Feb
16
What Peter Quaife told me…
I came back from lunch and found the red light on my phone signalling a message. It was a call from overseas. Peter Quaife, original Kinks bassist and all-around great guy, had today received the screener of the film that I’d sent. So he’d popped it in. “I wanted to let you know, I have seen the movie,” Pete Q. said into the machine. “It is brilliant.”
What can I say about Crutch? First, one of my big regrets in making this film is not scraping up a few thousand dollars and heading to Denmark to interview him. Because every time I called over the last two years, he was charming, full of humor and totally selfless in his commentary.
Here’s a good example. Sometime in 2008, a Kinks fan sent me a DVD showing what appeared to be Super 8 films taken by Quaife while touring in the ’60s. They were called “Pete Quaife’s Home Movies.” I wanted more information and called Crutch. He said something along the lines of “a ha” and told me the film had been “misplaced,” a euphemism for stolen or taken without his permission. He was glad to hear I had found them.
Most people in his position would probably get angry and demand they be returned. Not Crutch. He asked if I could send him a copy. And when it came to cutting our film, he agreed to license the material for a very reasonable fee. (I don’t want to say how much because, frankly, he should get more in the future.)
So that’s Crutch. I wish he were healthy enough to come to one of our screenings. But he did say he’ll be there if we’re able to score a festival close to his home, which to me says “Copenhagen.”
A live Kinks connection is conducive to keeping the dream alive. I am sure Peter has seen many attempts at telling some story of the band. The fact he thinks it is “brilliant”is not to be taken lightly. Do you have a showing at a film festival pending for Great Britain? Would really be a headturner there; with the original bassist for the Kinks throwing kudos about the movie, I am certain that the BBC or a reasonable equivalent would look to put this on the tube for all the old and new fans of the Kinks to revel in.
as much as i like nobby and jimmy, pete quaife will always be
THE KINKS BASS PLAYER for me…. the one who played on “two sisters”, “animal farm”…
though i have never met him, i am convinced this man is a true gentleman,
generous, kind and thoughtful.
i do understand why he left the kinks…and i think he probably took the best
dsecision, considering the ambiance in the band…we only have one life to
live and it is there to be cherished and enjoyed….
I ONLY WISH, I WONLY WISH HE’D PUBLISH THE BOOK HE HAD STARTED
TO WRITE ABOUT HIS LIFE ON THE ROAD WITH THE KINKS and other things…
so if you do ever meet him or talk to him, i would be truly greatful if you could
wish him the very best and give him my sincere thanks for having made the
adolescence of “a bored to death” boy living in a farm in the the heart of brittany
in the 60’s, BEARABLE !!!….
thank you for the days pete, thank you for the days truly.
and i , for one, would love to read your own down to earth views on the whole kinks
phenomena…
take care, thanks to you, i’m not living in a farm anymore…
but i’m not far either!
P.S. my only regret is that by the time i reached london
in 1970, you were not in the band any longer…
alain
I am looking forward to Do it Again in København.