Small Faces vs. Faces

The Faces? Dull plod rock.

Reviving because I just watched a little bit of an old Faces show on BBC from 1971 or 1972. Couple things I noticed...

1. Ron Wood cranks more noise out of that lucite guitar on "Stay With Me" than Greg Ginn and Bob Mould combined.
2. I really really miss Ronnie Lane
3. If I was in Jet / Kings Of Leon / etc. I'd have to throw in the towel because there's just no way. Stewart / Wood / McLagan / Lane / Jones are Mount Fucking Rushmore.

Those two Small faces albums that came after the Faces split.

Are they as bad as they are made out to be?

On a sliding scale of "old" small Faces to The Faces, where do they sit?

I was listening to "Oh la la" the other day and it's one of the best songs ever.

Small Faces by a landslide, particularly the 67-69 late-period incarnation. They were at times genius towards the end ("Odgen's Nut Gone Flake" is up there among the huge classics) while Faces were just an ordinary rock'n'roll band really.

1. Ron Wood cranks more noise out of that lucite guitar on "Stay With Me" than Greg Ginn and Bob Mould combined.

otm. what the fuck happened to him after he joined the stones? did mick and keith anesthetize him or something? since becoming a stone he's never been 1/3rd the the guitarist he was in the faces.

i can't choose between small and non-small. i love 'em both equally. i'm a bit surprised by how contentious some of this thread is...is there some huge british cultural signpost i'm missing that inspires comments like "fuck a mod" and "dadrock"?

Love them both.

What is common to both of them is that many of their best moments are relatively unknown. Like Dr.C says above the S/T S/F L/P on Immediate is fabulous, with one of the great opening songs in "Have You Ever Seen Me".

But the same goes for the Faces - "First Step" is ludicrously underrated - "Wicked Messenger" is one of THE great Dylan covers, like being aboard a ship in a storm with deckhands careering all over the place - every bit the equal of Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower".

And yes it highlights the truly weird playing of Ron Wood - it skids and careers all over the place like no other playing I've ever heard. Really exciting in a most unusual way.

like them both in a passive sort of way, need to hear more (also ronnie lane solo)

SMALLLLLLL all the way

sorry, I'm just a huge SF junkie ... "Have You Ever Seen Me" might be the greatest single evarr

I love Ronnie so much.. I think I got drunk recently and posted some Ronnie links? can't recall

god bless ronnis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22iu_TQ6Vo0

wow, that video...really reminds you how unecessary Britpop was...

I saw Ronnie Wood once at the Musée d'Orsay - he was studying Whistler's Mother and Déjeuner sur l'herbe through a little video camera.

Answer to the original question- both.

"Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" alone means no match. And the 1967 "Small Faces" was great too.

Revive, if you have not heard Five Guys Walk Into A Bar you aren't making an informed vote.

"just another honky" pushes it into the Faces column

SMALL

I'll admit, I like the Faces, but their tinier predecessors beat them hands down. Just listen to the SF version of Whats a Matter Baby

"around the plynth" is so good. amazing the same guy sang this and "young turks" and people hate so hard on him

both are great, but i'd lean towards the Faces. just listened to Nod Is As Good As A Wink yesterday and I'd put it up against any Stones record.

Small Faces did some pretty anarchic shit, but yeah, I'd probably give a very slight edge to the Faces. OTM re: Nod Is As Good As A Wink. And the box, in addition to having the best box set title ever, is ridiculously engaging.

Faces live boots melt my brain.

otm
anyone else watch the ronnie lane documentary streaming on netflix now? pretty good stuff (tho rod is strangely absent). crazy/sad part in the end where it turns out the MS foundation lane founded was being run by a ripoff artist. does make me think i need to check out some of his post-faces albums. the only thing I've really heard is the townshend collab.

I have a best of that's very solid. Still need to watch the doc.

The doc is great. I think Rod paid for most/all of Lane's treatment, iirc.

I had one of his solo records, can't remember the name offhand. I hoped it would be like his Rough Mix songs, and a handful were, but it was depressingly inconsistent.

This might have been pointed out a ton of times, but Faces is like Stones if the latter were nice people. Whenever I listen to them I prefer them.

Ha, that's otm. There's a moment on a live version of "I'm Losing You" where Rod tries to get the audience to clap along with a gentle, "Please. If we could." It's so charming.

Whereas Jagger would be all LOOK AT ME I'M A CHICKEN AND I COMMAND YOU TO CLAP.

That's classic Rod. Impossible to dislike, no matter what shit he's put out over the years. Just a good-natured dude. The whole band gives off that vibe.

lol Tarfumes

yeah they are the loveable, generally more fun version of the Stones

Stones songs+Zep production=Faces

There's a new Uncut special on the stands spotlighting Small Faces/Faces/Humble Pie/Rod/Ronnie/Marriott. Lots of vintage clipping from the NME plus new essays and reviews. Very much worth your time if you're a fan.

That last Small Faces album is on Spotify.

Half of it is not bad (e.g. "Stand by me") and half, um, is.

LOOK AT ME I'M A CHICKEN AND I COMMAND YOU TO CLAP.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, November 25, 2013 6:31 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ Actually laughed so much at this. Brilliant! :D

This is actually a tough choice for me, because as EZ says the live boots of Faces are incredible. I think in terms of recorded output, I'd go for Small Faces though, especially the stuff they did for Immediate.

http://www.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/mick-tight-shir.gif

He's not wrong, clearly

I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out if Small Faces hadn't split up at the end of the '60s. Now that would have caused a hell of an alternate timeline. Obviously, by the time they reformed in the mid '70s, they were a shadow of what they once were, with Ronnie Lane not participating and Steve Marriott being a massive coke fiend by that point, but its tempting to think they could have a much more heavier band after Ogden's. It's possible they would have done away with the rinky-dink music hallisms of 'Lazy Sunday' and went more down the route of 'Tin Soldier' or 'Wham Bam, Thank You Mam'. But also: if Small Faces hadn't broken up at the end of the '60s, would Rod have still ended up being a massively successful solo singer? Would Ronnie Wood still have made it into the Stones? Would Jimmy McCullough still have ended up quitting Wings (since he quit that band to join the reformed Small Faces)... hell, would he still be alive even? It's hard to say, but it's fun to speculate and ponder on, I guess!

The problem is, was that the Small Faces were a hard rockin' pop band, and the faces were a rock band. Which was fine, but when the Small Faces reformed, what *was* the faces tried to put the pop back in the bottle..

If only the Small Faces had stayed around 6 months longet to finish that last album w/ "Autumn Stone" and "Wham Bam" and so on, that would have been one to go out on.

Then they could have gone on to do The Faces, Humble Pie, and such-like..

It's possible they would have done away with the rinky-dink music hallisms of 'Lazy Sunday' and went more down the route of 'Tin Soldier' or 'Wham Bam, Thank You Mam'.

I dunno, that's pretty much what Humble Pie ended up doing, along with the pastoralism of "The Autumn Stone." Town and Country is closer to a 70s Small Faces record than any Faces record (not that I prefer Pie to the Faces, just that Pie seemed to be picking up where the Small Faces left off moreso than the Faces were).

This Small Faces box is coming out in January.

Faces, Faces ARE rock.

The best band,

tylerw has uploaded this fabulous 1970 show (when they were still known as the Small Faces in the US).

Looking forward to listening to that! Tyler comes thru again.

it is radical!

they are playing the breakdown of "i'm losin you" on classic rawk radio right now, i am feelin it

Kenney Jones was so underrated.

Post-Mac's death, I worked my way through revisting the SF catalogue and The Faces' box in the car changer, and have come to the conclusion that the joint works are the most underrated in the Classic Rock canon. After some initial shakiness on Decca, they lock in with "All or Nothing", and cruise from strength to strength with minimal slippage pretty much until Rod leaves. The final singles are surprisingly good.

recent faces box is killer - the rarities disc is a treat and the bonus tracks on the album are well-chosen (and don't seem to crossover with the stuff on the box set). remastered sound is stellar too. recommended!

the stuff on the *other* box set, i should say

My favourite Faces track is probably "Dishevellement Blues", probbaly because it came free with the very first NME I bought.