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Born again
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The Flamin’ Groovies’ 1976 song “Shake Some Action” is a shining example of an amped-up pop song done to complete perfection. Unfortunately, the classic’s Mersey Beat pounding and infectious harmonies flew directly in the face of the pre-punk era’s excessive solos, stacked synths and platform shoes, relegating it to obscurity. The Flamin’ Groovies’ leader and guitarist Cyril Jordan has returned, after the band’s demise in 1992, with his new supergroup Magic Christian, featuring Blondie’s Clem Burke and the Plimsoul’s Eddie Munoz. Despite the long gap, Jordan has miraculously retained his penchant for penning perfect pop. The Mirror spoke with this legend while he was recording in San Francisco. Mirror: From your perspective, having gotten your start in 1965 with the Flamin’ Groovies, why do you think the music industry continues to push mediocrity even further to the forefront? Cyril Jordan: What happened was a bunch of straight people took it over, who had no business having anything to do with music. I’m a bit off the grid, though, as I don’t have a computer and have only listened to the same bands, like the Stones, the Kinks and the Beatles, for the past 30 years. From what I do manage to see, though, there seems to be a serious lack of talent going on now, or something I call “living room talent.” You used to go over to your aunt’s house for Thanksgiving and you would have to watch your nieces tap-dancing in the living room, and that’s the level of bullshit I see on television and radio right now. It still blows my mind that these retards are actually going over with people. If you ever wondered what it would sound like if demons took over art, just look at gangsta rap—that shit just has me outraged. It’s kind of like what McDonald’s did for the hamburger, but real music fans are going to continue to search out the good stuff, just like they’ve always done. M: After being around for 24 years, do you look back fondly on the Flamin’ Groovies place in rock ’n’ roll history? CJ: Well, not a lot of good stuff happened to the Groovies. As far as my own life goes, a lot of cool stuff happened to me personally during that time, like copping drugs for Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton or smoking pot with Caesar Romero, Rock Hudson and Ted Kennedy, y’know. That stuff was a lot cooler to me than anything that ever happened to the Groovies. The Groovies are kind of a bad memory because everything we did was marked by failure. In fact, I don’t even have any of the Groovies records and find it really difficult to listen to them now. I’m more excited about people hearing what Magic Christian is doing because I’m really having the most fun I’ve ever had. We really don’t have anything to do with contemporary music and don’t want to have anything to do with that bullshit because we’re trying to do something that is a bit more timeless, like Mickey Mouse or sex. If it’s cool, it’ll always be cool—it could be on an underground level or a bigger level but it will always be there and people will always be able to find it if they want it bad enough. WITH SONIC AVENUES AND DJ CRAWDADDY |
