Playing on the third night of this year's Meltdown, curated by Ray Davies, the alternative rock trio from Hoboken, New Jersey, more than match the high standards set on the two previous evenings by cult acts The Legendary Pink Dots, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and The Fugs.

His guitar sound made the Kinks one of the greatest bands of the 1960s – not that his brother Ray gives him the credit. Dave Davies opens up to Robert Chalmers about fraternal feuds, ceremonial axes, mystical encounters – and why he hasn't ruled out a reunion

Ray Davies is considering resurrecting The Kinks without his brother.

Why the old ones are still the best

Just a few kinks along the way

My parents were ... working class, but very supportive of our family of eight children. They moved from the city to the suburbs after the Second World War to give us a fresh start. They were both from Islington, and the street they lived in had been bombed during the war.

Former kinks frontman Ray Davies has been appointed artistic director of next year's Meltdown Festival, at London's Southbank Centre, just along the Thames from Waterloo Station, where Terry met Julie every Friday night in one of his most enduring songs.

For Davies, it's a chance to squeeze back into the songs that made his name – as any man of 66 might wish to revisit an old pair of jeans.

When the BBC Proms kick off tonight, a starring role will be taken by an amateur choir from north London

Sun, sea, sand and sweaty festivals wouldn't be the same without the right soundtrack. Robert Webb selects the hottest holiday hits

On paper, Pete Quaife had an enviable job: he was touring the world playing bass in the Kinks, one of the biggest rock bands of the 1960s: it was always party time as alcohol and girls were readily available and he didn't have to worry about the group losing its popularity as its leader, Ray Davies, was a master songwriter. In reality, he was constantly caught in arguments and scuffles between the fractious Davies brothers, and quite often they would gang up and take it out on the rest of the group. With an unsettled management team, the Kinks was always on the verge of breaking up.

"Some people seem to think my new single "Postcard From London" is a Christmas song. It wasn't meant to be one, although it does mention snow. I'm looking ahead to when I have grandchildren and they ask me: 'London – what is this place?' I feel the culture of the London I used to know is disappearing. That's something I explore in Olympicland, and I'm hoping to get that project finished for a run at the Theatre Royal in Stratford before the Olympics get underway. I just hope the community around Stratford can afford to live there when the Games are over. We don't want a repeat of the ethnic cleansing that went on in Beijing.

Ray of sunshine on wet home turf

Another step away from the showbiz ledge, towards which an early signing to a jazz major once edged her.