Now and Then

I have this theory about the Flamin' Groovies, which I'm now going to share. And this theory that I have, that is to say, which is mine, is that the quality of a Flamin' Groovies album is proportional to the number of bands named after its title.

Since there are bands called Sneakers,,Flamingo, Supersnazz, Teenage Head, and Shake Some Action, but no bands called Now or Jumpin' In The Night, it's safe to assume that these are the two weakest albums in the Groovies catalog.

Now (named after a Rolling Stones album sans apostrophe) is like an inferior sequel to Shake Some Action. All the same parts were in place: same lineup (with the addition of guitarist Mike Wilhelm replacing James Farrell), same studio, same producer, same 14 tracks divided into two sides of seven, but the results just weren't as transcendent.

One difference between SSA to Now is the ratio of covers to originals (7/7 to 8/6) and another was the quality of the original songs. The six original songs on Now are all strong, but there's not a "Shake Some Action" or "You Tore Me Down" level classic in the bunch. All the songs were co-credited to Cyril Jordan/Chris Wilson, but I've heard Cyril wrote most of the songs on Shake Some Action by himself and Chris wrote most of the Now songs by himself which might explain the drop off from great to merely good. The one exception is "Good Laugh Mun" which sounds like a lost Brian Wilson track from 1965. That was written by Cyril with help from Dave Edmunds (channeling the Beach Boy blood in his veins).

Another difference is that the cover songs on Now aren't as interesting as the ones on SSA. They covered two Stones songs ("Blue Turns To Grey" and "Paint It Black"), another Beatles song ("There's A Place"), the Byrds' "Feel A Whole Lot Better", "Move It" by the Shadows, and a couple of wildcards ("Reminiscing" and "House of Blue Light"). Everything is well played and hits the right notes, but it sounds like they're going through the motions. Some of the magic fairy dust is missing.

1978 also marked Roy Loney's return to making records after a seven year absence with a four-song EP called Artistic As Hell. Roy's backing band was Danny Mihm on drums, George Alexander on bass, Tim Lynch and Cyril Jordan on guitars (aka the original Flamin' Groovies circa-68). After the EP, Roy formed the Phantom Movers with Danny and Tim, a band with more original Groovies than the Flamin' Groovies had ( 3 vs. 2).