{"id":12015,"date":"2020-05-21T05:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T05:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=12015"},"modified":"2020-05-19T22:37:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T22:37:29","slug":"flamin-groovies-to-reissue-albums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=12015","title":{"rendered":"FLAMIN’ GROOVIES To Reissue albums – ‘Now & ‘Jumpin’ The Night"},"content":{"rendered":"
The band that played a major role in the evolution of power pop and are considered a forerunner of punk rock readies two of their most popular albums<\/div>\n
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The\u00a0Flamin’ Groovies<\/strong>\u00a0played a major role in the evolution of power pop and are considered a forerunner of punk rock. This summer they will reissue two classic albums: “Now” on July 10th and “Jumpin’ In the Night” on August 7th.<\/div>\n
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\"\"<\/a>While it took a long and torturous five years for\u00a0the Flamin’ Groovies\u00a0to find their way back to an American record deal with\u00a0Shake Some Action, a year and a half later the band had a follow-up ready, and while 1978’s\u00a0Flamin’ Groovies Now\u00a0isn’t quite as cohesive as the album that preceded it, in many respects the band sounds at once tighter and more relaxed, with some time on the road firming up the rhythm section while giving the songs a bit more room to swing (which wasn’t one of the strong suits of the British Invasion bands that provided their aural template). The band lost guitarist\u00a0James Ferrell\u00a0during the post-Shake Some Action\u00a0tour, but former\u00a0Charlatans\u00a0picker\u00a0Mike Wilhelm\u00a0proved to be a more than simpatico replacement on these sessions, and while leader\u00a0Cyril Jordan\u00a0didn’t come up with another new song as transcendent as “Shake Some Action,” “All I Wanted” comes pretty close. But it’s significant that most of the songs on\u00a0Flamin’ Groovies Now\u00a0are covers, and while all of them are played with love, enthusiasm, and the right period flair (especially\u00a0the Beatles’ “There’s a Place,”\u00a0Paul Revere & the Raiders’ “Ups and Downs,” and “Move It,” an early U.K. hit for\u00a0Cliff Richard), they give the album a feeling of being padded, and just because covering\u00a0the Rolling Stones\u00a0rarity “Blue Turns to Grey” was a good idea didn’t mean\u00a0the Flamin’ Groovies\u00a0had any business tackling “Paint It Black.” All in all,\u00a0Flamin’ Groovies Now\u00a0is a terrific-sounding record that captures a fine band when it was in great form, but it also makes clear that the gremlins that often dogged\u00a0the Groovies\u00a0in the studio (namely their inability to make a 100 percent satisfying album) hadn’t gone away.<\/div>\n
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\"\"<\/a>The third and last of\u00a0the Flamin’ Groovies\u00a0late-’70s albums for Sire,\u00a0Jumpin’ in the Night\u00a0storms out of the gate with the title song, a top-shelf rocker that brings the muscle of the Flamingo-era lineup of\u00a0the Groovies\u00a0to the more style-conscious British Invasion sonics of\u00a0Cyril Jordan’s version. Though\u00a0Jumpin’ in the Night\u00a0never rocks that hard or that well again, it does sound decidedly tighter and tougher than 1978’s\u00a0Flamin’ Groovies Now, and guitarist\u00a0Mike Wilhelm, a new addition to the\u00a0Now\u00a0lineup, is much better integrated into their wall of guitars, with\u00a0the Groovies\u00a0sounding more solid than they did a year before. But while\u00a0Jumpin’ in the Night\u00a0finds\u00a0the Flamin’ Groovies\u00a0sounding better than ever, the material unfortunately lets them down. It’s no wonder why\u00a0the Flamin’ Groovies\u00a0loved\u00a0the Byrds\u00a0— both were American bands who fell in love with the sounds of British rock and crafted their own variation on the style — but three\u00a0Byrds\u00a0covers on this album is about two too many (especially given how clunky\u00a0David Wright’s drumming sounds on “5D”), and though having\u00a0the Groovies\u00a0tackle “Absolutely Sweet Marie” and “Please Please Me” sounds good on paper, the audible results are a bit underwhelming. (On the other hand, their cover of “Werewolves of London” is better than anyone had a right to expect.) The production and engineering by\u00a0Roger Bechirian\u00a0is crisp and flattering to the guitars, but lacks the resonance of\u00a0Dave Edmunds’ more layered approach on\u00a0Shake Some Action\u00a0and\u00a0Now. A great band,\u00a0the Flamin’ Groovies\u00a0often seemed to have a hard time reconciling their best qualities with the record-making process, and\u00a0Jumpin’ in the Night\u00a0is probably the best example of this dilemma, though it has more than enough worthwhile moments to compensate.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The band that played a major role in the evolution of power pop and are considered a forerunner of punk rock readies two of their most popular albums The\u00a0Flamin’ Groovies\u00a0played a major role in the evolution of power pop and are considered a forerunner of punk rock. This summer they will reissue two classic albums: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[383,4943,4944,4942,4941],"class_list":["post-12015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-flamin-groovies","tag-jumpin-the-night","tag-mvd-entertainment","tag-now","tag-reissues","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12015"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12019,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015\/revisions\/12019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}