Roy Loney — dynamic frontman put the fire in Flamin’ Groovies
In 1965, when the San Francisco Sound was starting its move toward psychedelia, a Visitacion Valley kid named Roy Loney was taking rock ’n’ roll in the opposite direction.
As the frontman of the Flamin’ Groovies, Loney forged a sound that ran contrary to the hippie motif of the acid rock bands of the 1960s. His vocals harked back to fundamental ’50s rockers like Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, and the Groovies inspired a generation of bands with their independent and untrendy spirit.
“Roy was one of a kind. He was unique as a vocalist and a tremendous songwriter,” said James Ferrell, who played guitar in both the Flamin’ Groovies and the subsequent band Roy Loney and the Phantom Movers. “His songs always rocked. The man knew his way around three chords.”
The Groovies were performing behind Loney as recently as May before health problems overtook him. He died Friday, Dec. 13, at the CPMC Davies Campus. The cause of death was severe organ failure, said Vivian Altmann, his longtime girl
friend. He was 73.
“Roy always said he was born on a Friday the 13th, and he died on a Friday the 13th,” said Altmann. “That is a very rockin’ thing to do.”
Though Loney seldom played guitar onstage, he always wrote with a guitar. Onstage, “Roy was wild,” Ferrell said. But the native San Franciscan was usually under the radar at home, where he could be found behind the counter of Jack’s Record Cellar on Scott Street in the Lower Haight.
Loney left the Flamin’ Groovies in 1971 but joined them for several reunion shows in the 21st century, including a show in May at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley.
“He always laid it out there 110%, even recently,” said Ferrell, who saw the Sweetwater concert.
Roy Alan Loney was born April 13, 1946, and graduated in 1965 from Balboa High School, where he was involved in the drama department. He also acted at San Francisco State University. While in college, he was accepted at the conservatory of the Royal Shakespeare Company in StratforduponAvon, England, said longtime friend and bandmate Lawrence Levy. But he turned it down in favor of his first band, the Chosen Few, in 1965.
A year later, the band changed its name to the Flamin’ Groovies. As the Flamin’ Groovies, their debut release was “Sneakers,” a 10inch EP. The band’s followup, “Supersnazz,” came after they were signed by Epic.
The label eventually dropped the band, but the flame kept blazing. The band’s “Teenage Head” and “Flamingo” became cult classics, helping to lay the groundwork for the strippeddown sound of punk rock.
“The Groovies were the most ferocious rock band to come out of San Francisco in the psychedelic era,” said Maurice Tani, another San Francisco native who saw the Groovies as a teenager at the
Fillmore and later joined the Phantom Movers.
“Roy had this sense of purity about his musical vision that I found illuminating at the time. He didn’t look like a rock star, but he acted like a rock star.”
The Groovies were also concert promoters for a time.
After Bill Graham moved his operations from the Fillmore Auditorium to the Fillmore West on Van Ness, the Groovies became concert promoters at the Fillmore. For one legendary show they brought in Iggy Pop and the Stooges and Alice Cooper to introduce the Detroit sound to San Francisco. The show was a bomb, all but ending the Groovies as promoters.
By the mid’70s when Loney left the Groovies, he went to work as a talent scout for ABC Records before forming the Phantom Movers, which was more of a roots rock act, with a hint of the rockabilly that was fashionable at the time. “Punkabilly,” Rolling Stone labeled it.
He also had a Seattlebased band called Roy Loney and the Long Shots, and a band formed in Spain, Roy Loney and Señor No, that had him performing on the European circuit.
“Offstage he was quiet and calm,” said Tani. “Onstage he was the most dynamic frontman I ever worked with.”
In the 1990s, Loney started working at Jack’s Record Cellar. “Everybody who was anybody in the cult rock world would come there to see Roy,” said Levy, guitarist in the Phantom Movers. “He would talk for hours to the customers about bands and the history of music. He knew something about almost every band that ever lived.”
For eight years, Loney and Altmann lived in a flat in the Castro district, while Loney worked at the record store. He had rejoined the Groovies for a monthlong European tour after the Sweetwater kickoff show.
But on June 1, as the band was set to depart for the tour, Loney fell and hit his head while walking through San Francisco International Airport. He was unable to take the flight and missed the tour.
He recovered at home, but in the past three months his health began to decline for reasons unconnected to the accident, Levy said. He had been in and out of the hospital for nine days prior to his death.
“It is hard to capture the excitement of living with Roy,” said Altmann. “He was an original in every sense of the word, onstage and off.”
Survivors include Vivian Altmann of San Francisco, sister Carol Bayer of Germantown, Wis., and nephews Cristian Bayer of Sunnyvale and Alfred Bayer Jr. of Lisbon, Wis.
A memorial concert is being planned.