Posted on 09/01/2004 7:23:56 PM PDT by weegee
Three members of The Faces reunited on stage when Ronnie Wood and Ian McLagan joined Rod Stewart at his gig at the Hollywood Bowl. Wood, who left the band to join the Rolling Stones, accompanied Stewart on five songs, including the finale of Ooh La La as McLagan played organ.
Monday's performance was the first time Stewart and Wood have worked together since an MTV session in 1993.
When Wood joined the Stones in 1975 Stewart concentrated on his solo career.
Rock and Roll PING! email Weegee to get on/off this list (or grab it yourself to PING the rest)
There was an article in Sunday's Houston Chronicle about Ian McLagan. He's living in Austin now. I didn't want to register with the site to be able to grab that online article.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/music/2761924
Aug. 27, 2004, 3:11PM
Saving Faces
Ian McLagan has worked hard behind the scenes to keep his former band alive
By JOE GROSS
Cox News Service
MOD LAUD: British musician Ian McLagan has called Austin home for the past decade.
AUSTIN -- It's Thursday night, and Ian McLagan's walking into the Lucky Lounge in Austin.
You can't miss him. He must be the only man in Austin with that gray shag haircut, a 'do that only he and his former bandmates Ron Wood and Rod Stewart can get away with. He lived that shag,man. He earned it.
It's a little before 6 p.m. The sun is a few hours from setting, and strong light is still streaming in from the street. McLagan gives the bartender a big smile and a box of CDs. The 59-year-old keyboard player and his R&B-flavored Bump Band are minutes away from taking the stage.
Drummer and Bump Band manager Don Harvey is tuning his drums. Guitarist "Scrappy" Jud Newcomb takes out his ax, strums a few clean, jazzy chords. This is where they belong. In a bar.
After all, this is Ian McLagan. Keyboardist for the Small Faces, one of the original mod acts. Keyboardist for the Faces, one of the hardest-drinking bands in British history. Now he's an Austinite, a 10-year veteran playing the R&B he loves here and abroad.
'Course, it's nice that the gig is early.
"I love playing early," McLagan says. "Means I get home, have some time with the wife and go to bed."
Right now, however, what McLagan really wants to talk about is Five Guys Walk into a Bar ... (Rhino), the four-CD, 67-song Faces box set, which McLagan midwifed into existence.
After the band split in '75, bassist Ronnie Lane went on to a respected solo career, while guitarist Wood became a Rolling Stone. Stewart was the Faces' lead singer, and even casual rock fans know his post-Faces solo career has contained highs and lows, the qualitative distance between which constitutes some sort of world record. It's McLagan who became the keeper of the Faces' memory.
"I've been working on it for about four years," McLagan says. "From 1975 on, from right after we broke up, Faces records weren't on sale; they fell out of print."
When the CD revolution happened, McLagan contacted Warner Bros. about putting the old albums out. "They did it, but they put 'em out really cheaply," McLagan says, "I wasn't impressed; no details, no information, no extra tracks."
McLagan had a hand in putting together the excellent 1999 Faces compilation The Best of Faces: Good Boys When They're Asleep. That led to Five Guys ... , which mixes album cuts with radio sessions and demos into a bleary-eyed stagger through some tough, tender, blue-eyed British soul.
McLagan is especially pleased that their demos can now be heard by the masses. "Rod would sing live while we cut, so you can hear him hum if we hadn't worked out a chorus or something," he says. "A lot of people want that stuff. It gives the color of the whole band."
Can fans expect similar treatment for the Small Faces anytime soon?
McLagan says it's unlikely. "There's too much Small Faces stuff out there right now, and most of it is illegal," he says.
But he has fond memories of the band -- so mod, so archly British, so achingly hip that they had almost no American following.
However, the cult of mod seems immortal.
"I meet 12- and 13-year-old Mods," he says. "Second- and third-generation! I see guys dressed mod, and I see guys dressed like I was in the Faces." He pauses. "And I then see guys dressed very mod that have the (later) shag cut, it's kind of neither one or the other. It looks awful."
Most of the neo-mods, he admits, are influenced by the Jam, the most popular of the punk-era mod revivalists. "The first time I heard the Jam, I thought they were around at the same time as the Small Faces," McLagan says. "Then I looked at the date on the recording and it says '76! They weren't (expletive) mod, they were punks, part of the reason I had to leave England. Nobody wanted Hammond organ on their records after punk."
So McLagan landed in Los Angeles, where he did session work for years, finally leaving after the 1994 earthquake. "I was in L.A. and just got sick of it. Then in '94 was the earthquake, and (McLagan's wife) Kim and I said, 'That's it.'
"I'm still working on the accent, but I've adapted. I even wear shorts, something no self-respecting Englishman would ever do. Shorts are for children in England." He hangs out with a couple of Austin's local British expatriates, including legendary fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, who loved McLagan's 2000 memoir All the Rage. "We go out and eat at new Indian restaurants," McLagan says.
Between eating out and tending to the Faces, McLagan does most of his recording at home. "Now you can record anywhere," he says. "The last album (Rise and Shine) was so much easier for me than my other records. We'd be jamming, and sometimes I'd just switch the machine on and we'll record a song."
He'd love to do a "chestnuts" album next, lesser-known songs from the Tin Pan Alley days that he likes to play for himself. "The songs I heard as a kid," he says. "Early rockers, blues, jazz, even something like How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?"
Well, you can't spend all your time in bars.
and yet another great flashback.
thanks for the ping.
thank you guys! great article.
Hey are you anywhere near the Detroit area? If you are within 2 hours of Detroit I would seriously consider checking this out: http://www.artsbeatseats.com/music_sunday.html
It's a free concert that has ? And The Mysterians, The Cult Heros, Scott Morgan's Powertrane, and my new favorites BACK IN SPADES. Everyone talks about them because Fred "Sonic" Smith's son Jackson is in the band, but that's an overrated point; they plain ROCK. I saw Back In Spades, Cult Heros and Powertrane on July 9th, they seriously blew the doors off of the Blind Pig, I have no other way to describe it.
Anyways this is going to be a FREE SHOW sponsored by Miller and Chrysler, in the town of Pontiac. Let me put it to you this way, I am driving 6 hours to see these bands, coming from Rochester NY to Detroit MI. Everyone should seriously consider it!!!!
Rock & Roll at its finest! FR-mail me if anyone is interested in going to the show, we can meet up for a beer.
respect the rock!
http://www.knights-maumau.com/
Two Nights Of Garage Mayhem & The Rocket Fueled R&B That Birthed It, Oct 1 & 2, 2004 at the New Orleans' Rock N Bowl. On night 1, witness three Louisiana Garage Punk Legends team up with ? Mark and the Mysterians. On night 2, a small army of the prime movers of the Howling Wolf / Bo Diddley bands will recreate the early Rock N Roll /Blues / R&B sounds that got it all started.
Night One, Friday, October 1
"96 Tears or Seven and Seven Is Too Bad"
? and the Mysterians
The Seeds
Dr. Spec's Optical Illusion
The Bad Roads
The Souls of the Slain
Night Two, Saturday, October 2
"Evil Is Goin On In Hong Kong, Mississippi"
Hubert Sumlin
Jody Williams
Henry Gray
Billy Boy Arnold
Lady Bo
Clifton James
Special guest Rick Stone
Tickets are $10 per night.
The Ronnie Lane foundation used to hold fundraising auctions here in Houston (early 1980s). I went to one of them in 1985. Ronnie came on stage briefly. Among the other celebrity hosts were Martha Quinn (when she was still an MTV VJ), Paul Shaffer, Jon Bon Jovi (when he was still on the charts), Phantom-Slick-&-Rocker (after the Stray Cats called it quits the first time), and I don't know who else... No music was played but it was a free deal.
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