While the neo-British Invasion edition of the Flamin' Groovies under the leadership of Cyril Jordan made the most records and gained the most fans, the group produced its wildest and most seriously rockin' music during its earlier incarnation with Roy Loney on lead vocals. Through the studio albums Flamingo and Teenage Head certainly back up this argument, the most powerful document of the sheer flamethrower strength of the original Groovies first emerged stateside on an obscure album called Bucketful of Brains. Taken from a cassette recording of a radio broadcast by the Loney-era group not long after completing Teenage Head and shortly before the singer quit the band, Bucketful of Brains is an amazing merger of low fidelity and high energy. The sound quality is fair at best and frequently sinks down to lousy, but the Flamin ' Groovies are on fire from the first note of "I Can't Explain" to the final blast of "Walking the Dog," with Cyril Jordan and James Farrell letting loose with all manner of furious guitar, George Alexander and Danny Mihm pounding out the big beat with no sense of shyness, and Loney belting out the tunes like his vocal chords were made of steel and he and his bandmates were tapped into a 220-volt power source. The occasion of this show was the final week of San Francisco's hippie-era rock palace the Fillmore West, and while you have to wonder what the folks who came out to see headliners Santana made of the Flamin' Groovies' opening slot (the KSAN DJ who occasionally interrupts the proceedings sounds both stoned and quite puzzled), for sheer energy this ranks with the finest rock & roll to ever emerge from the Bay Area. Bucketful of Brains also offers the only recorded opportunity to hear Roy Loney belt out the classic "Slow Death," as he left the band before it could be committed to tape in the studio, and his no-quarter performance makes one sigh at what could have been. A less-crummy sounding tape of the same broadcast was later released by Norton Records as The Flamin' Groovies in Person! (Norton co-founder Miriam Linna wrote the understandably enthusiastic liner notes for both releases), but Bucketful of Brains got there first, and it remains a sentimental favorite and a cherished relic of the vinyl era. Play it loud -- really loud.
© Mark Deming /TiVo