Working out
the Kinks

>>Besnard Lakes, the Stills, Chocolat and more salute the original Brit-rock bad boys

ALL OF THE NIGHT: The Kinks in the 1960s

By ERIK LEIJON

At the height of the original British Invasion during the mid-’60s, seminal London-based rockers the Kinks—led by the original fighting brothers, Ray and Dave Davies—were banned from performing in the United States, allegedly due to their rowdy on-stage behaviour. When some of Montreal’s most passionate guys and gals—including the Besnard Lakes, Bionic, Sunday Sinners, along with members of the Stills and Apostle of Hustle—pay tribute to the dark brown voices of the British Invasion during the first-ever Kink Konvention event, picture yourself feeling alright by their sides instead of the more theme-appropriate fisticuffs.

Alongside the aforementioned groups culling tracks from the Kinks’ 32-year history will be Chocolat, Elephant Stone, DJ Crawdaddy Simon, DJ George of the Dears and a few special guests. The Kink Konvention, utilizing the same alliteration as the group’s early records, wasn’t conceptualized as a grand tribute night akin to some of the bigger Jazz Fest shindigs. The original plan was to hold a small show or even multiple shows at Barfly, but the enthusiastic response Besnard Lakes member and event creator Olga Goreas received from her musical peers required moving Kink Konvention to a bigger venue.

“The Kinks were the first to write overtly about how messed up the music industry was,” says Goreas, who also put together a Guided by Voices tribute at Main Hall last year. “I like that underdog quality. They were pretty much screwed by the business, but the Kinks and Ray Davies still wrote these beautiful songs that continue to live on.”

Formed in 1963 in London, the Kinks were influenced by British musical history and subject matter during their heyday, more so than their American-market-penetrating peers. Although internal strife nearly derailed the group several times, the Kinks became one of the longest running bands in pop music history, along the way etching themselves as one of the most influential contributors to British music. Both Ray and Dave Davies have released solo albums in recent years, despite the latter being the victim of a stroke in 2004.

“My favourite Kinks songs are the beautifully written, orchestrated pop songs,” says Goreas. “They’re just great love songs.” Goreas and Jace Lasek, the husband-and-wife team helming Besnard Lakes, will be tackling the most heart-wrenchingly romantic song in the Kinks catalogue, “Waterloo Sunset,” which fittingly featured Ray Davies’ first wife on backing vocals.

“The whole idea is to Besnardify the songs. I’ve always liked doing covers and interpreting things differently, and I like to hear how other bands of the new age interpret the classics.”

Although many cover bands strive for performing carbon copies of the source material, Dave Hamelin and his colleagues in the Stills will be injecting their own personal style into their favourite record, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. Hamelin will be returning to the drums for this performance, alongside fellow Stills members Tim Fletcher and Liam O’Neil, as well as Apostle of Hustle bassist Julian Brown.

“It’s awesome to go to Clyde’s and catch somebody doing ‘Cat Scratch Fever,’ but we wanted to do them a little differently,” says Hamelin. “We’re putting in a lot of time and effort, we want it to be great. We’ll be doing our own versions.”

Kink Konvention with
the Besnard Lakes, Bionic,
Sunday Sinners, Stills and more at
les Saints on Saturday,
May 10, 8 p.m., $12