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| Cover Art © IoF© Art Department Of Art® Dept. All Rights Reserved (and some of the lefts) |
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| The Nice, high above the fertile tundra, yestiddy |
FMF Sir Attenborough! Looking cool there! Which is where?
SA Here, five thousand feet above the fertile tundra of -
FMF Right, right! So what's with this Small Faces story?
SA Ah! I am honoured to be the inspiration for their chart-topping disc, Here Comes The Nice! Back in Swingin' London, one was very much the globetrotter, bringing back treasures galore from exotic lands, steamer trunks bursting with rare herbal remedies! So of course one shared one's bounty, being a nice chap, and that was how muggins here became known as The Nice!
FMF And you have an album for us?
SA Indeed I do! It's an unissued compilation of their, shall we say, jazz cigarette tunes? Andy [Andrew Loog Oldham - Ed.] put it together before the whole thing went pear-shaped. And a very evocative Gered Mankowitz photograph on the front. Gerry [Gered Mankovitz - Ed.] and I were oft to be seen getting off our heads at the Roundhouse [The Roundhouse - Ed.]! (laughs) He came up with the name for this L.P., incidentally, during one of our "sessions"!
FMF Maryon Park? Any clues?
SA The lads in the group liked elliptical titles, something a little more imaginative, and this is no exception. Perhaps you might quiz th' Four Or Five Guys©? Maybe one of them might come up with an explanation!
FMF Uh ... yeah. Or likely not, probably. I doubt they read this far. Some of 'em can't even. But thanks for sharing this with us, and drop by th' Isle any time! It's a copacetic microcosm of microclimatical nanoculture!
SA (laughs) Shall I bring my - steamer trunk?
FMF (laughs) That would be swell, Sir Nice!
SA (laughs)
FMF (laughs)
Oright, oright, you've 'ad your fun, settle down, settle down ...
I *cough* curated this because in their appropriately short lifespan The Small Faces made music that expressed the times better than just about anybody, their super-smashing pop hits as slyly subversive as they were memorable. Steve Marriott is possibly the greatest male vocalist the U.K. ever produced, with a staggering emotional range, and deceptively accomplished technique grounded in his drama studies and acting experience [←original critical aperçu - Ed.]. He's always bang in the middle of the note, and he inhabits the song using phrasing and inflection in a way that seems natural and unthinking but is pure - and brilliant - technique. The Artful Dodger knew what he was doing with every note he sang.
So why this album again? I wanted the definitive, cohesive, pop-psych masterclass minus the overwrought stuff, omitting the knees-up sing-alongs, and without the Hammond-heavy club groovers. Ogden's Nut Gone Flake gets a lot of love, but the Stanley Unwin story-telling gets old very quickly, and side one's a little ragged. Autumn Stone is at once too much and not enough, and sounds like what it is, a bit of a barrel-scrape. So this, then. I've paced the hits so they don't dominate, and maybe they sound fresher in a new context.
That tracklist in full:
Become Like You/Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire/Here Comes The Nice/Just Passing/Show Me The Way/I'm Only Dreaming/Green Circles/Itchycoo Park/Donkey Rides, A Penny, A Glass/The Universal/Call It Something Nice/The Autumn Stone
Why isn't [YOUR CHOICE HERE] included? Because reasons. Like other similarly humble exercises in improving on artists' original brilliance here on th' IoF©, this is above all a playable album with a flow to it, at listenable length, with more thought behind it than playlists or bonus tracks editions or completist archival sets. You'll dig it on account which it's swell.
This post homologated thru our sponsors: Pearl Necklaces By Dirty Sanchez™, Beverly Hills, L.A.
Meanwhile, in the United States, they were so small as to be virtually invisible before "Itchykoo Park." There are traces of a chart placement in San Bernadino (#33) and Sacramento (#26) for Sha-La-La-La-Lee...but that's it, and let's face it, San Berdoo and Saccamenna are both a two hour drive from anything worth seeing.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't until every punk, Dick and Harry in the late 70s started referencing them in the same breathless regard as the sacred Kinks that I even knew they had more than one hit song.
They didn't travel well, did they?
DeleteI don't think the lack of success was due to the music, which I think (now that I've heard it) was top-notch. I suspect distribution issues. When I look at the US singles over on Discogs I see "All or Nothing" and "My Mind's Eye" on RCA, "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" and "Sha-la-la-la-lee" on Press Records, both in '66...and after that Immediate. Press Records seems to have shut down in early '67.
DeleteWiki adds that Immediate was also putting out records on MGM and United Artists, "before signing a deal with CBS to set up a new label series, which picked selective Immediate Records singles (using product codes with the ZS7 prefix) and albums (using Z12) until they had a dispute."
That's a lot of companies involved, in a very short time frame. Sounds like they didn't have any real support over here from record companies...and they never toured the USA.
All or Nothing - how was that missed off the classic intros! Definitely on my jukebox when I get it (if).
Deletei remember ordering small faces 45s from heanor record centre.
Deletei read about them in fab (there was a loop international news store in chicago that carried such exotic publications).
there was fierce competition amongst myself and my friends to be the first with everything.
triumphantly playing an unknown british band for my pals was the best!
You sure got me interested in hearing it. Super cover. Great post, I say. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThank you Konrad, your appreciation is appreciated!
DeleteThey could do a fair approximation of Booker T & the MGs when they wanted to. "Grow Your Own" - I don't think they meant vegetables - is a good example.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByHgiWa8rb4
I suppose that's a club groover. Soz.
DeleteOh, well done! You read that far!
DeleteHere is the link, the link is here, this is the link:
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/UGkpCqNfEgX
(If anyone solves the Mystery of Maryon Park - as mentioned in the screed - *cough* - I'll be amazed, delighted, and reassured of the worthiness of the human race as a species.)
Blow up tennis court was there - Mankovitz = swinging sixties photographer, am I warm?
ReplyDeleteNobby shoots - he scores!
DeleteNobby your previous screed was thought provoking.
DeleteGlad to be of service, Clarence, which thoughts exactly?
DeleteMore than sides of a record, there were many LPs that I bought just for one or two songs. (Not that I regret it it.)
DeleteI recently watched Blow Up (again) and remember the tennis court. So that's Maryon? I was always partial to Maryon on Gulligan's Island. Are there any castaways on Isle of Foam?
ReplyDeleteMaryon Park is one of the key locations of the movie, where the murder is discovered (or not). Great, great movie.
DeleteAlso seen in Walk on By - The Stranglers.
DeleteHe kept enlarging sections of that photo. Nowadays with digital photography the movie would be much shorter. Your right though, great movie. I first saw it as a child with my parents.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the technology that would make that movie impossible today, it's the mindset. If today's generation (whatever they're calling themselves) see anything at all in this movie (and Antonioni's other great mindfuck movies) it would be the "misogyny issue", and maybe the "diversity issue", which they'd use to blame the 'sixties for their own troubles. The time for these movies is long over, when you'd go to the cinema to have your mind massaged. Today's audiences are spoon-fed "issues", not mystery or magic.
Delete"Issues" in drama ruined the BBC quite a few years ago. I still look forward to a new drama series starting but invariably switch off after ten minutes when I spot the latest one.
DeleteThe mobile phone has a lot to answer for in modern film and TV. It's changed plot dynamics considerably.
DeleteIt's changed *everything*. Calling it a mobile phone is like calling the Death Star a communications satellite. It's changed the way we (and by we I don't mean me, obviously) think and behave. Changed the way our brains are wired, the way society works.
DeleteBut as for movies - when was the last good, adult, non-issue, non-woke, artistic (I'm not embarrassed by the word), well-crafted and entertaining movie? That wasn't made to check boxes? Or please fanbois? Or "address issues" that will win it a palmleaf award? Or an Oscar? If you read the reviews at IMDB, you'll see that a healthy proportion of the movie-going public is aware of the rubbish they're being served, but there's nothing they/we can do. I've given up on new movies, because old ones (mainly up to the 'seventies) are simply better. By any parameter. And there's still hundreds I haven't seen.
I know one thing, there are far too many superhero films. Nothing wrong with a bit of deus ex machina in a film (no one said that entertainment has to mirror real life) but it's getting ridiculous these days.
DeleteOf the modern film makers, I used to like many of the Coen brothers films, but have only seen a couple this century. The Man Who Wasn't There was great but they also re-made The Ladykillers which I refuse to watch, FFS why re-make a classic? Maybe its great?
DeleteNot a patch on the original, which was about as perfect a comedy as you can get.
DeleteViewing habits have changed dramatically. To see a new release - film or TV, you used to have to go to the cinema - then rentals came in but only after cinema release - or wait and watch a new TV episode once a week.
DeleteNow you can have it all in your own front room - brand new releases and the whole series. In terms of sheer quantity, it's overwhelming.
It's not surprising that customer demand drives the industries and, in the spirit of competitiveness and profits above all, the lowest common denominator is always going to be a major factor in what we're offered to view.
A new film used to mean a good night out - now it's just another evening in and what you choose to watch between dinner and bedtime.
Well, what a difference twenty-odd years make, considering that in between the first two Superman films and the X-Men in 2000, there was nothing for super hero comic book fans, besides the Batman series which declined heavily under Joel Schumacher's heavy hands and - it has to be said - his gay eye and favor fo camp. Marvel is now an entertainment giant, but they went bankrupt in the 1990s and had to loan out all their most popular heroes. They really have come a long way. The advent of CGI made it possible to do superhero comics justice. Though, honestly, when I've seen X-Men twenty-two years ago, I didn't think superhero comic movies would be the predominant form of entertainment nowadays.
DeleteI have Netflix and access to my son-in-law's media server, which snaps up new films and TV as soon as they "escape" into the internet ether. I can sit there and scroll through film after film and series after series and not settle on anything.
DeleteThere's just too much.
Are you sure your parameters for when most of the good films came out (up until the seventies) isn't a little tight, Farq? I mean the 70s and the new Hollywood era certainly produced a bunch of modern classics, right? Plus some fascinating and odd stuff.
DeleteYeah, the viewing experience with streaming is very different. A decade back, I came onboard "Justified" series in the second season (2011). My wife had been watching it and I got hooked into it from the next room. The 10 year old grandson is up in Seattle for a month so it was time for some adult drama. Six seasons, 78 episodes, all consumed in four weeks. The original series was a part of my life for five years. There were cliff-hangers and you had to wait a week to see how it resolved. My wife and I had conversations about what we thought might happen next.
DeleteNow? Now we have a countdown that says "Next episode in 15...14...13..." and we barely have time to consult with each other as to whether to switch to something else or go to bed and then BANG we're back into a scene that resolves the cliffhanger.
That's not a complaint; having the world at my remote-controlling gripping fingertips isn't a bad thing. But how we interact with a screen dramatic arc that factored in a week between episodes is now different.
"Up to" means including the 70s. Of course.
DeleteNetflix - I'm sharing an account and occasionally do that despair scroll, eventually watching half a Seinfeld I've seen a few times already.
I'll give Justified a try.
Justified is pretty much a classic "Western." Lots of clichés, but the two male lead actors (Timothy Olyphant and Walter Goggins) are fun to watch.
DeleteI enjoyed Justified immensely. A bit formulaic, but it had some genuinely funny moments, as well as the dramatic stuff.
Deletedraftervoi - I'm just past the credits of E01 and it's note perfect. Not a wasted word, frame, look - the perfect set-up. I'm in! Thanks very much for the heads-up.
DeleteYou have a superbly farcical episode to look forward to (no spoilers), and also one of the nastiest villains ever to grace your TV screen.
DeleteOh, and Dave Alvin's music is sometimes used.
DeleteJustified actually gets better as you move further on, season two etc.
DeleteSteve, is the nastiest villain per chance a matriarch?
And yes, it has fabulous music.
And anything with Walton (not Walter) Goggins in it is immediately better by his presence.
Oh, if anyone needs or wants music from Justified, just give me a holler...
DeleteYes, OBG, and there's another almost as evil!
DeleteHi, Mr. Throckmorton³,
DeleteFirst of all, if you like that first episode, as Mr. Shark (and Mr. 1$ Guy) said, "it gets better."
One thing to note about the show is that they paid attention to a bravura performance. Characters that might have been one-offs were given expanded roles in response to great acting and the audience response to the characters. There are fabulous performances from Damon Herriman as the hapless Dewey Crowe, and Kaitlyn Dever as troubled teen Loretta McCready.
On the automotive front, the similarly hapless AMC Gremlin shows up not once but three different times in three different seasons. Not bad for a fifty year old car!
And yes, "Walton" not Walter. :)
Well said, Mr...eh..Voi?!
DeleteI've just seen Damon Herriman on the "The Tourist" mini-series, it was weird seeing Dewey Crowe with his naive Aussie accent and, well, not being a redneck...
And as for "keeping people around longer because they're brilliant", well that certainly applies to Goggins the most. Originally, he was supposed to die at the end of that very first episode (as he does in the Elmore Leonard story it was based on), and then through his brilliant performance they more or less built the series around him as a sort of co-lead to Olyphant.
Season 1 is let down a bit by still having a "case of the week" structure, but that is pretty much smoothed out by season 2.
Justified is also very, very well-plotted and has plot lines that keep on going right through the whole six series to the end. There's also a lot of them that intertwine and disappear and then reappear.
DeleteDagnabbit! I might have to watch the whole thing again now!
Yes, Goggins did such a great job that his character's getting shooting changed from "shot dead" to "he'll live." You're right about the "case of the week" procedural scripts in the first season, and Steve's on point about the plot lines that thread to the end....which (no spoilers...) I found very satisfying.
DeleteThey're filming a sequel in Chicago right now: "Production on FX’s Justified: City Primeval has been halted in Chicago after two cars whose occupants were engaged in a gunfight smashed through the show’s barricades."
For those looking for a new binge watch, I can recommend "Sandman" - fantasy. Netflix. First episode was spellbinding.
DeleteAnd of course, you should read the source, still one of the best comic books ever written...
Deletehttps://www.omgbeaupeep.com/comics/The_Sandman/
The first episode 'sort of followed' Pt 1 of the comic book, adding some things and leaving some out. About 60-70% 'faithful'? Visually excellent and not too dark. There seems to be so much TV and film today where everything's just so dark.
DeleteOn this album: I was struck by how gentle most of it is. Reflective. A long way from Sha-La-Lee. And if you think that calling Marriott possibly the best male singer the UK has produced is a stretch, listen to The Autumn Stone and marvel at the restraint and subtlety, his phrasing, and the way he inhabits the words of the song. What a tragedy he discovered that hoarse shouting got him the sex and drugs he craved. What a waste.
ReplyDeleteTrue dat. Also a shame that he never was much of a songwriter and thus perpetually stuck with second-rate material. More potential wasted. I mean, name me five Marriott classics. Name me three. Name me one.
DeleteHe had a superb voice, but too much of his material is a bit cock rock. Too much time spent throwing rock star shapes.
DeleteSo, Steve - played this album yet? It's pretty swell, I reckon.
DeleteI think I have all the tracks, but I'll play your sequence - it'll be interesting to hear them in a different way.
DeleteIt's probably easier to download it than to make a playlist. Also, there's the cover to tie them together. It's the only Small Faces album I need, and the fact that it was never released doesn't bother me at all.
Deleteobg - I don't worry about "classic" songs - there aren't that many since the art peaked back in - when? - the thirties? the forties? But he (co)wrote enough swell songs to have hits when that meant something, and that repay listening fifty years on. That's good enough for me. Most of them are here.
DeleteOh I was trying to resist the download (overwhelmed with Babs's Jazz) but I've just succumbed, mind I 'm very partial to a bit of Ronnie Lane.
DeleteIt's thirty minutes long. You can listen to it while you're doing something that takes thirty minutes (I'm not here to judge) and you won't notice any loss in your life.
DeleteFarq, maybe I didn't express myself clearly. Of course there are a bunch of Marriott/Lane classics. It's just a shame that without a strong writing partner like Ronnie Lane AND his turn towards bone-headed blues rock the classics stop as soon as he leaves Small Faces. Maybe there's some hidden gems from Humble Pie, but yeah...anything Marriott after 1968 was either a compromise or a missed opportunity. Which is shame considering of how mighty a singer he was...
DeleteI just picked up Marriott's "30 Minutes To Midnight". (Old school! In a store! On a CD!). The production sometimes betrays its late-80s origins, but there are a couple of fun covers on it. And he still had the pipes. Anyone interested in that?
ReplyDeleteI41
DeleteHere U R, anonymous internet user.
Deletehttps://workupload.com/archive/WQkuS4e4
Listened to the album, & quite enjoyed it. The park song is a huge fave now. overall, I was struck by how gentle most of it is.
ReplyDeletehttp://floppybootstomp-ii.blogspot.com/2022/07/humble-pie-reunion-1991.html
ReplyDeleteI think Itchykoo Park is one of those tracks that's actually better in mono. It seems to have more punch and the flanging is more pronounced. From what I can gather, the mono mix was the first mix made.
ReplyDeleteA/B it and see what you think.
https://workupload.com/file/STdhpRsPJmB
Like all the "mono is better" arguments, it depends on how you're listening to it. Coming from an autochange Dansette portable or transistor radio stereo makes no sense at all. Coming through a stereo system it can, especially with headphones, which is how I do a lot of my listening. And then it depends on how it's done - the UK was woefully behind the US in terms of stereo production and studio facilities generally.
DeleteIt don't think it's just that, back then Stereo was still a bit of a novelty, so producers spent far more time working on the mono versions of songs because they knew that the vast majority of records to be produced would be mono. Not only that they had very little experience in mixing Stereo. I've got Floyd's original See Emily Play single and I've always thought it sounds better (a crisper cleaner sound) than the contemporary pre-digital stereo versions from back then whichever kit I've used to play it on. If the stereo has been remastered from the original master tapes more recently in the digital age then its likely a different story but back then mono was still largely king in the UK at least......
DeleteBack then, stereo wasn't such a novelty in the US as it was in the UK. I'm not sure that "producers spent far more time working on the mono versions of songs." I don't have any figures for that. Mono mixes were what they were used to, so it's unlikely they spent more time on them. Stereo pop records were still in their infancy, and they did the best they could with what they had. I'm not buying the mono purist's line that stereo mixes were tossed off as an afterthought - it was an evolving technology and they were professionals taking care to improve their standards. I take each record as it comes, but the number of times I prefer a mono mix because it's "punchier" or "more balanced" or "crisper/cleaner" or whatever are very rare. Stereo caught on for a reason - it sounded better at home. Not coming out of a radio or a jukebox or a portable record player - it sounded better on a stereo set-up - so good, in fact, stereo players and separates became the standard.
DeleteSee Emily Play was not recorded in stereo - the version on Relics was in "stereo reprocessed mono". If this was the "contemporary pre-digital stereo version" you were listening to, it was as terrible as you'd expect with that process.
It's all about listening context.
DeleteTo properly appreciate stereo - through speakers, as opposed to headphones - you need to be in the optimum position. Broadly speaking, that's with your ears somewhere near speaker level and in the apex of the stereo "triangle". Distance and EQ will be largely dependent on your set up, tastes and surroundings. But that's teaching granny to suck eggs...
Otherwise, stereo listening is pretty much a mono experience.
I have a very good stereo set up here in my studio. I sometimes let it rip so that I can use it as downstairs background or ambient listening. It's no longer a stereo experience and might as well be mono. If I want the full stereo experience then I have to be in that certain spot.
I like some mono mixes better than stereo, and as a generalization, I prefer stereo to mono.
DeleteBut in specific, there's a short period from the advent of stereo in the 50s to about 1971/72 where the mixes often (but not always) suffered from a variety of issues that make them less desireable.
The most obvious problem is the "hard panning" of instruments or vocals to one side of the mix, as with the earliest Beatles records. The intent of recording was a mono master mixed from a two track (sometimes three track) with the instruments on one track and the vocals on the other so you could balance the two in the mix. The stereo was an afterthought, and the raw materials of the two track didn't allow for a mix.
Even worse was "rechanneled for stereo" which was fake stereo. You turned up the bass on the left and the treble on the right, and "stereo." Another trick was to put reverb on one channel and not the other.
But even after four and eight track recording spread through the industry, there were a lot of terrible mixes. Drums on the left, vocal in the middle, guitars on the right...or dire experiments in panning. The guitar solo on the stereo version of the Ides of March's "Vehicle" starts on the one channel, darts over to the other, and then wanders back to the middle.
So for me, there are specific records where the mono mix sounds better to me, and almost always because of obvious differences. There's also a few where the difference is mild...I grew up on the stereo Sgt. Pepper, but like the mono mix a bit more. SLIGHTLY more. I don't have the same feeling about the White Album mono.
There is evidence that the mono mixes were labored over more. On the first Buffalo Springfield LP, one of 'em mentioned in an interview that they spent "weeks" assisting with the mono mix and no time at all with the stereo. But to what end? To my ears, the stereo mix is great on that album, maybe the band wasn't involved but there's nothing wrong with it.
I'm also not a purist for the modern remix of old tapes.
As an example, over on YouTube you can find the original stereo mix of Wilson Pickett's Mustang Sally...which is not very good. The background singers come in panned far to one side, with a different amount of reverb applied:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93QJx0iHY1M
Compare the original mono, which I prefer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siv3zhkNK-U
Then there's a modern mono to stereo conversion...which I assume was done by a fan with software:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDf0TieUVCA
I like the fan-made stereo far better than the original mix. Is it better than the mono? Yeah, I think it is, even if it is a "fake" made by someone in his bedroom studio.
------
There's also a side issue of where you listen; in a car, mono mixes are sometimes (not always) better to my ears, not because of what's in the grooves but because they put one speaker down by my left foot and the other speaker way over by the passenger's foot (reverse for countries where they "drive on the wrong side of the road." :)
As far as I know, mono was what AM radio broadcast. It came through to cars on that single speaker sunk into the top of the dashboard. Kids did their listening in the car or on portable record players with a single speaker. Stereo was broadcast on the FM band. Usually classical music. Back at the house the parents would show off their big stereo consoles. In the mid fifties people like Spike Jones or Esquivel were releasing Hi Fidelity stereo LPs for the homebodies. Mono was for singles. Eventually the young hipsters discovered all the unused bandwidth on FM radio and began broadcasting Underground Rock in stereo. Much like, I assume, the pirate rock stations in the UK. Well the next thing you know cars are getting after market stereos installed so the kids could listen to the stereo in their car. Still the preferred place to be. You didn't want to hang with your friends at their parents house did ya. Then, also was the development of magnetic tape so you would have a choice of what to listen to in your car.
ReplyDeletePirate stations in the UK were strictly mono on the medium wave. When Radio One was set up by the BBC in direct competition to the pirates, that was mono, too.
Delete