Flamin' Groovies
Daytrotter Session - May 2, 2014
- Welcome to Daytrotter
- Don’t You Lie to Me
- Yes I Am
It’s terrific if you can turn the very things that get under your skin about people in general — such as lying women and cheating men — into swaying rockabilly or power pop songs that wag a tongue at all the offending detritus and dumb asses and put a dragging key scratch across every side panel you pass.
Legendary San Francisco garage rockers Flamin’ Groovies have always had a way of focusing that fury into concise and ripping compositions that originally were the bellwether in the genre, proving to be the ideal jumping off point for many younger bands that came after them.
Listening to “Yes I Am,” a track from the group’s 1979 album, “Jumpin’ In The Night,” you hear in both lead singer Cyril Jordan’s vocals and the music the sweltering tones of anticipation, in the face of current stagnancy. It’s a story about the battle — the daily waging, the meager wages, the claims and the accusations, the desperate measures and something that sounds like a threatened return of sorts. It’s a bit of a wailing. It’s a fight and a dream sequence. It rings out with some kind of a sunset that might or might not be attained — if all of the dead weights would just scatter or get the hell out of the way for chissakes.