"Oh wouldn't it be niiice to have another POLL?" - Small Faces - UK singles (1965-1969)

Great poll idea! No other British band at the time -- not even the Who -- had as consistent a run of singles during this period.

Can't decide between "My Mind's Eye" and "Tin Soldier," but will likely end up going with the latter.

I'm listening to The Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette at the moment and I'm struck by how impeccable the production on the Immediate stuff is. The Decca-era material is a lot rougher, like The Kinks Pye-era recordings or early Who-style of production, but the Immediate stuff sounds so crisp, clear and very well recorded - as good as any production that was being cooked up at Abbey Road.

Itcycoo Park over Sha-La-La

I got that 'Afterglow' single with the wrong version of the b-side, 'Me, you and us too', its not even that expensive on discogs..

I got that 'Afterglow' single with the wrong version of the b-side, 'Me, you and us too', its not even that expensive on discogs..

I got that 'Afterglow' single with the wrong version of the b-side, 'Me, you and us too', its not even that expensive on discogs..

I got that 'Afterglow' single with the wrong version of the b-side, 'Me, you and us too', its not even that expensive on discogs..

Isn't 'Me, You and Us Too' just an alternative version of 'Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam'?

It is. Mark G is obviously very proud about owning that single.

you'd think my clever work phone would work better than my knackered old HP pre 3

nope. Soz about that

There's a lot of Small Faces songs from that era that I ABSOLUTELY ADORE but none of them were singles, unfortunately. These 'uns are pretty good, though.

Yeah, I wish 'Show Me The Way', 'Green Circles', 'Song of a Baker' and 'The Autumn Stone' had all been singles, just to name four huge favourites!

I feel like there's a real progression here, where each single is better than the last.

I love those phasing effects at the end of 'Itchycoo Park' and the way 'Here Come The Nice' ends.

Either "All or Nothing" or "Lazy Sunday" for me, though "Tin Soldier" and "Afterglow" are of equal quality

Tin Soldier for me. Shame there's no b-sides, as I always loved this for Steve M's vocal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx0DkeDPd-M

Yeah, I really should have included the B-sides as there's some genuinely great ones... I particularly love 'I Feel Much Better' for the great bass playing, lovely organ sound and sped-up backing vocals, before rocking like fuck on the outro.

Feel Much Better is def a high point in their catalog.

Not heard that one before, tbh; great instrumentation, but I'm not sure about the helium b/vox. Another of their comedy voice specials, like Lazy Sunday or Stanley Unwin all over Ogden's.

I see the sped-up backing vocals more as them trying to go for something "different" in the track in the spirit of psychedelia rather than for comedic effect, but I think the lighthearted side of this band ('Lazy Sunday' etc.) is as essential to the identity of the band as the heavier stuff ('Tin Soldier', 'Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam') ... I think it would have been a bit much if it was too much in one direction or the other, but they knew how to balance it.

A rare band that hardly put out a bad track in their entire existence. "The Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette" is pretty much perfect from start to finish.

This from the French election thread made me think of Steve Marriott and LOL ...

Mordy is way out of his depth here. Heart the dude but he's just stretching it way, wayyyyy too much here. I recommend humble pie.

― On Some Faraday Beach (Le Bateau Ivre), Sunday, 23 April 2017 21:18 (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

More great b-sides: "I'm Only Dreaming", "Donkey Rides, A Penny A Glass", "Wham Bam Thank You Mam"

Christ, 'I Can't Make It' is so unbelievably fucking underrated.

*drum fill* "ah KNOWWWWW what you're feeliiiin' (feeeliiiin') ... ah'v felt that wayyy toohoohuu!"

It's pretty much part of Small Faces folklore that the band/Marriott/whoever felt like they were unable to follow-up Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, but I understand that they did actually start work on a fourth LP (1862) and recorded a few tracks for it that ended up on The Autumn Stone compilation... but I'm trying to find out more about these sessions and what was supposed to be for the album and what wasn't. There's a fair few instrumentals that exist post-Ogden's that I'm sure were supposed to have vocals put on them at some point or another, but what of the completed tracks? Was 'The Autumn Stone' going to be on there? 'Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam'? What about 'Donkey Rides...' or even 'The Universal'?

wiki says:

"Collibosher"
"Call It Something Nice"
"Red Balloon"
"Wide Eyed Girl On The Wall"
"The Autumn Stone"

? I have Autumn Stone but don't know these others.

Hmm. 'Collibosher' and 'Wide Eyed Girl On The Wall' are both instrumentals (I think 'Call It Something Nice' is too? I'll have to refresh my memory) ... 'Red Balloon' exists fully completed, but it's not a Marriott/Lane original. 'The Autumn Stone' is one of their best ever tracks.

I wonder if 'Every Little Bit Hurts' was meant for 1862 as well?

('Red Balloon' was written by Tim Hardin, it's commonly thought to be about smack. Paul Weller performed an acoustic version of it on some radio show in the '90s, which turned up on various bootlegs at the time)

yeah I can't figure out where Every Little Bit Hurts came from. I have it on a comp and know it was recorded towards the end but isn't it just a Solomon Burke cover?

xp

Brenda Holloway cover, written by Ed Cobb - same guy who wrote 'Tainted Love' ... but yeah, I've never really got to the bottom of what that was even recorded for, whether it was for a future B-side or future album track or not.

a bunch, like 'don't burst my bubble', seem older

I think 'Don't Burst My Bubble' and 'Picaninny' pre-date even the sessions for the first Immediate LP, so I'm unsure as to whether either would have been used for the Ogden's follow-up.

'The Pig Trotters' is an early demo version of Humble Pie's 'Wrist Job', which I definitely think would have made the cut.

I'm still struggling to pick one of these, right now I seem to have narrowed it down to 'All Or Nothing', 'Tin Soldier' or 'Afterglow Of Your Love' ...

"All or Nothing"

what is up with their Colour Me Pop performance of Ogden's? It looks like they are (v energetically, granted) miming along to pre-recorded tracks, although the occasional live mic seems to pick things up

Yeah, I think a lot of that performance is mimed. I don't think they ever actually performed side two of Ogden's in a live capacity properly.

Talking of Weller and the SF, the guitar solo in The Gift was lifted note for note from Don't Burst My Bubble

One of the bits in Weller's 'Out of the Sinking' reminds me of Small Faces a hell of a lot!

While we're on Weller:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7hGdswsR9Y

Not small faces, but.

Christ, if I had to make a list of tracks that Weller has been, uh, "inspired by" throughout his career, I'd be here all day. I don't think Weller's an out-and-out plagiarist, though... I think there's a lot of himself there as well as his inspirations - but that's a whole 'nother thread.

True, that's one of the 'led zep' type nicks tho...

It's one of his most blatant nicks, yeah... people always point to the 'Start!'/'Taxman' thing, but 'Start!' has a different chord progression, different top-line and different lyrics and the similarity was always in the bass/drums/guitar arrangement which aren't really a direct copy (there's a subtle difference in both the bass and the drums) although they're close enough for people to recognise it. For 'Trans-Global Express' he may as well have nicked 'So Is The Sun' completely, given how much of it he pinched!

If Traffic had never recorded "Medicated Goo," Wild Wood would not have existed.

have never understood the cult of Weller, but he's basically a non-entity over here

The cult of Weller here basically stems from his work with The Jam who were absolutely huge here at one point in the late '70s/early '80s, and then later he had a boost in popularity due to the Gallagher's bigging him up etc. circa 1995, but also because albums like Wild Wood and Stanley Road had attracted the attention of lapsed Jam fans who hated the direction he went in with The Style Council.

ha I remember seeing some video of the Style Council where they're biking around the countryside and just thinking wtf

You sure it wasn't the video to 'Long Hot Summer' where an oiled-up Weller wearing cut-off denim shorts and a slicked-back hairdo pisses about on a boat, does a lil dance while singing "shooby dooby do bop" and Weller and Talbot lie on a picnic blanket tickling each others ears, while some guy dressed up in a French outfit makes an occasional cameo appearance on bongos?

lol no it was this nonsense
https://youtu.be/rmVkOlZFF3Y

to be clear, yes I am familiar with the Jam and their stature in the UK, what's weird is that they never crossed over in the US to the degree that, say, the Clash and the Sex Pistols did. They're like a footnote to UK punk over here (and rightly so imo)

The Clash toured the fuck out of America, though, and went there regularly. The Jam toured there, but I don't think they really concentrated to trying to "make it" there, although I do know that they had American fans and that Weller generally has a small cult of fans there.

I like a lot of Clash and Pistols stuff, but I'd take The Jam's Direction Reaction Creation box set over the collected works of either, tbh.

Anyway, voted for 'Afterglow Of Your Love' ... one of the saddest things about Small Faces is listening to things like Ogden's, 'The Autumn Stone' etc. and realising that they were basically cut down in their prime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4QWo1x5_bk

That Colour Me Pop appearance mentioned upthread is mimed apart from the vocals, it does however provide a lovely exchange between Lane and Marriott that makes my heart happy.

Marriott sings "But how can I remember to keep it all together, When half the moon is taken away?", the way Lane gently comes back with "ah! well! I've got the very thing" makes me so happy and when he finishes his verse Marriott says "nice!" and nearly misses his cue, it's brilliant...

I voted Afterglow as well, even though the stereo mix drives me crazy.

xp

How fat is the bass sound on Ogden's!?

The Clash toured the fuck out of America, though, and went there regularly. The Jam toured there, but I don't think they really concentrated to trying to "make it" there, although I do know that they had American fans and that Weller generally has a small cult of fans there.

Early Jam tours in the US didn't go great. For one thing, they were opening for Blue Oyster Cult -- in 1977 the audience overlap here was basically nonexistent. After that, they only played the coasts and Chicago (plus the major Canadian cities).

But some of the Jam's biggest UK hits were impenetrable to US audiences. Take "The Eton Rifles."

"OK, so there was this Right To Work march..."
Right to Work? That anti-union shit they have in the South?
"No, in the UK, Right To Work is pro-union. So this march got besieged by posh public school kids..."
Huh? Posh kids in public schools?
"Oh, actually, public school in the UK is basically the equivalent of private school in the US. Anyway, it was in Slough-"
Slough? The fuck is a Slough?

etc. etc.

(I totally love the Jam, and saw Weller once in '97 when he did a shit-ton of soloing, something he is really not very good at)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I had this early Small Faces compilation album when I was a teenager and am only seeing now that some of my favorite tracks on it (especially "Sorry She's Mine") were not singles or not A-sides.

https://www.discogs.com/Small-Faces-By-Appointment/release/2938339

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Interesting, I actually thought "Tin Soldier" might run away with this.

I was definitely expecting 'Tin Soldier' to be up there!

Fortunately, it wasn't a landslide victory for 'Lazy Sunday', as much as I like it.

Re-listening to Ogdens Nut Gone Flake now and in hindsight, it's surprising that they didn't put out 'Song of a Baker' out as a single - it certainly deserved to be one. Anyway, it remains a fantastic record - perhaps a little too late for the psychedelic period, but it settles for being one of the best records of 1968 instead so I guess it didn't matter too much.

I love the intense Leslie-ing of the vocals on the second part of 'Happiness Stan', the way the mood just changes from the "cup of tea and a splendid cream bun" vibe to this dark psychedelia.

I'm sorry if there is something wrong with you but is there something wrong with you?

Probably

Increasingly looks that way.

^ Bit of a random exchange, I have to say!

I'd love for someone to shed more light on the recording process for Ogdens, there's some neat effects on side two in particular.

Having said that, with Marriott, Lane and Mac all gone it'd be quite difficult, I hope someone picks Kenney Jones' brains on this stuff before it's too late... or Glyn Johns since he engineered a lot of the Immediate stuff, didn't he?

Not random. I've seen this sort of behaviour before by posters who end up being FPed off the board.

Well, I don't see what your exchange had to do with Small Faces.

Unless you mean people talking about music on a forum called I Love Music?

I never FP people, but plenty of other people have itchy trigger fingers.

In fact, I'd love to read recording anecdotes about all the Immediate stuff, particularly the 1967 self-titled record which I feel is as strong as Ogdens, but never seems to receive the level of praise that Ogdens does.