First Step

by

The Faces

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I had real high hopes for this band when I was a 15 year old in 1970.Being a devoted Small Faces and Jeff Beck Group fan I truly believed the musical marriage of McLagen,Lane and Jones with Mr. Stewart and Mr. Wood would result in a "supergroup" that was actually both super and a group.I guess what I ended up with was more like a minor league Stones without all the drama and baggage those guys were totin' around at the time. But it's okay because, just as attending a minor league baseball game can be a more intimate and enjoyable experience than watching the big leagues sometimes,The Faces are just out to entertain you here.No serious messages(not even the Meher Baba inspired "Stone" should be taken too seriously).They're just four very talented journeyman musicians and one soon -to- be- superstar peacock havin' some laughs and lager. Listening to the CD these days makes me very nostalgic for those innocent first days of this band ,and truth be told, nostalgia probably made me add a star to the rating. But I can wholeheartedly recommend the following cuts on the record ;"Wicked Messenger","Three Button Hand Me Down" "The Monkey and the Pineapple"(as close to Booker T. as any limey band ever got), and the aforementioned Ronnie Lane ditty "Stone".The rest of the album is merely good early seventies British rock which means it is better than 90% of the stuff coming off of of that island these days...so Faces fans, Stewart fans(this is when he was good ya'll)...buy this record and take that first step with me.

Anyone whom is familiar with late sixties British Blues/Rock knows fairly well the interchanging circles within various musicians of the time period. Steve Marriott had left the Small Faces and formed Humble Pie with Peter Frampton(ex-Herd) and Greg Ridley(ex-Spooky Tooth). Rod Stewart and Ron Wood had served their formative time with Jeff Beck and due to the guitarist's unfortunate auto accident, JBG had ceased operating as a functional unit. Enter Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones whom were looking for a guitarist/singer to replace the hole left by Marriott; what they got were a pair of erstwhile, kindred spirits whom actually transformed the group into something a bit different from Steve's tenure within the group. Holding onto the old moniker of "Small Faces" for this debut(mostly out of respect for the former incarnation, coupled with possible record company pressure for projected album sales), from the opening organ strains of Dylan's Wicked Messenger through onto the album's rockin' groovin' closer Three Button Hand Me Down, First Step is, in fact, quite something different from the Small Faces of old.

With the new guard of Stewart and Wood coming into the ranks, Ronnie Lane suddenly has yet another angle to work his songwriting ideas into shape and tracks like Devotion, Nobody Knows and Flying are testimony to this newfound chemistry. Rod Stewart's vocal style is a catalyst not only for his budding parallel solo career, but provides a totally unique style for this band to project their own sound and the ability to move forward artisically. Shake, Shudder is a gritty blues rocker and allows Wood to show his guitar wares while exposing Stewart's powerful pipes and thus proves the power of this Faces sonically charged musical machine. Around the Plynth is a slide guitar showcase for Wood and makes one wonder of his time period with Jeff Beck as a catalyst as well for building up his guitar chops and creating a voice and style all his own. Of the two instrumentals featured here Pineapple and the Monkey and Looking Out the Window, Pineapple is a tad more interesting in delivery, melody and arrangement; even though both tracks are merely filler for this release, regardless. Lane's Stone is a folksy/minstrel-like track that lyrically ponders the idea of reincarnation(Lane, like Pete Townshend was a follower of Meher Baba, a spiritual guru of the time period), and is seemingly the oddball track featured here.

Closing with Three Button Hand Me Down(an early classic), First Step can be seen as a promising debut for a group that has reinvented itself and moves forward from its previous past. This release is certainly not the strongest one from the Faces, but it is an important outing regardless. 3 and a half Stars.