poisoning, Amsterdam was the expected hoot, then it was back home to spend ’77 getting caught up in the revolution taking place there while the Groovies returned to the US.


Next time I saw them was later that year at Eden Studios in Acton where they were finishing their next album with Dave Edmunds. That night they were working on a new version of ‘Blues From Phillys’ which Cyril had written new lyrics for aimed at their critics. Now it was called ‘Don’t Put Me On’ and fantastically featured the word “poltroon”. The track was another monster along the ‘Shake Some Action’ lines with one of Cyril’s killer guitar solos.


I really liked the studio and its engineer Roger Bechirian so when time came to record a single with my own band The Vice Creems (unfortunately I was singing), I arranged for us to record it there and asked Cyril if he would produce. He agreed but as the session was booked in down time starting in the morning he didn’t turn up with George until we were listening to the playback (although we did get the seal of approval for our humble attempt at widescreen Groovies-style pop).


I was now editing Zigzag and had been waiting for the next burst of Groovies activity to put them on the cover. This came with the April ’78 release of the new album, which I loved. With Wilhelm now firmly settled in, this was the first album recorded as a whole entity by the new band, a monumental tour- de-force of everything they stood for ranging from vibrant originals like the poignant ‘Take Me Back’ and stunning ‘Between The Lines’ (one of their most under-rated classics) to the astute choice of covers including stage-fave ‘House Of Blue Lights’, ‘Ups And Downs’, Cliff Richard’s ‘Move It’ and euphoric treatment of The Byrds’ ‘Feel A Whole Lot Better’, which would be the first single.


Their reference points had moved on to albums like Rubber Soul, Aftermath and Highway 61 Revisited. Of course it would get slagged but Now remains one of the best albums of that era; possibly because it evoked another one and showed what power that music could still have. Their record label Sire had switched distribution to Warner Brothers, launching the deal with a lunchtime bash at Leicester Square’s Notre Dame Hall, where the Groovies played a steaming set to a crowd of press and liggers including Bob Geldof and Paula Yates. Their press was now handled by the mighty Mick Houghton of this parish. Now they had fans in high places and things were looking good.


To give the feature a twist the band invited me to a rehearsal. So in an Islington rehearsal room, from midnight until dawn, I witnessed the Groovies powering through a barrage of covers including the Stones’ ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’, where their multiple-guitar attack surged into a tidal wave of ricochet licks and counter riffs with George’s bass dive bombing through the holocaust near the end. “It’s one of the most exciting songs ever written,” said Cyril, “I wish I’d remembered to put it on the album!” (It would turn up on the 12” single of ‘Feel A Whole Lot Better’).


Cyril was in his element. “Nothing feels better than getting stoned and doing our music like this late at night, just listening to the sound of it hypnotises me.” A general aura of laid- back electricity surrounds the Groovies at rehearsals, Cyril directing this awesome torrent of sound, firm but friendly, a raise of the hand if something isn’t quite right, a look of total joy if it is.


“[George and I] heard The Byrds rehearse ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ before anybody had even heard it. It was insane! The balance they had was just incredible. I got hypnotised, and that’s why we’re doing this, to get into that magic that we felt then… I walk over there with my eyes closed and I’m hearing this group which sounds incredible! It’s gotten down to that. We gotta do it because nobody else is doing it.”


What happens next proves his point. Chris starts fiddling with the riff from Them’s ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’. Cyril picks it up, George pushes a staccato rumble underneath joined by David’s backbeat. Then Wilhelm slides in and soon the whole band is going like a train. It sounds so good they decide to work it up for the set. An hour later it’s all there. Same thing happens with Moby Grape’s ‘Fall On You’, which the original Groovies played years ago. There was magic in the air that night.


Cyril was on typically passionate form, describing Now as, “technically the most advanced-sounding album ever made. That’s because it’s Dave Edmunds and his magic powers and Rockfield Studio, and us getting back in the studio and the energy, the studio equipment… the drum and bass sound on Shake Some Action was incredible but on this one it’s so BIG.”


If there was a rare levity in the air that night, it was to be short-lived. Three days into the European leg of the tour, Cyril fell down a flight of slippery stairs crushing the bottle he was holding in his hand, severing two tendons around his little finger, meaning intricate micro-surgery and cancellation of the European tour and first UK gigs.


The Groovies resumed the tour with Cyril’s hand in a complicated cast contraption and set pruned of tricky ones. I managed to catch five gigs, starting at Birmingham Barbarellas, where non-existent publicity attracted just a crazed couple of hundred to go ape at the glorious noise being thrust forth by the guys in new red, black velvet-coloured suits. Brunel was full of arsehole students doing silly walks and shouting “cripple” at Cyril. Terrible evening. Determined to make up for it, I caught Bournemouth two days later where they were on flying form playing all those songs I’d heard at the rehearsal.


Next it was Friars, which should have been incredible as it was the club’s ninth birthday party… and the day of Scotland’s first game in the World Cup, which they lost. The place was packed; band and crowd ready to go. How could it not be one of the great nights of all time? Leave it to a few tossers throwing beer and glasses during the first song to take


GEORGE ALEXANDER


George Alexander's bass playing was a constant positive strength in every Groovies' lineup. After many years away from music, he speaks...


"When Chris joined the band he added a new dimension to our sound because he had the uncanny ability to capture the vocal spirit of Bob Dylan ('Absolutely Sweet Marie') or John Lennon ('Next One Crying') or Mick Jagger ('Slow Death') as well as giving us the ability to do some of our favorite types of vocal harmonies, like The Everly Brothers, The Beatles or The Byrds did in their songs.


"From that point on we were able to produce ‘original’ songs that were written using a palate of rhythms, vocal sounds and melodies that paradoxically ‘originated’ from our roots as a garage band.


"It’s a little-known fact that when we went to Rockfield we created a lot of our originals right on the spot, composing and arranging tunes all day there at the house were we stayed or in the studio. But in order to have enough time to create songs in that environment, we would first record covers which we could lay down quickly and then use the rest of our allotted time in the studio to create new songs."


the wind out of the set, the group poised to leave until persuaded to return. Troublemakers dealt with, the Groovies returned but it never quite regained the momentum after that.


Thankfully, The Roundhouse made up for it. The group walked on to a roar, which Cyril later said, “was like snorting a five-foot line of cocaine, man!” By now I’d seen The Flamin’ Groovies 18 times and this did rank as the best ever as all the lobbing, gobbing, injury, illness, half-empty halls and arseholes of previous weeks faded into oblivion as the band played the best gig of their lives to a crowd which became more crazed by the song. By ‘Shake Some Action’ I was nearly in tears. They finished with ‘Around And Around’. “Never was a song more suited to an audience,” yelled Chris. Or a band.


The Groovies went on to record another album for Sire called Jumpin’ In The Night (the title track another stone classic) before being dropped. After that we all but lost touch; a shame because I’d spent three years fighting the band’s corner against formidable odds. The fact that they seem to have been defeated by trends and business is one of the greatest tragedies in rock ‘n’ roll but I still have these memories, and many more I haven’t room for, of one of the greatest bands to ever stalk the planet.


55


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