Flamin’ Groovies – Shake Some Action

This is a great power pop record. This band had different phases, blues rock, and then power pop after co-founder Roy Loney left. Over the decades, Shake Some Action has aged better than nearly anything else from its era. It doesn’t belong to 1976, not really, it belongs to the die-hard power pop fans that followed.

The Flamin’ Groovies first recorded this song in 1972, but the song was not released until their 1976 album of the same name, which was produced by Dave Edmunds, who sped up the tempo of the track and pushed the vocals. According to lead guitarist Cyril Jordan, the descending phrase he played on lead guitar was overdubbed about six times. Edmunds would also put remote microphones around the studio to fatten up certain passages.

The band started in 1965 with Roy Loney and Cyril Jordan. By the end of the sixties, they clashed over where to go. Loney was more Stones, and Jordon leaned toward the Beatles. Loney left in 1971, and they got an 18-year-old lead singer named Chris Wilson. They moved to London and started to work with Dave Edmunds. With Chris, they did more power pop, and that is when Shake Some Action came about, with Wilson and Jordon writing it.

They would go on to be a great power pop band and also be known as an early proto-punk band…they pretty much covered the gamut. This anti-drug song was written by Jordon and Loney before he left…Chris Wilson is singing it.

Wilson left in the early eighties, but the band continued until around 1994. They regrouped in 2012, including Chris Wilson. The Flamin’ Groovies have released 9 studio albums and one as late as 2017.

Shake Some Action

I will find a way
To get to you some day.
Oh, but I, babe, I’m so afraid I’ll fall, yeah.
Now can’t you hear me call?

Shake some action’s what I need
To let me bust out at full speed.
I’m sure that’s all you need
To make it all right.

It’s taken me so long
To get where I belong
Oh, but, oh, please don’t send me back that way, yeah.
For I will make you pay.

Shake some action’s what I need
To let me bust out at full speed.
I’m sure that’s all you need
To make it all right.

If you don’t dig what I say
Then I will go away.
And I won’t come back this again. No.
‘Cause I don’t need a friend.

Shake some action’s what I need
To let me bust out at full speed.
I’m sure that’s all you need
To make it all right.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

33 thoughts on “Flamin’ Groovies – Shake Some Action”

  2. Pingback: Flamin’ Groovies – Shake Some Action – MobsterTiger

  4. Wot! That’s a spot o’ flamin’ groovy that is! Sounds like an old Beatles song played by a band with 1985 era Peter Buck on Rickenbacker. Not a perfect power pop song, but a good one

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    1. It is ranked near the top of power pop songs…it has a huge cult following…to me what is weird…they sounded like The Stones 4 years before lol.

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  10. Crazy they have been going in name since 65. They are neck in neck with Grumpy Rog and Angry Pete in the time frame of being in a band. We all know the Who never broke up in 82…they took a break for a few years haha…

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  12. Very nice. Have heard the name before (probably here), but don’t know a lot about them. Some of the chords at the beginning remind me of “Driver’s Seat”, but that was years later.

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    1. Listen to Whiskey Woman and Slow Death…they don’t sound like the same band. Earlier in the 70s they were more like early 70s Stones…then boom…power pop…and very good power pop…. Drivers Seat does sound related to this.

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  13. Max, you must never sleep. How do you find these off-the-wall bands? The name alone drew me in. I’ve never heard of these guys, but then, I’m an old musician and haven’t listened to anything past 1970.

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    1. These bands just find me…I go look for the history of one band and I find another and it’s a chain. I like new/old music rather than new music…so it fits what I like.

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    1. I thought of that band as well. On a side note speaking of the dB’s…I might be seeing The Big Star Quintet next week if they don’t sell out. Jody Stephens, Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Jon Auer (The Posies), Pat Sansone (Wilco), and Chris Stamey (The dB’s).

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