Flamin’ Groovies: Fantastic Plastic

Jeff Tamarkin on January 31, 2018


Back in the heyday of the San Francisco ballrooms, while everyone else was jamming the night away, Flamin’ Groovies served as outliers, keeping their songs short, melodic and tied directly to the spirit of early rock-and-roll. In 1971, singer/ guitarist Chris Wilson teamed with co-founders Cyril Jordan (who is also a guitarist and vocalist), bassist George Alexander and the other then-current members and began to push the band into a direction that overtly foreshadowed the power-pop movement that took root big time in the late ‘70s. Fantastic Plastic marks the reunion of Jordan and Wilson nearly four decades after the latter’s departure from the band. Co-writing all of the album’s originals together and tossing in a couple of choice covers (one each from The Beau Brummels and NRBQ), they’re joined by a revolving crew of bassists (Alexander appears on much of it) and drummers and, wouldn’t you know it, they sound just like they did when they were turning out gems like Shake Some Action and Flamin’ Groovies Now way back when. Among the new material, “Crazy Macy,” released earlier as a single, is a highlight, the kind of driving no-B.S. rocker you play once and then immediately need to play another half-dozen times.  “What the Hell’s Goin’ On” takes on an added dollop of tough, in a Stones/Faces mold, while guitar-saturated mini-gems like “She Loves Me” and “Lonely Hearts” could easily have been lost ‘60s regional 45s that found their way to one of those post-Nuggets compilations of shoulda-been hits. 

Artist: Flamin’ Groovies
Album: Fantastic Plastic
Label: SONIC KICKS/SEVERN