You can now buy 'All Our Yesterdays - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of The Small Faces' in e-book form by clicking here
"The Best Of Humble Pie"
(A&M, '1982')
Hot
'n' Nasty/Stone Cold Fever/I Can't Stand The Rain/30 Days In The Hole/Black
Coffee/Shine On/C'mon Everybody/Honky Tonk Women/I Don't Need No Doctor
"Found it hard to find you in the
dark..."
Yikes!
Ways of not making a compilation appeal to its main fanbase #1: use a cover of
a fat middle-aged housewife being hit in the face, comedy-style, with a 'pie'.
Ways...#2: Give her curlers for extra horror. Ways...#3: Ignore most of the
songs that your audience actively knows and loves in favour of endless eight
minute slowed down rock numbers that in truth most fans skip. Ways...#4: Edit
most of those longer songs down to size so they make no sense in their new incarnations
anyway. Ways...#5: Release this album at a time when this sort of repetitive
fierce rock and roll is so out of fashion it hurts! We asked our readers what
they thought of this record using a Humble Pie chart - and ended up with pie on
our faces too for making people sit through this rubbish, thankfully not yet
re-issued on CD. Next!
Steve Marriott "Packet Of
Three" aka "Live At Dingwells"
(Aura
Records, Recorded July 1984 Released 1986)
What'cha
Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Fool For A Pretty Face/Shame On You/Bad Moon Rising/The
Cockney Rhyme/All Shook Up/The Fixer/All Or Nothing/Five Long Years/30 Days In
The Hole/I Don't Need No Doctor/Big Train Stop In Memphis/Walkin' The Dog
"You can't be late, buy the
express rate, you know the Dingwalls air sometimes still sounds sweet!"
While
his peers were making big-news live concerts from Shea Stadium and Central
Park, Marriott was reduced to recording primitive live sets rejected by his
record label in a 500 seat arena down the less glamorous side of London. At
least Marriott had won some support from the BBC though who broadcast this show
live - brave stuff given how wayward Marriott's live shows of the time were
becoming and perhaps his last moment close to a spotlight in his lifetime.
Marriott has certainly turned up the wick compared to his recent live shows,
investing this gig with energy and some old favourites including two of the
earliest Small Faces songs (though there's nothing later than the Decca years
here) and two Humble Pie live favourites as well as a number of songs from his
more recent live career. Unfortunately, The Packet Of Three are no Humble Pie
never mind The Small Faces and sound more like a pub band, plodding through
songs rather than giving Marriott the inter-action he's always needed to be
pushed into giving his best. His voice, fading from too many years of booze and
drugs, is by now a pale shadow of itself too but he can still accelerate into
his old best when he's moved to it, with highlights of the set including a
charming take on 'Fool For A Pretty Face', an epic eleven minute '30 Days In The Hole'
and a full thirteen minute 'I Don't Need No Doctor' that doesn't sound quite as
healthy as it used to but is still good enough until the next check-up. The
highlight though is surely the a capella burst of madness that's 'Cockney
Rhyme', a traditional song in the public domain that's a clear influence on the
delightful gibberish of 'Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass' and perfect for
Marriott's cheeky off-beat humour ('Pyjamas aren't what they used to be!')
There's also, however, way too many limp cover songs of old standards in the
Humble Pie tradition of being slower and more awkward than their originals, a
poor substitute for both the originals and Marriott's own superior back
catalogue, while the worst travesty is the pair of Small Faces songs slowed
down to a crawl, all excitement gone. All or nothing, then, in the usual
Marriott style.
Steve Marriott/Packet Of Three
"Live At The George Robey" aka "Afterglow"
(Zeus, Recorded October 1985)
What'cha
Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Fool For A Pretty Face/Shame On You/All Or Nothing/Talkin'
'Bout You/Five Long Years/Afterglow/I Don't Need No Doctor/Big Train Stop In
Memphis/Tin Soldier
"Ain't nobody else going to take
my place..."
This gig
with Marriott's new , umm, 'smoking' band 'Packet Of Three' has a more
interesting background than it is to actually listen to. The set was taped for
Marriott's archives back in 1985 (by a journalist, according to the
sometimes-questionable sleevenotes) and as usual Marriott's distrust of record
companies meant he put it away for safe keeping while he wondered what to do
with it. Fans looking for tributes after his death in that house fire in 1991
requested its release as a record they knew to be in existence, but the tapes
were never found, presumed lost in that same fire. The tapes turned up
mysteriously in 1995 (did Marriott lend them to a friend?) and were
rush-released as a late tribute to the man. Sadly the gig itself is one of
Marriott's ropier ones, recorded when the singer was a little rusty after over
a year away from touring and all too obviously recorded from the audience
rather than using professional equipment. However it's still a gig worthy of
release if only for the three Small Faces songs - more than heard at any
post-Small Faces Marriott gig, which all sound pretty good tonight: 'What'cha
Gonna Do 'Bout It?' has been altered to fit a preening strutting Humble Pie
hard rock slant that works rather well, 'All Or Nothing' is poignant and sad
and an unexpected revival of 'Afterglow' (the name given to this set on its
re-issue) is ragged but gloriously raw. Other highlights include one of
Marriott's better slowed down classic rockers (Chuck Berry's 'Talkin' Bout
You'), while 'I Don't Need No Doctor' is in slightly better health than of
late. Too many of these songs though are long drawn out Motown classics or rock
ballads that are becoming something of a strain for Marriott to sing, while the
dichotomy is that Packet Of Three play these old standards more like a punk
band, something that doesn't quite work. Marriott is on gloriously cheeky form
in his few on-stage chats as well, perhaps invigorated by the idea of
performing at a relatively local theatre to his old London home named after the
famous music hall comedian. Not the best then, but not the worst, long overdue
a re-issue as it's one of the rarer albums in this book.
"Quite Naturally"
(Castle, '1986')
Rollin'
Over/Song Of A Baker/I Feel Much Better/Talk To You/Tin Soldier/Autumn
Stone/Become Like You/I Can't Make It Without You/Donkey Rides A Penny A
Glass/Rene/I'm Only Dreaming/The Hungry Intruder/Red Balloon/Just Passing
"What becomes of me is meant to be
- so I'll just groove along quite naturally!"
At the
risk of turning all our readers away, now a history lesson. We may be twenty
years nearly after the event but Immediate are still in a financial black hole
that the loss of their biggest band (The Small Faces if you've somehow got to
this point without realising) didn't help. The sensible thing would have been
to re-release the best-selling Small Faces LPs and they did, with more Ogden's
Nut Gone Flake's floating around than a tobacconists. But back in the late
1960s right up to the mid 1980s re-releasing old material was anathema to most
collectors when there were so many interesting exciting 'new' things to get
into. However it's around the time of this compilation that everything changes: the invention of CDs make
the re-issue of old music acceptable again for collectors whose vinyl copies
were getting very old by now and were sucked in by all the promise of digital
sound (something the record business is still trying it's best to recover from,
but hey at least CDs don't take up quite as much space as vinyl or the likes of
me and you would have nowhere left in the house to sleep at night). Oh, not to
mention the fact that absolutely nothing of any value was happening at all in
the mid-1980s unless you seriously think Kylie Minogue and the Stock-Aitken-Waterman
empire counts as music. Unfortunately Immediate were so taken with the sales of
their first 'modern' Small Faces compilation and how much easy money they made
that they'll spend the next thirty years and counting re-issuing Small Faces
product to every company who offers them a bit of spare change. Quite apart
from the sad fact that we have to review all the flipping things, it rather
cheapened the impact of The Small Faces' product when reviewers and fans alike
know that there'll probably be a near-identical set along in a minute. All you
need to own really is the longest, the 'Whapping Wharf Laundrette' double disc
set full of every album tracks and oodles of rarities which got things right
early on, but that hasn't stopped Immediate from trying to re-create perfection
many times since.
At the
time of 'Quite Naturally' though the CD is still an invention for the rich and
technological rather than the general public (finally taking off the following
year when the release of every Beatles album on CD makes them 'officially
acceptable' for most people to own. Despite the name, there's nothing natural
about this timid set at all, which includes just fourteen tracks and a
half-hour running time (most of the later sets run for two hours plus). The set
includes a couple of rare alternate mixes which were collectors items until the
mammoth 'Here Comes The Nice' box finally included everything (and we mean
everything, including every time Steve Marriott coughed near a microphone) in
2014 - only the sleeve didn't say so, presenting itself as more of a
traditional compilation. Which is odd because it doesn't look much like a
traditional compilation: there's no 'Here Come The Nice' 'Lazy Sunday' or 'Itchycoo Park' for starters,
while 'Tin Soldier' is only included via an (admittedly rather groovy) outtake
of a backing track. The other oddity is an instrumental of 'The Hungry
Intruder', which seems an odd choice as without the vocals it's one of the few
Small Faces backing tracks where not much happens. Later Small Faces
compilations would get things more 'right' and yet for collectors at the time
or for those who'd never heard The Small Faces before but were just buying up
every CD they could lay their hands on back in the days when there weren't
many, this set was a revelation and gave the band (and particularly the label)
a boost just when they were in danger of being forgotten. The 90s mod revival
is just around the corner...
Steve Marriott/Packet Of Three
"Some Kind Of Wonderful"
(Whapping Wharf Records, Recorded 1987,
Released 2006)
CD
One: What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Don't Lie To Me/Mother In Law/All Or Nothing/I
Know (You Don't Love Me No More)/My Girl/Fool For A Pretty Face/Five Long
Years/Shame Shame Shame/Big Train Stops At Memphis/I Don't Need No Doctor/Tin
Soldier/Slow Down
CD
Two: Some Kind Of Wonderful/Don't Lie To Me/Mother In Law/All Or Nothing/I Know
(You Don't Love Me No More)/Never Loved A Woman/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout
It?/Fool For A Pretty Face/Five Long Years/Tin Soldier/Run Rudolph Run/Walkin'
The Dog/Steve Marriott Interview 1988
"I don't need a whole lot of
money, I don't need a big fine car..."
Well,
wonderful is probably going a bit too far but these two gigs recorded in 1987
and released through the Whapping Wharf fanzine are, like so many of Marriott's
posthumous releases, nice to have. These two gigs were recorded nearly back to
back, the first disc at the Hammersmith Odeon in July and the second at The
Park Hotel in Tynemouth in February but what's most impressive about them is how
different the two gigs are with very different material and quite a different
feel about them, with the first gig for the fans pure nostalgia and the second
for a smaller, more loyal audience more about crafting a new sound. Sadly while
the spirit is willing, with The Official Receivers now strong enough to match
mid-period Humble Pie and Marriott on shouty charismatic form, the flesh is so
often weak. Marriott's voice is quite alarming if you've come to it straight
from one of his 'classic' recordings and he sounds oddly fragile here, no
matter how much roar he still packs into his vocals. He certainly sound far
older than forty, with his big birthday coming
just before the first gig here. Quite often he passes vocals over to his
bandmates anyway, such as comedy track 'Mother In Law'.
The
first disc is the greater, recorded in better sound and with some interesting
covers of songs like Larry Williams' 'Slow Down' and Smokey Robinson's 'My
Girl' sung with far more care than any of Humble Pie's similar covers and some
cracking repeats of old favourites like 'Tin Soldier' and 'Fool For A Pretty
Face'. Sadly 'I Don't Need No Doctor' sounds like a parody, slowed to a
ridiculously dawdling pace across twelve painful minutes, but it's the only
song here that really doesn't work. The second disc though is in such poor
sound you'd feel short-changed buying it as a bootleg and while the track
selection looks really interesting sadly the versions here are either over or
under-sung. An unexpected revival of first Small Faces single 'What'cha Gonna
Do 'Bout It' is treated to a fine hard-hitting arrangement but sadly Marriott
has lost all subtlety in his voice and shouts it rather than sings, while 'Tin
Soldier' is so wretched it should have been de-mobbed. Probably the most
interesting thing on the second disc is a twelve minute interview with Marriott
conducted around the same time as the two gigs and which features him in an
engaging mood, riffing round some of his favourite subjects including 'Ogden's
and Don Arden. Marriott again talks about his money worries and being phoned up
by the makers of the 'Backtrackin' series about a possible Small Faces re-issue
which he turned down flat after learning he wouldn't make any money (they went
with The Kinks instead!) Very much a set of two halves, then, but the powerful
on-form first gig makes up for the lacklustre second. Hearing the two together
is probably all too uncomfortably close to the truth of what a Marriott live
experience could be like in the 1980s: miserable or magic depending on which
night you caught him.
Steve Marriott "30 Seconds To
Midnite"
(Trax Music, '1989')
Knocking
On Your Door/All Or Nothing/One More Heartache/The Um Um Um Um
Song/Superlungs/Get Up Stand Up/Rascal You/Life During Wartime/Phonecall Away/Clapping
Song/Shakin' All Over/Gypsy Woman
"Waiting for the rising sun
everyone was having fun - apart from the bloke on the synthesiser who collapsed
from exhaustion!"
Thank
goodness Steve got this final album made before he died after a decade or so of
procrastination. Which is not to say that it's particularly good or a
rollicking return to form and in truth it's as inconsistent as either of the
Humble Pie reunion albums with worse 1980s production values and Marriott's
vocals ever more scratchy. But fans who'd been carrying the flame for so long
had been waiting for this album to come out and nearly all the songs that the
guitarist had introduced as live highlights during the past few years are here.
The effect is like having one last encore to enjoy Marriott's work in all its
highs and lows together. The backing band is the 'new' version of 'Packet Of
Three' who are far more digital darlings than the old
wham-bam-thank-you-mans-and-mams style, which to these ears is a bit of a shame
- only Marriott's second studio solo album sounds frustratingly like the lesser
polished 'American' half of 1976's 'Marriott' rather than the wonderfully
ragged character-filled first. Even the front cover's a bit weird: many visual
images come to mind when you think of Steve Marriott but impressionism isn't
one of them! (is this from Picasso's little known 'guitar' period?!)
The
other problem working heavily against this album is that it's so chock-full of
covers: we know from the 'Rainy Changes' and 'Raincoat' anthologies just how
many Marriott compositions were going spare, most of them far better than
anything here, so why weren't more of them used? Luckily the one new original
here 'Phone Call Away' is a good 'un and rather poignant on reflection as
Marriott tells us however far he goes from us he can always be reached. In fact
that's arguably this album's strongest suit, something which wouldn't have been
known back in 1989: it feels like a farewell and often a fitting one, Marriott
poised between some oldies from his very earliest years and a sense that he's
getting towards the end, even though at the time he was still only 42, young
even by rock and roll standards. Just take that title: This is Marriott two
years away from the end, 30 seconds away from his own midnight, still giving
his all - albeit in the company of synths and things that really don't suit
him. Another album that might shock casual fans, but committed Marriottettes
would never be without.
Credence
Clearwater Revival seem like a sensible choice - they weren't all that far
removed from Humble Pie. But 'Knocking
On Your Door' (originally 'Lookin' Out My Back Door') isn't one of their
best and the drummer is taking the idea of 'knocking' all too literally!
A lumpy
re-make of 'All Or Nothing'
fares even worse than Pie's 'Tin Soldier', given a 1980s makeover and a
typically Marriott slowed-down tempo that this timeless song really didn't
need. This recording has too much 'all' and ends up with 'nothing'.
Smokey
Robinson's 'One More
Heartache' is at least more suited to Marriott's smokey vocal, though
again his voice is the only thing that really works on a song that's so tinny
and 1980s it sounds like a computer game soundtrack.
Curtis
Mayfield's 'Um Um Um Um Um Um'
song, which AAA fans might know better from The Mindbender's cover before Eric
Stewart joined 10cc, is an apt choice too, Marriott getting to offer his depth
on the verses and cockney humour on the hummed chorus. The background, though,
is like all your worst memories of the 1980s rolled into one.
Donovan's
'Superlungs' is a
surprisingly noisy song by a songwriter whose usual crime is being bland (as
well has exactly the sort of ego to come up with a song title like that and
thinking he invented everything ever done in music since about 1968. One of his
best known songs is 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' which sounds remarkably like The Small
Faces' 'Green Circles' a year later!) This track suits the 1980s backing better
than most here and Marriott of course has superlungs, though he doesn't often
get much chance to use them.
Marriott
is more sympathetic than most white musicians to Bob Marley covers, but 'Get Up Stand Up' doesn't so
much push for rights as have a quiet lie down not doing very much.
'Rascal You'
sounds like the ghost of late period Humble Pie, a shouty unfocussed rocker
about a no-gooder that's screamed rather than sung.
'Life During Wartime' is just bland musically, though it features perhaps the best
lyric of the album as Marriott sings about a boyhood in the war avoiding bombs
(though technically he was born in 1947, two years after armistice day).
Marriott's
own 'Phone Call Away'
is easily the best thing here, despite the backing, as like so many past songs
in his career he admits to struggling with loneliness and longing for someone
to be at the end of a phone line. He also promises to be for them - and for
'us' - whenever we need him, whatever happens to him. A sweet song that
deserved far better treatment.
Lincoln
Chase's 'Clapping Song'
is pretty darn good too, a comedy nonsense song about choking monkeys or
something (and no it's not a euphemism this time!) given a great strutting
performance as Marriott bounces off a sub-Blackberries girl group.
Johnny
Kidd and The Pirates' 'Shakin'
All Over' is of course a rock and roll classic much covered by
Marriott's peers - the Pirates were after all the only English rock and roll
group worth buying pre-Beatles. However this Pirates cover is more like a
mutiny, slowed down to a crawl and losing all the excitement - ad the point it
has to be said - of the original. At least when The Who slowed this down they
speeded it up again at key moments and Roger Daltrey sounded like he meant it.
A second
Curtis Mayfield cover 'Gypsy
Woman' makes for a strong finale though - the last song released under
Marriott's name in his lifetime. A slow, smokey tribute to an exotic girl, it's
a good fit for Marriott's voice, though thematically it sounds more like a
Ronnie Lane track. 'Hypnotise me with love!', the song's key line, screeched at
full power, is a pretty fair summary of Marriott's career too: intense,
brooding, desperate and real, it's a worthy goodbye.
Overall,
though '30 Seconds To Midnite' sounds as if it needs a whole new production,
perhaps a new backing band and at least a half dozen better songs to be a truly
worthy addition to Marriott's canon. It's something of a shame given how much
better some of the period live versions of these songs were and the absence of
other live favourites like Fleetwood Mac's 'Oh Well' is a shame. But oh well
indeed - we'd rather have this album than not and at times, such as on 'Gypsy
Woman' and 'A Phone Call Away', there's enough of the old Marriott shine behind
those ugly synths and noisy drums to catch the ear. This records just
neeeeeeeeds a remix doctor - and a track to the level of 'I Don't Need No
Doctor' - and it would be fine.
Steve Marriott "All Or Nuffin' -
The Final Performances"
(Marriott, Recorded 1991, Released June 2008)
CD
One: Memphis Tennessee/Watch Your Step/Some Kind Of Wonderful/Big Train Stops
At Memphis/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Talkin' 'Bout You/Silly Song/Itchycoo
Park/Mr Pitiful/Hallelujah I Love Her So/Five Long Years/All Or Nothing/This
Ol' Fool/Natural Born Bugie/Before You Accuse Me
CD
Two: Why I Sing The Blues/Man In Black/Havin' A Good Time/Rainy
Changes/Berkshire Poppies/Route 66-Be Bop A Lula/Steve Marriott Interview
"Talkin' 'bout you! Nobody but
you!"
Strictly
speaking this is the 'final performance' of Steve's that was recorded rather
than performed, taped at a gig in Germany in February 1991 by an enterprising
fan. Neither of them of course know the significance of this date, as Marriott
goes through the motions with the new revised 90s version of 'Packet Of Three'.
Even by Marriott's recent standards it's not a great performance, high on
unfocussed shouting and careless versions of old friends, while the sound
quality sounds like Marriott's performing in a shower, not a theatre. That
said, though, this set is of huge historical value, with a last message -
however unintended - of great import simply for being the last. Interestingly
Marriott sounds more at pace with his legacy at this stage in his life, throwing
in a whole number of songs he didn't normally do: lots and lots of old rock and
roll standards half-remembered from his youth (of which a quick-stepping
'Memphis Tennessee' and Bobby Parker's 'Watch Your Step' - the inspiration for
The Beatles' 'I Feel Fine' -
particularly strong), a gorgeous Otis Redding cover in 'Mr Pitiful' that's
defiant rather than self-pitying as per the original, no less than three Small
Faces songs (including the only post-77 reunion tour version of 'Itchycoo
Park', which is terribly wonky but still good fun) and Humble Pie's only bona
fide hit record 'natural Born Bugie', which the band itself stopped playing
around 1970 and which here sounds suspiciously like the song that inspired it,
Carl Perkins' 'Blue Suede Shoes'.
Of even
more potential interest to fans is the short second disc containing a
compilation of songs Steve helped others record. Though it looks from the
discographies as if Marriott stayed away from the studio across the 1980s,
that's only true for his own albums - he was still more than ready to help out
his friends in that decade where most of these tracks date from. Six examples
of this are here, none of them unmissable but all quite interesting with
Marriott's guitar or backing vocal or both stealing all the spotlights. One of
these is quite legendary: Steve's second wife Pamela Stephens sing one of her
husband's last great compositions, the folky 'Rainy Changes', under his
watchful eye - though not up to his solo demo, their harmonies are actually
pretty strong and it's a surprise they didn't do more together. The best though
has to be Skip Bifferty's Small Faces sounding psychedelic single 'Man In
Black' from the 'Ogden's period, which despite the title is a very colourful
60s song with Marriott's typically rousing vocals high in the mix. Sadly
Marriott's estate couldn't get the rights to the two highest profile
appearances on The Rolling Stones' 'In Another Land' or Marriott's own dog
howling through Pink Floyd's 'Seamus', but never mind - this is still an intriguing
bonus collection. The rest of the second disc is taken up with a lengthy half
hour interview from 1986 that's a nice idea but sadly doesn't reveal a lot,
with a gushing interviewer trying to praise Marriott's old work to the hilt
only to be cut off with bored comments like 'it's a drag innit?' If you're a
casual fan who stopped listening around 1969 then this lot will sounds like a
muddy messy noisy disaster area or not feature anywhere near enough of the
Small Faces sound - but if Marriott meant something to you then it seems only
right to raise a glass and bid the old boy a proper goodbye. Musicians have
bowed out with far worse gigs, after all, while the 'guest' recordings are a
great reminder of that natural warm voice in it's prime. Too under-par to be
heavily recommended then, but most fans will want to own this set all the same.
Humble Pie "Hot 'n' Nasty: The
Anthology"
(A&M, June 1994)
CD
One: Natural Born Woman/Buttermilk Boy/I'll Go Alone/As Safe As Yesterday
Is/Take Me Back/The Sad Bag Of Shakey Jake/Big Black Dog/Live With Me/One Eyes
Trouser Snake Rumba/Earth and Water Song/Red Light Mama Red Hot!/Shine On/Stone
Cold Fever/Rollin' Stone/Strange Days
CD
Two: Four Day Creep/I'm Ready/I Don't Need No Doctor/Hot 'n' Nasty/C'mon
Everybody/You're So Good To Me/30 Days In The Hole/I Wonder/Black Coffee/I
Believe To My Soul/Beckton Thumps/Thunderbox/99 Pounds/Street Rat/Road Hog/Rain
"I want you to love me - like a
hurricane!"
A
sensible two-disc compilation of Humble Pie's finest moments which concentrates
on the early glorious Frampton days of the band rather than the slightly leaden
and lumpy band the Pie became. Unlike some other sets out there the Pie are
catered for well on both their short and lengthy songs, with the full unedited
nine minute take of 'I Don't Need No Doctor' here intact alongside less
impressive but still groovy epic fan favourites like 'I Wonder' and 'C'mon
Everybody' and an impressive collection of shorter punchier songs that even
includes some of the comparatively non-album singles 'Big Black Dog'. There's a
lot here to enjoy including pretty much all the band's true best moments:
the impressive rock star
swagger/weak-kneed humility of 'Buttermilk Boy', the slow burning soul epic 'Live
With Me', the yearning ballad 'You're So Good To Me' and the law-baiting cheeky
of '30 Days In The Hole'. If only this set had thrown in a few more of
Marriott's beautiful ballads in here like 'A Song For Jenny' and 'See You Later
Liquidator' this set might have been perfect, but then A&M make it clear
from the title that they're focussing more on the 'hot 'n' nasty' side of the
Humble discography. Sadly this set also contains 'Thunderbox' 'Street Rats' and
the title track as memories of why Humble Pie never came close to matching The
Small Faces in fans' affection, but then messing up in a minor way so close to
perfection seems very Humble Pie too somehow. A compilation that's better and
with more surprises than you might expect from a band who were better and had
more surprises than their reputation suggests: sounds about right.
"The Best Of The Small Faces"
Sha-La-La-La-Lee/My
Mind's Eye/The Universal/.What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Hey Girl/I can't Make
It/All Or Nothing/Here Come The Nice/Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Tin Soldier/The
Autumn Stone/Rollin' Over/Lazy Sunday/Every Little Bit Hurts/I Feel Much
Better/Itchycoo Park
My love is at the foot of your
hand, come what may"
As cheap
and tacky as it looks, this simple best-of may well be the best single-disc way
of dipping into The Small Faces catalogue out there. Mixing Decca and Immediate
eras and containing all the top ten hits alongside fan favourites, this
couldn't have been much better in terms of track selection containing, bearing
in mind that this set only has room for sixteen songs. The only things that let
it down are the lack of size and scope (there isn't a Small Faces album in the
world that wouldn't benefit from being longer!), the very retro
red-lettering-on-blue cover that could have used anyone of the myriad Small
Faces photo-shoots celebrating art, culture and style and plumps for...one of
the band climbing stairs and the fact that the tracks are jumbled up together
without any sense of order whatsoever. Still, if you ain't got no benson in
your burner and the liquidator's still threatening to see ya later, this is a
cheap way of getting access to a golden collection of songs.
"The Small Faces" (Box Set)
(Charly, '1995')
CD
One: You Really Got Me (The Moments)/Money Money (The Moments)/What'cha Gonna
Do 'Bout It?/Sha La La La Lee/Hey Girl/My Mind's Eye (Two Mixes)/All Or
Nothing/Yesterday Today and Tomorrow/I Can't Make It/.Just Passing/Here Come
The Nice/Talk To You/Itchycoo Park/I'm Only Dreaming/Tin Soldier/I Feel Much
Better/Lazy Sunday/Rollin' Over/The Universal/Donkey Rides A Penny A
Glass/Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Wham Bam Thank You Man
CD
Two: I Can't Make It/Just Passing/Here Come The Nice/Itchycoo Park/I'm Only
Dreaming/Tin Soldier/I Feel Much Better/Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass/Wham Bam
Thank You Man/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?/There's Something I Want To Tell
You/Feeling Lonely/Happy Boys Happy/Things Are Going To Get Better/My Way Of
Giving/Green Circles/Become Like You/Get Yourself Together/All Our
Yesterdays/Talk To You/Show Me The Way/Up The Wooden Hills To
Bedfordshire/Eddie's Dreaming
CD
Three: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake/Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Long Agos and Worlds
Apart/Rene/Song Of A Baker/Lazy Sunday/Happiness Stan/Rollin' Over/Happiness
Stan/The Hungry Intruder/The Journey/Mad John/Happydaystoytown/Rollin' Over
(Live)/If I Were A Carpenter (Live)/Every Little Bit Hurts (Live)/All Or
Nothing (Live)/Tin Soldier (Live)
CD
Four: Call It Something Nice/The Autumn Stone/Every Little Bit Hurts
(Studio)/Collibosher/Red Balloon/Don't Burst My Bubble/Have You Ever Seen
Me?/Green Circles/Picaninny/The Pig Trotters/The War Of The Worlds/The
Wide-Eyed Girl On The Wall/Tin Soldier (Backing Track)/Green Circles/Wham Bam
Thank You Man/Collibosher/Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass/The Hungry Intruder/The
Red Balloon/Tin Soldier/The Autumn Stone/Wide-Eyed Girl On The Wall
"We'll boogie till the rooster
crows his thing, oh yeah!"
If I
didn't have this set in my hand while I was writing this review (one of my
luckiest charity shop finds!), I'd begin to wonder if I'd dreamed about this
set. Despite some five years of work digging out rare master-tapes and
re-mastering, this set came and went with almost no attention paid to it
whatsoever and it's impossible to find any information about it out there.
Pretty much everything that came out on this set is available elsewhere
nowadays, particularly the second box set 'The Immediate Years' from twenty
years later, while the 'Whapping Wharf' two disc set in the interim contains
pretty much everything a fan could want anyway. However this set is important,
both in being the first to feature The Small Faces in decent sound (and with so
many revelations and bits of detailed arrangements that just kept being lost on
the older CDs) and in being the first to mix the Decca and Immediate years on
the same disc (though there still isn't enough from Decca just yet). To be
honest this set could easily have lost a disc out of the four with no harm done
to the music at all (too many similar mixes, none of them 'new'). In many ways
it's even more 'complete' than the longer later box set, opening with two rare
pre-Faces Marriott recordings, the instrumental takes first released on the
'Quite Naturally' compilation in the 1980s and the '1862' outtakes from 1968 that
never made it to 'Autumn Stone' collected together for the first time. These
are all key parts of the Small Faces discography - if only because the band
didn't leave us many recordings to begin with - and it's a surprise that no one
had thought to gather them all up in one place before.
On the
other hand though there's probably too much here not too little: there are also
so many mixes of 'Green Circles' it will turn your eyes spiral along with three
increasingly worse versions of 'Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?' included in the
'wrong' order. Talking of the 'wrong' order, I'm not sure I quite buy the
decision to block out disc by 'theme' rather than date either, so that for
instance the first disc is all mono from all eras, the second stereo for 'The
Small Faces' Immediate debut with extras, the third 'Ogden's (which only
appears in stereo) and the live tracks and the fourth is 'Autumn Stone' with
outtakes, oddities and alternate mixes, although at least gives us the chance
to hear all the tracks recorded for 'Stone' all together for the first time. By
and large, though, this huge and sprawling all-encompassing set for a famously
compact and miniature band is a worthy purchase and it's a testament to the
band's creative talents that four lots of 80 minute CDs can be dedicated to a
band who only lasted for around two years and who only completed three albums
can sound so good without leaving you short-changed. This excellent box set
deserved to make far more of an impact, the 'mother' set from which most of the
next twenty years' worth of Small Faces re-issues will take their seemingly
random collection of recordings and mixes from.
"The Decca Anthology"
(Decca,
'1996')
CD
One: What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Whatsa Matter Baby?/I've Got Mine/It's Too
Late/Sha-La-La-la-Lee/Grow Your Own/Hey Girl/Almost Grown/Shake!/Come On
Children!/You Better Believe It/One-Night Stand/Sorry She's Mine/Own Up
Time/You Need Loving/Don't Stop What You're Doing/E Too D
CD
Two: All Or Nothing/Understanding/My Mind's Eye/I Can't Dance With You/Just
Passing/Patterns/Runaway/Yesterday Today And Tomorrow/That Man/My Way Of
Giving/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?/Take This Hurt Off Me/Baby Don't You Do
It/Plum Nellie/You've Really Got A Hold On Me/Steve Marriott: Give Her My
Regards/Imaginary Love/Jimmy Winston: Sorry She's Mine/It's Not What You Do
"I held her close and asked her if
she was going to my baby, she answered only if you buy me The Small Faces Decca
Anthology - it contains half of everything you'll ever need you see and is
pretty darn great you have to agree. Sha la la la lee!"
Despite
the great lengths we've gone to across this book to tell you about everything,
if you're a fan on a budget and you don't own anything by The Small Faces then
a) boy do I know what you're going to be listening to continuously for the next
year at least! and b) there are only really two compilations you need from this
whole book in order to get everything most fans would be more than satisfied
with. This is the first, a two disc compilation sensibly containing everything
possible from the Decca period: hits, B-sides, every track from the band's only
completes album on Decca, every song on the 'From The Beginning' compilation,
one-off post-official single 'Patterns'
and even both sides of a single each from Steve Marriott and Jimmy Winston. This
includes such hard to find (and classic) tracks as flipsides 'Understanding'
and 'I Can't Dance With You' and unfinished psychedelic single 'Patterns', all
of which are hard to find on CD through any other source, which makes the Decca
Anthology a cut above the other Decca Small Faces sets out there. It even
contains all the Decca mixes of songs the band then took to Immediate (with
similar-yet-different takes on 'My Way Of Giving' 'Have You Ever Seen Me?' and
'Just Passing'), which must have been a legal minefield - certainly no other
Decca set has featured these songs since ('I Can't Make It' is the only track
they couldn't get!)
What you
don't get is any of the alternate mixes and curios that have come to light
since - the 'French EP' alternate recordings included on the individual CD
re-issues of each album (which just sound like different mixes rather than
alternate versions anyway), the mono/stereo variants released in the band's
lifetime or the BBC sessions, so if the completist in you is crying out for
more you might want to hold out for the (gulp) five disc Decca box set instead.
I'm not sure too if the running order is such a good idea: this set comes in
order of songs released rather than recorded so that, for instance, the
gloriously retro 'Runaway' and the less gloriously retro 'Take This Hurt Off
Me' covers appear in the middle of the psychedelic years and the entire set
ends with first Marriott's nice-but-posh 1963 single and Jimmy Winston's
nice-but-raw 1966 single which both seem a little out of place. For most fans,
though, this is plenty and it's plenty good too, with the more under-rated half
of The Small Faces' career taking the band from screaming R and B covers to
intense jamming to the late period sophistication of 'All Or Nothing' through
to a late flowering of psychedelia. Along with 'The Darlings Of Whapping Wharf
Laundrette' in 2000 (which does a similar job for the Immediate recordings on
two CDs) you have the start of a pretty damn superb collection. Typically Small
Faces though, at the time of writing this set is out of print! Curses!
The Small Faces "The Masters"
(Eagle
Records, '1997')
CD
One: Here Come The Nice/Itchycoo Park/Talk To You/I'm Only Dreaming/Tin
Soldier/I Feel Much Better/Lazy Sunday/Rollin' Over/The Universal/Donkey Rides
A Penny A Glass/Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Wham Bam Thank You Man/All Or Nothing
(Live)/If I Were A Carpenter (Live)/Happiness Stan/The Autumn Stone/Ogden's Nut
Gone Flake/Something I Want To Tell You
CD
Two: Mad John/I Can't Make It/Feeling Lonely/Call It Something
Nice/Collibosher/All Our Yesterdays/Red Balloon/Show Me The Way/Song Of A
Baker/Don't Burst My Bubble/Green Circles/My Way Of Giving/Every Little Bit
Hurts (Live)/Get Yourself Together/Picaninny/Rene/Runaway/Things Are Going To
Get Better
"Just hold your breath and close
your eyes, turn the corner of surprise - and there you are!"
Yet
another fine but unnecessary two-disc compilation of The Small Faces' Immediate
years which is much like every other two-disc Immediate collection: perfectly
fine, imperfectly complete. Immediate's financial troubles meant that they were
more keen to exploit their artists and license their recordings out in the CD
era than pretty much any other label in the history of music - in truth you
only really need one and the packed 'Whapping Wharf Laundrette' is it, but this
is still pretty good with a full 36 tracks including a number that don't often
appear on these sort of CDs (there's more of the 'Autumn Stone/1862' outtakes
for a start). Putting these in chronological order would have been good though.
The end
result is a quirky, rather scattershot Immediate compilation released only in
Europe and featuring a very varied assortment of 36 tracks from the era, big on
B sides, the first 'Immediate' album and the live tracks from 'Autumn Stone'
oddly, though missing most of the 'extra' material such as 'If You Think You're
Groovy' or the Autumn Stone instrumentals and roughly two-thirds of 'Ogden's.
Oddly the Decca-era 'Runaway' has slipped through the net too. There are better
compilations out there then, but even if its track sslection seems to have been
picked completely at random, The Small Faces were such a consistent band that
even this crazy-paving compilation is still pretty good. There's a nice unseen
(at least by me) cover of The Small Faces larking about Beatles-style down a
street. Sadly it's the Decca rather than Immediate era Small Faces, which
rather sums up the depth and detail of this set, but never mind at least the
music's good...
"The Faces Family Album: All
Shapes and Sizes"
(**,
June 1998)
Afterglow
(Of Your Love)/All That I Am (The Creation)/In A Broken Dream (Python Lee
Jackson)/Black Coffee (Humble Pie)/Reason To Believe (Rod Stewart)/Sorry She's
Mine (Jimmy WInston)/Cindy Incidentally (The Faces)/Heartbreaker (Free)/How
Come? (Ronnie Lane)/I Can Feel The Fire (Ronnie Wood)/Ready Or Not (The
Faces)/Find It! (The Small Faces)/La De Da (Ian Mclagan)/Waiting For A Girl
Like You (Foreigner)/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It? (Steve Marriott)/Won't Get
Fooled Again (The Who)
"Haven't any time for children -
though I got a lot!"
This is
one of those compilations that look really good on paper - 'gee, why don't we
license the rights to a track each by every person whose ever been a member of
The (Small) Faces and lump them all together on one CD?' - but aren't exactly
made for listening pleasure. It's a Faces family tree in other words, including
every black coffee (sorry black sheep) of the family where half the record is
guaranteed to annoy somebody, whether you're a Marriott worshipper who
considered Rod a poser or a Faces fanatic who can't stand all the grooving and
moving in Humble Pie. There's something not for everyone, in fact. Humble Pie
and The Faces, for instance, don't often sound as if they belong in the same
era at all, never mind contain DNA from the same band, whilst this difficulty
only gets greater when more members are added to the mix like Rod, Woody and
Jimmy Winston. This album ought to work as a sampler at least, offering insight
into how each band sounds before encouraging fans to take the plunge, but even
there things fall apart: who on earth though the slinky but rather boring
groove of 'Black Coffee' represented Humble Pie at their finest? Why is 'Cindy
Incidentally' used to represent The Faces when it's one of their weakest
singles? Sure 'Hoe Come?' was the only single Ronnie Lane ever had solo, but
it's silly bad-luck tale is hardly evocative of his records. Why use a clumsy
live version of a clearly ill Steve Marriott chugging through the first Small
Faces single at half-speed when we could have had the original and/or many
Marriott mini-masterpieces? As welcome as it always is to hear, The Who's
'Won't Get Fooled Again' is a bit of a stretch (yes Kenney Jones plays on this
live recording, but he's merely copying a drum part invented by Keith Moon a
decade earlier - why not use one of the genuinely thrilling Who songs from his
era like 'Eminence Front' 'The Quiet Ones' 'You Better You Bet' or 'Cry If You
Want', with its natty military drumming?) And if we're going to be this
'pseud's corner' about the whole enterprise then why nothing by The Rolling
Stones? Ronnie Wood had more to do with them than Kenney did with The Who or
Woody did with Creation! By the way, where is Woody's first group 'The Birds'?!
At least The Small Faces track is a good 'un, but featuring 'Afterglow' right
at the start just shows up how ordinary everything else here on this album. The
only real plusses to this set are the chance to hear a rare track by the deeply
under-rated Creation (though they'd gone badly downhill by the time Ronnie Wood
briefly joined) and a rare revival of one of the better Small Faces reunion
songs from 1977 'Find It!' By and large though this is one of those awkward
family reunions where everyone has grown far too far apart, have nothing in
common and clock-watch until the whole thing's over and they can go back to
their real selves elsewhere.
Ronnie Lane "You Never Can Tell -
The BBC Sessions"
(Burning
Airlines, '1998')
CD One:
Ooh La La/Flags and Banners/How Come?/Anniversary/Don't Try and Change My
Mind/One For The Road/Steppin' and Reelin'/Sweet Virginia/Careless
Love/Lovely/All Or Nothing
CD
Two: Last Orders/Anniversary #2/Roll On Babe/Lost-How Come?/You're So Rude/What
Went Down?/Chicken Wired/Ooh La La #2/You Never Can Tell/Anniversary #3/Don't
Try and Change My Mind #2/Walk On By/You Never Can Tell/Steppin' and Reelin'
#2/Ooh La La #3
"Seven hundred records rock rhythm
and jazz, But when the sun went down the rapid tempo of the music fell..."
Slim
Chance wouldn't have seemed right being spotted on the TV every other week
somehow (though Ronnie did perform 'How Come?' once on Top Of The Pops!) The
band had to promote their mid-70s albums and their ill-advertised 'Passing Tour'
somehow though - radio seemed the obvious solution. Though The Small Faces,
oddly for a 1960s band, didn't seem to hang out at the BBC much at all (most of
their material was recorded during their busy first six months, with one lone
session near the end to show for three years together; The Beatles made 10 CDs'
worth in the same time!) for The Faces BBC sessions had been their bread and
butter, a chance to show off their live skills (oddly there never has been a
Faces set just featuring BBC sessions, though lots appear on their two box
sets). Ronnie, though, recorded the most it seems, with a whole double-disc
set's worth of sessions that span the early years post-Faces to the 'One For
The Road' period. The last project that Ronnie oversaw himself (he sadly died
while it was being put together) it must have seemed like some parallel
universe self passing before his eyes (Ronnie rarely listened to his own work
after it was made!)
There
aren't really that many differences compared to the records. If anything these
performances are more polished than the records, the usual benefit of BBC
one-take session compilations, lacking the 'open-air' vibe of the studio
albums. There's only one unreleased song too, a rather messy take on The
Rolling Stones' 'Sweet Virginia', which despite something of a comedy ('Got to
scrape that shit right off your shoes!') suits Ronnie's country gentleman vibe
better. Then again you do get Ronnie's own vocals on Faces tracks given to
others to sing, including the definitive 'Ooh La La' (which far better suits
Ronnie L than Ronnie W) and 'Flags and Banners'(which sounds much more Ronnie
somehow than the slowed-down slide-guitar-filled Faces take on it). You also
get a complete one-off: a Ronnie-sung folkified 'All Or Nothing', which - in
more of a Humble Pie tradition - has been slowed down too much but still has a
nice R and B groove at the core. Like many BBC sets you'll get tired of the
repeats - I wish birthdays came round as often as 'Anniversary' seems to on
this album - and the decision to include an interminable announcer's links
across the second disc quickly becomes trying - but at least four of the five
Ronnie sessions are here complete, unedited unlike some other AAA BBC discs
(The Faces' 'Glad and Sorry', sung at the first, only seems to exist in poor
sound which might be why it's not here).
A bigger
problem is the usual one with BBC sets: nothing here is different enough to
make it worth your while forking out good money for what's always been a highly
pricey set (even when it was on catalogue) and yet neither is it representative
enough to work as a sort of alternate best-of, with too many key track missing
for comfort, especially from the superlative 'One For The Road' album. Ronnie's
on nothing less than good form throughout, but he doesn't quite nail the tracks
the way he often does on the albums and nothing here matches, never mind
surpasses the versions we've all known and loved. Still, we don't have any
other access to what 'The Passing Show' might have sounded like and though
admittedly we lack the tent, the clowns and the fire-eaters of those days while
the earthliness and bonhomie from a band that put their own tents up every
night have been replaced by a posh BBC announcer, there's enough of that
atmosphere here to come close.
Ronnie Lane "Tin and
Tambourine"
(New
Millennium Connections, '1998')
Give
Me A Penny/Tin and Tambourine/You Can Never Can Tell/A Little Piece Of
Nothing/Winning With Women/Rat's Tails/Only You/Three Cool Cats/Richmond/You're
So Rude/From The Late To The Early/How Come?
Bonus
Tracks: Joyride/Nobody's Listening/One For The Road/Innocence Lost
"All your future's tied up in your
past!"
Though
Ronnie left less outtakes and rarities in the vaults than Steve ever did, with
no unfinished albums piling up in his caravan or any excess time to make
records in the first place, there's enough to make a more than solid
compilation. Ronnie's brother Stan had the hard job of tracking down all the
master-tapes he could from all eras of Ronnie's solo career 1971-1980, turning
up quite a few songs that fans had never come across before and some
fascinating alternate versions from the 'One For The Road' album sessions. Some
of these songs ended up being re-recorded under different names - 'Rat Tails'
becoming 'Catmelody' from 'Rough Mix' for instance and 'Joyrise' turning into
'Steppin' and Reelin', while the earliest song here 'Richmond' is a solo demo
of a song recorded by The Faces and hit single
'How Come?' sounds quite different in its timid first version. The
highlights though is an alternate version of Slim Chance's 'Tin and Tambourine'
which has even more grace and beauty than the finished product and a spikier,
punkier 'Nobody's Listening' that's as aggressive as the naturally laidback
lane ever got. The wry smile of 'Winning With Women' from 1980 is also probably
the last new studio recording Ronnie made and is a good place to finish, with
another hapless Lane narrator trying but not quite succeeding. It's the tracks
from the previous year though, tentatively called 'Self Tapper' before
re-worked as 'See Me', that let the album down a touch, being not even as
strong as that disappointing final album. The overall result perhaps isn't
quite strong enough to match the consistency of Ronnie's 'real' records and
little here matches the finished versions, but then that's kind of to be
expected by rarities and outtakes sets. This one certainly embellishes rather
than harms Ronnie's reputation and fans who waited in vain for that fifth solo
record will find 'Tin and Tambourine' of some comfort.
"Itchycoo Park - The Best Of The
Small Faces"
(Spectrum, '1999')
Lazy
Sunday/Itchycoo Park/Here Come The Nice/Rene/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?/My
Way Of Giving/Get Yourself Together/Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am/The
Universal/Rollin' Over/Song Of A Baker/Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass/Happy Days
Toy Town/Tin Soldier/Afterglow
"Words seem out of place when
every night I've known your face"
Hmm, it's pink (since when have The Small Faces
ever used pink?!) It's short (since when
have decent best-ofs ever been short?) It's track selection is weird (the set
starts off with the band's three biggest hits on Immediate, but then gets weird
by including for instance 'Happydaystoytown' and 'The Universal' over fan
favourites 'Green Circles' and 'The Autumn Stone'). Still, it's cheap! (The
best best-ofs should always be cheap!) and the music is all too beautiful.
There are better and certainly longer Small Faces sets out there, but this does
at least contain some of the cream of the crop and will give you some idea of
all the different 'flavours' available if you buy the whole Small Faces
catalogue, from cheeky cockney charm to hard rock and heartfelt soul, with a
nice sprinkling of the serious and the comic.
"The Darlings Of Whapping Wharf
Launderette"
(Sequel,
April 1999)
CD
One: I Can't Make It/Just Passing/Here Comes The Nice/Talk To You/Tell Me Have
You Ever Seen Me?/Something I Want To Tell You/Feeling Lonely/Happy Boys
Happy/Things Are Going To Get Better/My Way Of Giving/Green Circles/Become Like
You/Get Yourself Together/All Our Yesterdays/Show Me The Way/Up The Wooden
Hills To Bedfordshire/Eddie's Dreaming/Itchycoo Park/I'm Only Dreaming/Tin
Soldier/I Feel Much Better/Ogden's Nut Gone Flake/Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Long
Agos and Worlds Apart/Rene/Song Of A Baker/Lazy Sunday
CD
Two: Happiness Stan/Rollin' Over/The Hungry Intruder/The Journey/Mad
John/Happydaystoytown/The Universal/Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass/Wham Bam Thank
You Man/The Autumn Stone/Collibosher/Red Balloon/Call It Something Nice/Wide
Eyed Girl On The Wall/Don't Burst My Bubble/Every Little Bit Hurts/Picaniny/Pig
Trotters/War Of The Worlds/Take My Time/Mad John (Unedited)/If You Think You're
Groovy/Me You and Us Too/(Un-credited: 'Green Circles' Alternate Take snippet)
"If you've got the readies in the
bin, just make your way down to your local CD shop, ask for this compilation -
and you'll be well in!"
If you can only buy one set from this entire book
(did our book really cost you that much? Oh you're saving up for the next one,
ok...) then 'Whapping Wharf' is the one to get, the best balance of content,
quality, packaging and price out there. From the witty title (taken from
Marriott's introduction of partner Lane in 'All Our Yesterdays') down to the
distinctive 'blurry' cover art (first used on the picture sleeve of the 'Tin
Soldier' single), this is a set made with a lot of cover and containing
everything that was officially released on the Immediate label between 1967 and
1969 along with a handful of unheard recordings, all in the right order and all
sounding great. In other words that's two finished albums (the Immediate 'Small
Faces' from 1967, 'Ogden's from 1968, all seven 'exclusive' tracks from the
unfinished-plus-outtakes 'Autumn Stone' from 1969 and no less than four
exclusive singles plus their B-sides. The set also rounds up curios like the PP
Arnold collaboration 'If You Think You're Groovy', the American-only single mix
of 'Mad John' sans narration plus thirty-second-longer coda and three unheard
band jams/instrumentals from 'Autumn Stone' period (none of them unmissable,
all of them nice to have). I bought my copy of this set, in the week of
release, in a 'two albums for £12' deal which, while admittedly we're going
back a little bit there, still represents one of the best deals for a 'new' CD
of the entire AAA collection. What's not to like?
Well, some fans have challenged the fact that this
set has been 're-mastered' without the packaging telling you anything and, yes,
if you know the original album mixes well you can hear a few changes: mixed
harmony lines, a slightly different emphasis, things like that. However the
worst of these changes don't interfere with your enjoyment of the record and at
best they add new insight, such as the punchier snarlier mix of 'I Can't Make
It' (which would have been a much bigger hit released like this) and the
marginally longer fades on the likes of 'Collibosher'. Other sets, such as the
Immediate box set 'Here Come The Nice' include every mix here plus more, with
every possible variant released down the years so you can compare - but down
here, in the real world, a two-disc set of everything the band recorded without
multiple remixes sounds like a good deal to me. Some fans have complained that
Ogden's is split in two, between the two discs, but that makes sense to me:
sides one and two are very different beasts after all and it makes sense to
feature Stanley Unwin's narration at the start of the second. The packaging,
too, is groovy with some rare picture singles, tape boxes, a discography so you
know what songs comes from where and sleevenotes by David Wells that do a good
job at condensing the second half of The Small Faces story into a readable,
compact essay (though one admittedly printed in terribly small print).
Obviously if you want to, then buy everything everyone of The Small Faces ever
made (I've never regretted it - well actually sitting through all those Faces
B-sides was a chore. And I'm not in a hurry to play Humble Pie's 'Thunderbox'
again); but if you only have room/money for two sets then buy this one first
and the Small Faces Decca Anthology second (assuming you can find it nowadays):
incomplete both may be in terms of mixes, they still contain a cracking collection
of songs that deserve a place in any record collection. Heard all together like
this, with remarkably little filler despite being complete, The Small Faces'
catalogues shines even brighter than ever - and you can't ask any more from a
compilation than that.
"The Definite Collection"
(Immediate/Sanctuary, June 1999)
CD
One: All Or Nothing/Here Comes The Nice/Talk To You/Have You Ever Seen
Me?/Something I Want To Tell You/Feeling Lonely/Things Are Going To Get
Better/My Way Of Giving/Green Circles/Become Like You/Get Yourself Together/All
Our Yesterdays/Show Me The Way/Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire/Itchycoo
Park/I'm Only Dreaming/Tin Soldier/I Feel Much Better
CD
Two: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake/Afterglow/Long Agos and Worlds Apart/Rene/Song Of A
Baker/Lazy Sunday/Happiness Stan/Rollin' Over/The Hungry Intruder/The
Journey/Mad John/Happy Days Toy Town/The Universal/Donkey Rides A Penny A
Glass/Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am/Every Little Bit Hurts/Don't Burst My Bubble/The
Autumn Stone
"Just like what you hear with a
shell pressed to your ear..."
A nice
mopping up job of several of The Small Faces' best songs for Immediate on two
discs, which feels like the 'Whapping Wharf' set with the oddities (the live
tracks, the PP Arnold collaboration, the Autumn Stone session outtakes)
removed. To be honest it's probably all that you really need to own unless
you're a passionate collector and like many things Immediate was a bargain if
you managed to snap it up at its original price, but long deleted and hard to
find nowadays. If you didn't buy it don't worry - history suggests there'll be
another similar compilation along any minute now but this one is hard to
improve on as it is, with a full 36 tracks of Faces magic including the entire
12 track 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake' album.
The
Faces "Good Boys- When They're Asleep!"
(Rhino, August 1999)
Flying/Three Button Hand Me Down/The
Wicked Messenger/Sweet Lady Mary/Bad 'n' Ruin/Had Me A Real Good
Time/Debris/Miss Judy's Farm/You're So Rude/Too Bad/Love Lives Here/Stay With
Me/Cindy Incidentally/Glad and Sorry/Borstal Boys/Ooh La La/Pool Hall
Richard/You Can make Me Dance Or Sing Or Anything/Open To Ideas
"I
left you on the debris at the Sunday morning market, you were sorting through
the odds and ends looking for a bargain..."
Rhino
tend to know their stuff when it comes to compilations and re-issues and they
put together the best Faces compilation yet containing all the hits but more
importantly a smattering of tracks from all four albums. Other compilations
seem to assume that The Faces were all about Rod Stewart and good time rock,
but this one features a nice lot of Ronnie Lane's more homely work too plus
Ronnie Wood's esoteric rockers. Opening with 'Flying', one of The Faces' most
ambitious songs and ending with the band's rarer post-album singles (almost
impossible to find until recently) is a good basis for a compilation with lots
of sterling work in the middle too such as Ronnie's lovely ballad 'debris' and
Rod and Ronnie W's best uptempo number 'Miss Judy's Farm'. There's also the
rarity 'Open To Ideas', a Mac/Rod/Ronnie W song ballad recorded in the band's
dying days post Ronnie L that's heartfelt without being particularly memorable.
The set does however skip Ronnie's equally delightful 'Stone' and the band's
moving energetic take on Paul McCartney's 'Maybe I'm Amazed' so it's far from
perfect and listening to any Faces record for longer than say half an hour does
tend to leave one with quite a migraine anyway so this set's CD length running
time over the usual vinyl is a mixed blessing. Even so, from the clever and oh
so Faces title down to better-than-average packaging this is the best single
disc collection of Faces songs out there and a good starting point for curious
fans to see if they're eager for more.
"BBC Sessions"
(**,
February 2000)
What'cha
Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Jump Back/Baby Don't You Do It/Shake!/Sha-La-La-La-Lee/You
Need Loving/Hey Girl/E Too D/One Night Stand/You Better Believe
It/Understanding/All Or Nothing/If I Were A Carpenter/Lazy Sunday/Every Little
Bit Hurts/Steve Marriott Interviews x 4/Kenney Jones Interview
"When my name was comin' on
something illusion struck me down, but times have changed and now my name's in
lights - yet you still hang around"
The
middle of three BBC sets dedicated to The Small Faces and various splinter
groups, this one featuring the parent band ought to be the best one. After all,
the band recorded so few albums and so few live performances exist to make any
of them important simply through the fact they exist. However this set isn't as
good as many fans perhaps hoped and came out to slow sales and duff reviews.
For a start, it mainly features the very earliest Small Faces, still with Jimmy
Winston on board, and while they were one of the best R and B bands out there,
the results lack the sophistication and class of the band at their best. Even
on the third and fourth sessions included here, from 1966 and 1968, The Small
Faces either stick religiously to the arrangements of the original or perform
rather limply, without the energy and precision combination they're known for. Even
five extra interviews (with a surprisingly reverential Steve and Kenney, whose
best moment comes when Marriott is asked about a holiday, with presenter Brian
Matthews expecting something exotic and the guitarist replying, 'Dunno...maybe
Margate?') aren't all that interesting, while unlike the Beatles, Hollies and
Who BBC sets filled with lots of rarities and exclusives there's only one song
here, a fairly grooving cover of Rufus Thomas' 'Jump Back'.
There
are, though, still a few highlights to be had. Though 'wimpier' than the studio
version, debut single 'What'cha Gonna 'Do 'Bout It?' still sounds impressively
daring for the era, Marriott's guitar leaking over to feedback as he channels
his angst. Ronnie reprises 'Shake!' with even more leg-pulling 'oohs' and
'aahs' and delivers an even better performance here. 'E Too D' is a brave song
to reprise and The Small Faces don't quite pull it off, with the sheer energy
and excitement of the original band-jam-with-ad-libs all too audibly diluted
and copied here to a slower tempo - still some of the magic of the Decca
original lingers and as far as we know it's the only other time the band ever
performed this 'song'. 'Understanding' is messy and raucous, but fun and the
band really nail the song's swinging groove. A timid, low-key humble 'All Or
Nothing' is an interesting reading, delivered in a sadder and more
heartbreaking way. It's great to hear 'If I Were A Carpenter' from 1968 without
the screaming of the live version on 'The Autumn Stone' even if Ronnie's and PP
Arnold's shared shoo-be-doo-wah backing vocals are, frankly, stupid when set
against Marriott pouring his guts out. 'Lazy Sunday', sounds anaemic and awful,
but features a whole raft of new sound effects played in live, so it's at least
different. Finally, the third version of 'Every Little Bit Hurts' can't live up
to the studio or live takes, but it's once again one of the best things the
band ever did, with PP Arnold this time perfect for the backing vocals and
slower more relaxed tempo taking this song to a very different place. Nothing
here is perfect, little really matches to the album versions and if you're
short on money then I'd skip this altogether. I have a sneaking suspicion that
Decca/Immediate will somehow cobble together a 'deluxe' version of this set in
the future with the songs from 1966 that are missing too (mainly covers that
featured on the first album and nothing earth-shattering but, hey, having a
complete set of anything is always nice). Like many an AAA BBC set, though,
this one isn't without its charms and there are some good if not great
recordings here.
Humble Pie "Natural Born Bugie:
The BBC Sessions"
(**,
February 2000)
Natural
Born Bugie/The Sad Bag Of Shakey Jake/Heartbeat/Desperation/The Big Black
Dog/Rolling Stone/4 Day Creep/The Light/Black Coffee/I Don't Need No Doctor
"Tell me, why can no one seem to
learn from their mistakes?"
Hot on
the heels of The Small Faces' BBC set comes Humble Pie's. This ought to be
better - the Pie being a natural 'live' band whereas the Small Faces were a
'studio' one - but somehow it isn't. The early Pie sound nervous and twitchy,
most unlike their brash confident selves from their first LP. The later Pie
just sound noisy, lacking even the finesse of the 'Performance' era, which
wasn't exactly high on subtlety to begin with. The sound is poor, all too
audibly taken from acetates for overseas use that sounds as if they've been
trapped in many a civil war over the past few decades before coming home. Worse
still, licensing rights means that many of these tracks are cut off early or
fade mid-song: this isn't the BBC losing their master-tapes or the record
company being awkward, but an unfortunate side-effect over the fact that it
costs too much to get radio DJs' permission to use their voice as well as the
music and many of them loved the sound of their own voice so muc back then they
often talked over songs (sometimes they read out letters too, which sadly can
probably never be re-broadcast as permission rests with the letter-writers who
can't be traced after half a century's worth of house moves and life events;
that's why The Beatles BBC sets aren't anywhere close to being as fun as the
bootlegs!)
At 36 minutes this is also one of the shorter
BBC sets out there: I can't find a complete list of how many the band played
but I'm pretty certain it was a lot more than this! Oddly the title of this set
restores the proper spelling of 'boogie', which seems like a step too far from
the grammar police after forty years of no complaints (you wait till Slade release
a BBC set with all their titles spelt properly!) The good news is that Pie chose many of their
better songs to be performed for the Beeb and this is to date the only Pie set
out there which combines Immediate and A&M material. A tearful
'Desperation' that's more of a Frampton solo sounds particularly good and a
soulful 'Black Coffee' is nice and hot but sadly these are the only ones that
come close to the records. A terrible off-air recording of a truncated 'I Don't
Need No Doctor' is particularly disappointing, with Marriott sounds like he's
running a marathon while singing (given that we don't have the visuals perhaps
he is?) This set needs a doctor - and quick!
Humble
Pie "Natural Born Boogie - The Immediate Years"
(Immediate, '2000')
CD One: Natural Born Bugie/Wrist
Job/Desperation/Stick Shift/Buttermilk Boy/Growing Closer/As Safe As Yesterday
Is/Bang?/Alabama '69/I'll Go Alone/A Nifty Little Number Like You/What You
Will/Greg's Song
CD Two: Take Me Back/The Sad Bag Of
Shaky Jake/The Light Of Love/Cold Lady/Down Home Again/Ollie Ollie/Every
Mother's Son/Heartbeat/Only You Can See/Silver Tongue/Home and Away
"Took
a short cut to nowhere to make it feel alright!"
Rather
confusing, this is a second Humble Pie compilation with almost exactly the same
but a very different collection of recordings. This time the recordings are
mostly previously released and thus less interesting, although by concentrating
on just the 'Immediate' years of the first two records and stretching them out
to two quite lengthy discs this is at least pretty complete. Disc one contains
the complete 'As Safe As Yesterday Is' album together with both sides of the
'Natural Born Bugie' single and bass player Ridley's outtake 'Greg's Song'.
Disc two features the entire 'Town and Country' sequel together with
band-written outtake/jam '79th Street Blues'. Different Humble Pie fans seem to
love different periods so what you get out of this set really depends on
whether you're more likely to be patient over failed experiments in wild and wacky
styles that don't always come off (especially on the second disc) or whether
you'd be more patient over heavy rock songs that all begin to sound a bit the
same (the later work - especially the much later work). Though as inconsistent
as any set in my collection, ranging from genius to gobbledegook and from
inspiration to degradation track by track, there are probably more reasons to
buy this set than not. Highlights include the punchy compact 'Buttermilk Boy'
which is the Marriott-Frampton interaction at its finest and it's polar
opposite, the sweet rambling acoustic track 'Home and Away'. Humble Pie may not
have been the finest band rock music ever produced during their early years
together, but they did produce a lot of fine material if you're patient enough
to sift through everything here.
Ian McLagan "The Best Of
British"
(Gadfly,
March 2000)
Best
Of British/I Only Want To Be With You/She Stole It/Warm Rain/Hope Street/Hello
Old Friend/Big Love/Don't Let Him Out Of Your Sight/Suzie Gotta Sweet Face/Barking
Dogs/I Will Follow/This Time/Last Chance To Dance
"Hello old friend, it's been a
long time since I saw your face in front of mine"
This
cleverly titled album celebrated the family Mac's recent move to a new home in
Austin, Texas, where after twenty years of contractless playing in tiny clubs a
local label finally gave Mac a second chance to make some music (funnily enough
it's 'Gadfly' - perhaps they hoped Mac might re-record 'The Hungry Intruder'?!)
In many ways it's a surprise it didn't happen sooner: by now both Steve and
Ronnie have gone leaving Mac as the only 'writing' Face left and the 1990s had
been a good decade to the band, partly out of respect to the two lost founders
but also thanks to so many of the Britpop crowd announcing their love and
passion for The Small Faces (you can hear their work in a lot from the middle
of the decade, from the Manchester version of cockney humour on Oasis' 'She's
Electric' to virtually anything on Paul Weller's 'Wild Wood' and 'Stanley
Road').
This
album isn't quite the best of Mac sadly, lacking the performances of the
earlier records and the poignancy of later ones, but Mac is as always an
under-rated singer and writer, always with something interesting to say and an
interesting way of doing it. On this album the songs get quirkier too: 'She
stole it!' is a song of horror and betrayal, not about a contract or a lover or
a jewel robbery but an ex who insists on taking the narrator's record
collection (we'll wait here while you recover from fainting at the awful
thought, better now?) and 'Warm Rain' is a mixed-feelings goodbye and hello to
two different continents linked only by the weather. Best of all though is
Ronnie Lane tribute 'Hello Old Friend' which leans heavily on the bass player's
'April Fool', while also paying tribute to loyal Faces audiences. The Bump Band
have a fuller sound by now, with two guitarists, a bass and a drummer with a
sound ever more like The Faces, with mac's swirly organ centre-stage. Talking
of which, Ronnie Wood makes the most of a lengthy break between Stones albums
to appear on a couple of tracks, including the Ronnie Lane tribute, while 1980s
protest singer Billy Bragg add his own distinctly British vocals to the title
track. It was later revealed that Wood
himself had paid for most of the sessions, anxious that his old friend should
get his work out there to the public once more: it's a very noble gesture
similar to Pete Townshend's 'sponsorship' of Ronnie Lane's records and one that
faces fans are grateful for (Mac had been playing with the Stones, on and off,
since the Faces split though never as a full member). This is a fun album, with
Mac easing his way back into the saddle again after so long away, not that
pioneering and not that emotional as yet but that will come: for now it's just
good to have the old boy back again.
The
title track 'Best Of British'
could be seen as a bit egotistical, but it's actually a sweet song of love for
Mac's newborn son Lee McLagan and dad's excitement at the chance of starting a
new life in a new country, surrounded by the only souvenirs of his old life he
needs.
'I Only Wanna Be With You' has a funky groove and Mac sings well, but the backing track's a
bit lumpy and this sort of generic love song has been done better elsewhere.
'She Stole It!' though is great fun - 'Let's see who you love!' is the note the
narrator's girlfriend leaves when she walks away with his record collection,
the condition being that only by wooing her back can he hear his old friends
again. Now there's an incentive to romance for you! Don't try this at home
though, you'll make your record player very sad!
'Warm Rain'
finds Mac trying to balance the good and bad points of starting life anew as he
watches his home disappear from a passing ship. 'Some things you lose, some things
you win' is his realisation, as the grass is both greener - and wetter thanks
to the 'warm rain' replacing the cold rain he's left behind.
'Hope Street'
is another ugly AAA white reggae song that borders on embarrassing, though at
least the lyrics are better than the groove, touching on the idea that people
live in poverty all over the world and effectively share the same 'street'
however far apart.
'Hello Old Friend' features the same lo-fi quirky roaring twenties sound as the
early Ronnie Lane albums and a harmony (we use the term loosely) vocal from
Ronnie Wood. It's clearly about Lane (Mac wrote it for him to sing and he was
flattered, but it was too late and Ronnie was too ill) but also Mac too,
remembering the moment his dad spotted The Small Faces on television and told
him Ronnie Lane looked just like him. Mentioning Ronnie's birth-date of April
Fool's Day, Mac tells him 'I thought I was the only fool I knew!' It's also a
song for 'us', though, those who waited patiently for more Faces music as Mac
makes our acquaintance again. One of Mac's career highlights, sweetly written
and superbly sung, even with Wood's uncomfortable harmony.
'Big Love'
is pretty good too, a groovy rock number with some unusual chords as Mac tries
to whisper how much love he's holding in his heart not to wake his wife - but
can't stop yelling it instead. This song has a lot of the old Small Faces
energy and enthusiasm about it.
'Don't Let Him Out Of Your Sight' though is a touch too slow and a touch too, well, average. Two
lovers are splitting up, Mac doesn't think they should, she's spying on a
potential lover...it's all a bit Middle Of The Road for a Small Face whose been
to Itchycoo Park and back and knows greater sights.
'Suzie Gotta Sweet Face' is pretty ordinary rocking too - we don't learn anything about
Suzie except her face and you've probably guessed what that's like from the
title.
'Barking Dogs' adds a then-contemporary shimmer of guitars and surface sheen
(think Lenny Kravitz) behind a very Ronnie Lane style lyric about how human
nature is just empty barking at people between being born and dying.
'I Will Follow' has a nice beat as Mac admits to having been adrift for so much
of his career recently, but he's just been inspired by the other music stars
out there and 'where you go I will follow!'
The
album ends with another rocker, unusually, a retro Chuck Berry style number (Mac
had recently guested on an album the guitarist made) named 'This Time' as Mac tells us
that he's had enough this time and is leaving - though he seems to mean his
home country rather than his family.
Overall,
then, 'Best Of British' is a rocking little album with many highlights, even if
it's far from Mac's best of most consistent work. The good more than makes up
for the bad though and hearing a record of this quality makes you long to see
what Mac might have got up to in the 1980s and 1990s, when instead of
performing his own quality material he was too often playing others' inferior
works (Bob Dylan really lost it in the 1970s as did the Stones in the 1980s).
With a bit more British luck and a touch more promotion, this album deserved to
do far better though it at least sold well enough for multiple follow-ups...
Ronnie
Lane "How Come?"
(Neon, February 2001)
How Come?/Tell Everyone/Done This One
Before/The Poacher/Bye and Bye (Gonna See The King)/Roll On Babe/Anymore For
Anymore/What Went Down (That Night With You)/Lovely/Brother Can You Spare A
Dime?/Ain't No Lady/Don't Try And Change Your Mind/Well Well Hello (The
Party)/Kuschty Rye/You're So Right/One Step/Lad's Got Money/Stone/Sweet
Virginia
"I've
no use for riches, I've no use for power, I've no use for broken hearts - I'll
let this world go by"
How
come more Faces fans don't know Ronnie's prime solo work? Especially given that
this compilation exists, plucking all the bass player's singles from across his
entire run (and ending with a couple of live tracks released as a single
posthumously). The set contains several of his career highs commercially (such
as the title track, oddball as it is when set against the rest of his back
catalogue) and more especially creatively, with several of his most beautiful
songs: 'The Poacher' 'Anymore For Anymore'
and 'Kuschty Rye' to name just three. Of course Ronnie only had one top
40 hit and only recorded four albums anyway (this set is purely solo: it skips
Ronnie's work with Pete Townshend and Ronnie Wood and the Small Faces and Faces
material) so it's necessarily selective. It's probably fair to say too that
Ronnie wasn't always the best judge of his own material and sometimes put out
the weirdest songs as singles: roaring twenties pastiche 'Bye and Bye' was
never going to trouble the charts while the last five songs on the set, live
and studio, are pretty awful it has to be said. If you're a fan interested
enough to know what Ronnie sounds like you're probably better off investing in
the first three albums to be honest, but as compilations go this is a fair
introduction with a good half of Ronnie's most sublime material here and a
slight sense of who he was, from poignant country bumpkin folkie to outraged
philosopher to low-key rock and roller to quirky label-defying experimentalist.
How come Ronnie was all those things? Well, that's because he was a very
special writer indeed, as this compilation will hopefully demonstrate...
Ronnie
Lane "Kuschty Rye - The Singles 1973-1980"
(**, June 2001)
How Come?/Tell Everyone/Done This One
Before/The Poacher/Bye and Bye (Gonna See The King)/Roll On Babe/Anymore For
Anymore/What Went Down That Night With You?/Lovely/Brother Can You Spare A
Dime?/Ain't No Lady/Don't Try and Change My Mind/Well Well Hello (The
Party)/Kuschty Rye/You're So Right/One Step/Lad's Got Money/Stone/Sweet
Virginia
"Anymore
for anymore, hear those angels cry, but it's not his to sell to me and it's not
mine to buy"
As
with the other attempts to reduce Ronnie's oeuvre to just the singles in the
wake of his sad death, this is a cheap and enjoyable but nevertheless flawed
set that doesn't allow for the fact that many of Ronnie's best moments came
from his less commercial moments on album. This one is quite different to its
successor 'How Come', longer and more varied with lots more B-sides included,
which gives you more of a feel for what Ronnie's rarer, lesser known moments
feel like ('Tin and Tambourine' 'Burnin' Summer' and 'Harvest Home' are better
than anything here) while also containing pure magic like 'The Poacher' 'Roll
On Babe' and 'Anymore For Anymore'. To be honest though you're better off
digging out Ronnie's first three albums instead - it's not as if he made many
after all - and enjoying his music in full. A series of full Ronnie re-issues
after his death would have been the perfect tribute; by contrast this set and
its predecessor feel more like a note than a proper obituary.
"The
Ultimate Collection"
(Sanctuary, March 2003)
CD One: What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout
It?/I've Got Mine/It's Too Late/Sha-La-La-La-Lee/Grow Your Own/Hey
Girl/Shake/Come On Children/You Better Believe It/One Night Stand/Sorry She's
Mine/Own Up Time/You Need Loving/Don't Stop What You're Doing/E Too D/All Or
Nothing/Understanding/My Mind's Eye/I Can't Dance With You/I Can't Make It/Just
Passing/Patterns/Yesterday Today and Tomorrow/That Man/Baby Don't You Do It
CD Two: Here Comes The Nice/Talk To You/Tell
Me Have You Ever Seen Me?/Things Are Going To Get Better/My Way Of Giving/Green
Circles/Get Yourself Together/Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire/Eddie's
Dreaming/Itchycoo Park/I'm Only Dreaming/Tin Soldier/I Feel Much Better/Ogden's
Nut Gone Flake/Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Song Of A Baker/lazy Sunday/Rollin'
Over/Mad John/Happydaystoytown/The Universal/Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass/Wham
Bam Thank You Man/Don't Burst My Bubble/The Autumn Stone
"It's
everything I need to know, just resting in the afterglow of your..."
It
pains me to say this, having written a three hundred page book on all the Small
Faces related albums out there, but all you really need to own as a sort of
basics set is this one, the first ever compilation to mix Decca and Immediate
recordings at a more or less equal level. Working out the rights between the
two old enemies must have been a nightmare so well done to Sanctuary for
navigating round the problem and coming up with an impressively full two-disc
compilation that contains practically everything 'core', lacking only a few
cover songs, B-sides, live tracks, instrumentals and oddities. It seems a shame
to break up the 'Happiness Stan' suite on 'Ogden's, which makes no sense here
reduced to three tracks (not of course that the suite made an awful lot of
sense complete, what with Stanley Unwinisms and all) and 'Autumn Stone' gets
particularly rotten treatment. But if you only buy one Small Faces release and
want to hear a bit of everything then this really is about as 'ultimate' as it
gets. Impressive.
Rod Stewart and The Faces
"Changing Faces"
(UMTV,
October 2003)
CD
One: Maggie May/Stay With Me/Reason To Believe/You Wear It Well/In A Broken
Dream/Cut Across Shorty/Had Me A Real Good Time/Miss Judy's Farm/Angel/Oh No
Not My Baby/What Made Milwaukee Famous/I'm Losing You/Mandolin Wind/Every
Picture Tells A Story/I'd Rather Go Blind/Twistin' The Night Away/Sweet Little
Rock 'n' Roller/Bring It On Home To Me-You Send Me
CD
Two: Handbags and Gladrags/It's All Over Now/Cindy Incidentally/Pool Hall
Richard/Street Fighting Man/Gasoline Alley/Let Me Be Your Car/That's Alright/My
Way Of Giving/Italian Girls/Lost Paraguayos/True Blue/Hard Road/A Natural
Man/An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down/Jodie/Man Of Constant Sorrow/You
Can Make Me Dance Sing Or Anything
"Remember one thing, don't lose
your head to a tatty compilation that will cost you bread"
This was
such a golden opportunity for the various record labels out there I'm surprised
this hadn't happened before: the chance to lump all the Faces and Rod Stewart
solo hits (most of which The Faces played on anyway) on one handy disc and appeal to two markets simultaneously. The
problem is, of course, that true fans of either side traditionally hate, or at
any rate rib mercilessly, the other. Those who are of The Fasces persuasion
still have a lingering sense of resentment that Rod's inferior pop career
killed off rather a promising little band. There are also some poor deluded
fans who think that Rod was the only talent in The Faces and he simply outgrew
them. Putting the two together, not even side by side but jumbled together, is
a little like sticking Lennon and McCartney solo songs together, or Simon and
Garfunkel solo tracks if you prefer: yes there's a shared history and some fans
enjoy exploring both branches of each rock family tree, but blimey there isn't
much else in common musicwise. The Faces
tend to go for grooving pub rock; Rod as a solo act tends to go for lush
gushing ballads past closing time. The two might just about have worked as
separate entities across two separate discs, but heard together? The result is
a mess. If you divide this compilation down into tracks at least it makes more
sense: all the singles from the early to mid 1970s by both bands are here along
with a sensible if conservative selection of album tracks (so very little
Ronnie Lane sadly, though Ronnie Wood just about sneaks in).
We've
pretty much covered the Faces highlights on other compilations so here's a few
words on the Rod half of the equation, the albums covering mainly the Faces
years so albums 'An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down' 'Gasoline Alley'
'Every Picture Tells A Story' 'Never A Dull Moment' and 'Smiler' (which sadly
means we skip Cat Stevens cover 'The First Cut Is The Deepest' and Crazy Horse
cover 'I Don't Want To Talk About It', but at least means we're spared
'Sailing' and 'If You Think I'm Sexy', which rumour has it were both played on
repeat at Guantanamo bay or the Great American Songbook albums, which could
have been: I'd have told all by the end of track one). Of the songs that are
here some are worthy of consideration ('Maggie May' is way overplayed and Rod
is worryingly young to be singing about a schoolgirl, but there's no harm done
and a guesting Ray Jackson from Lindisfarne plays a cracking mandolin solo -
typically the others forget to take down his name and credited him as 'that
mandolin guy from Lindisfarne' which didn't go down too well...), a lot of them
not ('Street Fighting Man' is a candidate for worst AAA cover ever, completely
missing the point - Mick 'n' Keef were attacking apathy not having a party -
while I'd rather go deaf than listen to 'I'd Rather Go Blind' again). There's
also the rare chance to pit Rod up against Steve in a head to head battle
thanks to the former's cover of the latter's 'My Way Of Giving'; it won't
surprise anyone to learn that Marriott wins by a million miles, although Rod's
slower smokier take is still one of his better cover ideas. You may have
realised by now from my tone that I'm not really the target audience for this
CD - fair enough if you see more worth than I do. However even then I'm not
sure this curio compilation gets things quite right: if you are a fan there are
better Rod Stewart and better Faces greatest hits packages out there and you
don't really get anything here you can't get better elsewhere, with little in
the way of packaging and lots of pictures of Rod with only a few of The Faces.
Ian McLagan "Rise and Shine"
(Sanctuary,
March 2004)
You're
My Girl/Been A Long Time/Date With An Angel/Anytime/Price Of Love/She Ain't My
Girl/Your Secret/Lying/The Wrong Direction/Rubies In Her Hair/Wishing Hoping
Dreaming
"I know I'll never find anything
better - and I stopped looking a long time ago"
More of
the same from 'Mac', who treats us to another hard-rocking record of blues and
rockabilly originals with a defiantly retro flavour that sounds like a Jools
Holland Big Band album by someone who can actually play. There's nothing here
likely to convert you to the cause if you haven't already connected with the
Faces' music, but Mac does his best to keep the good-time boozy spirit of his
old band still going. Soul vocalist Patty Griffin plays P P Arnold to Mac's
Steve Marriott, but actually the biggest improvement over the past few records
has been with his singing voice which is now gloriously passionate and ruggedly
raw, with a charisma all of its own. Though not particularly different to both
earlier and later albums, this may well be Mac's most consistent LP and
probably the one most worth getting.
'You're My Girl' is an original that sounds as if it could have been written in
the 1960s with a glorious organ solo and the sort of upbeat frenzy Marriott
used to do so well. Mac first recorded this song for the EP 'A Chance To Dance'
back in 1985.
'Been A Long Time' is superior honky-tonk about having reached the point in life
where the music business is suddenly 'filled with people I don't know' while
Mac looks in vain for his old buddies to come and sing with him.
Scott
Miller's 'Date With An Angel'
merges pub rock with reggae to better effect than you might suppose as Mac
dreams about moving on from an abusive relationship and meeting someone who
really cares for him.
'Anytime'
is an album highlight, a poignant ballad where Mac writes to an old friend
(named Rod perhaps?), asking them to call round the next time they're passing
and acknowledging that apart they've both been going through similar 'hells'.
The difference, though, is that they've done 'well', while Mac still lives
relatively unknown and forgotten except by key Faces fanatics.
'Price Of Love' is by contrast the weakest thing here, a slow dirge of a blues
with only the unexpected horn part adding anything of difference or interest.
'She Ain't My Girl' is a second reggae-style song albeit played with some great
howling Ronnie Wood-style slide guitar. Though not as strong as 'Angel' this
track has a nice slinky groove and some fun lines: 'She don't waste time
washing dishes!' is Mac's biggest reason for wanting to go out with a new girl!
'Your Secret'
is pure Faces as Mac both looks forward to and dreads his next night of
'torture' with the girl of his dreams he can't stop thinking of. There's a
great barrel-roll piano solo in the middle that runs for hours!
'Lying' is,
funnily enough, not unlike The Faces' 'Flying', a moody complex track that
seems most out of place compared to its album-mates sung with more seriousness
and a bigger production than normal. This sad song about betrayal is another
real album highlight with Mac's anguished vocals well suited to the track.
'The Wrong Direction' is a slinky bluesy tale of how Mac's narrator's problems didn't
all disappear the day his wife walked out - he had to live with himself too.
More slide guitar embellishes this song's groove no end.
'Rubies In Her Hair' is the poppiest song here, as Mac regrets not taking up with an
old flame decade ago, especially when he sees how run-down and unloved she now
is. If Mac was with her she wouldn't want for anything.
The
slow-burning 'Wishing Hoping Dreaming'
is another strong track as Mac swigs at his drink and 'slips down in my seat'
as he tries to stay at the bar another hour to delay going home to an empty
house. A whole cacophony of keyboards appear on this track which again is more
complex than usual.
Overall,
then, 'Rise and Shine' is more good-time piano playing but with a sadder and
more vulnerable feel to it that suggests the good time rock is here for
escapism from the blues more than anything else. Well played, well made and
well produced the only thing it lacks is variety but even there it has more of
a range of styles than Mac's other albums. Another recommended set.
The Faces "Five Guys Walk Into A
Bar..." (Box Set)
(Warner
Brothers/Rhino, July 2004)
CD
One: Flying/On The Beach/Too Bad/If I'm On The Late Side/Debris/Jealous
Guy/Evil/As Long As You Tell Him/Maggie May (BBC Session)/Cindy
Incidentally/Maybe I'm Amazed (BBC Session)/Insurance/I Came Looking For
You/Last Orders Please/Wyndlesham Bay/I Can Feel The Fire/Tonight's Number/Come
See Me Baby
CD
Two: Pool Hall Richard/I Don't Want To Discuss It/Glad and Sorry/Shake Shudder
Shiver/Miss Judy's Farm/Richmond/That's All You Need/Rear Wheel Skid/Maybe I'm
Amazed/I Don't Want To Be Right/Take A Look At The Guy/Flags and Banners/Bad
'n' Ruin/Around The Plynth/Sweet Lady Mary/Had Me A Real Good Time/Cut Across
Shorty
CD
Three: You're So Rude/I'm Losing You/Love Lives Here/I'd Rather Go Blind/Hi
Heel Sneakers-Everybody Needs Somebody To Love/Gettin' Hungry/Silicone Grown/Oh
Lord I'm Browned Off!/Just Another Honky/Open To Ideas/Skewiff (mend The
Fuse)/Too Bad/Rock Me/Angel/Stay With Me/Ooh La La
CD
Four: The Stealer (BBC Session)/Around The Plynth (BBC Session)/You Can Make Me
Dance Sing Or Anything/I Wish It Would Rain/Miss Judy's Farm (BBC Session)/Love In Vain (BBC Session)/My
Fault (BBC Session)/I Feel So Good/Miss Judy's Farm/Three Button Hand Me
Down/Cindy Incidentally/Borstal Boys/Flying/Bad 'n' Ruin/Dishevelment
Blues/Stay With Me
"Dancing madly round the room,
singing loudly and sorta out of tune"
A fine,
fun retrospective that sees Mac, the band's de facto archivist, try to make
sense of The Faces' four albums together across four nicely lengthy discs. Now,
this is in no sense a complete career collection the way that 2015's 'You Can Make
Me Dance...' box set is and debut album 'First Step' is particularly badly
treated with only half the record here, though the emphasis on the band's
middle two records 'Long Player' and 'A Nod Is As Good As A Wink' is at least
the right way round, even if the chaotic non-linear track listing makes that
hard to spot. The extra material comes from a whole range of alternate takes,
BBC sessions (31 unreleased in total!)
and a complete set of those hard-to-find, harder-to-listen to blues jam B-sides
(frankly I'd rather listen to all the actual albums than that lot, but most of
them are making their CD debuts here so the collector in me understands, even
if the listener in me is off to the side being violently ill). Oddly a lot of
these BBC sessions 'technically' feature Rod being backed by The Faces on his
solo appearances plugging 'Maggie May' 'Gasoline Alley' etc, though at least
these are both rare and well performed, so that's not the tragedy it might have
been.
The
'new' material is a typical ragbag Faces assortment, some of them (such as an
alternate 'Flying' that's softer and slower, an unheard studio outtake of
'Jealous Guy' with honky tonk piano from the first 'First Step' sessions in
1969, the tight and punchy rocker 'Wyndlesham Bay', the slow and moody 'Ooh La
La' outtake 'The Cheater' ) well up to standard and perhaps a little
higher - some of them (such as an
endless poorly recorded rehearsal of Willie Dixon's 'Evil', unheard two Ronnies
collaboration 'Insurance' where nothing happens very very slowly and an off-key
live version of 'Too Bad' apparently played down a wind tunnel) are even more
dreadful than normal. Critics fell over themselves (a bit like the band then?)
to praise this set where many magazines named it 'best compilation of the year'
and a few named it 'best box set ever', which seems to be going a bit far
really given how lifeless, odd or worthless a good half of this set can be.
However all of the band's best moments are on here somewhere, joined by many
more fans didn't even know existed at the time and if nothing else 'Five Guys
Walks Into A Bar' offers a pretty decent summary of what the band were all
about, with space not only for the primal rocking but the more insightful
Ronnie Lane songs, the experiments and the endless blues drudges all here. The
best thing about this set though? The name, surely, which sums up the band's
image and character better than any of their 'real' album titles or other
compilations do! Not perfect then - and no substitute for just owning the
albums properly - but still pretty good. Now where is Humble Pie's box set
then, eh?!
"The Masters Collection"
(Universal,
March 2005)
Sha-La-La-La-Lee/All
Or Nothing/My Mind's Eye/Hey Girl/It's Too Late/I've Got Mine/I Can't Make
It/Almost Grown/Understanding/Own Up Time/That Man/Plum Nellie/Come On Children/Grow
Your Own/You Better Believe It/Sorry She's Mine/Shake!/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout
It?
"Go on, change my grey skies into
blue!"
Decca
and Universal have always had close links and for a time in the early 21st
century Universal hit upon rather a good deal where they could re-release as
many of Decca's artists as they could get the rights to on cheap-ish
compilations that impressed by featuring a more unusual range of material than
normal, usually in pretty good sound, but depressed through their short running
times and their feelings of 'incompleteness'. The Small Faces' isn't one of the
better selections in the range, if only because they don't have the Immediate
tracks to play around with as well and Decca had already released far better
compilations of their own material. Still, there are some good finds here that
are hard to track down on CD outside their parent albums, with the likes of
B-side 'Understanding' and album track 'Come On Children' more than deserving
the extra appreciation. Be warned, too, that a number of the songs including
'What'cha' don't feature the 'original' versions but the 'French EP' ones,
which is a bonus for collectors but a pain for people trying to track down the
'real' versions.
"The Essential Collection"
(Metro,
April 2005)
CD
One: Here Come The Nice/I Can't Make It/Itchycoo Parl/Tin Soldier/I Feel Much
Better/Lazy Sunday/Wham Bam Thank You Man/Wide Eyed Girl On The Wall/There's
Something I Want To Tell You/Things Are Going To Get Better/Donkey Rides A
Penny A Glass/Green Circles/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?/Long Agos and Worlds
Apart/Don't Burst My Bubble/I'm Only Dreaming/Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire/Ogden's
Nut Gone Flake
CD
Two: Happiness Stan/Rollin' Over/The Hungry Intruder/The Journey/Mad
John/Happydaystoytown/Get Yourself Together/The Universal/Red Balloon/Eddie's
Dreaming/The Autumn Stone/Talk To You/All Our Yesterdays/Happy Boys Happy/My
Way Of Giving/Rene/Just Passing/Afterglow (Of Your Love)
"More than love it's a way of
living - what more would you have me do?"
What's
the difference between 'ultimate' 'definitive' and 'essential'? Not a lot it
syntax wise it seems, although actually this set is different simply by
featuring the Immediate songs together without any Decca recordings to
interrupt the flow. In that sense this compilation is a spitting image for 'The
Darlings Of Whapping Wharf Laundrette', the difference being that the earlier
compilation comes in strict chronological order - and this one doesn't. Better
stick with that one then or the two Decca-Immediate hybrids mentioned above ,
but the music of course is more than fine and the packaging might even be a tad
stronger on this set, with The Small Faces standing in front of a moddish
'target' logo.
Steve Marriott "Rainy Changes:
Rare Recordings 1973-1991"
(Whapping Wharf Launderette, June 2005)
CD
One: They Call It Love/Run Rudolph Run/Nobody But You/Phone Call Away/If You
Find What You're Looking For/Say The Word/Sweet Nuthins/Looking Through At
You/Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl/Some Kind Of Wonderful/Save Your Love For
Me/An Itch You Can't Scratch/Two Lane Fever/Paying The Price/I Never Loved A
Woman/Stay With Me Baby/Oh Well/Out Of The Blue/I Won't Let You Down/The Bigger
They Come The Harder They Fall
CD
Two: Intro/Poor Man's Rich Man/Dialogue/Thirty Day
Shuffle/Heartbreaker/Midnight Of My Life/Get Down To It/It's All
Over/Think/Dialogue/Sea Of Change/I Need Your Love Like A Fish Needs A
Raincoat/Let's Spend The Night Together/Infatuation/Jesus Loves
Me/Soldier/Rainy Changes/Toe Rag/Poll Tax Blues/Dialogue #2
"There's nothing new, there's
nothing changed and if I told you the same old stories just once more would it
be strange?"
Marriott's
final years weren't pretty with the man who once sang 'It's all too beautiful'
was in survival mode for most of his last decade. But talent never dies, it
just gets mis-placed and there's enough of substance here in a lovingly made
collection to prove that Marriott might yet have re-discovered his long missing
muse had he lived another decade. At the time everything bar 'Poll Tax Blues'
in this set was unreleased, which is quite remarkable given the long running
times of both discs, although most of it had appeared on grainy bootlegs that
used to be a fairly common sight at record fairs. These recordings could in
truth have gone either way, as proof of how Marriott had lost his way or as a
moving eulogy and thankfully it's the latter, with the set compiled with loving
care by John Hellier, the editor of the Small Faces fanzine Darlings Of
Whapping Wharf Laundrette and every available source scoured for the best sound
and most interesting outtakes dating right back to Humble Pie's peak period.
The
first disc is a kind of free-for-all containing unreleased Humble Pie grooves,
unusual cover songs and unfinished Marriott demos. None of it's
earth-shattering but most of it is good, with a fiery harmonica version of
'Thirty Day Shuffle', a powerful cover of 'Midnight In My Life' where Marriott
admits that he's fallen on harder times, a cover of The Stones' 'Let's Spend
The Night Together' treated like a Humble Pie song but thankfully not slowed
down too much, the hilariously straight-faced comedy 'I Need Your Love Like A
Fish Needs A Raincoat' and even funnier minute long snippet 'Toe Rag', which
started life as a touching song to friends and family before getting imbued
with ribald cockney humour and orders ('That's your mum and I'm your dad and this
is my guitar - hands off!') Best of all are two cracking songs that really do
suggest that Marriott was finding a new source of power in his performance: Joe
Brown's 'Soldier' (leftover from 'Marriott' in 1976) in which the 'tin soldier'
admits that he long ago forgot what he was fighting for but doesn't know how to
do anything else, while the 'Rainy Changes' title track sounds like a fond
olive branch to Ronnie Lane during the bass player's years of ill health as
Marriott sings in Ronnie's acoustic fiddle-playing style and laments that he
should be with a good friend instead of sitting 'all alone'. Though Marriott
sings most of this album on auto-pilot, his delivery of these two tracks is
right up there with his best as the music coaxes a better performance out of
his weary body. Sadly there's also the set's un-wisest inclusions - drunken
ramblings from Marriott (the most interesting of which discusses the taste of
fish and chips!) and only slightly more together reminiscences from those who
knew them. Speech rarely works together
with music and really doesn't repeated listenings (maybe it should have been
lumped together at the end of the disc?)
The
majority of the album though is taken up, on the second disc an album Marriott
had tried to release with The Official Receivers in 1987, marking his first
studio work since Humble Pie's 'Go For The Throat' in 1981. Marriott felt mixed
emotions about making this un-named record: he longed to make music and
desperately needed the money but by the mid 1980s he'd grown so upset and
frustrated about the way The Small Faces and Humble Pie had been taken for a
ride by managers and record labels that he hated the idea of being taken
advantage of again. Chances are the record would have seen the light of day at
some stage, but for four years Marriott tinkered with it on and off, unsure
what to do with it. Though far from the best thing Marriott ever made in his
lifetime, it is as at least more focussed than anything he'd been making in the
second half of his career with Humble Pie and Marriott has regained some of his
old voice and swagger after years of struggling (and thankfully usually
winning) to stay off the cigarettes, drugs and booze. You don't really need to
own this album, but it's a nice one to have with several highlights that all
seem to touch on Marriott's latest fading marriage to Pam Stephens including
such strong performances as the acoustic lament 'Nobody But You' written in a
rare moment of sobriety, bandmate Jim Leverton's sweet pop song 'Say The Word'
and the relentless funk of 'An Itch I Can't Scratch'. The rest of the album
sadly suffers from 1980s syndrome with too many artificial drums, synthesisers
and backing singers which cover up all these wonderfully raw and heartfelt
songs with too much spit and polish as well as covering up Marriott himself. In
Steve's case raw really was more and it's on the more solo numbers he shines. The three collaborations with Peter Frampton,
which ended up being the last Marriott would ever make just months before his
untimely death, are also interesting with 'I Won't Let You Down' a rare 1980s
pop that actually works in all its bright shoulder-padded excessive glory. The 'extra tracks' at the end of the disc are
even more of a mixed bag but Marriott's rocking version of Fleetwood Mac's 'Oh
Well' makes up for the other three.
Overall,
then, 'Rainy Changes' is a flawed but more than fine enough memorial to a great
lost talent with just enough there to prove Marriott's greatness without being
able to shake off the feeling that the singer's best work was always going to
be behind him. Full of some very sudden stylistic shifts and a lot of soggy
weather, 'Rainy Changes' is a name that suits both the compilation and the man
rather well. This set was never going to be a huge seller, but it was too good
to exist merely in muddy sound on bootlegs all its life and it certainly
enhances rather than harms Marriott's legacy, however reluctant the singer was
to release most of it.
The Jones Gang (Featuring Kenney Jones)
"Any Day Now"
(***,
'2005')
The
Time Of Your Life/Mr Brown/Angel/She'll Never Know/With You/Gypsy Lane/Lucy/Six
To Midnight/Hole In My Soul/Where Are You Now?/Red Hot
"There was strength, there was
truth, but I just couldn't get it!"
Kenney
Jones has had a quiet time of it since his days as Keith Moon's replacement,
The Who coming to a first natural end in 1982. Stints in Rod Stewart's band, a
brief time performing with Status Quo and charity gigs for Ronnie Lane aside,
Kenney had all but retired from music making when he decided to form his own
band for the first time in 2001. More of a bunch of friends in The Faces mode
than a supergroup like Humble Pie, featuring two old mates in Rick Wills (who
was once Lane's replacement in The Small Faces reunion and ended up, much to
Marriott's chagrin, in Peter Frampton's band) and Robert Hart (the original
singer with Bad Company and then with Manfredd Mann's Earth Band), the band got
together for charity gigs but stayed long enough to record this one lone album.
Very early 21st century, in the same way that Ronnie and Steve's work around
the 1980s were very 1980s, it certainly doesn't sound much like either of
Kenney's previous bands and despite the billing Kenney plays a backseat here,
providing only three co-writinv credits and drums - and not many of them to be honest. Instead
it's Hart who takes the reigns here, with scratchy vocals that sound like The
Stereophonics' 'Kelly Jones' as performed through a megaphone.
The
record has its moments, particularly when it's involving itself with
contemporary culture. One of the biggest things in Kenney's life outside music
has long been politics and - almost uniquely for AAA bands - is a big supporter
of Conservative policy. This album's 'Mr Brown's is a damning portrayal of the
then-Labour prime minister and Kenney's attempts to get his heads round his
policy ('Inside out and round and round' he still can't follow it though). All
I'll say in reply is that the penniless Marriott and Lane, who lost their
fortunes through no fault of their own (and a little help from Conservative
policy on tax and disability) would probably have disagreed whole-heartedly,
but Kenney deserves his chance to speak out and 'reply' to Marriott's 'Poll Tax
Blues'. 'She'll Never Know' is a fun fast acoustic number too, with a
Ronnie-style swing and a Steve-style direct performance, while Kenney's only
wholly original song 'Six To Midnight' would have made a great Faces single,
recalling Marriott's own '30 Seconds To Midnite' as Hart's narrator is 'cold
and lonely' at a station and wondering what he's doing with his life. Most of
the rest though is as disposable as every other album released in 2005 (which
is to say 'very') and even these album highlights would have sounded better
taken down a production peg or two. The Jones Gang sound like a good one to be
a part of, though, with some top-notch performances in there somewhere - other
bands out there still going from the olden days will have to go a long way to
keep up with the Joneses' fire and energy!
Ian McLagan "Spiritual Boy"
(Maniac
Records, April 2006)
Spiritual
Babe/Itchycoo Park/Nowhere To Run/Annie/Debris/April Fool/Kuschty Rye/Show Me
The Way/You're So Rude/Glad and Sorry/Hello Old Friend
"Hello old friend, I'll see you in
a while, we'll sit and laugh and you'll make me smile"
Although
a few people at the time accused Mac of cashing in on the death of an old
friend, the keyboardist's career had been picking up nicely and this series of
Ronnie Lane covers sound heartfelt and natural. Mac's voice is an interesting
hybrid of his two most famous partner's: at times it has the rough edges and
aggressiveness of Marriott's, but he also shares a folky ethereal quality with
Lane's that makes Mac an excellent choice of singer for a tribute album. Being
such an old friend, Mac also knows the Lane catalogue well and though there's a
couple of fan-pleasers like 'Itchycoo Park' (the one Small Faces hit single
which was more Ronnie's than Steve's) and Small Faces album track 'Show Me The
Way' there's also a run of forgotten and neglected songs from the 'Slim Chance'
and 'See Me' periods and some less than obvious Faces songs too.
In truth
the Small faces covers are oddly wretched for someone who saw the originals
being made: 'Itchycoo Park' has never sounded more horrid or out of tune (it's
all far from being 'too beautiful!'), 'Show Me The Way' sounds lost and Mac's
harsher voice might have made a better bet at times covering Marriott's work.
Still, at other times, this album is genuinely lovely: 'Rough Mix' songs 'Nowhere
To Run' 'April Fool' and 'Annie' are tense and nervy beasts, delivered with the
purity of the originals but a power all their own. Better yet the two Mac
originals that bookend the album ('Hello Old Friend' having already featured on
Mac's 'Best Of British' album) are knockout songs, Mac spot-on with his
observations about his friend's mixture of down-to-earthness and mysticism and
telling his own personal connection to Ronnie when his dad remarked, long
before he joined The Small Faces, how much his son looked like the bassist on
the telly. 'I thought I was the only fool I knew' Mac sings in reference to
Ronnie's April fool's day birthdate. Mac wrote the song in the 1990s when he
knew his friend was dying and played it for him - Ronnie was both moved to
tears and felt deeply awkward from hearing a friendship related in song. I'm
glad he heard it though: it's a true song by a true friend. If nothing else
this album served as a useful introduction to Ronnie's solo work back at a time
when it was near-impossible to find and along with the 'Passing Show'
documentary made around this time helped re-establish Ronnie as a cult figure
rather than forgotten has-been. You can tell from this record what good friends
Mac and Ronnie were and you can't ask for more from your friends than a
heartfelt tribute reminding the public how great your often-forgotten work is. 'What is finer than love, babe?' the album
starts. Only respect - and here Mac offers both in a poignant, often beautiful
album that may be a little rough around the edges but is delivered with heart.
"The Very Best Of Humble Pie: The
Immediate Recordings"]
(Metro
Recordings, February 2006)
Natural
Born Bugie/Wrist Job/Desperation/Growing Closer/As Safe As Yesterday
Is/Bang!/Alabama '69/A Nifty Little Number Like You/What You Will/The Sad Bag
Of Shakey Jake/Every Mother's Son/Heartbeat/For Your Love/Shakin' All Over
"I hope you pull through, but
you're locked in your social zoo!"
Hard as
they try to disguise it, with a generous track selection and some excellent
packaging, Immediate can't escape the fact that they only have access to three
Humble Pie albums - the first two studio cuts and the posthumous live album
tagged onto the end. At least this time, unlike 'Come Back Home', the track
selection is sensible, including the band's only bona fide hit single in this
period with more fan favourites like 'Shakey Jake' and 'A Nifty Little Number'.
The bonus track of 'For Your Love' is pretty exceptional too. However there are
still far too many rotten track selections like the countryfied 'Alabama '69'
and the Buddy Holly cover 'Heartbeat' while some of the band's strongest songs
like 'Buttermilk Boy' and the 'proper' take of 'Every Mother's Son' (replaced
here by a shorter acoustic version) - yes them again! - are absent. Humble Pie
are too wide and sprawling a band to be done justice by a single disc
compilation - especially one that only has access to the first fifth of their
collected work together. This set though doesn't even make the most of the
limited tracks Immediate had access to.
"The Immediate Recordings"
(Weton
Wesgram, '2007')
Itchycoo
Park/I'm Only Dreaming/Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am/Afterglow (Of Your Love)/All Or
Nothing/I Can't Make It/Here Come The Nice/Feeling Lonely/Tin Soldier/Become
Like You/The Universal/Call It Something Nice/Lazy Sunday/The Autumn
Stone/Every Little Bit Hurts (Studio)/Don't Burst My Bubble/Donkey Rides A
Penny A Glass/Red Balloon
"You don't need money to open your
eyes!"
A cheap
'n' cheerful compilation that puts together a pretty random selection of
Immediate recordings for spare change. Given the costs this is rather good
value for money with several of the band's best work here, as opposed to simply
their best known work (with songs like 'Afterglow' 'Every Little Bit Hurts' and
most of the Autumn Stone tracks making semi-rare appearances). There's
surprisingly little from the Immediate 'Small Faces' album though or even
'Ogden's (represented by just two songs) so this is in no way a replacement for
the longer, more 'definitive' compilations out there. Sometimes, though, cheap
is the way to go with compilations even if they're not perfect - The Small
Faces, of all bands, would understand if this is all you can buy.
Steve Marriott "Tin Soldier - The
Anthology"
(Sanctuary,
February 2008)
CD
One (Small Faces Plus): Consider Yourself (Oliver Cast Recording)/Give Her My
Regards (Solo)/Money Money (The Moments)/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/I've Got
Mine/Hey Girl/You Need Loving/All Or Nothing/Understanding/I Can't Dance With
You/I Can't Make It/Here Come The Nice/Get Yourself Together/Green
Circles/Don't Burst My Bubble/Tin Soldier/Lazy Sunday/Rollin' Over/Afterglow
(Of Your Love)/The Universal/Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass/Me You and Us Too/The
Autumn Stone/Every Little Bit Hurts
CD
Two (Humble Pie): Natural Born Bugie/Buttermilk Boy/Alabama '69/Down Home
Again/Every Mother's Son/I'll Drown In My Own Tears/Big Black Dog/Live With
Me/Theme From Skint/A Song For Jenny/I Don't Need No Doctor/You're So Good For
Me/30 Days In The Hole/Get Down To It/Say No More/Groovin' With Jesus/Funbky To
The Bone/Fool For A Pretty Face/Teenage Anxiety
CD
Three (Solo Plus): Midnight Of My Life/Early Evening Light/Lookin' For
Love/Lend Us A Quid/Soldier/Cocaine/High and Happy (Small Faces Reunion)/Brown
Man Do (Small Faces Reunion)/Daddy Rollin' Stone/Lonely No More (Majic
Mijits)/Cockney Rhyme/Big Train Stop At Memphis/My Girl/Watch Your Step/If You
Find What You're Looking For/Phone Call Away/Knockin' On Your Door/Poll Tax
Blues/I Won't Let You Down/The Bigger They Come/Stay With Me Baby/Toe Rag
"Happy, sad, good and bad, this is
exactly what you are"
A near
perfect three-pronged attack on Marriott's back catalogue, which somehow
(negotiation? Bribery? magic?!) becomes the first set ever to negotiate not
only the Decca and Immediate years, but the A&M, Atlantic and many minor
label eras as well. The triple set is sensibly divided into three, for The
Small Faces, Humble Pie and solo/assorted extras, each CD a strong
best-of-with-extras in its own right but heard together offers pretty much
every great track Marriott ever recorded (though you'll still want to dig out 'Come
On Children!' from the debut LP and Humble Pie B-side 'Wrist Job' if you really
want to get everything top-notch Marriott ever recorded). The 'Small Faces'
disc adds relative rarities like B-sides 'Understanding' and 'I Can't Dance
With You' that don't always appear on compilations as well as the studio
version of 'Every Little Bit Hurts' and an outtake (with more Marriott) of
Ronnie's 'Green Circles' track oddly. Oh and three excellent tracks from a time
before Marriott even joined the band, heard as the greatest Artful Dodger there
ever was back in 1960, the A side of his solo teen balladeer moment in 1963 and
the B-side of his stint as lead singer with rock group The Moments in 1964. The
second disc, covering Humble Pie, is even better: as well as the obvious tracks
(the glorious 'I Don't Need No Doctor' and hit singles 'Natural Born Bugier'
'Big Black Dog' and 'Fool For A Pretty Face') come the real cream of Humble Pie
that always seem to get short shrift from compilers: the moody yet magnificent
'Live With Me', the oh so sweet 'Jenny's Song' and the gloriously
self-deprecating 'Theme From Skint'.
Admittedly
not every track selection here is a classic ('Funky To The Bone' and 'Alabama
'69' are in truth the worst of Pie) but, well, it wouldn't be Pie without
getting things wrong somewhere and at least you get to sample every record, not
just the famous ones. The third CD is, as so many people have said, the weakest
entry containing Marriott's decline from his eponymous solo album in 1975
through the disappointing Small Faces reunions, the Majik Mijits with Ronnie
Lane in 1981 and on through the live club date recordings through to '30 Seconds
To Midnite' in 1989 and Marriott's final ever work, a few weeks before his
death, on a Peter Frampton album (finally released posthumously in 1991). But
even if the material it's taken from is less inspired and a lot more tired than
the first two discs, the best of it is pretty much all here with an excellent
intelligent selection (though a couple more from the Majik Mijits album
wouldn't have gone amiss). Together with a fantastically cheap price on first
release (£8! Perhaps my second greatest AAA bargain - Marriott would have
approved!), the clever and fitting name-check of Marriott's greatest ever song
in the title and the heartfelt attention to detail most everywhere, 'Tin
Soldier' is the place to kindle your Marriott obsession. The only minor point -
and it's a very minor one - is a bit of clumsy proof-reading in the
so-small-print-I-need-me-glasses booklet, which accidentally puts some track
info in the wrong order and end mid-sentence (something the AAA would never do
of cour-). That aside, though, this is a classic and it deserved to make a far
bigger splash at the time than it did. Now all we have to do is wait for the
sister set on Ronnie Lane and I'll be happy...
Ian McLagan "Never Say Never"
(RED
Distribution, March 2009)
Never
Say Never/A Little Black Number/I Will Follow/Where Angels Hide/Killing Me With
Love/An Innocent Man/My Irish Rose/I'm Hot You're Cool/Loverman/When The Crying
Is Over
"The sun is glistening - and it's
blinding my view"
I'm not
quite sure what it was that made this album stand out - a better publicity
budget maybe, a sudden outpouring of love for The Small Faces in the wake of
'The Ultimate Collection' or recoiling horror at the Rod Stewart American
Songbooks - but suddenly after decades in the shadows Mac's latest album was
everywhere. By and large tracking down the previous Mac albums involved a bit
of detective work and a lot of luck, but suddenly this album was being reviewed
everywhere and everyone was falling over themselves to say how much the
unassuming keyboard player was always their favourite Faces member, yes honest.
With Kenney now quiet, Wood part of a seemingly retired Rolling Stones (four
years after their latest tour/album), Ronnie and Steve both gone and Rod now an
establishment figure crooning the likes of 'Moonglow' and 'The Very Thought Of
You' as if the 1970s had never happened, it fell to Mac to keep the Faces
tradition going.
Which he
does, with typical aplomb on an album that's of a standard really with all his
others. No, Mac still isn't the world's greatest vocalist but in this period
especially he was getting better and his raw, vulnerable soulful vocals were a
million miles away from what former partner Rod was churning out - to most
fans' relief. No there isn't a lot of variety on offer here, with more pub
rockers and soulful ballads, although there is a slightly softer more melodic
approach this time around. No The Bump Band aren't the most virtuoso group on
the planet, but virtuosity is over-rated anyway compared to feeling and Mac's
band have that in spades. No, the songs aren't up to The Small Faces' best but
then what is? In plus terms this album even digs a little deeper than most of
Mac's works, with an inherent sadness from the recent death of wife Kim (who
died in a car accident when her vehicle was hit by a truck in 2006) and the
keyboard player's own failing health, although this is still far from an
introspective work in the Ronnie Lane mould, just a little more mournful and
regretful than normal. 'Never Say Never' has many highlights, few lowlights and
re-establishes The Faces' style into a new century most successfully. Even if
there was a sense in the reviews of the time that 'this is as good as we Faces
fans have got these days', in truth it's plenty good enough with Mac adding
another excellent album to his discography.
'Never Say Never' itself is one of the strongest songs here, a heartfelt ballad
about a lost love coming back as a ghost, something Mac's narrator fears he
might have imagined but still takes some comfort from. Mac's gorgeous soulful
delivery is the polar opposite of the note-perfect-but-wet Rod albums of period
years - raw, naked, honest and dripping with emotion. Even Ronnie and Steve
would have been proud to have written this one.
'A Little Black Number' is a perky little rockabilly number about a middle-aged woman
getting her confidence boosted by attention from lads young enough to be her
son. A typical Faces song then, but Mac's slowed and lightened the sound so
that it feels more like moving tribute than booze-swilling good time.
'I Will Follow' is The Faces to a tee - or closer yet the 'Wham Bam' late period
of Small Faces. A typically Marriott style song of devotion, no matter what,
it's another classy track with a rousing piano riff.
'Where Angels Hide' is the song most overtly about the loss of wife Kim as Mac tries
to offer comfort to others in a similar position. 'There's nothing I can write
to help you through the night' Mac sings sadly, but sweet heartfelt songs like
this one help all the same.
'Killing Me Love' is something of an oddity, a ukulele number that mixes The Faces
with George Formby - the two aren't quite as far apart as you might suppose.
This song never quite gels though and is perhaps one of the weaker songs here.
'An Innocent Man' is a lovely Ronnie Lane style acoustic ballad as Mac invites
'us' to take a walk with him where he gets to say everything he always wanted
to say but never quite cold. Another quite lovely song, with Mac's strained
vocals only adding to the poignancy.
'My Irish Rose' is the closest in style to previous albums - a noisy full band
performance with a slurred vocal and
generic lyrics of love. There's still something compelling about the song's
stumbling, half-speed riff though that makes this more than mere parody.
'I'm Hot, You're Cool' is one of those Jools Holland style boogie woogie numbers that
takes a long time to get going but finally hits a groove once the band cut in
and has Mac defying his critics, mentioning the people he's played to and how
he's still 'going strong' after so many of his contemporaries have quit.
'Loverman'
is a retro 50s style number with Buddy Holly hiccups where Mac's vocal croak is
perhaps a little too raw for comfort and weith some pretty bland lyrics
compared to the rest of the album, but the melody's a good 'un at least.
The
album ends with another mini-classic as 'When The Crying Is Over' looks forward to happier
days when storms have passed and Mac looks forward to his own death when he's
reunited with his soulmate. It's with a heavy heart you realise that the
keyboard player only had another five years to wait before getting his wish.
Overall,
then, 'Never Say Never' is as defiant as its title, but also tempered with a
softer melancholy that underpins many of the songs. It's hard to grade Mac's
albums as all are so similar but this one has perhaps an extra few dimensions
compared to the others and a few less filler tracks. It's certainly Mac's most
heartfelt and emotional solo album, without ever betraying that sense of fun
and carnival that had always been so intrinsic to the Faces sound. A career highlight?
Well, perhaps not quite but never say never - this album has become even more
poignant after Mac's death and might yet grow with the passage of time into his
masterwork...
Steve Marriott "Lend Us A
Quid!"
(Whapping
Wharf Laundrette, July 2010)
CD
One: Think/Shake!/Charlene/High and Happy/Star In My Life/Snakes and
Ladders/Lend Us A Quid!/Midnight Of My Life/Be My Baby/Hambone/Rain/Cocaine/To
Ramona/Think (Alternate Take)/Anyhow I Love You x 2
CD
Two (Humble Pie Live 1983): What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Fool For A Pretty
Face/Hallelujah I Love Her So/Walking The Dog/Five Long Years/The Fixer/Drum
Solo/30 Days In The Hole/I Don't Need No Doctor
"Ain't nobody else going to take
my place!"
This is
a set of two halves. The first disc is another stab by the Whapping Wharf
Laundrette fanzine to release the 'Scrubbers' sessions of 1975 with a few
tracks unheard on the longer 'Sessions' album of 1996, sadly this set will set
you back more than a quid nowadays and is one of the rarer albums in this book
despite it's relatively recent vintage. To be honest, you're better off with
the earlier set anyway as it contains all you're ever likely to want to hear (and
more besides), but the curious are rewarded with a few extra recordings of
interest. The unheard 'Think' is Marriott trying hip hop, of all things and
sounding rather better than he did doing reggae, though it's the second version
here with more of an R and B groove and a lengthy harmonica solo that works
best. The quirky 'Charlene' with a curious stop-start riff is another song that
deserved release on the earlier CD with a very Marriott lyric about poverty
with the memorable opening line 'Man, when I was rich I was a sonofabitch!'
'Snakes and Ladders' is a typical mid-70s Pie groove that's a good start but
needs something extra happening in there. An early version of 'Midnight Of My
Life' is much better than the re-recording in 1989 with Marriott still in
control of his vocal, despite the often dodgy sound. Acoustic Dylan cover 'To Ramona'
is unique in the Marriott lexicon as Marriott carries off a complex
multi-layered song with his voice kept down low. You can also hear two
rehearsals of the unfinished 'Anyhow I Love You' which are less interesting
than they ought to be, with long periods of silence as Marriott gets feedback
from his engineer. Very much for obsessive fans rather than general music
collectors then, although this set was released through a fanzine after all
(albeit a very well loved, respected and popular one) so that shouldn't be too
surprising. Personally though I'd just stick with the 'Scrubbers' set as
there's nothing un-missable here.
The
second disc is a concert from Humble Pie in 1983 that captures the band at one
of their last gigs (at least, with Marriott in the band). It's a lot better
than the two reunion albums, with a sense of structure and discipline behind
all that noise and Marriott is on good form throughout, certainly a lot better
than any of the 'Packet Of Three' and 'Official Receivers' sets from later in
the decade out officially. Though Marriott shines again on later individual
songs at different gigs, this is the last live concert captured for posterity where
the singing still comes naturally and has a sense of dynamics behind the power
and shouting. Together with some excellent material (including a fifteen minute
cover of 'Five Long Years', a smokin' 'Fixer' from Pie album 'Smokin', a nine
minute '30 Days In The Hole' with a new heavy drum pattern and a fourteen
minute 'I Don't Need No Doctor', which is the last performance of his signature
Pie song where that statement sounds true). Most interestingly of all, Pie play
a Small Faces song for the only time: a punkish 'What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?'
which is about the only one of their songs that could withstand such a heavy
metal makeover and come out on top. The only problems are the poor sound, which
is all too obviously taken from a lo-fi tape recorder and a never-ending drum
solo that takes up five precious minutes of the short set. Never mind, though -
there's enough here on this second side to delight all Marriott maniacs and to
keep the singer's memory alive for that bit longer. Though not for casual fans,
'Lend Us A Quid' is a bargain in anyone's money.
Deluxe Re-Issues
(Decca/Immediate)
'The
Small Faces' (Decca) (Deluxe Edition May 2012):
Album: Shake/Come On Children/You Better Believe
It/It's Too Late/One Night Stand/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?//Sorry She's
Mine/Own Up Time/You Need Loving/Don't Stop What You're Doing/E Too D/Sha La La
La Lee
Bonus Tracks: I've Got Mine/What's A Matter
Baby?/Grow Your Own/Patterns/Come On Children (Alternate)/Shake (Alternate)/You
Better Believe It (Alternate)/It's Too late (Alternate)/Sorry She's Mine
(Alternate)/Own Up Time (Alternate)/E Too D (Alternate)/I've Got Mine
(Alternate)/Grow Your Own (Alternate)/Sha La La La Lee (Stereo)/Don't Stop What
You're Doing (Alternate)/Patterns (Alternate)/What's A Matter Baby?
(Alternate)/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It? (Alternate)
'From
The Beginning' (Deluxe Edition May 2012):
Album: Runaway/My Mind's Eye/Yesterday Today And
Tomorrow/That Man/My Way Of Giving/Hey Girl/(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen
Me?//Come Back And Take This Hurt Off Me/All Or Nothing/Baby Don't You Do
It/Plum Nellie/Sha-La-La-La-Lee/You've Really Got A Hold On Me/Whatcha Gonna Do
'Bout It?
Bonus Tracks: Almost Grown/Understanding/I Can't
Dance With You/I Can't Make It (Tracking Session)/Just Passing/Runaway
(Alternate)/That Man (Alternate)/Yesterday Today and Tomorrow (Alternate)/My
Mind's Eye (Alternate)/Picanninny (Backing)/ Hey Girl (Alternate)/Take This
Hurt Off Me (Alternate)/Baby Don't You Do It (Alternate)/All Or Nothing
(Alternate) /Understanding (Alternate)/Talk To You (Alternate)/All Our
Yesterdays (Backing)/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me? (Alternate)/Show Me The Way
(Backing)/I Can't Make It (Backing)/Things Are Going To Get Better (Alternate)
'The
Small Faces' (Immediate) (Deluxe Edition May 2012)
Album: (Tell Me) Have You
Ever Seen Me?/Something I Want To Tell You/ Feeling Lonely/Happy Boys
Happy/Things Are Going To Get Better/My Way Of Giving/Green Circles//Become
Like You/Get Yourself Together/All Of Our Yesterdays/Talk To You/Show Me The
Way/Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire/Eddie’s Dreaming
Bonus Tracks: Here Comes
The Nice/Itchycoo Park/I'm Only Dreaming/Tin Soldier/I Feel Much Better/Tell Me
Have You Ever Seen Me? (Alternate)/Eddie's
Dreaming (Alternate)/Green Circles (Alternate)/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?
(Stereo)/ Something I Want To Tell You (Stereo)/Feeling Lonely (stereo) /Happy
Boys Happy (Stereo)/Things Are Going To Get Better (Stereo)/ My Way Of Giving
(Stereo)/Green Circles (Stereo)/Become Like You (Stereo)/Get Yourself Together
(Stereo)/All Our Yesterdays (Stereo)/Talk To You (Stereo)/Show Me The Way
(Stereo)/Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire (Stereo)/Eddie's Dreaming
(Stereo)/Just Passing (Stereo)/ Itchycoo Park (Stereo)/Here Comes The Nice
(Stereo)/Don't Burst My Bubble (Stereo)/Things Are Going To Get Better
(Alternate)/I Can't Make It (Tracking Session)/Green Circles (Alternate)/Tin
Soldier (Stereo)/If You Think You're Groovy (Backing)
'Odgen's
Nut Gone Flake' (Deluxe Edition May 2012)
Album (Mono and Stereo): Ogden’s Nut Gone
Flake/Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Long Agos And Worlds Apart/Rene/Song Of A
Baker/Lazy Sunday/Happiness Stan/Rollin’ Over/The Hungry Intruder/The
Journey/Mad John/HappyDaysToyTown
Bonus Tracks: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
(Alternate)/Afterglow (US Mix)/Long Agos And Worlds Apart (US Mix)/Rene
(Alternate)/Song Of A Baker (US Mix)/Lazy Sunday (US Mix)/Happiness Stan
(Backing Track)/Bun In The Oven (Early Session Mix)/The Fly (Backing)/Mad John
(Early Version)/HappyDaysToyTown (US Mix)/Every Little Bit Hurts (Early Studio
Mix)/Ogden's Nut Gone Flake ('Phased' Mix)/Happydaystoytown (Extended Version)
"Clap twice, lean back, twist for
a while..."
In an
unusually co-ordinated move between Decca and Immediate, both sides agreed to
release 'deluxe' two disc versions of all three of The Small Faces' completed
LPs plus the 'From The Beginning' compilation all at the same time back in May
2012, just two years before both halves of the band's career end up as pricey
box sets. The general consensus on these re-masters is that they're good, but
could have been so much better for the price: there are way too many
not-that-different alternate mixes and most of the running time is taken up by
repeating songs in mono and stereo, which even given the short length of albums
in the 1960s doesn't leave that much room for unexpected extras. When these
sets are good though, they're very good indeed: The Decca 'Small Faces' album
benefits from the original unedited versions of many of the album's best songs
(why on earth did they ever cut 'E Too D' down?!) and shorter, less intense
versions of 'Come On Children' and 'Shake' that still sounds great in any form.
'From The Beginning' is less interesting but it does include a muddy acetate
mix of an early take of 'Hey Girl' played in the cutesy style of 'Sha La La La
Lee' and early backing tracks for 'Talk To You' and 'All Our Yesterdays'. The
Immediate 'Small Faces' album from 1967 features an early hazier crazier stab
at 'Green Circles', an early aborted 'Things Are Going To Get Better' and the
backing track for PP Arnold collaboration 'If You Think You're Groovy' (though
weirdly not the finished product). Ogden's, meanwhile, gets extended to three
whole discs with the middle one containing
an entire cobbled-up extra album containing rare mixes of all the album
tracks, of which only the backing tracks (for 'Happiness Stan', 'Hungry
Intruder' and 'Rollin' Over - here listed under working title 'Bun In The
Oven') are really all that different. The set does include the first 'new' (or
at least unheard) Small Faces song in a decade and a half, though, with the
'Picaninny' style instrumental 'Kamikhaze', which is good but not great. These
sets remain the best and most complete way of hearing these albums at the
present time. However, there's not a lot of extra butter for your piles of
extra bread really and if you were enough of a Small Faces fan to buy the
previous lot of CDs (which also came with bonus tracks, just not quite so many)
then you're not really missing out on an awful lot. Sadly the re-issue frenzy
seemed to end before Immediate could add 'The Autumn Stone' to the roster: a
shame because that double-album complete with the complete 1968 concert and a
chance to hear alternate versions/mixes of the non-album A and B sides like
'Itchycoo Park' and 'Tin Soldier' would have been quite valuable too.
Ian McLagan "United States"
(**,
'2013')
All
I Wanna Do/Pure Gold/Don't Say Nothing/I'm Your Baby Now/Mean Old World/Love
Letter/Who Says It Ain't Love?/Shalalala/How Blue?/He's Not For You
"I don't have much, but I got
enough!"
The
album that ended up being Mac's last, recorded a year before his untimely
death, is sadly a slight step downwards from his quite excellent run across the
rest of the 21st century. It's not that anything here is bad and the more
practice Mac has the better a vocalist he becomes - it's just that this record
doesn't feel quite as 'special' as either 'Rise and Shine' or 'Never Say
Never'. Lyrically this is another album touching on nostalgia for the past
(both band and wife Kim) while trying hard to recover in the present and move
on with life with a number of songs about ending up uncomfortable back in the
dating scene and going back and forth between finding comfort short-term in the
present and worrying about the future. The name of the album is an intriguing
clue to what this alum is about, with Mac ending up moving to his adopted home
more full-time (bar tours) and trying to start a totally new life without old
memories. But this album is chock full of old memories, suggesting Mac never
quite adopted to a new way of life. Musically it may have been made in a new
continent but with the same line-up of The Bump Band behind him, Mac sounds as
English as he always has with no change to the sound the way that there was,
say, on Marriott's mid-70s recordings in the States. I'd stick with this
album's two predecessors if I were you, which had a bit more about them somehow
- but if you loved them and want more then this record is far from awful.
'All I Wanna Do' starts with Mac admitting that he spends his time thinking about
those he's lost, but this song about old ghosts is a bit too similar to 'Never
Say Die' without being quite as memorable or heartfelt.
'Pure Gold'
adds a touch of ska to a song that finds Mac trying to find a new lover and
wondering why nobody seems to want to stay when he's got so much to offer. In a
parallel world somewhere you can hear Rod Stewart still doing this one with The
Faces.
'Don't Say Nothing' is one of the more unusual songs here, written to a descending
chromatic riff that seems to keep undoing all the things Mac has put together.
'I don't have much' he sighs at the start and across the song even that seems
to keep being taken away. Perhaps the best song here.
'I'm Your Baby Now' starts with a Ronnie Wood style slide guitar riff and some
percussion and military drumming before it sadly slips back into a more normal
groove on a track where Mac struggles to move on.
'Mean Old World', a collaboration with Jud Newcomb, is a heartfelt ballad about a
past lover (whose surely Kim) and all the dancing around each other with 'white
lies' they used to tell. Mac clearly regrets it, but reflects that the world is
such a difficult place it makes you do these things and takes it a lesson for
future relationships. Quite lovely.
'Love Letter'
is sweet too, Mac trying hard to write a love letter to his 'next' soulmate,
but he doesn't know who to address it to because nobody matches up to past
standards of perfection. Anyone whose ever lost someone will find this a very
moving, vulnerable track delivered with just the right level of rawness and a
catchy tune. Another highlight.
'Who Says It Ain't Love?' is a reggae-rocker that like many AAA reggae-rockers doesn't
quite come off, as Mac gets defensive and claims he's not on the rebound. The
listener, though, thinks he protests to much it must be true.
'Shalalala' has
Mac lamenting his turn of fortune, Marriott style, as he's left 'without a
dollar' - but it's all worth it when he comes home to 'you-ou-ou-ou'. Slightly
forgettable.
'How Blue'
is the most Faces-like song here as slide guitar, honky tonk piano and
melancholy add up to a typical song about regrets and mistakes.
The
album - and Mac's career - closes with 'He's Not For You', where Mac effectively warns all his future
suitors away from him. 'The facts of life becoming fiction' is the basis of a
clever lyric about Mac wondering whether he's been spoilt by his marriage or
whether grief has exaggerated his wife in his eyes.
A
heartfelt album then, just perhaps a little less original than Mac's previous
works as he struggles to comes to term with loss and move on his life, sadly
unaware that he won't have long to move on with. Mac was always a most
under-rated talent, overshadowed vocally, musically and compositionally by his
better known partners, but he too had a great talent in all those areas and he
alone kept the Faces candle burning into the 21st century. Mac's new respect
from fans and critics across his last twenty years of music making was one of
the few times where we realised just how special a talent was while he was with
us and Mac deserved every bit of that extra success and acclaim during his
final years. This isn't a perfect goodbye, but it's a good one, which sadly is
something Steve and Ronnie never had.
Steve Marriott "Like A Fish Needs
A Raincoat - The Anthology"
(Whapping
Wharf Records, August 2013)
CD
One: Louisiana Blues/Nobody But You/You're A Heartbreaker/Street Rat/Bluegrass
Interval/Signed Sealed/Seylarvee/Brown Man Do/Wossname/My Lover's Prayer/Baby
Don't Do It/Restless Blood/Tin Soldier/You Spent It!/Law Of The Jungle/I Just
Want To Make Love To You/I need Your Love Like A Fish Needs A Raincoat/Gypsy
Woman/Out Of The Blue/The Bigger They Come The Harder They Fall
CD
Two: Give All She's Got/Imaginary Love #1/Give Her My Regards/Blue Morning/You
Really Got Me/Money Money/You'll Never Get Away From Me/Imaginary Love
#2/What'd I Say?
"My life is such a weary thing,
but it might be old pressure bringing on rain"
In truth
we needed this messed around re-issue of 'Rainy Changes' like a bird needs a
step-ladder, with more barrel-scraping than barrel-rolling after most of the
releasable material already appeared on the previous compilation, much of which
is repeated here anyway. Nothing Marriott did, even posthumously, could ever be
bad and the highlights from the last time around like 'Nobody But You' and the
comedy title track sound as fine as ever. There are a couple of interesting new
additions to the Marriott catalogue too: a soulful heartfelt cover of Otis
Redding's under-rated flop single 'My Lover's Prayer' (if only Marriott had
recorded Otis' similar 'I've Got Dreams To Remember' as well!) on the first
disc is the best of the nercomers. On the second and very shot running disc
there's a whole run of Marriott's rare pre-Small Faces singles highlighted by
'You Really Got Me' (the first ever Kinks kover?) and 'Give Her My Regards' ,
although this collections' pure 1950s Buddy Hollyness sounds at odds after a
disc full of a bunch of the most 1980s recording you'll ever hear. But even if
the world was after more Marriott they probably weren't calling for a drunken
demo of the worst Small Faces reunion track 'Brown Man Do', the thirty second
'Law Of The Jungle' (which is basically drums and the title), a mis-shapen late
period live 'Tin Soldier' that's been in one war too many and the over-harsh
sequel to 'Theme From Skint', 'You Spent It!' The set promises to cover all
eras of Marriott's craft, which is true in the sense that it features both his
first and last recorded material 'proper' (although the even then not quite as
the 'Oliver!' cast recordings are still absent, regrettably!) However there's
nothing really in the middle from the peak years as represented by all periods
of The Small Faces and peak Humble Pie. Marriott deserved a better tribute than
this ragbag collection of odds and ends.
"Greatest Hits - The Immediate
Years 1967-1969"
(Immediate/Sanctuary,
January 2014)
Here
Come The Nice/Talk To You/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?/I've Got Something I
Want To Tell You/Get Yourself Together/Become Like You/Green Circles/Eddie's
Dreaming/Itchycoo Park/I'm Only Dreaming/Tin Soldier/I Feel Much Better/Lazy
Sunday/Rollin' Over/Mad John/The Journey/The Universal/Donkey Rides A Penny A
Glass/Afterglow/Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am
"People who once passed me by will
turn their heads round!"
Another
compilation for another generation, with every song you'd expect from the
Immediate era on one disc all in the right order (though 'The Autumn Stone'
gets short shrift unusually). This time around Immediate have gone for the
collector's market, with every track here appearing in its original mono rather
than the more world-friendly stereo and an olde-timey cover that looks as if it
comes straight from the 1960s, recycling the shot of three of the band standing
behind Ronnie perched uncomfortably on a stool. Released at the same time as
the Small Faces box set, this is a cheaper way for intrigued new fans to hear
what all the fuss is about without having to sit through eleventeen mixes of
'The Hungry Intruder' to discover it. Longer sets are clearly better and it's
hard to beat the 'Whapping Wharf' compilation, but the music's special, the
price is cheap, the packaging's fine, the water's lovely and anyone who hadn't
already dipped a toe into the Small Faces waters should be diving in headfirst!
"Here Come The Nice" (Box
Set)
(Immediate/Sanctuary,
January 2014)
CD
One (Singles and EPs): Here Come The Nice/Talk To You/Tell Me Have You Ever
Seen Me?/Something I Want To Tell You/Get Yourself Together/Become Like
You/Green Circles/Eddie's Dreaming/Itchycoo Park/I'm Only Dreaming/Tin
Soldier/I Feel Much Better/Lazy Sunday/Rollin' Over/Mad John/The Journey/The
Universal/Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass/Afterglow/Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am
CD
Two (Sessions Disc One): Shades Of Green (Instrumental)/Green Circles x 2
mixes/Anything (Tracking Session and Backing)/Show Me The Way (Unplugged
Mix)/Wit Art Yer (Tracking Session and Backing)/I Can't Make It (Alternate
Mix)/Doolally (Tracking Session)/What's It Called? (Overdub Session)/Call It
Something Nice? (Alternate Take)/Wide Eyed Girl (Alternate Take and Mix)/Donkey
Rides A Penny A Glass (Unplugged Mix)/Red Balloon (Alternate Take and Mix)/
Sasiede Mamoon (Tracking Session)
CD
Three (Sessions Disc Two): Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am (Unplugged Mix)/I Can't
Make It (Unplugged Mix)/The Feeling Of Spring/All Our Yesterdays (Backing)/Talk
To You (Alternate Mix)/Mind The Doors Please/Things Are Going To Get Better
(Alternate Mix)/Mad John (Tracking Session)/Collibosher (Alternate Take)/Lazy
Sunday (Alternate Mix)/Jack (Backing Track)/Fred (Backing Track)/Red Balloon
(Unplugged Mix)/Kolomodolemo (Alternate Take)/Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass
(Alternate Mix)/Jenny's Song
CD
Four (Outtakes and Concert): Itchycoo Park (Alternate Take)/Here Come The Nice
(Stereo)/I'm Only Dreaming (Stereo)/Don't Burst My Bubble/I Feel Much
Better/Verdi Gurdy/Yesterday Today and Tomorrow (Alternate Mix)/Picanniny
(Alternate Mix)/Get Yourself Together (Alternate Mix)/Eddie's Dreaming
(Alternate Mix)/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me? (Alternate Mix)/Up The Wooden
Hills To Bedfordshire (US Mix)/Afterglow (Alternate Version)/If You Think
You're Groovy/Me You and Us Too/The Universal (Alternate Take)/Mini-Concert:
Rollin' Over/If I Were A Carpenter/Every Little Bit Hurts/All Or Nothing/Tin
Soldier
Bonus
7" Material: Excerpts From The Small Faces LP/Here Come The Nice EP
(France)/Itchycoo Park EP (France)/Mystery...(aka 'Something I Want To Tell
You')
"I said flowers are breaking
through the concrete! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Listen everybody, I can
hear them breathing! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! "
Some
twenty years after their last box set, Immediate try the idea again, extending
the same two-and-a-half albums into four full discs in a whole new variety of
weird and wacky ways. Technically speaking there's a lot of unreleased stuff
here - and yet if you've heard any other Immediate Small Faces release it will
all sound familiar. The band weren't round long enough to clog up the vaults
with pristine outtakes and the best of these had already been released as long
ago as 'The Autumn Stone' in 1969, so instead what Immediate have done is
include pretty much every alternate mix they've released so far (starting with
the ones on the 'Quite Naturally' comp back in the 1980s) and revisit the
master-tapes for yet more jiggery-pokery. The result is a dizzying display of songs
you thought you knew inside out getting a makeover (or more accurately yet with
the make-up removed) and it's amazing quite how intensely passionate you can
get as you sit through the same three minute track you've known and loved for
years just to hear the extra three seconds included at the end.
Let's be
honest here: you have to be a soul as passionate as Steve Marriott to want to
pay good money to hear what collectively amounts to maybe a quarter hour of
truly unheard material, while the vast majority of the alternate mixes simply
place The Small Faces in different parts of the stereo spectrum to reveal
intriguing subtle differences rather than offer jaw-dropping must-have
alternatives that match the power of hearing the real thing for the first time.
Even the songs listed here that you might not recognise (such as 'Shades Of
Green' 'Anything' 'Doolally' 'Wit Art Yer' 'What's It Called?' 'The Feeling Of
Spring' 'Kodolemo' 'Saiedie Mamoon' 'Jenny's Song' and the double-act 'Fred'
and 'Jack') are just working titles for songs that have been out for decades:
they are respectively early not-that-different versions of the songs 'Green
Circles' (bet you guessed that one!), 'Tin Soldier' (bet you didn't guess that
one!), 'Things Are Going To Get Better', 'I Can't Make It' 'Call It Something
Nice' 'Just Passing' 'Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass' 'Wham Bam Thank You Man!'
'The Autumn Stone' 'War Of The Worlds' and 'Picaninny'. The only fully 'new'
recording here is 'Mind The Doors Please!', a noisy elongated Kenney Jones drum
solo that changes gears in the second half so Marriott can de-tune his guitar
as well which is about as good as it sounds. Repetition is also a big problem
for this set - there's a first disc containing 'straight' versions of most of
the band's most famous Immediate songs which anyone interested enough to own
this box must already have several times over and you'll quickly grow sick of
hearing, say, four versions of 'Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass' - especially
having paid yet another fortune to Immediate for the pleasure (this is a very
pricey box set after all!) The result is a bit like a ginormous musical game of
'Where's Wally', trying to track down the subtle little detail that makes this
mix different to any other heard before, which even for an anorak collector
like me seems a bit much ('I heard Marriott cough just then! He only gives a
slight hiccup on the finished version! And Mac played an extra two notes on the
organ fade! And I'm sure Ronnie overdubbed that one bass note right there! Hallelujah!')
Before I
get too grouchy though there are some great moments in this set which would
have made for a fascinating hour long special in some parallel world. 'Wham
Bam' sounds magnificent in a new mix that beefs up Marriott's vocal so you can
actually hear what he's singing. An early faltering take of 'Green Circles'
features a prematurely old Ronnie surrounded by a swirling Marriott lead that's
tremendously affecting without all the effects added. The backing track for
'All Our Yesterday's really swings without all that 'Whapping Wharf' nonsense
and I'd never noticed what a lovely tune or brass arrangement it had before.
It's a moment of monumental historical importance to hear Marriott teaching the
band 'Tin Soldier', still titled 'Anything', as he tries to explain the
arrangement he hears in his head and plays around with the song's key; there's
even an acoustic guitar part that quickly got dropped. Ronnie Lane has a much
louder and more awkward guitar riff for 'Mad John' makes the song even more, well,
mad. 'Collibosher' runs an extra thirty seconds or so after the song usually
fades, ending in a raucous guitar-horns jam that's more thrilling than the rest
of the song. There's a glorious early 'Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?' before
the overdubs with Marriott the only vocalist getting ever more manic and pumped
up. Ronnie fluffs the opening to 'Call It Something Nice' and swears like a
trooper - which given the context of this 'apology' song is all the more
poignant. Better yet, unusually, are the 'stripped down mixes', a sort of
mucking around with history which shouldn't work (it didn't work when they did
to The Beatles Anthology) but The Small Faces packed so much into their
arrangements they sound great even if they were never intended to sound like
this. 'I Can't Make It' goes from a good second-tier song to a triumph as
Marriott yells his lungs out accompanied only by backing vocals and Mac's
piano. 'Things Are Going To Get Better' becomes a Ronnie Lane style folk number
with the drums, guitar and organ taken away. 'Red Balloon' loses its late-track
electric overdubs to become a 'Universal' style solo acoustic song. Best of all
though 'Donkey Rides A Penny A Glass' goes from noisy oddball comedy to cute
and cosy intimate song of vintage memories with far more vocals (Marriott's is
pure gold, especially his ad libs at the end cut from the record! 'I love I
love I do my do my every day every night, yeah!') and a terrific psychedelic
freak-out middle featuring Marriott's guitar and harmonica in tandem adrenalin
rush. It's glorious unexpected discoveries like these that make this set such a
compelling listen, even if you know these songs really well.
Of
course anyone interested in hearing these new mixes already knows these songs
really well and there's still no excuse for recycling so many previously heard
mixes that all sound the same on a set of this price. The first disc can be
entirely disregarded as can much of the fourth (made up partly of the five-song
concert from 1968 heard on 'Autumn Stone') and even then only around half of
the middle two discs are truly 'new'. Whether that is enough to entice you to
splash your cash yet again (when, surely, Immediate aren't going to leave it at
that: I'm waiting for the 20 box set in about 2035 that features every single
'track' of the multi-recorder one after each other for every song - seriously
we're only a couple of steps away from that now)is up to you, your conscience,
your mod obsession and your bank manager. This could so easily have been a
knock-out single disc set: it's a shame it ended up another way of milking
money from a band who've already given more than enough by now. Sometimes less really
is more - this is The Small Faces we're talking about after all, so you should
know by now great things often come in small packages.
The
Faces "You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything" (Box Set)
(Rhino, August 2015)
CD One: 'First Step'
(with bonus tracks: Behind The Sun/Mona
- The Blues/Shake Shudder Shiver (BBC)/Flying (Alternate Take)/Nobody Knows (Alternate
Take)
CD Two: Long Player
(with bonus tracks: Whole Lotta
Woman/Tell Everyone (Alternate Take)/Sham-ozzal (Jam)/Too Much Woman For A
Hen-Pecked Man (Live)/Love In Vain (Live)
CD Three: A Nod Is As Good As A Wink
(with bonus tracks: Miss Judy's Farm
(BBC)/Stay With Me (BBC)
CD Four: Ooh La La
(with bonus tracks: Cindy Incidentally
(BBC)/Borstal Boys (BBC)/Silicone Grown (BBC)/Bad and Sorry (BBC)/Jealous Guy
(Live)
CD Five: Stray Singles and B-Sides -
(Pool Hall Richard/I Wish It Would
Rain/Rear Wheel Skid Marks/Maybe I'm Amazed (Studio Version)/Oh Lord I'm
Browned Off/You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything/As Long As You Tell
Him/Skewiff (Mend The Fuse)/Dishevelment Blues
"You know the crowd gets bigger as
the word goes round..."
This
five-disc set - the middle of three Small Faces-related sets released during a
particularly expensive period - is different to the others in that it's
essentially 'complete' (with a few exceptions) and doesn't feature alternate
mixes of the same old songs. In that sense it's more 'essential' than the two
Small Faces sets, which tend to extend their wares out past sensible breaking
point, although it's also less 'essential' on the pure understanding that The
Small Faces could always beat their successors in a musical fight/drink The
Faces under the table. Hearing all four studio albums and some stray odds and
ends one after another (oddly the posthumous but official live album 'Coast To
Coast - Overture For Beginners' isn't here, which makes a mockery of the price
tag) proves more than ever that a little Faces goes a long way; while The Small
Faces progressed single by single The Faces found a formula and largely stayed
there, a few under-rated Ronnie Lane ballads aside. To be honest unless you're
a committed fan you can pretty much pick and choose how The Faces sound from
any of their original album, 'A Nod's As Good As A Wink' being the most
consistent of the four, even to a deaf horse and buying one disc won't set you
back £40 for the 'privilege' of owning every single faceless Faces instrumental
B-side either.
If
The Faces are your kind of a groove, though, then Rhino do their usual superb
packaging, re-mastering and organising job so that if you really do want to own
everything the band released in their short lifetime, pretty much, then you
never need to own another Faces anything. All four albums have been treated to
re-mastering which improves the original muddy sound a great deal (the attempts
to do the same with The Small Faces catalogue have been far more up-and-down)
and each album has been filled out with a number of choice selections: live
recordings, BBC sessions (though I'm surprised there aren't more) and choice
outtakes that are better than most of the 'real' records and make you wonder
why so many filler instrumentals always seemed to make it through to the final
track listing. The packaging looks deceptively ordinary from the outside - a
plain paper-parcel brown box, as if owning The Faces albums is on a par with
owning pornography or illicit material - but gloriously colourful from the
inside, with mini-replicas of each album and a curious 'silhouette' cover for
the 'new' fifth disc. This last rounds up lots of extra oddities: mainly
interminable instrumental B-sides it has to be said, though the band's last two
singles 'Pool Hall Richard' and the lengthily named title track are worth
owning and surprisingly hard to trck down in this day and age. The entire set
then ends on a typically Faces-like false note, with 'Dishevelment Blues' a
parody of their usual style as Woody leads an endless blues excursion livened
up by Rod mocking the band at every turn, released after the band split on a
rubber flexi-disc given away with a music magazine (and thus deeply rare by
2015: the flexi-discs weren't meant to last past the year or be given repeated
listenings - not that many people would want to give this track that many
repeat listenings). Well, you'd have odds on this set ending on some sort of
drunken shambles party and an interminable near-instrumental blues workout really
wouldn't you?
We've
already reviewed the four albums elsewhere so here's a run-down of what's 'new:
'First Step' goes from being one of the band's most inconsistent albums to one
of the best thanks to noisy shoutty band-credited outtake 'Behind The Sun', a
pretty similar re-recording of 'Shake Shudder Shiver' taped for the BBC, a
comparatively timid but still pretty soaring early version of 'Flying', 'Nobody
Knows' which features Rod solo without Ronnie's harmonies and only one wretched
boozy instrumental in Rod/Woody's interminable 'Mona-The Blues'. 'Long Player'
features a crazed cover of 'Whole Lotta Women' most interesting for the band's
drunken introduction as Rod teases Mac for messing up the intro and has a
nervous breakdown about 'wasting time' that's pretty endearing, an over-echoed
outtake of 'Tell Everyone' that's even slower than the album cut, two more
pretty darn good outtakes from the album's live show including an early
rehearsal for Woody's Stones career on Jagger-Richards song 'Love In Vain'
that's pretty nicely judged and only one interminable blues instrumental in the
noisy honky tonk of 'Sham-Ozzal!' 'Nod' gets just two extra tracks and both are
BBC versions of album tracks that sound pretty close to the album takes,
although 'Stay With Me' is particularly loose-limbed in a lengthy guitar break.
'Ooh La La's bonus tracks, meanwhile, show up both how little time Rod had
spent getting to know these songs as he sounds slightly off on all his BBC
vocals, but also how well this album might have gone down live if The Faces had
stayed together long enough to perform it more. 'Borstal Boys' particularly
rocks tonight, though the award for best number goes to a slowed down cover of
John Lennon's 'Jealous Guy' from the last tour which, much like the cover of
partner McCartney's 'Maybe I'm Amazed', is a prime Faces song full of
morning-after guilt and sorrow.
The
end result, then, is one that's never going to lure you over to the dark side
if, like me, you feel The Faces' musical world ironically got smaller after
they stopped being 'small'. There are only a handful of tracks per LP - nearly
all of them by Ronnie Lane - that have much to offer beyond shouting or the
same boogie woogie keyboard sequence. But when this band were on it, something
magic undeniably happens: the band may be messy, but it's a synchronised mess
from a band who know each other inside out and are all pulling in the same
direction. Infrequently, thanks to Ronnie on tracks like 'Flying' and 'Flags
and Banners' or the cover of Macca's 'Maybe I'm Amazed' they even manage to
pull off quite complex emotional drama that proves that there was more to The
Faces than the party and the raucous rocking. Whether that little lot is enough
to justify forking out on a set that's not exactly cheap for what's in it (a
booklet would have been nice, as would the rare songs first released on the
better-named 'Five Guys Walk Into A Bar' box, which is shorter and yet somehow
more complete in feel than this one) is up to you - for that price, to carry on
the title, I'd have expected it to mend a fuse, put away the ironing board,
take AAA mascot dog Max for a walk and cure all of my domestic shortcomings,
not just offer me eleven endless Faces instrumental songs I really don't need
in my life. One disc of The Faces is more than enough for me and five of the
things have me falling under the table in a stupor. But if you're the kind of
fan who can keep the party going without getting bored then you could do a lot
worse than this set.
"The Decca Years" (Box Set)
(UMC,
October 2015)
CD One: What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/What's A Matter
Baby?/I've Got Mine/It's Too Late/Sha La La La Lee/Grow Your Own/Hey
Girl/Almost Grown/All Or Nothing/Understanding/My Mind's Eye/I Can't Dance With
You/I Can't Make It/Just Passing/Patterns/E Too D/Don't Stop What You're
Doing/Come On Children!/Shake/One Night Stand/You Need Loving
CD Two: Shake/Come On Children!/You Better Believe
It/It's Too Late/One Night Stand/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Sorry She's
Mine/Own Up Time/You Need Loving/Don't Stop What You're Doing/E Too D/Sha La La
La Lee
CD Three: Runaway/My Mind's Eye/Yesterday Today and
Tomorrow/That Man/My Way Of Giving/Hey Girl/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me?/Take
This Hurt Off Me/All Or Nothing/Baby Don't Do It/Plum Nellie/Sha La La La
Lee/You Really Got A Hold On Me/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/I Can't Make It
(Backing Track)/Things Are Going To Get Better (Alternate Take)
CD Four: Come On Children!/Shake/You Better Believe
It/Own Up Time/E Too D/Don't Stop What You're Doing/What's A Matter
Baby?/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Sha La La La Lee/Runaway/ That Man/Yesterday
Today and Tomorrow/Picanniny/Hey Girl/Take This Hurt Off Me (Alternate)/Baby
Don't You Do It (Alternate)/My Mind's Eye (Alternate)/Talk To You (Backing)/All
Our Yesterdays (Backing)/Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me? (Alternate)/Show Me The
Way (Backing)
CD Five (BBC Sessions): Steve Marriott
Interview/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Jump Back/Baby Don't You Do It/Sha La La
La Lee/What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?/Comin' Home Baby/You Need Loving/Pop Profile
Steve Marriott Interview/Shake/Steve Marriott Interview #2/Sha La La La Lee/You
Need Loving/Steve Marriott Interview #3/Hey Girl/E Too D/One Night Stand/You
Better Believe It/Understanding/Steve Marriott Interview #4/All Or Nothing
"I don't like you now but I love
you, seems that I'm always thinking of you, you treat me wrong now, but I love
you strong now, you really got a hold on me - and my bank balance!"
Decca
love spoiling the party for Immediate, even nearly fifty years on - no sooner
do The Small faces release a boc set from the second half of their career than
the first half gets a box set too and one that runs a whole disc longer despite
covering far less material! The Small Faces only ever completed one actual album
for the Decca label before jumping ship for Immediate, so this five disc set
seems a little excessive, effectively ten times longer than everything the band
wanted released. If you're only a casual Small Faces fan then those CD
albums-with-bonus tracks (both 'Small Faces' and compilation 'n' outtakes set
'From The Beginning')from about ten years ago or the two disc Decca Anthology
will do you nicely - most of this is just repetition, in the sense that having
your favourite pudding is great but you start really going off it by the time
you've had it five times in a row. I never ever thought I would get sick of,
say, 'What'cha Gonna Do 'Bout It?' but after four similar versions I was
getting close, while songs that aren't good in the first place like our old
friend 'Sha La La La Lee' feels like a punishment for doing something wrong in
an earlier life, not something you should be spending good money on.
However
this set does do the best job yet of trying to make sense of all the many
dozens of alternate mixes, takes and recording talk snippets released on dozens
of Decca Small Faces compilations down the years and includes the whole bang
lot, including many new ones unheard before (none all that breath-taking, but
quite a few make you see the songs in a whole new light). The best of these are
a whole disc of BBC sessions previously only heard in part which are an
intriguing listen, especially those taken from the short lived line up with
Jimmy Winston on keyboards (Steve Marriott also sounds shy for the one and only
time as he's interviewed about the band and any holidays he's got booked. 'I
dunno, Southend?' a penniless Marriott still jokes). Sadly back in the Decca
studio an alternate take of 'My Mind's Eye' is all we get that's new in terms
of pure performance, which might make you question whether investing in quite
this many alternate mixes is a sensible waste of your income when you could be
buying, I dunno, the rare Ronnie Lane albums or early Humble Pie.
Frustratingly
The Small Faces seem to fall between two stools: the cheap and cheerful
near-complete sets or the complete overkill expensive ones like this with
nothing really in the middle (though as ever 'The Decca Anthology' and
'Darlings Of Whapping Wharf Laundrette' are good starting points). Mark Paytress,
one of the better music scholars around, has put together a fascinating and
lengthy booklet which fills in several gaps about this early period though, so
if you treat this set as a-book-with-some-new-mixes-on it then it doesn't seem
quite such a rip off somehow. Something tells me that Decca (or Immediate for
that matter) aren't quite finished with The Small Faces yet though and there'll
probably be a ten disc box to buy all over again in years to come...
'Small Faces' (Immediate) (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-12-small-faces-1967-immediate.html
'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/news-views-and-music-issue-69-small.html
'The Autumn Stone' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-28-small-faces-autumn-stone-1968.html
A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF SMALL FACES
AND RELATED ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:
'Small Faces' (Decca)
(1966) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-small-faces-decca-album-1966-album.html
'Small Faces' (Immediate) (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-12-small-faces-1967-immediate.html
'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/news-views-and-music-issue-69-small.html
'The Autumn Stone' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-28-small-faces-autumn-stone-1968.html
'Playmates' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-small-faces-playmates-1977.html
’78 In the Shade’ (1978) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/the-small-faces-78-in-shade-1978.html
Ian McLagan Tribute Special http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/rip-ian-mac-mclagan-aaa-obituary.html
Ian McLagan Tribute Special http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/rip-ian-mac-mclagan-aaa-obituary.html
Surviving TV Clips
1965-1977 and Unreleased Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/the-small-faces-surviving-tv.html
Non-Album Songs 1965-1990 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-small-facesfaceshumble-pie-non.html
Live/Solo/Compilation/Humble Pie/Faces Part One: 1967-1971 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/small-faceshumble-piefaces-albums-part.html
Live/Solo/Compilation/Humble Pie/Faces Part Two: 1971-1975 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-small-faces-livesolocompilationhumb.html
Live/Solo/Compilation/Humble Pie/Faces Part One: 1967-1971 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/small-faceshumble-piefaces-albums-part.html
Live/Solo/Compilation/Humble Pie/Faces Part Two: 1971-1975 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-small-faces-livesolocompilationhumb.html
Live/Solo/Compilation/Humble
Pie/Faces Part Three: 1976-1981 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-small-faces-livesolocompilationhumb_22.html
Live/Solo/Compilation/Humble
Pie/Faces Part Four: 1982-2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-small-faces-livesolocompilationhumb_29.html
Essay: Not All Or Nothing
But Everything https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/06/small-faces-essay-not-all-or-nothing.html
Landmark Concerts and Key
Cover Versions: https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-small-faces-five-landmark-concerts.html
