SHAKE IT OR LEAVE IT - Roy Loney and The Longshots (Career
Records)
This is such a varied and wild trip it's hard to work out where to begin. It's like Roy Loney's coalesced 45 years of rock and roll and squeezed it all into one focussed, beguiling, compelling and head-spinning cocktail. Shaken AND stirred.
"Shake It Or Leave It" pits Roy and his murderously good band on a musical Race Around the World where they visit as many stops as possible on a 35-minute trip (and shoot the journey on a widescreen Handicam.) It's prime time material that in no way limits itself to mere Goodtime Rock and Roll. There's plenty of that in evidence, sure, but with lashings of pop, country, boogie-woogie (natch') and psychedelia. Open the ears and take in the goodness.
While the post-Roy Groovies developed an infatuation with the music of the Beatles in the '70s, before morphing into sub-metal-ish rockers in the '80s (I blamed the hired drummer), Roy Loney's roots were always planted firmly in the '50s. Pre their parting, he and his bandmates wrestled with trippiness ("Sneakers"), slick boogie-woogie pop ("Supersnazz") and (at their peak) greasy Stones grooves ("Flamingo", "Teenage Head".) Some would say they out-Stonesed the Stones on those two. You'll go a long way to find two albums that were less of their time and place (hippy dippy San Francisco) but still wildly relevant today.
While the rockin' edge went off the band with Loney's departure, they were still capable of pop greatness - "Shake Some Action" anyone? Undoubtedly, however, Roy was the beating rock and roll heart that gave the band its centre. Not that he was reactionary; striking out on his own, Loney wore musical clothing that remained true to his roots but eclectic, if occasionally wayward.
This is the best Roy since that Phantom Movers EP, 20-something years ago. I say that, hand on heart, in the belief that the pastoral, olde harpsichord pop of "Hamlet's Brother, Happy" or the languid, acid-tinged moodsetter "Subterranean Waterfalls" - on which Jim Sangster's distant guitar weaves its way through shrouds of muted organ and splashed cymbals - might confound as many fans as they win. No matter - things come back to earth with "Miss Val Dupree", where The Longshots (and guest Deniz Tek) sound like a contemporary Dylan backing band, and there's the reverb rock-along of "Big Time Love", if you need more convincing.
This is An American Album. Identifiably so. There's also not a dull moment in this musical film noir world. "Raw Deal" is the Real Deal - 1min22sec of breathless Ronnie Dawson-style rockabilly that chugs past like a locomotive, while "Don't Like Nothin'" is all fuzzed up on some prime Tek and Joey Kline guitar interplay. "The Great Divide" is jangly, vulnerable pop and "The Big Nada" is spicy spaghetti-western-cum-country rock.
Clear-headed production by Ron Sanchez, Jim Sangster, Roy and Deniz Tek yields an album that's vibrant and radio-friendly but still capable of getting its rocks off.
Someone on a Loney mailing list opined that this was an album where Roy indulges his inner Charlie Feathers. Can't top that. - The Barman
1/2
Back in ’71, the line on Roy Loney’s band the Flamin’ Groovies was that, with their album "Teenage Head", they’d beaten the Rolling Stones at their own game. It wasn’t exactly true, but then again, most of the people who were making that comparison were rockcrits who preferred the punk energy of the ’65 Stones (which the Groovies had in spades because they worked hard at it) to the jaded pseudo-decadence of the then-current model; one can only guess what said rockcrits would make of what the Rolling Stones have become in 2007. (A hedge fund? A tourist attraction?) But I digress.
Loney bolted the Groovies not long after "Teenage Head"’s ignominious commercial failure and has spent the last 30 years doing estimable but under-the-radar revivalist solo work. In 2004, Montana-based Career Records (the label run by Donovan’s Brain honcho Ron Sanchez and Radio Birdman leading light Deniz Tek) released Loney’s "Drunkard In the Think Tank", an album he’d been shopping around for a couple of years. On "Shake It Or Leave It", a new recording of all original material, Loney takes on nothing less than the Whole History of Rock’n’Roll (or at least the parts of it he digs), backed by musos from Seattle’s Young Fresh Fellows with a few special guests.
This is the kind of disc that record store geeks used to love to play “spot the influence” with (and yes, I used to be exactly that kind of record store geek). Opening salvo “Baby Du Jour” chugs along with the good-natured spirit of Dave Edmunds’ Rockpile, while “Big Time Love” has the mid-tempo swagger and slap-back echo of Gene Vincent’s “Be Bop A Lula.” “The Great Divide” combines the jingle-jangle and vocal harmonies of a Gene Clark-sung Byrdsong with "Highway 61 Revisited" organ and George Harrisonic slide guitar flourishes. “Big Fat Nada” sounds like a collision of Buddy Holly’s Crickets (the vocals) and Johnny Cash’s Tennessee Three (the bumpa-chicka rhythm), while “Raw Deal” conjures Sun rockabilly, complete with Scotty Moore-styled guitar break. “Danger Waves” ventures into Merseybeat territory -- especially the Ringo-esque drum fills.
“Don’t Like Nothin’” gives us fuzztone-blaring garage punk a la the Count Five or Shadows of Night, complete with rave-up raga in the middle, while “Subterranean Waterfalls” is full-on, reverb-heavy Chocolate Watchband studio psychedelia. You can almost feel the presence of Ed Cobb in the background, pulling the strings. “Hamlet’s Brother, Happy” is a Kinksian little ditty with lyrics featuring the kind of Shakespearean allusions you’d expect from a guy who once wrote “I’m going to make my second cousin my first wife.” “Miss Val Dupree” taps into the same Tejano polka thump as Sir Douglas Quintet’s “She’s About A Mover,” down to the cheesy Farfisa organ. “Looking for the Body” runs ‘50s rock through the filter of the Move circa “California Man,” albeit with a much cleaner production sound; dig the first, out-of-kilter guitar solo. Finally, “Hey Now” finds Roy & Co. back in Rockpile territory.
In a just universe, Roy Loney would be at least as well known as Nick Lowe, which is to say, less famous than Sir Mick Jagger, but more famous than the guy in the pub at the end of the street. From the Flamin’ Groovies on up to the present, his music has been imbued with a playful sense of fun that the Rawk can always use more of. Bless him. - Ken Shimamoto
DRUNKARD IN
THE THINK TANK – Roy Loney and The Longshots (Career
Records)
It should come as no shock that Roy Loney's gone and put out a gem like "Drunkard".
The original singer for San Francisco's Flamin'
Groovies has a noteworthy, under-appreciated but hard-to-find solo back catalogue
(chase down the Phantom Movers for proof) that shows he's forgotten more about
rocking than most will ever know.
This one had been sitting in the vault for a few years, before old mate and Career co-honcho Ron Sanchez talked Roy into giving him the rights.
Barely a month in the racks and it's walking out the Career warehouse
door. No wonder.
The Longshots, whose ranks include a collection of North-West musical luminaries
like Scott McCaughey (Fresh Young Fellows) and ex-Donovan's Brain guitarist
Jim Sangster, are a primo outfit. The songs are clean and catchy mid-tempo
rockers, often playfully executed.
"Drunkard" recalls some of the best moments on the Groovies' first
three albums and first EP and will put their legacy in a different light for
Australian fans, whose only brush with that band might be the Cyril Jordan/George
Alexander-led line-up that toured here in the ‘80s (two actual Groovies
and three hired hands). For sure, the latter-day Groovies had claims to greatness
with their blend of pop purity and Beatles obsessions but they were at their
best when they did their own thing. "Shake Some Action" – the
album and the actual song - is genius, even if subsequent albums were dotted
with occasional duff covers. But the Loney era band was arguably more rocking
and rootsy, exempting the overly slick "Supersnazz", which predates
the superior "Teenage Head" and "Flamingo", and that's
what you cop here.
Most of these songs are abject rockers with a few ballads to break up the
flow. The majority are solely Loney compositions, with the odd collaboration
and obscure cover thrown in. A McCaughey song, "Grapey Wine", is
one of the best on offer. "You Don't Owe Me" sounds like a Creedence
tune and was penned by John Fogerty, but in a lesser-known '70s band, the
(post Golliwogs) Blue Ridge Rangers. The poignant "Five Times a Fool"
is Buddy Holly-like with Loney in toned down mode.
Nothing's new but this was a surprise: "Doggone Fine" sounds like
a lite take on the New Christs' "Sun God", I kid you not. I doubt
Roy's ever heard them, but there you go. Coincidences happen. Another surprise
is the dark "Such a Nice Boy" – a song about a transvestite
("He was such a nice boy/And now he's a very strange girl"). It
also has the slightest whiff of a "Teenage Head" guitar line lurking
in the background.
"House of Games", "One Track Mind" and the clever commentary
"Nobody Does It" are standout songs that most will need to hear.
But wait, there's more. The album's originally intended tracklisting (was
this once destined to be vinyl only?) stopped at 13 tunes. This disc brings
forth three bonus tracks. "Move It Baby", "Unoriginal Sin"
and "Let Me Go". All would have been perplexing omissions. The latter
song and "House Of Games" are appropriate bookends, as it happens.
This is unpretentious, rocking and very enjoyable. – The
Barman
