Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 12:22:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Jill Brand <jlbrand@bu.edu>
Subject: The real Arvon

I'm surprised that we have yet to hear from any of the *real* Arvon songwriters (Geoff Lewis, weren't you there or are you just keeping this as your little secret?), but I was told that, though the weather was horrible, everything else was GREAT.  Word has it that there is really a lot of talent out there in Kinkdom (digesters and freewheelers alike).  The musical this year was "Thelma and Louise."   But I guess that not too many people learned how to balance those beer cans after all....

Jim, Mitch, and whoever else was there, COME ON AND SPILL THE BEANS!!!!
Help us to escape the dreary controversies of split infinitives and nicotine patches.

Jill
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End of Kinks Digest #831
************************


From: "Geoff Lewis" <Geofftcl@btinternet.com>
Subject: The Arvon Songwriting Course
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 06:33:32 -0000

Sorry I didn't report immediately - the fact is, I was disappointed.

We were obviously not worthy of the great songwriter's presence most of the week and he found the pub in the village more to his taste.  That is, apart from one young lady on the course, in whom he took a great interest.  We didn't see much of her, either.

There was a woman called Marion who really ran the course.  She lectured at length on songwriting theory, including some very difficult things like dominant/submediant key transitions, and she kept giving us severely difficult projects to keep us busy.  To be honest, it all went right over my head.

We never got a chance to go to the pub ourselves - it was too far to walk and there were too many police in the area to risk driving after even one drink.

Ray turned up late on the second day, wearing sun-glasses, a big coat and a wide-brimmed hat.  After signing a few autographs he unfortunately had to leave for a meeting with his press agent.  I think some of the others managed to get a quick word with him, but he seemed very aloof, so I kept my distance.

I never saw Ray on the next two days, but he did attend the musical version of "Thelma and Louise" that we did on the last day.  He congratulated us on our efforts, and I think he was genuinely impressed with Jim's portrayal of Thelma.

I did manage to give him a tape of my stuff, but I don't expect he will have time to listen to it, as all the other students did the same, as did the Centre Director, two of the cleaners and the farmer's son from the adjoining farm.

I guess I was expecting too much.

- Geoff

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Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:02:13 -1000
From: Jim Smart <jimsmart@hula.net>
Subject: Waterloo Sunset, the book

Miriam and Dave, you are too funny. Two funny. I'd just like to add as far as the WS book, that I met premier Kinks fan Olga while on the songwriting course, and she prefers WS to XRay and finds it more revealing of Ray. I'm not sure if I agree with her, but I think it's an interesting notion. I like X Ray a lot better, but some of the stories in WS are great (some are
not).
For those who don't know who Olga is, she is a major fan. When Ray was in Edinburgh for a two week run, she went to every show. Say no more.  Sweet lady.

Jim

PS, Geoff, you devil. Do you really think Ray liked the way I played Thelma? Was it too much, with me seducing the hitchhiker, then revealing myself when he said "I'm glad I'm a man" with my clever reply "So am I"?

PPS, for those of you taking this seriously, forget it! Geoff's tongue was way in his cheek yesterday. It's OK, as long it it doesn't go too far. We wouldn't want you all to know that Ray has a full beard, has shaved his head, pierced his lower lip with a plastic purple ring, and will now devote himself exclusively to music for Children's movies (starting with Toy Story
II, Sid Strikes Back). I'll write more later, fer sure.

jimsmart@hula.net * Hawaii * http://www.hula.net/~jimsmart/
_______________________jest checking_________________________
     * Thank you for the days *                 ~ Ray Davies

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Geoff - I'm so sorry about the songwriting course.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 17:29:21 -0500 (EST)
From: Mitch Friedman <mitchf@mindspring.com>
Subject: Arvonians Anonymous

Hello all you very patient folk,

Seems like while we were away at Ray's course all hell broke loose here on the list.  Hopefully this and some other postings from fellow course attendees will set it back on track . . .

I wouldn't even know where to begin so I'll start at the present and look
back.  Last week was simply the most fun, insightful, delightful and memorable of my life so far. At least it's up there in the top two or three weeks for sure.

It would be tempting to go into a minute by minute account but I'm not going to do that because I don't really want to give away the magic and mystery of taking one of these courses. One thing for sure though, if you are not seriously committed to writing songs or wanting to learn how to in four days then don't even begin to consider taking Ray's course. It was a lot of very hard work (something like 7 or 8 songs to be written over the course of four days). But don't be fooled, it was enormous fun too. All of the other students, nine of which were from the UK and the remaining seven from the US were wonderful people and we all got along great. The setting for the course was spectacular in a manor house that was 1000 years old surrounded by rolling farmland, miles from the nearest town of Sheepwash.
The couple that managed the house were very nice and creative types in their own right. And all of our dinners were prepared by a husband and wife team that own a restaurant and were doing this as a kind of semi-vacation. The meals were SO delicious.

But I bet you want to know what it was like to spend 5 days with Ray, huh?
Initially I think we were all somewhat nervous to meet him since, well, he is Ray, but as soon as he arrived on the morning of the second day all nervousness disappeared. He was friendly, charming, down to earth, funny, sympathetic (especially to those with jet lag), talkative, interesting, comfortable and in charge.

Basically he's just a regular guy who was happy to be there and up for the challenge of getting 16 people to improve their songwriting in less than a week. He gave us a series of exercises, some short and some requiring a bit more working through but all were interesting and fairly taxing given the time constraints. At the completion of each exercise we would all meet
in a barn converted to a sort of living room/ performance space where each of us would take turns playing our songs for Ray's astute ears. He is a great listener and was able to instantly provide good feedback on everyone's efforts. He was very supportive to everyone.

A few times throughout the week we all got a chance to meet with Ray individually for anywhere from 5 minutes to 45 minutes depending on what needed to be discussed. These were great fun and very helpful and it was really special to be able to just sit there and have a nice conversation with him about just about anything.

The last day we all wrote and performed a musical version of Thelma and Louise and I think it was quite impressive. Then Ray broke out the local beer and we all had a nice session of photos and hugs and playing Kinks songs (which happened just about every night at the exclusion of Ray though he did once pop his head in to witness Jim leading everyone in "You
Make It All Worthwhile"). At no point in the course did Ray pick up an instrument and play a song but that was fine with all of us because he worked as hard as we did if not more so to keep things running smoothly.
He was helped by a woman named Marion who handled a lot of the scheduling of sessions, etc. Ray ate dinner with us a few of the nights and like I said before he blended right in. No one embarrassed themselves in his presence (at least not in the over zealous fan kind of way; maybe there was some embarrassment in the "I just finished writing this song 10 minutes
ago and I can barely remember how it goes" department though!).

We did not pepper him for trivial details or put him on the spot about getting another Kinks album together but over the week we did learn a few interesting bits of info.  On the upcoming "Storyteller" CD there will be two versions of "London"; one acoustic and one done with a band called Reef as a one-off kind of thing since he's friendly with them. His tour
will be solo (with just Pete). There will be 3 or 4 new songs on the new CD that are not in his show. When Ray was 27 he took a course in arranging. He said that if he had gotten the money from all those early hits when they happened he wouldn't have gone on but since songwriting was the only thing he thought he could do he eventually learned to accept it
and enjoy the process. When remastering the Muswell Hillbillies album he came across a few unfinished demos and studio outtakes which he wanted to include. He found a bunch of unlabeled tapes with all sorts of bits and pieces on it from over the years and he's going to go through them sometime soon. He spent 2 months in Spain recently just writing songs for
his upcoming "Come Dancing" theatrical musical which he hopes to workshop in New York later this year. (Workshop means to go through with actors and get the show into shape; we're not talking public performances here!). At least three of the days he was wearing a T-shirt that said "Heavens to Mergatroid" on it.

At the risk of being accused of aloofness, that's about all I want to say on the matter since like I said some of the personal moments and mystery should be protected and cherished. I made some great friends there and learned a lot from Ray. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Mitch


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