobiography by Dave Davies the group's lead guitarist and brother of Ray Davies their main songwriter. Dave Davies certainly lived the rock 'n roll lifestyle to the Max and he tells all. He also talks about the not so well known facts of his musical contributions to the Kinks' music in the studio where compositions (written by Ray) are transformed into hit songs. His interest is Spirituality and Mysticism as well as a foray into film making may surprise the reader. I enjoyed this book-it is not overly long-it zips along at a good pace and revealed all kinds of stuff I never knew about one of my favorite bands. Recommended.

Pontybodkin Pete

Dave Davies` Living on a Thin Line.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 12, 2024

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Absolutely choca-block full of brilliantly interesting personal details about Dave`s life - before and after The Kinks, but the book needs to be bigger so that the print is readable without a magnifying glass. I`ll have to get stronger reading glasses !!

Denis Kolchin

Dave's spiritual life

Reviewed in Italy on August 24, 2022

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From the very first pages Dave goes spiritual and once he used the word magick.. I thought: "Oh no, here we go, I have to read about occult crowley crap, yoga, Kabalah and other esoteric nonsense..." and exactly what it was! He mentioned all of it, of course it takes not a big part of the book, but I wish he kept it for himself. For the rest, love most of the Kinks stuff and some of the details were interesting to know.

Kevin Doyle

He lays it on the line....

Reviewed in Canada on January 11, 2024

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The good the bad and the ugly - it's all here.

Amazon Customer

Great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 3, 2024

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Great read.

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