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20
Monday
With Hewlett-Packard and Tide commercials keeping decades-old Kinks songs like “Picture Book” and “All Day and All of the Night” in the zeitgeist, 61-year-old Ray Davies, the legendary Brit band’s leader, could be forgiven for just sitting back on his laurels. That is not Davies’ way, though. After examining his childhood and life with the Kinks in his ’90s cabaret performance The Storyteller, this quintessential observer of English life moved to pre-Katrina New Orleans. Then, after dealing with relationship issues, getting his health back after being shot by a robber, and conquering his fears of recording without his bandmates, he returned to London and finally turned years of demos into the solo studio effort Other People’s Lives. Though Lives never rocks harder than “You Really Got Me” or gets more wistfully melodic than “Waterloo Sunset,” it does include some of Davies’ catalog-worthy blends of wry lyrics and memorable choruses. Davies performs at 7 p.m. at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $35. (202) 265-0930. (Steve Kiviat)