Flamin' Groovies still Shakin' Some Action

Just when it seemed the Atlanta Mess-Around couldn't top its previous lineups, co-founder Damon Hare unveiled a trump card with the Flamin' Groovies as one of this year's headliners. Plenty of legendary acts, from the Zeros (often referred to as Chula Vista, Calif.'s "Mexican Ramones") to those Indianapolis hardcore staples the Zero Boys, have played Atlanta's annual garage-punk blowout, but none has reshaped rock 'n' roll with as much flair as the Flamin' Groovies with its 1976 album, Shake Some Action.

For the uninitiated, the Flamin' Groovies is a San Francisco-based act that formed in 1965. With original singer and guitarist Roy Loney, the group paid homage to rock 'n' roll's burgeoning history with a 1969 debut, Supersnazz, and 1971's Teenage Head. The titles respectively provided the name for a Japanese garage act in the '90s, and one of Canada's finest punk exports, illustrating the group's global influence over the shape of garage, punk, and power pop to come. But according to longtime guitarist and singer Chris Wilson, any sway the Groovies had over future musicians was a happy accident. "We weren't really thinking about the past or the future," Wilson says. "We were playing the kind of things we liked, and hopefully turning others on to good music they hadn't heard, as had been done for us."

The Flamin' Groovies' initial releases were enough to cement a place in American rock history, and an even stronger era followed them. Loney left the band in 1971 and was replaced by Wilson. With Wilson and founding member Cyril Jordan sharing guitar, vocal, and songwriting duties, the Groovies shifted focus from 1950s rock 'n' roll to the British Invasion, all the while molding a more melodic sound.

In 1976, the same year the Sex Pistols shunned rock's rich past, Sire Records released the Flamin' Groovies' game-changing LP Shake Some Action. The album draws heavily from the band's record collections, including covers of W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues," Chuck Berry's "Don't You Lie to Me," and the Beatles' "Misery." The title track is one of freshest, most invigorating songs of the era, giving the punk and power pop bands that followed a blueprint for interpreting rock's roots. In his 2014 book The History of Rock and Roll in Ten Songs, Greil Marcus writes, "By 1976, rock 'n' roll might have seemed like an old story, fixed and static, its secrets all exposed, a fact to learn: precisely a government, run by a few record companies and half a dozen lifeless icons. But in 'Shake Some Action' everything is new, as if the secret has been discovered and the mystery solved on the spot." Viewed through Marcus' lens, the song changed how others perceived rock 'n' roll, making it as influential in the mid-'70s as Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula" had been 18 years earlier.

The Flamin' Groovies' sway over young punks and the nascent power pop sound grew in the coming years. But admiration doesn't go both ways. "There's lots of bands from back then that I like, like the Plimsouls and 20/20, but punk was never my thing," Wilson says.

Even though the Flamin' Groovies' influence on underground rock 'n' roll continues, Wilson isn't an avid listener of his musical descendants: "I'm more of a blues guy," he says. "What I listen to now is blues and Irish and Scottish folk music."

Shake Some Action is the kind of album that makes the band's current run, which started in 2011 after Wilson reunited with past bandmates for the 2013 album It's Flamin' Groovy!, a big deal. The current lineup of Wilson, Jordan, longtime bassist George Alexander, and drummer Victor Peñalosa performed the album in its entirety at an April 17 homecoming show in San Francisco.

The eternal life a band can earn through one career-defining album or single led Mess-Around promoter Damon Hare to pursue the Groovies for years. "I tried back in 2012 or 2013, but all I found were dead ends," Hare says. "I honestly thought it was too good to be true. But having them play is an early idea that we can hardly believe came to fruition."

Shake Some Action's lasting legacy gives the Flamin' Groovies the nostalgic appeal sought by festivals, and it's why the band is the subject of a forthcoming documentary film, The Incredible Flamin' Groovies Movie. For Wilson, there was good and bad in having a film crew following the band on the road. "It's a great honor, because it immortalizes you to some greater or lesser extent," Wilson says. "Then again, I don't like seeing myself on the big screen. I don't like seeing hairs up my nose. It's quite frightening."

The band plans a return to the studio in the coming months to record new material. According to Wilson, offers to release an album are already on the table. With demand for the classics, and new songs in the works, Wilson and his bandmates' current run as the Flamin' Groovies has no end in sight. "It beats digging ditches, because I've done that, too," Wilson says. "I prefer playing guitar and singing."

Despite rumors, the band has neither confirmed nor denied that it will play Shake Some Action from start to finish at the Atlanta Mess-Around. "We decide on the spot a lot, depending on what kind of crowd it is," Wilson says.

With the group's Mess-Around performance being its first time playing Atlanta, the set may be swayed by all of the virgin eyes and ears at the Flamin' Groovies live experience. "I'm not averse to a few virgins, professionally speaking, of course," Wilson adds.