I saw them a few months ago as they have been playing around for a while, but the LA Times put the spotlights on the 88 this week, because of their recent collaboration with Kinks legend Ray Davies.
The local favorites became his backing band for three songs on his recent collaboration-album ‘See My Friends’, playing on ‘A Long Way From Home’ with Lucinda Williams, ‘Till the End of the Day’ with Alex Chilton (also his last recording), and ‘David Watts’, the 88’s own version of the 1967 Kinks’ song.
Vocalist and guitarist Keith Slettedahl explained to the Times:
‘Davies asked us specifically if we wanted to do that song. We were playing it live, and I think he liked the way it sounded’.
But how did Davies hear about them in the first place?
Davies was looking for a band for his tour, the 88 heard about it and put their name in the hat:
‘It was so out of nowhere, in the middle of recording our last record, we got a call saying Ray Davies was looking for a band,’ said Slettedahl.
After sending their demos, 3 Kinks songs he had requested and 3 more for extra credit, they got the job, but were kind of surprise of Davies’ lack of desire to rehearse anything:
‘We hadn’t even met him before our first show together! He didn’t even give us a list of what to do, so we just practiced a bunch of Kinks’ songs at random’.
But they did very good, as they ended up doing 19 dates with him, and the experience was just as they had anticipated it. Just before embarking for the tour, Slettedahl had declared to the OC Weekly:
‘I don't have any words for that. I don't know how to explain it. I'm just really excited. There is nothing I can say. I would just sound like a total dork and go crazy about it. He's the top with me, the greatest ever. The Beatles, him and Dylan are my biggest influences’.
It is so rare when dreams come true.