Alex Kerner:
Fav. Song- Green
Circles
Fav Album- There Are But 4 Small Faces
Best Thing- Unprecedented harmony from Steve.
Worst thing- Not more success here in the States.
Any other comment- I always saw them more of a Mod band but they definitely
showed hints of Psych...I have not yet Heard Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, but I've
heard a lot of great stuff about it.
Eggman:
Goran Obradovic
Of this year's MS HOPS introductions, this is the one that doesn't really need any particular explanation, except maybe mentioning that it was about f***ing time! From early blue-eyed r'n'soul, through pioneering psychedelia and Britpop, to heavy post-mod hard-rawking ... you name it, they got it !!! Roll your own !!!
Sir Greg Weatherby
Favourite track -
This is a hard one because there are so many tracks they did which are amazing,
but since I have to settle on one, I will
cast my vote with "Tin Soldier". This was the culmination of the
"three perfect singles" that the Small Faces released during an
amazing 6 month run starting in June of 67 with "Here Comes The Nice".
They followed that stunner with "Itchycoo Park" a mere 2 months later,
and then in December, "Tin Soldier". This song is about as close to
mod aggro perfection as is possible. It starts slowly and quietly with the piano
chords, and then begins to build with the organ and guitar introducing
themselves and you feel the tension, then Stevie yells out 'come on', and it
kicks in....and suddenly you know, you understand.....this is a song about
frustration, this is a song about getting.....getting.....doing whatever you
gotta do to....."give me your love before mine fades away" and you
know he ain't singing about holding hands....and man, you feel it, you feel the
need to get busy and jump into that fire.....this song is right to the
point...."I just got to
make you".....and you get shivers from hearing it.....and the song builds
to an amazing climax of release....oh yeah, oh yeah.......and the
drums stumble out and you feel like you wanna go to sleep right there and then,
exhausted.........it doesn't get a whole lot better than this,
"Tin Soldier", that's my fave track
Favourite album - Ogdens is maybe the obvious choice, but it's not my favourite
Small Faces album. For song power, I always go back to the album simply called
The Small Faces. They had moved on from the simpler stuff they released on
Decca. It was 1967, they had signed with Immediate, and the ideas began to flow.
And the CD issue of this album has the "three perfect singles"
included to make it their best album to my way of thinking
Best thing about - It's very hard to nail down one thing. Stevie's soulful
singing is a real highlight; his ability to elevate a song to a
different level, a simple reading of the lyrics wouldn't hint this was possible
but he could wring a lot of emotion out of any words; their
overall look was very cool, Plonks bass playing was simple but very effective
and it had this hollow fat sound that was very
distinctive.....so the best thing about them? Everything, they rarely stumbled
(except see below)
Worst thing about - The should have never covered "If I Was A
Carpenter". It stunk.
Any other comment - They had a nice run, they gave us a lot of wonderful music;
they were popular enough to last long enough to release a lot of records and we
are the richer for it. I don't go for too long without listening to one of the
three perfect singles.