Flamin' Groovies Now

Performer: The Flamin' Groovies
Engineer: Dave Edmunds
Producer: Dave Edmunds; Pat Thomas; Dave Edmunds
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: The Flamin' Groovies: Chris Wilson (harpsichord); George Alexander (bass guitar); David Wright (drums, percussion); Cyril Jordan, Mike Wilhelm. Personnel: Dave Edmunds (vocals, guitar, piano); Cyril Jordan (vocals, guitar, Mellotron); Chris Wilson (vocals, guitar); Chris "Poet" Wilson (vocals, harpsichord, percussion); George Alexander (vocals, percussion); Mike Wilhelm (guitar); David Wright (drums, percussion); David Wright (drums). Additional personnel: Dave Edmunds. Liner Note Author: Alec Palao. While it took a long and torturous five years for the Flamin' Groovies to find their way back to an American record deal with Shake Some Action, a year and a half later the band had a follow-up ready, and while 1978's Flamin' Groovies Now isn't quite as cohesive as the album that preceded it, in many respects the band sounds at once tighter and more relaxed, with some time on the road firming up the rhythm section while giving the songs a bit more room to swing (which wasn't one of the strong suits of the British Invasion bands that provided their aural template). The band lost guitarist James Ferrell during the post-Shake Some Action tour, but former Charlatans picker Mike Wilhelm proved to be a more than simpatico replacement on these sessions, and while leader Cyril Jordan didn't come up with another new song as transcendent as "Shake Some Action," "All I Wanted" comes pretty close. But it's significant that most of the songs on Flamin' Groovies Now are covers, and while all of them are played with love, enthusiasm, and the right period flair (especially the Beatles' "There's a Place," Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Ups and Downs," and "Move It," an early U.K. hit for Cliff Richard), they give the album a feeling of being padded, and just because covering the Rolling Stones rarity "Blue Turns to Grey" was a good idea didn't mean the Flamin' Groovies had any business tackling "Paint It Black." All in all, Flamin' Groovies Now is a terrific-sounding record that captures a fine band when it was in great form, but it also makes clear that the gremlins that often dogged the Groovies in the studio (namely their inability to make a 100 percent satisfying album) hadn't gone away. ~ Mark Deming

Mojo (Publisher) (p.111) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[A] conceptual homage that finds them basking in the glow of '60s rock's golden era."

Something of an American underground institution, San Francisco's the Flamin' Groovies started out in the mid 1960s as a Stones-tinged throwback to the early days of rock & roll. Although the band had its fans, they were too out of step with the Summer of Love to break through to the mainstream. Though this era would produce one of their two signature songs, "Teenage Head." By the '70s, the band switched up their sound and recast themselves as power-pop songsters. It was during this period that the Flamin Groovies would release their other beloved classic, "Shake Some Action," one of the all-time great power-pop tunes.

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