With time hanging heavy on my hands in Qatar, I have increasingly been taking solace in music, and after quite awhile, have re-discovered some of the favorite bands of my youth. One of the bands I have joyfully rediscovered is the Faces.
The Faces started out in the mid-1960s as the Small Faces and were so named because the height of all the band members was less than 5 feet 6 inches. They spent the early part of their career trying to emulate their heroes - the Who and the Rolling Stones. They made one wonderful album in 1967 called "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake", before lead singer Steve Marriott left the band to join Peter Frampton and what later became the band Humble Pie.
The remaining members then regrouped as the Faces with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood joining the band. Since these two guys were more than 5 feet 6 inches tall, they dropped the word "Small" from their name. They then focused on making the rowdiest, most raucous rock n' roll anyone had ever heard. These guys did not play with the professionalism of the Rolling Stones or the sonic perfection of the Who. They couldn't have. Ron Wood's lead slide guitar playing sounded like he was struggling to come to grips with the instrument. It had none of the elegance of a George Harrison or the supreme control and mastery of a Ry Cooder. But what he lacked in expertise, he made up in passion and the sheer joy of playing. In an odd way, he was an inspiration to struggling guitarists everywhere – you could identify with him. Drummer Kenney Jones and bassist Ronnie Lane were not great musicians either. In short, the Faces sounded like a band that you and your friends put together in your garage after a few drinks.
These guys were not the most talented band in the world, but they definitely were the most humorous and hardest drinking band in show business. What came across in their albums was a sense of fun. With rock music becoming increasingly serious and profound by the late 1960s, these guys made you remember what the music was supposed to be about in the first place – friendship, a few drinks, and a lot of laughs. Their live shows were incendiary, and often included the same songs being played more than once, since the band members were often very drunk and had to stop playing a song when they lost their train of thought onstage!! All very amateurish and a lot of fun.
But when all the stars were in alignment, and the band members had consumed just the right amounts of alcohol, these guys could rock. Just listen to the song "Stay with Me" that was released in 1971 - a Rolling Stones inspired prodigious rocker that out-rocks anything the Stones themselves ever made. It is a classic – one of the great rock songs of all time. It was recently voted one of the great bar-room sing-along songs of all time – right up there with Dexy and the Midnight Runners “Come on, Eileen”, the Stones “Honky Tonk Women”, Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fightin’” and the Kinks “Lola”.
The song is about a drunken loser who goes to a bar and picks up an even drunker woman. It is not clear who the protagonist is more disgusted with - the woman he picks up ("You didn't need too much persuadin', I don't mean to sound degradin', But with a face like that, You've got nothing to laugh about"), or himself for getting into such a demeaning situation.
The key to their songs was that they sounded flawed, vulnerable, extraordinarily human. They sang about ordinary people and routine, everyday no-events such as heartbreak and working class dead-end jobs. They didn't expect rock music to change the world - their songs only reflected the day-to-day concerns of working class England in the 1960s – the monotonous routine of boring jobs, getting drunk on Saturday nights with a few mates and the desire of the soul to escape, to be free (for at least a few moments) through music. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t subtle or sophisticated. Listen to "Debris" - the most succinct song about a break-up that you are likely to hear.
A few of their songs remain definite masterpieces. If you get the opportunity , do listen to "Stone" - the funniest yet most profound song about reincarnation you will ever hear (written by bassist Ronnie Lane who had then recently converted to Buddhism). The singer tells you how he has been reincarnated as a stone, a sword, a daisy, a mule and a human being.
Unfortunately, the fun couldn't last forever. Commercial interests and the lure of money prevailed and Rod Stewart sold his soul and became a pop superstar. While he achieved his ambition of becoming a global rock icon, his songs never sounded the same again (with a few exceptions such as “You Wear It Well” and “Downtown Train”, which sound like they could have been recorded by the Faces).
Ron Wood joined the Rolling Stones as rhythm guitarist in 1975 when guitar virtuoso Mick Taylor left, and has remained under Keith Richards' shadow ever since. Kenney Jones joined the Who as drummer after the death of Keith Moon in 1978, but was unfairly criticized for his inability to play like Keith. Moon was a phenomenon, a force of nature who played the drums not just with his hands and legs but with his whole body - there was no way Kenney Jones or anyone else could have filled his shoes.
Bassist Ronnie Lane was one of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. He died in 1997 of the debilitating disease that attacks the human nervous system - multiple sclerosis. He kept performing well into the 1990s, even playing from a wheelchair. Despite a cruel twist of fate that robbed him of many of the most productive years of his life, Ronnie never lost his sense of humor and kept smiling. As homage, Pete Townshend of the Who always pays a tribute to Ronnie whenever he sings the beautiful ballad “Heart To Hang On To”, a song he wrote with Ronnie back in 1976. The song featured on the excellent Townshend solo album “Rough Mix”, and also featured Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton.
Over the years, many bands have tried to imitate the Faces - most notably, the Black Crowes. But none of them has ever captured the spontaneity or the sense of pure innocence and fun that the Faces managed to so effortlessly evoke.
A CD box set of the Faces music called “Five Guys Walk Into a Bar” was released last year. Music critics praised the re-mastered versions of the old songs. One of the critics joked that the box set should have been called “Five Guys Walk Into a Bar and Never Walk Out”. Long live the Faces - the last of the great amateur rock bands. In this day and age of carefully cultivated image-building and music videos, it is unlikely that a band with such a devil-may-care casual attitude towards commercial success would ever succeed. But then, that was the rough charm and the magic of the Faces.
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