The Small Faces Bask In The Afterglow Of Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake!!!
The Small Faces. Four well-dressed diminutive mods in search of a proper psychedelic album found their Holy Grail in between the grooves of a long player that landed on God’s Earth in 1968. Of course it’s called Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake. Why not?
This heavily played record is a basher. It’s unlike any other I’ve heard in the genre. Excellent musicianship, interesting production, hilarious East End accents (“Ello Mrs. Jones, ow’s your Bert’s lumbago?”) and a kind of self-parody come together to punch you in the kidneys after tickling your toesies.
The bulk of what is called “psychedelic music” is often overly serious and occasionally too self-aware. The first bit of this record – the opening instrumental title track in particular – might fool you into thinking you’re in for a pretentious festival of swirling guitars and echoing organ runs. You’d be forgiven for thinking something like that, but it is a great cut. But it’s the next track – Afterglow (Of Your Love) – that will set you straight for the rest of the record. Mostly. It starts with some hand clapping, East End mumbling, bongos and acoustic guitar before descending into a heavy Motown-fueled soulful punch of overcranked musicianship that feels like the older, tougher brother of another, earlier Small Faces winner called “All Or Nothing.” And that’s not nothing, my friends. Strong medicine indeed.
More hand claps and heavily echoed organ kick off the next track – Long Agos And World’s Apart – which serves as a romping bridge to the next song – Rene. Pronounced “Reeney” by a mugging, winking Steve Marriott, this one’s a song and a half really. It’s the story of Rene – the docker’s delight – and it reminds me of the kind of old-timey fishermans’ songs until it kicks into an instrumental psychedelic freakout. Which is a good thing because it works. Probably because Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, Ian McLagan and Steve Marriott manage not to overthink their brand of psychedelic. Song Of A Baker then pulls itself up by it’s flour and water and forms itself into a quite a pie indeed. The last cut on the A side of this long player is Lazy Sunday. Hilarious. Even more so because it was written as a joke and accidentally (?) released by Immediate Records as a single (to Mr. Marriott’s great displeasure). But like so many tales of pop groups and record labels, the joke managed to be on everyone. Lazy Sunday became a number 2 hit in Great Britain.
Flip this long-player over. But not before preparing yourself. Suck down a pint of your favorite ale, tickle the wife and scream out the window to clear your pipes. It’s on side two where this business of not taking psychedelia too serious gets down to business. It’s all about some Cockney cat named Happiness Stan – narrated throughout by a real Stan – Stanley Unwin. I don’t know where the Small Faces found this guy but man is he freaky. Funny too. Speaks nonsense to my ears but I can’t be sure. He’s probably some Lord of Hamburger-Wolverhampton. Rollin’ Over is the second track and it’s worth the wait. Heavy bit of flash, this one is. A few more dollops of psych follow in the form of The Hungry Intruder (a light moment), The Journey (silly stuff really), and Mad John (great vocals by Mr. Marriott!). The record finishes with Happy Days Toy Town – a song that shockingly reveals the meaning of life through the opening line “Life is just a bowl of All-Bran!” It’s a downhill giggle the rest of the way, love.
And, that’s it exactly. The Small Faces introduce us to a giggle of a psych album that somehow manages to rock hard enough to keep your toe tapping and give you something to think about. Sure keeps your mind off the war in Indo-China.
Listen to Afterglow (Of Your Love) by clicking this very sentence!!!
For weirdos only: The record pictured above is a Get Back label reissue of the original 1968 LP. Good luck finding a clean original! The package ripped off a brand of tobacco called Ogdens’ Nut-Brown Flake. The cheek! Some guy named Mick Swan designed the cover. Nice work, Mick! Ogdens’ was the last studio record of new material by this line-up. Not long after it’s release, Steve Marriott jumped into a band called Humble Pie with future talk-box weirdo Peter Frampton. But in these early days Humble Pie were an authentic blues-rock group worthy of their name. The hole left in the Small Faces was filled by two well-known rockers – Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. They cut one LP as The Small Faces and then dropped the “Small” after realizing Ronnie was a hair over 5’6” tall with the right haircut. God bless his socks.