(PS)
As I
see it there seem to be two distinct versions of the Small Faces, principally
defined by the drugs on the scene at the time: the first was of the
pill-popping mods, all sharp suits and punchy, tight 3 minute maximum singles;
the second being the more acid-tinged psych rockers with their rather more
adventurous outings, culminating in their 1968 magnum opus, Ogden’s Nut
Gone Flake.
Along
with the Stones’s At Their Satanic Majesty’s Request, Ogden’s was
one of the LPs most obviously directly influenced by Sgt. Pepper, moving away
from the hamster wheel of the singles production line and taking time in the
studio to create an LP that was more than just a collection of hits, B-sides
and fillers, rather a cohesive work in its own right. In fact for me, this LP
has much more in common with the Beatles’s trailblazer than Satanic
Majesty, and it’s a much stronger album because of that, despite its
failings.
From
the instant the needle is dropped on the opening title track, we’re in business:
the wonderful flanged organ sounds incredible, the lush strings add warmth and
tone without dominating or softening the groove set by Kenney Jones’s rolling
drumming and Marriott’s psych fuzz guitar. Once that overture is finished,
we’re presented with one of the finest Small Faces songs in Afterglow; and
Mac’s Hammond is as much the star of this as Marriotts’ incredible voice:
soulful, driving, spine-tingling stuff. My only gripe here is that they ditched
the fade out/return of the alternate version in favour of the abrupt edit
point, but kept it on the following track Long Agos and Worlds Apart. It’s
awesome on the former and rather superfluous on the latter. But I’m nit picking
here, what a song.
Unfortunately with Rene and Lazy Sunday we hit the principal weakness of the LP, as with Sgt. Pepper: the music hall gubbins. Whereas When I’m 64 and Mr Kite! were vaudeville, these are pure Lionel Bart, with Marriott back in his Artful Dodger persona, complete with East-aaah End-aaah thumbs-in-weskit urchin posturing-aaaah. What a shame that Lazy Sunday should be the hit from the LP… As Mac put it once in interview, it’s “rootie tootie too, oh what a load of bollocks”.
Luckily there’s a bone fide gem
tucked in between the tracks that close side 1, the magnificent Song of
a Baker. It’s huge, strident, funky and one of my favourite songs of all
time. The guitar gets a little lost in the mix at times, but my God – what a
belter. Who’d’ve thought you could rock out that much to water, flour and salt?
I also love that on the (mimed) Colour Me Pop TV appearance,
Marriott wipes his mouth mid-solo. He’s SLAVERING, goddam it… and with good
reason, so am I.
Side
two is the more ‘out there’ concept work, with Stanley Unwin providing some
utterly charming Lear-like nonsense/hippy narration. There’s a childlike charm
to the story, but it’s underpinned by a heavy sound as in the second part
of Happiness Stan, and the out-and-out rocker Rollin’ Over:
Richie Blackmore spent many years ripping off that riff with Deep Purple, he
should pay them royalties. The Hungry Intruder might’ve been
written by Pete Townsend; at times The Journey sounds like an
ancestor of 90s Madchester; and Mad John has a weird folkie
feel, mixed with early Bowie (if you can imagine him singing “eye-diddly-eye-dye”). Happy
Days Toy Town reprises the music hall sound, but this grates less than
before as it works better as the conclusion to the fairytale, and Unwin wraps
it up beautifully with a bit of Huckleberryfickleticklemyfinglode.
Glorious.
Ogden’s is
a genuine psych masterpiece and we must forgive its few minor faults; it’s 3/4
of the band’s finest hour (Marriott’s would arguably come the following year,
with Humble Pie’s magnificent debut) and the real mystery is that Marriott
dissolved the band in order to work on more “serious” music, when evidently he
himself was responsible for the album’s more frivolous moments. Figure that one
out… anyway, we should be thankful that this exists.
Oh, for
a niblode of some mincey meaty! Stay cool, won’t you?
(GC)
With this album you jump into the past and have a nice break from your routine :) it’s simultaneously relaxing and exciting. An album that could have definitely been played at Woodstock, or maybe it was?! “Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake” is excellent, it nourishes my old soul! But not difficult to listen to at all. It’s a mix of rock and psychedelic style, and also very romantic :) Now I know where the ‘Holy Drug Couple’ band was inspired from :)
(MS)
The lights drop, the projector whirs and the space fills with the
booming bass and phased organ of Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake.
Soon The Beatles manager was dropping into their communal flat in
Pimlico proferring sugar cubes dipped in acid. “It’s all too bootiful”
they sang, stuffing the “bennies” away in a bottom draw like worn-out toys. By
the time the manager of the Bee Gees was dissuaded from persuing his interest in
them…round about the time he found himself dangling from a 5th floor
Cavendish Square window…the band was already committed to new horizons. And as
though stepping out of the black and white world so they broke with the
thuggish Arden and the Decca factory for the brash technicolour charms of the
newly created Immediate Records where for a spell everything was possible. On Carnaby
St. today there is a small plaque above a sports shop immortalising where Arden
and the Small Faces "worked"' together. On either side are plaques to
the famed John Stephen and Lord John boutiques, where the band had charge accounts
where they were "paid" in lieu of wages. One can only wonder how handy
all those three button candy stripe jackets came in 10 years later as singer Steve
Marriott struggled with alcohol and mental illness and bassist Ronnie Lane battled
with the early onset of multiple sclerosis. Across the road is a megastore
dedicated to selling product by their friends and rivals The Rolling Stones.
Their sound changed as a result of this move with much of the
power of their furious super charged Booker T mod-soul diluted into rather understated
stoned pop which whilst uniformly good is a little thin in its sound. But there
is a lot to like not least Here Comes the Nice the most explicit drug
song by anyone at the time to ever gain a commercial release and I'm Only Dreaming
with its wistfulness erupting into passages of soul shouting frenzy. Marriott
had this in him in spades. The stereo version of I Feel Much Better is a
curious schizo-wonder with its chipmunk do-waddy-daddy chorus suddenly ripping
into monophonic proto-heavy metal towards the fade. In truth Marriott’s throaty
soulful voice was far more suited to the rock than the pastoral where the intensity
was given over to acoustic guitars, flutes and Georgie Fame’s brass section of Eddie
Tan Tan Thornton and Harry Beckett. The difference is particularly noted
when they did rock out, such as the ramped up raves Don’t Burst My Bubble,
Wham Baam Thank You Maam and the grandstanding Tin Soldier. When The
Small faces play in this style you hear a bridge between Ray Charles and Led Zeppelin
and it serves as a reminder that this is the same band that delivered the
seriously heavy records they made in
65-66. It's a little too simplistic to view their Decca period as mono and Immediate
as stereo, indeed caution should be observed when listening to the music of
most bands in 1967 as stereo took hold. But the fact is The Small Faces sound
so much more complete in mono...until that is their ambitious album release Ogden’s
Nut Gone Flake (yes we finally get there).
This album is a stereo delight in particular the first three songs
where the instruments pan around the ears with skilled engineering from Glyn
Johns who’d soon helm the Olympic records made by The Stones when they realised
what they were and a little later The Who when they finally realised Who they
were. The instrumental interchange in the Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake title
track sets things alight, with the modest dabs of fuzz guitar giving way to strings,
one part David Axelrod, one part Jean Claude Vannier, before drifting into George
Martinesque Blue Meanie orientalisms. Afterglow of Your Love follows
with its teasing club singer croon, shocking abruptly into proggy organ
progressions that bounce around between the ears. If the first track was a mini
symphony for heavy bass and drums then this is a full blown duet for organ and vocal.
PS- PS A little rudimentary Audacity use enables a grafting of the mono
single fade onto this superior stereo mix. Long Ago’s and World’s Apart is
background colour, almost programme music to revisit the innocent Itchycoo hash
dream drift.
Australia epic. Setting sail with chirpy mickey mouse voices extolling the virtues of post war emigration the song breaks down as boredom and doubt set in via a malingering (trad) jazz-rock freak-out over the duck pond of the Indian Ocean. These songs come from the uncharted backwaters of British psychedelia in all its multi layered forms and distinctions. They are what make this strain so peculiar and interesting. Reaction to parental post war obsessions, a playful rebellion with class, the appropriation of old musical forms and a mind-bending aural approximation of what happens when a thought extends long beyond reason. But behind it all playful unpredictability.
1968 suddenly allowed the more pop conscious groups to stretch out
nurturing a maturing culture of musicianship based on competition and shared bonhomie.
Around nocturnal sessions at after-hours clubs Beatles and Yardbirds rum and
coked it with other Animals cross-fertilising their influences. It’s there in
the Hey Joe bass-line of Song of a Baker, a very 1968 rocker with
lyrics reflecting Ronnie Lane’s new found interest in mysticism, an interest shared
with Who guitarist Pete Townsend that would lead them to collaborate through
the 1970s on devotional projects to guru Meher Baba. For Townsend the irony of the
nothing is everything mantra would be his inspiration for the mother
lode of Tommy, yet both bands sat on the precipice in this period. For The
Who Tommy would make them, for The Small Faces Ogden’s would break them, the single Lazy Sunday acting
as their swan song. Structurally it's a far better song than its over familiarity
has made it and I particularly love the way Marriott reverts to a straight
delivery after the dumdidumdidoo dumdidumdidoo section and the in-joke
soul chorus snatch of Satisfaction. The Who actually tried to mirror
this unlikely hit with their White City anthem Dogs and that year saw the
bands touring together both home and abroad. This is immortalised in their joint
appearance that November in a Paris TV studio miming away to a group of Paco Rabanne
models. Against the playback Keith Moon is captured air drumming behind his Who
successor Kenny Jones beneath a caption retitled Not Gone Flake.
Not yet
Perhaps side two’s fusion with gobbledygook is a remnant of the still born Carry On Psych-Out project sired by Sir George Martin during the Beatles in Rishikesh downtime. A studio extravaganza that would feature a number of archaic guest artists from the world of light entertainment it was to employ the little known Felius Andromeda (of Cheadle Heath Delusions / Meditations fame) as backing band but their contribution only extended as far as Harry H Corbett’s Flower Power Fred. Roy Hudd delivered Sir Rhubarb Tansey, whilst Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were given a 7-minute slot re-working the L.S. Bumble Bee into a segue with Bedazzled. The album reached the sleeve design stage but Sid James unfortunately only got so far as putting on the outfit.
No this is not true I don’t think (but the songs are). It’s all gone a bit hazy here. Please listen to side two and make up your own mind about Ogdens Beano Pigtail. Does anyone have any jaffa cakes?
I dedicate this piece to the late Tim Brooke-Tayor who I last heard on Sorry I Havn't a Clue where the panel were invited to do rude things with Pop group names. His contribution being "The Small Faeces"
(JF)
Musicians individually and collectively at the top of their game. A great sound, a great listen
I didn’t like the Stanley Unwin thing and think it was a bad idea for such talented musicians to give over so much time to it. Never really understood psychedelia but when I listen to this record I get two things – the influence from rock and roll of the past and the future influence this album seems to hold – e.g Paul Weller’s early solo albums like Wildwood. But what it ultimately leaves me with is Englishness. This is very evident throughout the record in the writing if not the musicianship, which has an up tempo bluesy feel particularly with the prominent organ sound
(JS)
Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Nice woozy mellotron /bass
heavy instrumental.
Afterglow
Sputtering verse with majestic
over the top chorus. Placed together they are effective and passionately
delivered, but after the music stops I can’t remember the tune. A bit over
blown. Perhaps a good example of how the music doesn’t quite capture the mood
of the subject matter.
Long Agos And Worlds
Apart
Musicians they definitely are, and as such they are chasing both a form and sound but their lyrics and delivery don’t seem to be as much a part of the process. This song reminded me of another song, and I couldn’t think what it was called until I re listening to Afterglow. Has a a trick ending where it pretends to fade out then comes back for another minute of wig out.
Rene
Comedy girl focused narrative
sung in the style of Chas and Dave, with a bit of a hint of the Pink Panther Theme. Another song straining to ditch the lyrical content for the mellotron
instrumental break with added harmonica.
Song Of A Baker
Troggs-esque intro that
settles down to a narrative verse which is flattened by an over blown chorus.
Much more guitar driven, which in its day must have sounded charming but the
solo sounds a bit pedestrian today. Maybe im going deaf from hammering out
viking coins at the mock forge but the vocal mix sounds too thin and needs
warming up.
Lazy Sunday
An obvious influence on Blur’s Park Life. A splendid period piece. I haven’t done my detailed bio check on the
band but they sound like posh boys pretending to be working class, (ED. Wrong, wrong, wrong) just like
Blur, but their complex musicality defeats this charming ruse, with the skilled
tempo and key change at the end which is pure McCartney.
Happiness Stan
Huzzah for Stanley Unwin,( but was he also operating the vocal processing for the recording?)
These boys are clearly classically trained musicians slumming in the sub-culture and casting out into early prog for a new direction, because they want to be The Who. Tin can production values.Rollin' Over
A guitar/piano driven stomper
The Hungry Intruder
A flower child song, sounds a
bit like a pastiche, but its the real deal, lots of pixie flute and complex
strings. But again impressive as it is can I remember the tune? Adults
pretending to be children.
The Journey
My ear drobes haven’t quite
recovered before this mellotron pantomime began. Sounds like a piece of
background music as Austen Powers runs down a street in Amsterdam not wishing
to stare but unable to help himself. Lyrical element ends to long instrumental
wig out. But the Austen Powers image hasn’t completely vanished. This doesn’t
sound like flying on the back of a giant talking fly.
Mad John
Guitar folkesque song with a
bit of mandolin in the style of early Jethro Tull/Fairport, narrative but with
not enough conviction, it sorts of gives up on itself. Stanley Unwin is getting
a bit irritating and my dangly wants to kick his ass until he shuts up.
Happydaystoytown
An early version of look on the
bright side of life. A reprise of Lazy Sunday.
Overall this was released in
May 1968 and shows a band fragmenting, throwing everything they”ve got into the
melting pot in the hope something will stick. Months later King Crimson
released In the Court of the Crimson King. Both albums feature musicians first
with lyrical content tagged on as an afterthought. Both albums indulge the
audiences with long instrumental sections. Both albums are composed around a
variety of styles by virtuoso musicians. The Small Faces album has been trapped
in its own aspic, it attempts to be a ground breaking mind expanding album, but
its roots and influences as clearly visible in its construction. As genre has
shifted it has trapped the efforts into a period piece. The Crimson effort on
the other hand still sounds fresh, because it remains a pioneer in its sonic
voyage of discovery. Its not really a fair comparison but I hope it explains
the difficulty I had rendering a fair opinion of this piece. I heard it, I
Listened to it but Iv’e almost completely forgotten it, with the exception The Hungry Intruder. That song’s danglies have stayed with me
No comments:
Post a Comment