There are few memories nicer than the rock of the Fifties and the great late-afternoon cartoons we grew up with. The fine thing about the Flamin' Groovies album, which is merely adequate otherwise, is the fidelity with which it sets the Looney Tune spirit (exuberantly childlike satire) in perfectly realized soundscapes thumpingly reminiscent of the good old days. Supersnazz indeed: Chuck Berry hot licks, pistol-packin' mamas, rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu!—sans corroding traces of the condescension, dilettantism and sweaty strain which usually mar this kind of thing. The Groovies, like no other group working in this area, communicate that sense of truly youthful enthusiasm and fun which was at the heart of early rock. Their music is fresh, innocent, and feels good night or day. No qualifications: it is truly open and ingenuous.

For me this joy shines brightest in "Bam Balam," a perfect music cartoon about a "Harem cutie from Hindustan," complete with liquid snakecharmer clarinet solo hoochie-cooing to the rhythm of her bouncing bambalams. Anyone who calls it camp doesn't deserve it. The only thing the group could put on their second album to top it would be a musical vision of Uncle Scrooge skinny-dipping in his moneybin sea of cash.

Venerable rock testaments like Eddie Cochran's "Something Else" and the "Rockin' Pneumonia" classic get a treatment so natural it falsifies almost all similar attempts of the last year, the Beatles' work included. "Something Else" is one of the all-time great conspicuous consumption dig-my-fine-chick songs, and it flows right into a jumping "Pistol Packin' Mama," which may or may not have some ulterior musical significance but which is great musical continuity anyway.

Much the same might be said for the two songs preceding them, in which the temptations of Babylon are vividly rendered for innocents and rustics, first in the form of that cackling dope pusher who plots to snare you into monkeyback bondage when "The First One's Free," and then in the lurid picture of "Pagan Rachel," that slinky city vamp who waits in the jaundice light of streetlights for luckless cowlicked kids. Prodigals, harken: the Flamin' Groovies have a message that may save your souls from these and other gateways to brimstone! Indeed, the final song sums it all up, the message of Looney Tune liberation from all cares which is at the heart of the Groovies" music: "You can fly, 'round the corner!"

Yep. Levity is central to their conception, free from shadows and shamblin', can-kicking frustrations. With unfettered delight so rare a quantity these days, you might find yourself soaring on this one. I did. (RS 48)

LESTER BANGS