The Action: Rolled Gold

THE ACTION: ROLLED GOLD (1967-1968; 2002)

1) Come Around; 2) Something To Say; 3) Love Is All; 4) Icarus; 5) Strange Roads; 6) Things You Cannot See; 7) Brain; 8) Look At The View; 9) Climbing Up The Wall; 10) Really Doesn't Matter; 11) I'm A Stranger; 12) Little Boy; 13) Follow Me; 14) In My Dream; 15) In My Dream (demo).

This is one of those few records that factually deserve the title "lost" — a collection of demos as well as quite fully shaped recordings that the Action produced during their final years of exis­tence but never got around to release officially. After rotting in the vaults for decades, they were eventually released in the 1990s, first under the title Brain, then the somewhat flashier Rolled Gold. Those who love the Sixties, but also like their music polished and tend to shy away from raw archive releases, need not worry: Rolled Gold plays very much like a real, completed album, albeit one with slightly lower production values than expected.

This was an important time for The Action — on one hand, they were on the verge of breaking up, but at the same time, they were also trying to throw off the cover-band image and try their hand at original artistry: most or all of these tunes are self-penned and show a certain determination to develop an identity of their own. Unfortunately, they were a bit too late at it. Most of these tracks sound like they belong in late 1966/early 1967, but by late 1967/early 1968 all the Major Artists of the time were already moving away from the good old values of psychedelic Brit-pop, usually making the transgression to symphonic art-rock — or "regressing" towards bluesier or folkier values. So, Rolled Gold ended just a wee bit out of its time.

Today, of course, the dark wide year-long gap between 1966 and 1968 doesn't appear all that dark and all that wide to us any longer, and we have little problem judging the Action's late-period releases on the same scale as, e. g., the Who in their Quick One period. Thus, most responses one is likely to find to Rolled Gold follow the "great lost masterpiece" pattern — since few people other than dedicated Sixties aficionados are liable to be listening to it in the first place.

That may be an exaggeration. First, in terms of "uniqueness of sound", I'd say that the Action's R'n'B covers were fresher and more individualistic. On Rolled Gold, the band basically just jumps on the well-worn psychedelic bandwagon; before that, they had a gimmick of their own that no one else could replicate. Another thing is that, once faced with the task of developing their own songwriting style, they seem to subconsciously transfer their older R'n'B values on it, in that all the songs still share that hyperactive, 'get-up-and-dance' style: everything is loud, ringing guitars, massive drumming, heavy bass, non-stop power-pop, which is great for those who love the style but may be a little tiring for those who prefer some variety (uh, a ballad or two, perhaps?) Third, not all the songs are really well-written, and hooks are frequently sacrificed in favour of adrenaline — nothing unusual about it, of course.

But even so, Rolled Gold is absolutely indispensable for those who love all these things clumped together. Ringing guitars and rushing idealism — how can you beat this? My favourite tracks come right at the end, with 'Follow Me', built on a spiralling, distorted electric riff and rushing off at a much faster tempo than most of the other tracks, faithfully reflecting the invocation in its title; and two versions of 'In My Dream', a delightful combination of the pastoral and the psychedelic, truly worthy of holding its own against all the great acid anthems of its time. But your favourite tracks may be different — when everything sounds so similar, that's where the battle of tastes will always rage the fiercest.

Once it's time for decision-taking, the brain, flattered as it might be that the record's original title alluded to none other than itself, prefers to slight Rolled Gold as a formally successful, but intel­lectually unchallenging response to the times. The heart, however, being a sucker for guitar-driven power pop, overrules the brain with a thumbs up. Masterpiece or no masterpiece, The Action never recorded bad music, and not liking them is the listener's loss, not the authors'.

The Action: The Ultimate Action

THE ULTIMATE ACTION (1965-1968; 1980)

1) I'll Keep On Holding On; 2) Harlem Shuffle; 3) Never Ever; 4) Twenty Fourth Hour; 5) Since I Lost My Baby; 6) In My Lonely Room; 7) Hey Sha-Lo-Ney; 8) Shadows And Reflections; 9) Something Has Hit Me; 10) The Place; 11) The Cissy; 12) Baby You've Got It; 13) I Love You (Yeah!); 14) Land Of A Thousand Dances.

The Action should probably hold the official title of "Best 60s Band To Never Release An Al­bum". However, an LP-worth of a few great singles and a ton of filler — which is almost certain­ly what an Action album would have looked like, judging by the value of Rolled Gold — can't really measure again such a solid collection of excellent singles as placed on this CD.

The Action were a band doomed for early death, because they couldn't properly establish them­selves as a songwriting act at an age when you either were a songwriter or you went back to your local manufacturing plant. Not that they were awful at songwriting: the few originals contained here, such as the funny kiddie song 'Never Ever' and the cheery singalong 'Twenty Forth Hour', are lovable and fit in well with the rest. But apparently, they just couldn't establish an individual style that they'd be better at than their cover art.

Because one would be hard pressed to find a better British interpreter of the melodic school of American R'n'B than The Action around 1966-67. Maybe the Beatles — and it's hardly a coinci­dence that The Action were signed to work with George Martin, of all people — but by 1966, the Beatles had already distanced themselves from other people's works, and thus missed the chance of applying the technical and musical innovations of the period to the same old rock'n'roll and Motown pop numbers they showed so much respect for from 1963 to 1965.

Not the Action, though. Taking these trusty Motown and Atlantic numbers, they would carefully extract the essence, discard the production excesses, clean up the flaws, rearrange them for strict power-pop, guitar-bass-drums consumption, and make songs that combined the melodicity and soulfulness of the originals with the straightforwardness and determined energy of Britpop. And, in all fairness, they made this material rock out far better than the Beatles.

For some reason, the public didn't appreciate that — maybe because in Britain, Motown was run­ning out of fashion, or else folks just wanted the original thing (can't blame them). The band's highest charting single, a cover of the Marvelettes' 'I'll Keep On Holding On', only reached some­thing like No. 47 on the charts, even though it blows the original away — the guitars never shim­mered that way on Motown records, and the bass was never so determined to have its own way, and the harmonies were never that well produced.

Likewise, they manage to put to shame Martha and the Vandellas ('In My Lonely Room'), Bob & Earl ('The Harlem Shuffle'), and even Chris Kenner (the best cover of 'Land Of 1000 Dances' I've ever heard). Sometimes the gloss that cover artists try to put over the originals squeezes all soul out of them, but believe me, this is not the case with the Action: they understand well just where the hook lies, and give it their all — it's only up to George Martin to brush off all remaining dust. Of course, if they wanted to do James Brown, that'd be a whole different thing, but they never did, because their schtick was melody, not rhythm.

Out of the 14 cuts on this collection, there is not one bad choice (I do think that Carole King's 'Just Once In My Life' is one of her schmaltzier and more overwrought tunes, but when you hear it without strings, it's actually good!). It's pretty predictable from the onset, and contains no great breakthroughs, but it's still a unique type of sound that no one except this band had in 1966 and that no one will almost certainly have ever after. Which is why, mentally and cordially, I have no doubts about keeping my thumbs up for this as long as I live.