Welcome to MusicDayz

The world's largest online archive of date-sorted music facts, bringing day-by-day facts instantly to your fingertips.
Find out what happened on your or your friends' Birthday, Wedding Day, Anniversary or just discover fun facts in musical areas that particularly interest you.
Please take a look around.

Fact #126328

When:

Short story:

The Kinks, The Yardbirds and Goldie And The Gingerbreads play another show in their 21-date British tour, at The Capitol Cinema, Cardiff, Wales, UK. During the show, Kinks' guitarist Dave Davies kicks over Mick Avory's drumkit. Avory retaliates by throwing a cymbal at Davies, who crashes to the stage with a gashed head. The Kinks will be replaced on remaining dates by The Walker Brothers.

Full article:

Chris Dreja (Yardbirds) : It was a tour with The Kinks, Goldie and the Gingerbreads and us. There was some aggro between Dave Davies of The Kinks and their drummer Mick Avory.

Dave Davies (guitarist, The Kinks] : Two or three days prior to Cardiff, Ray and I had one of our many creative disagreements. I was getting pissed off with Mick, because he never said anything. Mind you, even Pete got fed up with the arguments and he'd say "For fuck's sake, leave me out of it." But Mick wouldn't even say that. He never said anything.

Pete Quaife (bassist, The Kinks] : Mick and Dave had fallen out the night before in Torquay, so the next day I went to Cardiff with Mick, while Ray and Dave went together. We had to have two separate dressing rooms in Cardiff, but we knew that the show had to go on. So we got out on the stage and everything was going fine until I realised, just as it happened, that when we finished You Really Got Me, Dave would have to turn round to Mick and count in the next number, Too Much Monkey Business. So Dave turns round and does the count in, Mick started on the kit, but Dave just stood there glowering.

Dave Davies : I looked at Mick and I thought he looked like a real chump. Like a real idiot, and I turned around to him on stage and I said "Why don't you get your cock out and play the snare drum with it? It'd probably sound better."

Pete Quaife : Mick looks up, like, "What's going on?" Dave walks up to him and kicks the drum kit, then he walked back to the microphone and began the number as if nothing had happened.

Chris Dreja : I was standing just off stage, wondering what was going to happen. Dave had returned to his place, looking as though he thought he'd gone too far,

Pete Quaife : The look on Mick's face was incredible. He spat on his hands, picked up the cymbal, walked behind Dave and went ka-wham right across his head.

Chris Dreja : He went down like a ton of bricks. I was shocked. It was incredible.

Pete Quaife : Dave just passed out, straight away, blood all over the place. Mick just ran off stage, Ray was just dumbfounded. The only person still playing was me. I'm right in the middle of this chaos, five thousand people staring in disbelief, and I'm still playing my bass. What else could I do?

I think the audience thought it was all part of the act. They were going absoloutely nuts. I looked around and saw the road manager, Alex, and I'm mouthing to him 'Close the fucking curtains!' He eventually got the message and that was the end of it. Dave went off to hospital, the police were looking for Mick, Ray was threatening to kill him if he ever saw him again. It was a good time for Ray to emote. "My brother, my brother."

Chris Dreja : Avory dashed off and apparently holed up in a transport café. Ray Davies burst into tears, shouting 'He's killed my little brother.' I thought he had killed him.

Dave Davies : Next thing, I woke up with a gash in my head. Ray had thought I was dead, he was hysterical, and Mick had panicked and run off. I think Larry had told him to get off his mark. The funny side is that I've always had this vision of Mick sitting on the Cardiff to London train thinking the cops are after him in a frilly shirt and a pink jacket trying to look inconspicuous.

Ray Davies : The incident with Dave and Mick horrified me. I was scared it was going to happen again. Seeing people reduced to that level and talking to the police afterwards who wanted to arrest Mick for GBH. It was a pretty horrible time.

Pete Quaife : I went back by train the next day. I really thought it was all over for us. I thought that was the end of the band. I would have packed it in. I wasn't happy in the band anyway.there was so much fighting going on, it was ridiculous.You didn't know what to say, where to look … in the car once, I just whistled part of a Beatles tune and it turned into a fist fight. Alex had to pull the car over. It was ridiculous.

Ray Davies : It was a few guys who'd been nobodies a few months before. We didn't go through what The Beatles had gone through in Hamburg, we didn't hang around as a band and live as a band. I went straight from college into the band; I was a nobody, then I was successful. It was not being able to grow up.

Dave Davies : After Cardiff, there was a brief hiatus and we got back to work again. In a way, although it could have been a terrible incident, in the longer term, I think the relationship between me and Mick was strengthened by it. I think he realised that he couldn't always just be impartial.He had to get involved. He became more of a brother after that. We went on falling in and out of love, but that happens, doesn't it?

Pete Quaife (basist, The Kinks] : It should also be mentioned that I screwed Goldie, the drummer from Goldie and the Gingerbreads in Cardiff. Goldie was up in my hotel room. The Doors were wide open and she was picking out a sweater, because they, being Yanks, found it very cold. All of a sudden this security guy comes barging in, flashing his badge, and telling us to get out of the hotel. It wasn't that she was half-dressed or anything. She was fully clothed, but they just weren't going to have a young woman in the same room as a young man. And he turfed us out. So my mind starts working. Hang on, he's turfed us both out, so we've both got to find a place. Being young and wild … eventually we found a nice little bed and breakfast and we settled in. She was a lot of fun.
(Quotes compiled by Johnny Black, some from in-person interviews some from historic cuttings)