Shake Some Action (1976)

(Save time! Reader's Digest condensed versions here and here.)

I see that Shake Some Action is presently in some sort of commercial limbo, available digitally but otherwise only in expensive import CD or retro vinyl editions. For what it's worth I loved it most as a vinyl album because both sides, in different ways, offer such wonderful 20-minute sets start to finish. But everything for me is digital nowadays so same difference. I should mention that the band has a lengthy and complicated history, with partisans for other stages of it, which you can look up because I won't be going into it much. Suffice to say I believe I'm in the minority on this, which is approximately their fourth of some eight albums and miscellaneous other releases to date, with multiple significant lineup changes along the way. It's the only album by the Flamin' Groovies I care for much, though I care for it very much. But fair warning, caveats, all that: It's less connected to their earlier harder-edged Bay Area swamp-rock incarnation and more connected to a disconnected fantasy about British Invasion style and what rock 'n' roll feels like. As such, all they did was create one of the greatest rock 'n' roll albums I know.

69. Flamin' Groovies, "Shake Some Action" (1976)

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The whole Shake Some Action album is so good that in many ways I'm just once again using a leadoff song as stand-in for the greater whole. The Flamin' Groovies came to life in the '60s as a much harder-edged unit more oriented to bluesy variations on American garage-rock (think the Standells, the Chocolate Watchband, or the Sonics). After some lineup changes and time in the wilderness the Flamin' Groovies reemerged with a softer sound more inflected by mid-'60s Merseybeat British Invasion acts and launched it with this. Call it power-pop—this version of the Flamin' Groovies may by the most consummate purveyors of that slippery term ever. Almost perfect mimics yet with a sound uniquely their own, in a manner that Yo La Tengo would also achieve 10 or 15 years on, the eight Flamin' Groovies originals here mingle easily with the six covers (including songs by Chuck Berry, the Beatles, Lovin' Spoonful, and W.C. Handy), celebrating lives dedicated and committed unironically to rock 'n' roll. "Shake Some Action" is not only the album's leadoff and title song, but also in many ways its most ringing statement of purpose as well, all reverb-laden jangly guitar and muffled production. Its gentle yelps of sincerity guide the way down the path to the chorus, which soars even as it maintains almost perfectly the unassuming air, a kind of humility that comes to feel nearly spiritual across the breadth of the album, and it starts approximately right here. Yes, it's only rock 'n' roll but they like it, but there's something more profound churning under the surface too, something that only grows larger the more I hear it. I am still entirely enthralled with this and the whole thing when I remember to pull it out again every few years.

Scheduling notes: Obligations have piled up on me somewhat precariously, so I am cutting back the frequency of countdown postings to two per week for the time being. I know that means it will take approximately forever to reach the end, but I'm hoping to pick up the pace again come autumn. Thanks for your patience.

Shake Some Action (1976)

"Shake Some Action" I appreciate that the Flamin' Groovies rocked a heckuva job Brownie harder when Roy Loney was at the helm. But this outfit is so blamed sweet, and not half bad when it's time to rock -- how could it be otherwise with Dave Edmunds producing? I found this in a cutout bin in 1979 and have not been without it since. The songs are short and to the point, a splendid mix of covers and originals. Rockers and ballads. Bloozy. Pop. Rock'n'roll. Seamless. Every harmony, every ringing chord. I play the whole thing all at once. It's a big gulp. Save some for tomorrow. No, I'll get another one tomorrow. LOUD.

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