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| The Flamin' Groovies backstage Brunel University 1978 by Paul Slattery |
The Flamin' Groovies are back in the U.K. and it's only taken about 30 years! The 1971-80 Cyril Jordan, Chris
Wilson, George Alexander line-up, along with Victor Penalosa on drums, are shakin' some action once again after some successful gigs in Japan and Australia. They will be playing at the Hard Rock Calling Festival at The Olympic Park on Sunday June 30th and then at the Scala Kings Cross on Tuesday July 02nd, which will be a gig that all Groovies fans will not want to miss. The Flamin' Groovies haven't played a show in the U.K. since they split in 1981 and this will be a rare chance to catch the influential Power Pop band live.
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| The Flamin' Groovies backstage Rafters, Manchester 1978 by Paul Slattery |
The band has a long
history stretching back to the mid-60's in San Francisco, when they
started off as the Chosen Few, and then went through various changes to
line-up, band name, record label and even location, as they moved to
London to try their luck and recorded the legendary album "Shake Some
Action" with Dave Edmunds at Rockfield Studios in Wales. The album was
released on Sire records in 1976 who went onto release two more great
albums, "Flamin' Groovies Now", and "Jumpin' In The
Night". The classic line-up disbanded in 1981 with Wilson joining the
Garage Surf outfit The Barracudas, although the band did continue to
tour into the early '90's.
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| The Flamin' Groovies at The Roundhouse 1978 - Photo by Paul Slattery |
The good news is that the current line-up are back in the studio recording new material together and also working on finishing some long lost recordings, so hopefully we can expect a new release or two very soon. Ticket details for July 02nd and more info can be found at The Scala's website.
As a young Rock Photographer, Paul Slattery spent time with the band at Rockfield Studios and on their U.K. Spring Tour of 1978 and took some excellent photos of the band on and off stage. Paul has kindly contributed these exclusive un-seen photos to Retro Man Blog. You can hear Paul talking about the influence of The Flamin' Groovies on his fledgling Rock Photographer career in our Retrosonic Podcast special episode here.
With many thanks to Paul Slattery for the pictures. All photos strictly copyright Paul Slattery 2013.
Thanks for the great article and pics of the Flamin' Groovies
ReplyDeletesaw them at rafters - so disappointed they didn't play shake some action, and they sounded like a Beatles/Stones covers band!
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