Talk:The Kinks' 1965 US tour/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 22:29, 24 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Dibsing, per my talk page :) Will review within a week hopefully, ping if I let it slip. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 22:29, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Under the wire baby! You remember the deal from last time - everything subject to discussion, feel free to disagree with changes. Here we go.


 * Lead
 * I think you can just say "English rock band" but nbd
 * I'll change it to "band", as the reason for using "group" is probably unnecessarily subtle. As I understand it, "band" had not completely entered the lexicon to refer to groups like the Kinks or the Beatles – that did not come about until the second half of the decade – but at that time still referred to jazz big bands. "Group" was used in the early to mid-'60s.
 * Oh sorry! I meant in the opening sentence, which says "The English rock band the Kinks". You can probably just go with "English rock band The Kinks".
 * Oh, haha, I missed that. I see. I've noticed that FAs use the definite article there (e.g. Sgt. Pepper, "Hey Jude", "Something"), but I have not been able to find any style guide that explains why. I think it may be an American versus British English thing. I've asked the editor who wrote most of those pages where the distinction comes from, but until I hear back from him, I will switch to your wording.


 * "a physical fight between bandleader Ray Davies and a union official" I'm so excited already
 * "Unable to promote" and "Ray resolved the ban" - you don't outright state they were banned earlier, so these sentences are a bit confusing in the lead.
 * I added the line "effectively banning them from US performance" to the end of the first paragraph. Does that help?


 * Background
 * "Taking place for three weeks in June and July" is phrased a bit clunky. I might put that clause at the end of the last sentence, something like "to tour the United States in April 1965, with dates scheduled across three weeks in June and July." It kinda leaves the next bit about their first US tour a little naked, but it connects better I think.
 * Agreed. I went with your wording.


 * Do we know why they didn't want to join the union? No worries if sources simply don't say.
 * I see this is addressed later so I'm fine with it being elided over here


 * why are these people so fighty
 * With the Davies brothers I think it all came down to ego. For Mick Avory, I think he was tired of constantly having his drumming skills torn apart by the brothers.


 * Repertoire...
 * These days package tour most commonly refers to vacation packages. I'm guessing based on context that for concert tours it means a bunch of acts thrown together, kind of like Warped Tour? But if possible maybe that could use some clarification
 * Yes, a package-tour is where a bunch of acts are thrown together. Stuff like the Warped Tour and the original touring Lollapalooza hearkened back to this idea. In the 1960s, it was the format for absolutely everyone. Even by 1966, the Beatles were still doing it. It was all quite ridiculous. The show would run around three hours, but the Kinks' set only ran for the last 40 minutes. That wasn't really what the fans wanted (as you can read in this contemporary article), but things changed slowly because, naturally, the people who least understood the music scene were the ones in charge of the industry. I've added a mention about the shows being around three hours while the Kinks' segment ran for 40 minutes. Do you think that's enough context, or should I add more, maybe to a note? Here (p. 146) is a source that describes package-tours.


 * "The Kinks' set..." maybe split here at "The Kinks wore"? Right now you have one para that covers two ideas
 * Done.


 * "Sound quality..." Similarly, I think split this para into two, one about sound quality and one about their instruments
 * I'm hesitant to split this one as I think the sound quality and bit about the guitar aren't too unrelated, plus I'm worried about having too many short paragraphs in succession. I can split it if you feel strongly about it though.


 * Tour - Final preparations
 * "After announcing the tour" this sentence has "a delay" twice
 * Reworded.


 * Do we know why the 5 shows were cancelled?
 * I think it was related to the Moody Blues not being able to make it to the US, but I can't find any source that specifies this. Perhaps it was all just part of the chaos and general mismanagement that characterized the tour.


 * "sometimes violent inter-band disputes" they had these regularly?
 * Yup, plenty of fighting during rehearsals, recording sessions and even during concerts. I added some extra bits in the Background section for added context.


 * You've done a good job of communicating Ray Davies' concerns and issues without making him sound totally nuts


 * It's so wild to me that music journalism just dismissed these bands out of hand. How things have changed!
 * No doubt. Before Sgt. Pepper, most mainstream coverage focused on the teenage hysteria that surrounded groups with essentially no attention at all given to the music. KRLA Beat was pretty much the only dedicated rock music publication in America, as Rolling Stone and Crawdaddy didn't exist yet. Robert Christgau, the first dedicated rock music critic, didn't get his own column until 1967.


 * Was this police escort supposed to be protecting the Kinks from the public, or the public from the Kinks?
 * I'm guessing it was to protect the Kinks from their rabid fans. This line comes from Doug Hinman's book, and I think his source for this bit of information was something Ray wrote in a postcard, but neither Ray nor Hinman provide any more context. I realize now that there is more information that I could include regarding the fans' crazy behaviour. There are stories of fans bashing in a window of the band's van, teen girls holding onto the top of the Kinks' car while they drove around New York and groupies physically fighting over who would get to sleep with Dave.


 * The last paragraph in this subsection was a bit confusing for me, going from Reno to a cancelled show in Stockton back to Reno. I might move the Stockton cancellation ahead of the Reno show, because then you can spend the rest of the paragraph talking about Reno and its consequences.
 * Yeah, definitely. I moved the Stockton bit to the end of the previous paragraph. I thought it maybe fit better there, as I could not figure out where else to put it in the Reno paragraph without disrupting the flow.


 * "much of their set with a prolonged version of "You Really Got Me" this is so hilariously petty
 * Weaker sources coming way later (usually magazines) say it took up the set, which seems especially petty, but I think the writers are just inflating details. My mom loves doing that too.


 * "filed a legal notice" - do we know why?
 * There's a lot more to the management dispute that I thought was beyond the scope of this article. In this case, it seems that the band's producer Shel Talmy anticipated that Larry Page would try to do some producing as a sort of power play. With three managers and a freelance producer, you can imagine the band was sort of caught in the middle. I've added a line for context.


 * Since they had already done a bunch of TV appearances, do we know why AFTRA decided to come after them now?
 * I think I should probably expand on this before I try for featured status. At present, the article reads like Ray had issues with the union only because he was a curmudgeon or scab or something, but really the US musicians' union seemed to have it out for British Invasion acts. It seems it was a protectionist sort of thing, trying to boost American performers while keeping British acts out. The unions (could included the musicians', singers' and television & radio unions) would charge exorbitant fees and would make performers re-sign every time they returned for a new tour. Here's an article in Popular Music about how the union briefly tried to ban the Beatles for no real reason. The author of that article, Michael James Roberts, later wrote a whole book on the subject, which I've cited in this article. I think it has more I can add on this.


 * "absence of his wife Rasa" - there's a note earlier talking about Ray kissing his wife in public. Did she visit the tour earlier?
 * She was only there for the last week. The kissing incident happened in Spokane, which was the third last day of the tour. I have it in a note up there because I have tried to keep things separated by themes, rather than just listing the events chronologically. I'll clarify when the kissing incident happened to avoid any confusion.


 * "after expressing his feelings to his bandmates, the group decided" - the two clauses need to agree grammatically. "after he expressed" would be more correct
 * Fixed.


 * Aftermath
 * '...unless I supervise it"' direct quotes need a cite following them
 * Fixed.

As with the previous article, mostly minimal gripes and some questions, but nothing serious. I really enjoy your use of footnotes; reminds me of Hoary, who also bedecks his articles with interesting bits and bobs. Overall an interesting and well-written piece of work. No issues with CV, sourcing, POV, etc. It does look like you have a source - Anon. (25 June 1965e) - that you didn't cite anywhere. Images check out (I tweaked the license of one but fortunately it was cc-by-sa 3.0 from the original author). Looking forward to passing this once comments are addressed :) &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 18:27, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for the review, PMC! I learned the footnote bit from a much better researcher and writer than I. That formatting is used at some of my favourite articles on the website, like Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles' 1966 tour of Germany, Japan and the Philippines, the latter of which was a very helpful guide in structuring this page. I like the footnote style because it compromises between not including information that probably isn't important enough to the general reader but which would be valuable to a researcher or interested reader.  Tkbrett  (✉) 03:16, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm satisfied with your changes and responses, so I'm ready to pass this one. Drop me a line when you go for FAC and for the GA review when you do the comeback tour, okay? &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 20:10, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks again PMC. I will do that! Similarly, feel free to reach out if you have any nominations up, as I remember really enjoying your Inuit clothing articles; I showed them to my anthropologist friend (who did her graduate studies on the Dorset and Pre-Dorset) and she found them quite impressive.  Tkbrett  (✉) 12:17, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh no way! That's such a cool thing to hear. I'm glad I lived up to academic expectations :) I have Featured article candidates/Illusion of Kate Moss/archive1 up at FAC right now if that's of any interest (but don't feel obligated if you're not). It is a bit of a different animal though - modern fashion rather than traditional clothing. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 12:28, 5 March 2023 (UTC)