Flamin' Groovies -- "Yes I Am" (1979)

Feeling like I'm ten feet tall

You know I'm not the same old man

As you may know, the month of January -- which begins tomorrow -- got its name from Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions.

Janus is always depicted as having two faces -- one looking backward into the past, and one looking forward into the future. 

Janus

Keep Janus in mind as you read the final 2 or 3 lines post of 2013 and the first post of 2014, which will appear in a few days. 

* * * * *

The starting point for 2 or 3 lines way back in 2009 was a local radio show called "The Mystic Eyes."

That show has been off the air for over 30 years, but it continues to play a major role in not only the life of 2 or 3 lines, but also in my life.  It's my personal equivalent of Charles Swann's madeleines.  

In fact, the most significant music-related event of 2013 for me took place as a direct result of my recording many hours of "The Mystic Eyes" program in 1980.  

One of the songs that was featured regularly on that program was "Washingtron," by Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, a local band that was at the height of its popularity then.  

"Washingtron" quickly became a favorite of mine thanks to the very clever lyrics, including these:

I used to work as a waitron

In the lounge of the Hiltron

Now I work for my Senatron

And I live in Arlingtron

I'm just a Washingtron

I featured "Washingtron" on this blog on May 9, 2010.  Here's a link to that post.

The day after that post appeared, Michael Mariotte -- the Tru Fax drummer -- posted a link to 2 or 3 lines on the band's Facebook page, and wrote this comment: "New blog posting on Tru Fax; not sure who these people are, but it's an entertaining blog."

That post attracted the attention of another blogger who arranged for a friend to digitize the dozens of "Mystics Eyes" cassette tapes I had recorded in 1980.

I also got an e-mail from Lynda Cokinos, whose "DC Rocks" blog is an invaluable resource for people who want to keep up with the Washington-area live music scene.  Lynda, who had also heard about my "Washingtron" post from Michael Mariotte, congratulated me on my "cool" blog and alerted me to the existence of hers.  Here's a link to "DC Rocks."

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Fast forward to November 4, 2013.  The "DC Rocks" post that day was about an upcoming Washington appearance of the Flamin' Groovies, one of my favorite bands ever.

As you more dedicated readers of 2 or 3 lines will recall, I hold "Shake Some Action" by the Flamin' Groovies in such high regard that I chose it to be the 500th song featured on my wildly popular blog.  

Click here to read part one of that three-part post, which featured an interview with Groovies' frontman Chris Wilson and an appreciation by Joe Nolte of The Last (whose "She Don't Know Why I'm Here" was the very first song I ever wrote about for 2 or 3 lines).  Click here to read part two.  Click here to read part three.

Washington's 9:30 Club provided Lynda Cokinos with two free tickets to the Flamin' Groovies show, and Lynda's November 4 post offered to give those tickets away to a lucky reader of "DC Rocks."  All you had to do was submit an e-mail with the word "GROOVY" in the subject box, and hope that you were the lucky fan whose name was drawn out of a hat.

Imagine my surprise when I found an e-mail from Lynda informing me that I had won the free ducats.  Winner, winner, chicken dinner! 

My karma has been exceptionally good recently.  I would have gone to the show regardless, but winning free tickets made it seem like it was destined that I attend.

There was one slight complication.  I had won two tickets, and it seemed a shame to waste the second one.  

The only person in my family who would have any interest in the Flamin' Groovies was my oldest son, Nick.  I had taken him to see the Offspring and Sonic Youth when he was a teenager, and he had taken me to a Mission of Burma show a few years ago.  Unfortunately, he is a very busy young lawyer, and was going to be out of town on business the night of the Groovies' show.

Cyril Jordan (L) and Chris Wilson (R)
of the Flamin' Groovies

I thought about various friends and acquaintances who might have an interest in the Groovies, but there were no obvious choices.

Suddenly, I had a "Eureka!" moment.  I would invite the lead singer/guitarist of Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, Diana Quinn, to the concert. 

I honestly figured there was no way Diana would accept.  After all, I had never met her -- I had never even spoken to her via e-mail -- and I assumed that an invitation from a total stranger coming out of the blue like this would be turned down or even ignored.  (There I go assuming things again!)  

Rejection wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world: even if she did say "No," I would have made her acquaintance and hopefully paved the way for a future 2 or 3 lines interview.  (I go to incredible lengths for you, dear readers.)

However, Diana threw a big-ass spanner into the works by actually saying "Yes" to my invitation.  My best-laid scheme had gang aft agley big time!  

* * * * *

Fast forward once more -- this time to November 12, 2013.  

The Groovies took the stage at the U Street Music Hall at about 8 pm.  I came to the concert bearing gifts for Diana Quinn: a homemade CD with Flamin' Groovies music and a copy of the "Mystic Eyes Greatest Hits" cassette tape I had created 30 years previously -- which of course included "Washingtron."

Also in attendance at the concert that night was Steve Lorber, the "Mystic Eyes" DJ, and my benefactress -- Lynda Cokinos of "DC Rocks."  Mark Noone -- the lead singer of the legendary DC punk-garage band, the Slickee Boys -- was there as well, as was Kim Kane, the Slickee Boys' guitarist.

Diana Quinn, Mark Noone, and Lynda Cokinos

I was agog at this extraordinary collection of local celebrities.  But my excitement was offset by feelings of regret -- regret that I hadn't jumped into the Washington live music scene decades previously.

There was no excuse for my failure to launch.  I worked at the Federal Trade Commission in 1980, and my office was only a few blocks from the 9:30 Club, which was ground zero for alternative music in your nation's capital in the eighties and early nineties. 

I could have been there several nights a week, watching some truly great groups -- including touring bands like X, the Bangles, Hüsker Dü, the Butthole Surfers, the Go-Go's, and Black Flag, and local bands like Fugazi, Minor Threat, the Insect Surfers, the Urban Verbs, Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, and the Slickee Boys (who performed at the 9:30 no fewer than 81 times).

I would have shed a tear for my misspent youth, but I was having too good a time talking to Diana Quinn and all her musical friends and listening to the fabulous music of the Chris Wilson-era Flamin' Groovies -- which one reviewer has described as the only group other than the Beach Boys who were playing sixties-sounding pop music in the seventies.

After the Groovies closed the show with a spirited rendition of "Shake Some Action," we hung around until Cyril Jordan (the band's co-founder and guitarist) and Chris Wilson (the group's longtime lead singer) came out from their dressing room to sign autographs and greet their fans.

Flamin' Groovies frontman
Chris Wilson with yours truly

Chris greeted me enthusiastically, and said some very kind things about my interview with him.  

I then complimented him on the Groovies' cover of the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash."  Some know-it-all fan jumped in to our conversation and told Chris that he had heard that song had been inspired by a particular London street musician, but Chris corrected him -- prefacing his explanation with these words: "Actually, my buddy Keith Richards told me that . . . ."  

I stopped listening to his explanation at that point -- the realization that I was one degree of separation from Keith Richards was too overwhelming for me to handle.

All in all, the evening was great.  Diana was as much fun as a barrel of monkeys, which may have been due in large part to the fact that she pounded down at least five beers in about two hours.  (I only had three beers during the evening.  To be fair, I was drinking Belgian-style ales, which had a lot more alcohol than the light beers she favored.  On the other hand, I weighed twice as much as she did, so I should have been able to absorb a lot more beer than Diana without showing the effects.)

Diana Quinn with beer
 in hand (as usual)

All the beer was largely responsible for us getting completely lost going home on the Washington Metro after the show.  But there were factors other than alcohol contributing to our long and winding subway odyssey -- primarily my tendency to assume too much.  And as everyone knows, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

One thing I assumed that evening was that Diana was a regular Metro rider, and that she would know what train to take to get home.  But I was sadly mistaken.  

You see, Diana performs regularly in three different bands, and is also a producer/writer for CBS News.  So she is kind of a big deal.

Diana is such a big deal, in fact, that she apparently never rides the subway like we hoi polloi do.  Perhaps she just keeps a big stack of fifties in her purse that she dispenses promiscuously to the Washington cab drivers who service her transportation needs.  Or maybe she has a limo, or a helicopter.

Whatever the reason, she followed me on to a subway train that was going in exactly the opposite direction from her destination with nary a protest.  And as my 8th-grade government teacher used to say, "When the blind lead the blind, we all go into the ditch together."

Eventually I managed to get Diana on the right train.  Sometime after that, I managed to get myself on the right subway line as well -- barely making the last Metro train of the evening.

As Shakespeare once said, all's well that ends well.  But all would have been even weller if it had ended a couple of hours earlier.

I subsequently interviewed Diana Quinn, and you'll be able to read that interview in the first 2 or 3 lines of 2014.  [NOTE: Due to circumstances beyond my control, the Diana Quinn interview actually appeared in the second 2 or 3 lines of 2014.]

"Yes I Am" was released on Jumpin' in the Night, the second of three Groovies albums that were released by Sire Records in the late 1970s.

Those albums contain a number of fabulous British invasion-style songs, and it wasn't easy to choose to feature in this post.  But "Yes I Am" is not only a great song but also was one of the songs the band performed live the night I saw them.  That sort of clinched the deal.

Here's "Yes I Am":

Click here if you'd like he song from Amazon:

Flamin' Groovies -- "Shake Some Action" (1976) (part 3 of 3)

Shake some action's what I need

To let me bust out at full speed

And I'm sure that's all you need

To make it all right

It's taken 2 or 3 lines a long time to get to "Shake Some Action," a song that I would place at or near the top of my list of all-time favorites.  But we're making up for that by honoring this Flamin' Groovies classic – the 500th song featured on 2 or 3 lines – with a very special three-part post.

Click here if you haven't already read the first part of my "Shake Some Action" post.

And click here for part two (featuring an appreciation of "Shake Some Action" by the Last's Joe Nolte.)

I'm very pleased that Chris Wilson – who co-wrote "Shake Some Action" and was the lead singer on the Groovies' 1976 album of the same name – agreed to talk to 2 or 3 lines about the Flamin' Groovies in general and "Shake Some Action" in particular.

Chris Wilson (1978)

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Before I share what Chris had to say, a little background information might be in order.

Chris Wilson was born in suburban Boston in 1952.  He flew to Los Angeles in January 1971 to join up with some guys he had once performed with in Boston.  Things didn't work out in L.A., but a friend of a friend was looking for a singer for his San Francisco band, so Chris ended up moving to the Bay area.

Within a year, Roy Loney – the original lead singer of the Flamin' Groovies – decided to leave the band, and Chris was asked to replace him.  In May 1972, Chris and the rest of the group flew across the pond to work with the famed roots rock/power pop/New Wave musician, Dave Edmunds.  (Chris was not quite 20 years old at the time.)

Chris Wilson (far left), Dave Edmunds (3rd from
right), and the rest of the Groovies relax after a
recording session at Rockfields Studios in Wales

Within weeks, Edmunds had the Groovies in Rockfield Studios, a converted farmhouse in the Welsh countryside where some of the most famous rock-and-roll albums of all time were recorded.  (For what it's worth, Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" was recorded at Rockfield.)  The songs that were recorded during that Rockfield session included "Shake Some Action." 

2 or 3 lines: Chris, you and I were born the same year, so I'm curious if we grew up listening to the same music on the radio. What kind of music were you a fan of when you were in high school?

Chris Wilson: Hearing the Beatles – I saw them play live – and the Stones was a game-changer.  Of course, it started with the old blues guys . . . they were the foundation.  And you can't ignore Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard.  But the British Invasion was the trigger for me.

2 or 3 lines: Did you grow up in a musical family?  What kind of music were you exposed to as a child? 

Chris: My father’s family came from Scotland so I heard lots of Scottish folk music when I was growing up – I still play some of that stuff in my solo set.  I wouldn’t say I had a musical family but there was music around and my uncle played.  It’s funny how all that early exposure influenced my tastes – I’ve wanted to record a folk album for a long time.  Maybe it’ll happen . . . it would be nice if it did.  

2 or 3 lines:  Is there a particular Scottish folk performer who has influenced you?

Chris: My acoustic guitar playing’s been influenced by people like Dick Gaughan – his use of the DADGAD open tuning changed my style.  But you try and learn from everyone.  Ears open – that’s the rule.

Dick Gaughan

[NOTE:  Dick Gaughan is a Scottish folksinger and songwriter who is a master of the acoustic guitar.  DADGAD is also known as Celtic tuning.  Jimmy Page was a fan of it -- "Kashmir" is one of the Led Zeppelin songs that features DADGAD tuning.]

2 or 3 lines: You wrote "Shake Some Action" with Cyril Jordan, who was the guitarist of the Flamin' Groovies from the band's formation in 1965.  Tell me a little about the process of writing that song – did the music or lyrics come first? 

Chris: Cyril had the idea for the music, I think.  But the lyrics . . . we’d sit around Rockfield and swap lines and ideas.  If we were in different parts of the house and we had an idea for a song we find each other and pick up a guitar.  Back at the start we worked in a really simple way – swapping licks and phrases.  "Shake Some Action" really wasn’t that difficult in that respect.

A worksheet from a Flamin' Groovies
recording session at Rockfields

2 or 3 lines:  "Shake Some Action" was originally recorded at Rockfield in 1972, but the Shake Some Action album wasn't released until 1976.  What did it take so long for "Shake Some Action" to appear on an album?  

Chris:  We thought "Shake Some Action" might be a single.  However, our record company [United Artists] had other ideas and released "Slow Death" as our first single.  We thought it was an album track, not a single.  We should have stuck to our guns.  If "You Tore Me Down" and "Shake Some Action" had been released as singles in 1972 rather than "Slow Death" and "Married Woman," who knows how things might have turned out?

2 or 3 lines: What did your producer, Dave Edmunds, contribute to the sound of the song -- was your vision of the song/arrangement different from his?

Chris: Dave added loads of effects to the guitars on the first attempt at "Shake Some Action," which we thought might have been a bit too much.  That’s why we cut a second version back in the US in 1973.  In the end they’re both good, albeit a little different – we’re happy if people like the song.  What more could we ask?

2 or 3 lines:  One of the first things the Groovies did when you went to England in 1972 was play at the Bickershaw Festival, where you shared the stage with the Kinks, Captain Beefheart, the Grateful Dead, and many others.  The brand-new Ramones opened for you in London in a legendary appearance on July 4th, 1976.  Who were some of the other great groups you opened for, or who opened for you?

Chris:  The Groovies gigged a lot.  We supported David Bowie early on . . . he was a strange one.  We also toured with The Damned as support – that didn’t end well; they were really rude about us so we let them go.  We played Berlin in 1980 supporting the Police, which was a show that’s worthy of a story on its own.  There’s a recording of that show and we were really on fire . . . but were pulled off stage before our time was up.

[NOTE: The Damned were the first English punk band to have a record on the UK charts and to tour the United States.  The group's founding members included guitarist Captain Sensible and drummer Rat Scabies.]

2 or 3 lines: The Flamin' Groovies released a lot of covers – you recorded several Lennon-McCartney songs and a bunch of Stones songs, including "Paint It Black' and "Jumpin' Jack Flash."  What do you think were your best covers?

Chris: There was always an issue with covers.  I thought we had really strong songs of our own – Cyril Jordan, however, wanted the covers in the set and he got his way.  It was a bone of contention, although we did record some great covers if I say so myself.  My favorite is our take on the Byrds’ "Feel a Whole Lot Better" – we really nailed that song.  And I think I put in a creditable performance on the Groovies' version of "River Deep, Mountain High," although I’ve not got the lungs of Tina Turner if you know what I mean.

2 or 3 lines:  I know exactly what you mean, Chris.  And you don't have her legs either.  [Laughter.]

Tina Turner

Chris: We’d often talked about recording the Stones’ "Child of the Moon" but never did – something I put right last year in Paris.  My French band cut the song for a "live in the studio" album.

[NOTE: "Child of the Moon" – a song that is unknown to many Stones fans – was the "B" side of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," which was a huge hit for the Stones in 1968.   Click here to view the Stones' promotional video for "Child of the Moon."]

2 or 3 lines:  "Shake Some Action" has been covered by a number of other artists.  Who do you think did the best cover version of it?

Chris:  The best cover version of "Shake Some Action"?  That's easy – the one that was featured in Clueless.  Both me and Cyril made some money from that, a rare situation for the Groovies and a welcome one, too. 

Alicia Silverstone in Clueless (1995)

2 or 3 lines:  I'm a sucker for high school movies, and Clueless is one of the best.  Its soundtrack had several noteworthy covers – "Kids of America" and "All the Young Dudes" as well as Cracker's cover of "Shake Some Action."

Chris:  There have been some pretty odd attempts to cover "Shake Some Action," including one by a girl group that heavily referenced Motown – that one was kinda cute I guess.

[NOTE: Chris was referring to the 2010 cover by a Boston girl group whose lead singer sounds like a reincarnated Phil Spector protégé.  Click here to listen to Jenny Dee & the Delinquents' recording of "Shake Some Action."]

Chris Wilson (2010)

2 or 3 lines:  You and Cyril hadn't been getting along for some time when you left the Groovies on Halloween night 1981.  But I understand that the Groovies are getting back together – do you plan to record, tour, or both? 

Chris: Yes, we’re back together again. We finally realized that the bad blood and ill feeling was just plain stupid – it just took us 30 years to reach that conclusion! As things currently stand, me and Cyril and George [Alexander, who was the group's original bass player] will be playing dates in Australia and then Japan.  After that, we’ll see – although we’re all hoping that there’ll be more gigs and hopefully some new recordings.

2 or 3 lines:  You recently finished recording a new solo album that features several of the Groovies.  Tell us a little about that album.

Chris:  That album's named It’s Flamin’ Groovie!  I’ve been joined by Cyril, George, Roy Loney, and former Groovies' guitarists James Ferrell and Mike Wilhem – along with Procol Harum’s Hammond organ legend Matthew Fisher.  The album comprises six new recordings – including two tracks written by Cyril – and six revised and updated takes from my previous albums.  These six have newly added contributions from George and Cyril, which really bring the songs to life.  It’s not quite a Groovies album . . . but it’s pretty darn close.  And to top it all we’ve found two lost recordings from our ill-fated 1981 sessions in LA’s Gold Star studios.  They were abandoned before they were finished but that’s being put right as we speak.  We’re not quite sure what we’ll do with them once they’re polished up – maybe a single, maybe something more adventurous. Watch this space!

2 or 3 lines:  I will definitely do that, Chris.  [Laughter.]  Seriously, it's great to hear that you guys are working together again.  The Flamin' Groovies are quite a story, and it sounds like that story isn't over yet.

Original Groovies Cyril Jordan and
Roy Loney performing in 2009

Chris:  The bottom line is that the Groovies are about to embark on a new chapter and everyone’s fully committed to getting the show back on the road.

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Thanks to Chris Wilson for taking the time to answer my questions, and best wishes to all of the talented musicians who made the Flamin' Groovies such a great band in the sixties and seventies – and who have come together to give their fans some more great music.

Chris Wilson has a terrific website with a lot more about the history of the Flamin' Groovies.  Click here to visit Chris's website.

The previous 2 or 3 lines featured the 1972 Rockfields version of "Shake Some Action," which was released in 1976 on the album of the same name.  Click here to listen to the version that the band recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles in 1973, which Cyril Jordan thinks is the best thing the band ever did.  It's very good, but I'm not ready to forswear my allegiance to the original – it's been one of my favorites for over 30 years, after all.

Click below to buy this version of the song from Amazon: