40 Year Itch : Turned My Head Around

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“The Flamin’ Groovies have endured perhaps more hardships and disappointments than any of their fellow survivors, been screwed so many times by managers and record companies that it became a way of life, and been without a recording contract for so long that some of their best friends aren’t even sure if they are still together. … When the Flamin’ Groovies finally emerge, I can’t think of any band in the world with greater potential to create real mania and show the world what a rock and roll band should be.”
  music historian Greg Shaw, owner of Bomp! Records

  In early December of 1974, The Flamin' Groovies emerged from years of silence to  release a new single, perhaps the grooviest of their career. The perfect pop confection, released as the first single ever on Greg Shaw's Bomp! Records,  was "You Tore Me Down" b/w one of their Paul Revere and the Raiders covers "Him Or Me". ( They also did "Sometimes" on 1976's Shake Some Action).

    "You Tore Me Down" was written in just ten minutes by guitarist Cyril Jordan and Roy Loney's replacement, the more pop-minded Chris Wilson. They recorded it, "Slow Death" and "Shake Some Action" all on the same night in April of 1972 and spent years shopping it around before letting Shaw release the 45.  Good thing they did. Shaw's friend Seymour Stein was about to become head of Sire Records. In 1976, with the help of Dave Edmunds,  the Groovies would fill out the rest of what would become Shake Some Action, a true power pop classic.

Yo La Tengo's cover !!

#32 Flamin' Groovies Yesterday's Numbers 1971

In 1971, The Rolling Stones hit the UK Charts with three great Stonesy hits "Brown Sugar", "Wild Horses" and a re-issue of "Street Fighting Man".
The album Sticky Fingers featured more great riffs in "Bitch" and the epic "Can't You Hear Me Knocking". And yet, it could be argued, the tune with the greatest Stonesy feel of 1971 didn't come from The Rolling Stones at all.
Rock critic Greg Shaw recalls the sessions for The third Flamin' Groovies album Teenage Head as a non stop party. Not one of the San Francisco-based Groovies ever truly mastered their instrument. Not one of them could sing. They were raw garage rockers who, in the right moment, were capable of recording classics like this, and years later, "Shake Some Action".

When Teenage Head failed to get them ahead, co founder/singer Roy Loney left the band. Guitarist Cyril Jordan moved the Groovies to England where Shake Some Action (1976) is said to have inspired the burgeoning punk movement. Listen for yourself:







By the way, "Yesterday's Numbers" closes with the line "All's well that end's well", the name of a Shakespeare play that heralded a string of great works. It was followed in order by Othello, Hamlet and Twelth Night.