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:

Flamin' Groovies -- "Shake Some Action" (1976) (part 2 of 3)

If you don't dig what I say

Then I will go away

And I won't come back this way again -- no!

'Cause I don't need a friend

In the very first 2 or 3 lines, I told a story about a song that I loved for over 25 years without knowing it's name or who recorded it.  

Fortunately for me, they invented the Internet . . . and search engines.  One day, I typed in a very distinctive phrase from the lyrics of my mystery song and got exactly one hit – which was the website for a Los Angeles band called The Last.  The song I had been obsessed with for the better part of my adult life was "She Don't Know Why I'm Here."

Click here to read that post.  More importantly, listen to the song:

Several years after solving the mystery of "She Don't Know Why I'm Here," I e-mailed Joe Nolte – the lead singer and guitarist for The Last.  Joe responded, and we've corresponded semi-regularly over the last couple of years.  

When I chose "Shake Some Action" to be the 500th song featured on 2 or 3 lines, I thought it would be only fitting to offer Joe the chance to contribute a line or two to the post.  The two songs were released only a couple of years apart, and I had a feeling that Joe would turn out to be a fan of the Flamin' Groovies, too.

Joe Nolte's response exceeded my wildest expectations.  I quickly decided to turn what had been conceived as a two-part post on "Shake Some Action" into a three-parter -–Joe's contribution deserved no less.  (Click here to read part one.)

Enough of my yakking.  Joe, take it away: 

If one was alive and paying attention in the early summer of  1976, one would have been as aware of the Flamin' Groovies as of the Ramones.  Sire Records had signed both bands, and had themselves been absorbed by Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, which meant that both bands were going to be given a larger push than one might otherwise have expected.

The Ramones' eponymous debut album

Now if one was not only alive and paying attention but was also starved for any inkling of news from New York City's nascent punk movement, one would most eagerly have been awaiting the June releases from these two bands.  

As recently as May of 1976, there was precious little to go on if one were at all curious as to what the bands involved with this new "punk rock" scene actually sounded like – the Patti Smith album didn't give much of a clue, and Blondie, Television and the Talking Heads had yet to record.  I spent my time playing old Stooges, Dolls and Velvet Underground records – the only recent releases of note were the brilliant first Modern Lovers album and the Dictators' "Go Girl Crazy."

[NOTE: Click here to read what 2 or 3 lines had to say about a song from that album.]

The Groovies and Ramones were being hailed as the West and East Coast's champions of the coming rock 'n' roll revolution, and I for one was counting the minutes.

I believe the impact of the Ramones album is well-known enough that I can dispense with discussing it at this time, though it is worth mentioning that not since the Stooges would so many critics heap so much abuse upon a band that they would in time come to praise, hoping that no one remembered their earlier slings and arrows.  The same thing would happen a couple of years later with Black Flag.

At any rate, the Ramones are now legends, and have statues.

But no one remembers the Flamin' Groovies, which is a shame.  "Shake Some Action" was a delightful song.  I had always harbored a special love for Beatle-esque melodies, and here was a band (from California, yet!) doing it, and doing it on purpose, and without a trace of parody.

It was the first time I had heard anyone do such a thing in a long time.

I must therefore say that the song "Shake Some Action," along with the rest of the album, confirmed a perhaps slightly off-the-wall theory on my part that a key component of the new punk rock was going to be a heavy dose of sixties influence.  

Joe Nolte of The Last

I would consequently spent the next ten months or so – from mid-1976 to the spring of 1977 – experimenting with various mid-sixties genres, beginning with my Beach Boys homage "Every Summer Day" and culminating in the Castaways-go-simultaneously-progressive-and-psychedelic pastiche known as "She Don't Know Why I'm Here."  As my band ended up putting these and other of my experiments on our first album, we ended up somewhat inaccurately typecast as a band a bit more obsessed with the past than was perhaps strictly accurate.

But I digress.

The Ramones and Flamin' Groovies came out west to Hollywood in August of 1976, and it was a joy and revelation, especially when one of the Groovies actually dropped a guitar pick while playing!   You must realize that what passed for "rock" by the mid-seventies had gotten so impossibly slick that such a trivial-seeming act as dropping one's guitar pick was practically revolutionary.

At any rate, I was sold – though the many friends I had dragged with me to the show stopped talking to me.  I moved to Hermosa Beach, renamed my proto-punk band "The Last," and plunged into the maelstrom of whatever destiny awaited.

The Last's L.A. Explosion album

And then the Groovies disappeared, and the Ramones did not.

And then the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." came out and changed everything.

I can't end without mentioning that my favorite song on the Shake Some Action album was "I'll Cry Alone," which could have been a masterpiece were it not fatally marred by a misguided and endless repetition of its weakest parts at the expense of the astonishingly beautiful melody of the first two verses, which was given short shrift.  

The Ramones would repeat this mistake in the otherwise wonderful "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" single, and U2 would do something similar in "Sunday Bloody Sunday" – a song that features an extraordinarily powerful melodic moment when they sing "How long -- how long must we sing this song?" – an overwhelmingly Celtic anthemic moment that they never ever sing again!

And now that I have clearly misread "2 or 3 Lines" as "2 or 3 Pages," I will say goodnight.

Joe, I wouldn't have minded two or three hundred pages of this stuff!  

I'm not a man who is given to false modesty . . . or true modesty, as far as that goes.  But I freely admit that the world will little note nor long remember  what I say here.  My words seem insignificant compared to the words of a musician like Joe Nolte who was right there in the middle of it all – writing and recording wonderful original songs, sharing the stage with other great bands,  and generally living la vida rock-and-rolla.

Don't worry, faithful readers.  I'm going to pester Joe for some more contributions to 2 or 3 lines.  (It was very nice of Joe to respond to my request for a contribution to my "Shake Some Action" tribute – and as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.)

In the meantime, here's a link to The Last's website, which has everything you ever wanted to know about the group.

Don't forget to check out 2 or 3 lines on Friday, when the third part of our three-part post on "Shake Some Action" will appear.  That post will feature an interview with Chris Wilson, the Flamin' Groovies lead singer who co-wrote "Shake Some Action."

Click here to listen to "Shake Some Action."

Click on the link below if you'd like to buy Shake Some Action from Amazon:

Flamin' Groovies -- "Shake Some Action" (1976) (part 1 of 3)

It's taken me so long

To get where I belong

Please don't send me back that way

For I will make you pay

Today is a very special day for 2 or 3 lines.  "Shake Some Action" is the 500th song that has been featured on my wildly popular little blog.

You best believe I think "Shake Some Action" is a very special song.  In fact, I thought about saving it to be the 1000th song featured on 2 or 3 lines, but I don't want to presume too much -- after all, I'm not gettin' any younger.  (And neither are you, I might add.)

"Shake Some Action" is too big a deal for just one 2 or 3 lines -- it deserves a two-parter.  Actually, it deserves a THREE-parter -- which is unprecedented in the history of 2 or 3 lines.

And we've pulled out all the stops for parts two and three.  Part two will feature an appreciation of "Shake Some Action" by Joe Nolte of the Last, whose "She Don't Know Why I'm Here" was the very first song featured on 2 or 3 lines way back in 2009.  Click here to read that post and listen to that remarkable song.

As good as part two is, I've saved the best for last.

Part three will feature a conversation with Chris Wilson, who became the lead singer of the Flamin' Groovies in 1972 and co-wrote the original songs on the group's greatest album, Shake Some Action (1976), including the title track.  (With all due respect to the many other fine musicians I've interviewed for 2 or 3 lines, Chris Wilson is a REALLY BIG F*CKIN' DEAL -- I'm thrilled he agreed to talk to me about the Groovies.)

How special is "Shake Some Action"?  Here's a 2001 customer review from Amazon:

I have heard the song "Shake Some Action" some 5,000 times since 1977, and from the opening notes, and from the moment those first, dark, pulsing notes ring out, the same thing happens: the world stands still, reality drops away, and I am enveloped in a total shivering, dark, throbbing universe of thrill, memory and obsession.  Not only is this song one of the greatest pop recordings ever, it is one of the most striking works of art ever created.  Absolute perfection.  Nothing else on the album is quite as good as the song "Shake Some Action" (whose first five seconds alone are towering, monumental), but very little in all of human creative endeavor quite matches it.

I couldn't have said it better myself.   (I probably wouldn't have written that "very little in all of human creative endeavor" matches this song for fear of sounding a little over-the-top, but that's pretty much exactly how I feel about this song.)

The Flamin' Groovies

You may have never heard of the Flamin' Groovies.  They put out several major-label albums between 1969 and 1979, but none of those albums were big sellers, and they never had a big hit single. 

And you may have never heard "Shake Some Action."  If you haven't, we need to cure that toot sweet.

Click here to listen to "Shake Some Action."  Take a listen to it (or two or three) and then we'll talk some more.

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I don't know what makes "Shake Some Action" such a great song.  It's got a great little opening hook, and a great chorus.  But I think the key to the song's greatness is that it immediately gets into a perfect rhythmic groove that it never loses.  It's one-third Stones, one-third Creedence Clearwater Revival, and one-third something that's even better than either of them.

Pitchfork's Joe Tangari wrote that "Shake Some Action" is "a minor masterpiece of jangling, harmony-soaked guitar pop . . . that piles wave upon wave of hooks on a solid backbeat, all wrapped up in big, wet reverb.  It's a classic in every way except one: Almost nobody's heard it." 

Comparing "Shake Some Action" to another song on the Shake Some Action album, Rollingstone reviewer Gaylord Fields had this to say: "[T]he title song is a different, nastier animal with a riff so tough, propulsive and universal it's a wonder that it's not currently being used to hawk bluejeans or vacation cruises."  (One of the songs the Flamin' Groovies covered on that album was the Stones' "She Said Yeah," which recently was used to hawk Bleu de Chanel men's fragrance.) 

The Flamin' Groovies were always either ahead of their time, or behind it, or both.  That may explain why they were not a big commercial success.  Here's more from Pitchfork's Tangari:

The Flamin' Groovies were a band out of time.  Formed in 1965, they played lean, hard-driving boogie and had a sharp-cut, stylish image in a San Francisco scene that was more about free love, secondhand clothes, and 28-minute modal jams.  [NOTE: In other words, they weren't the Grateful Dead -- thank goodness.]  

The Groovies top a Halloween
bill at the Fillmore

That raucous, explosive version of the band lasted until 1972, when original vocalist Roy Loney left and guitarist Cyril Jordan took the reins, moving them to Britain.  There, they hooked up with roots rocker Dave Edmunds, who produced a session for them that pointed toward a distinctly different path, one deeply indebted to the British Invasion sounds that everyone else had moved on from.

Amongst their Stones-influenced cuts lay two of the most exquisite power-pop tracks of the 70s, "You Tore Me Down" and "Shake Some Action", which gave its title to the album the band made in 1976 after a lengthy recording hiatus.  Shake Some Action was in every sense both a comeback and a re-invention, and it's been rightly championed by collectors and critics extolling its effortless pop perfection.  If it had been released in 1966, it could have been a smash and a popular landmark, but a decade later, [it] sank like a stone in the marketplace. 

     

Since you didn't buy the LP when it was originally released in 1976, and you didn't buy the CD release in 2005, you have 2 or 3 lines to thank for the fact that you didn't go to your grave having never heard "Shake Some Action."

If all goes well, 2 or 3 lines will get to song #1000 in a little more than 34 months.  That means I have until early February, 2016, to come up with a song at least as special as "Shake Some Action."  

I'd better get busy!

Click here to listen to "Shake Some Action."  Don't forget to come back in two days for Joe Nolte's appreciation of the song, followed by our exclusive interview with Chris Wilson, the lead singer and co-writer of "Shake Some Action."

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: