How do you possibly debut a band that’s nothing more than three mis-matched pieces of artist, all of which already have a public persona despite the fact not one had a name the world would know? With a Bob Dylan cover, of course.
This month marks the 54th anniversary of Faces debut album, First Step. The North American release of the album is credited to the wrong band, the title was so unclear it had three it went by, and by all intents and purposes it was a clunky, seemingly half baked mess of some really good rock music that would ultimately crash and burn in a fiery [and if you go by Creem magazine's account: homoerotic, selfish, and not at all surprising] breakup. But before all that, there was First Step.
The album, the band’s first of four released during their duration, began its creation all the way back in May of 1969. Small Faces had lost their singer, Steve Marriott, on New Years Eve 1968 when he stormed off stage and ended the band just like that, though the rest of the band wasn’t so keen on this. Marriott formed Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, and found a new kind of success distinct from the psychedelia-esque mod music Small Faces had found their own success with. Frampton had actually wanted to join Small Faces as a second guitarist and capitalize on the unique sounds you could get from the interplay of two guitars. At the time, The Rolling Stones had found much success with this method, Keith Richards and Brian Jones weaving so well it was hard to tell who was playing what if there wasn’t a solo to take, and The Yardbirds had just gotten in on it with the addition of Jimmy Page on their roster with Jeff Beck [which did not end well, but that was more personality than musically]. Bassist Ronnie Lane and keyboardist Ian McLagen were firmly against this idea, which caused understandable friction between them and Marriott. Humble Pie would form as a retaliation of all this, becoming what some call one of the first supergroups in rock music. But it was hard for Small Faces to continue without a much needed guitarist and singer.
The interplay in The Yardbirds, as mentioned previously, did not end well in any way, shape, or form. It ended in a mental breakdown, screaming match, sold guitar, and an airplane ticket home for Jeff Beck and a starring role as a new lead guitarist for Jimmy Page. To say that Beck’s boot was anything but his own fault would be completely negating the ego the man had strapped to his back, but by all accounts he wasn’t one to be kept down - even if he was just fired on what his bandmates called his “notable personality issues” - and jumped fairly quickly after his firing into a new band. He met a broke, jobless singer at a bar, they looked at model trainways in a museum, and then proceeded to bounce about finding bassists and drummers that would fit Beck’s very specific idea for a new sound. From this the Jeff Beck Group would form, and inadvertently become one of the most important bands of the rock scene of the 1960s. Beck’s idea was hard and heavy blues, versions of classics slightly doctored and really blaring. In other words: Led Zeppelin before Led Zeppelin. It’s hard to overstate the importance of the ill fated foursome that was the Jeff Beck Group in the 1960s, as who knows what would’ve happened to the rock genre had one certain man not been pushing so hard against the grain he was nowhere to be found within the realm of easily identifiable music. Very similar to other things, ego got in the way, and Beck, being the only member of the band with any sort of name, notoriety, or money had imploded it all and now his bassist [who only played bass because Beck couldn’t stand another guitar player in his band, let it be known] and singer did not have a job.
Ronnie Wood, bass player of the Jeff Beck Group, was first to be fired and first to find a new job within Small Faces. He was accepted into the group rather quickly, being that he was a guitarist in which they needed, and Small Faces was ready to be sailing again… until Wood started bringing around his friend, the seemingly always jobless singer who’d just been fired, Rod Stewart. Stewart claims he had no vision of joining Small Faces, that he was only hanging around because Wood brought him, though his story is very rarely the one you want to go off. Wood claims he was excited to constellate his two worlds together, give Small Faces another shot at success and his friend a job. It’s worth noting that each member of Small Faces, that being Lane, McLagen, and drummer Kenney Jones, took issue with another singer like they had with Frampton a year before. The issue rested heavily on the shoulders of Stewart’s solo record deal, something that showcased he could leave just as Marriott had, though Stewart would claim he had no intentions of ever doing this. They eventually agreed to Stewart and Wood in the band, and signed with Warner Brothers Records in late 1969, beginning headway on the album. Their title of Small Faces was dropped for the simple Faces or The Faces with the new inclusions of the band to varying explanations as to why, with some saying it was to not confuse the two bands and, well, Wood claiming it was simply because of how tall him and Stewart were that the preface Small had begun to make no sense. Take whichever you choose to believe with a healthy grain of salt.
The album starts with a funky, loud rendition of the 1966 Bob Dylan song Wicked Messenger. The song introduced a newer, bluesier sound to the existing Small Faces canon, with very clear notes derived from Jeff Beck and Led Zeppelin. It’s a great introduction to the band, all things considered. The jangly piano keys, hard guitar, pounding drums, steady bassline, and a soon to be trademark infliction within the vocals. It completely turns everything known about the band, or its pieces, on its head. It’s a fantastic opener to a pretty stellar debut. It’s followed by a slower number, Devotion, written by Ronnie Lane with lead vocals being shared between him and Stewart. Lane’s songwriting is one of the highlights of pretty much any release he was on, and this is no exception. The interplay between his softer, folky vocals and Stewart’s more worn down, raspy voice were such wonderful moments on Faces albums, and its first moment surely does not disappoint. And the guitar solo from Wood may just be one of his best. Shake, Shudder, Shiver is some pretty straightforward rock fare of its day, if not a bit lackluster from the high of its two predecessors. It’s a song that would be completely at home on one of The Jeff Beck Groups’ releases, if not a little bit of a stripped back working of what exactly happened on those albums. It’s a duet between Lane and Stewart, a song that Stewart claims was one of the only two the band had written before his inclusion in the lineup. First Step is unique in its status as the only piece by the band that features each of the band members with a writing credit, as the band would pivot after to three main collectives of writing: Lane, Wood/Lane, and Wood/Stewart. Stone is a great folky number by Lane, following a very simple but effective within its place on the album. It’s one of the slower numbers in the band's whole discography, but it acts like a breath of fresh air up against the rougher pieces that surround it. It puts the writing of Lane forward, where it deserves to be. Around the Plynth ends out Side 1 and is actually a reworking of a piece that Wood and Stewart wrote from their Jeff Beck Group days. Plynth (Water Down the Drain) was a track on Beck-Ola, credited to Wood, Stewart, Beck, and pianist Nicky Hopkins. Faces take on the song expands on a lot of the ideas present within the Beck version, but makes them grander, filling out the story in ways that weren’t present originally. The song is genuinely a masterclass in the meld of a pre and post Led Zeppelin world in the realm of hard rock, as it keeps the tight knit storytelling that Stewart is known for, fueled by inspirations like Bob Dylan, whilst adding that brand of hard rock blues that was just starting to take off. It’s a real standout, in a sea of standout pieces.
Side 2 starts with Flying, which, while great here, hits its peak when you see or hear any live version of it. The piece feels like, in another [evidently better] universe, it’s a classic to end all classics. Wood’s guitar takes center stage, there’s something so breezy about the manner of its use here, it acts as almost a second vocalist on the piece, not dissimilar to Beck’s use of the instrument, and the backing vocals? Putting The Beatles to shame if it need be said. Pineapple and The Monkey is an instrumental by Wood, with an amazing opening organ performed by McLagan. It has a very jazzy feel to it, aided in no small part to the swinging Watts-esque drum beat by Jones. Nobody Knows is such a great example of just how great the comradery worked in this band when it did work. Written by Wood and Lane, it’s a wonderful ballad that’s power is only enhanced by Lane’s secondary harmony vocals behind Stewart’s more prominent lead. I think it’s often overlooked how good the harmonizing of the two is. Lane added almost a perfect foil with the still imperfect and rough vocals in a softer delivery. It worked both ways as well, Stewart’s louder harmonizing behind some of Lane’s softer leads really creates a depth to these songs that I think would be sorely missed if not there. McLagan and Jones wrote the second instrumental track on the album, Looking Out the Window. It’s probably the most guitar driven work on the album despite Wood’s lack of writing with the track. It’s also a perfect example of just how good Wood is within the confines of a band where he plays every guitar part, with McLagan’s organ work holding a lot of weight against the powerhouse guitar work that really shines through the track. The album ends with Three Button Hand Me Down, a track written by Stewart and McLagan that features both Lane and Wood on bass. It opens with a snakey bass solo that sounds like it would be at home on Paul and Linda McCartney’s Ram [which First Step predates by almost a full year!], and is full of more or less nonsensical lyrics. The piece seems more stylistically on base with what Stewart was doing with his solo work - it would fit right on the track list of Gasoline Alley - than anything that preceded or succeeded it within the band. It’s more or less the peak of everyone on the album, showcasing what exactly made the band so good: the high quality musicianship mixed with the more irreverent humor that was slowly fading out of popular music in champion of more serious bands.
While the album was full to the brim with some great music, the cover was less than exemplar at showcasing this. It was almost like the gag of Faces that if it could be made a mockery, it would be. From their sophomore release being titled A Nod is As Good As A Wink.. To A Blind Horse, to the compilation they called The Best of Faces: Good Boys When They’re Asleep, to their reigning place as the artist with the longest song title on British charts with the wordy monstrosity that is You Can Make Me Dance, Sing, or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings). There was also this key factor to photoshoots, that it would seem as if there was an unspoken need to make the viewer question what exactly they should be focusing on. Do you focus on Ron Wood’s mock bikini top, Kenney Jones’ polished suit, or the fact Rod Stewart is holding his shoe? A lot of these antics could be, and probably should be, attributed to the band's infamous drinking habits, which lead up to their first album cover too. Any simple glance would beg upon the questions like what exactly is happening, who are these people, and why should you care?
The cover is a portrait of the band in an admittedly drunken state, with a gem of focusing on each member. You have the Mickey Mouse motif, with Jones holding a compact with the character, McLagen with a doll, and Lane with a shirt. None of them know the origin of this, their own theories ranging from finding the dolls funny to a guess that Lane had brought them. Wood is reading a copy of First Step: How to Play the Guitar Plectrum Style by Geoffry Sisley, where the album gets its name, which some have taken as a dig at Jeff Beck and his “demotion” of Wood to bass player despite his complete competence to be a guitarist. And Stewart… Well he’s got a look of Bob Dylan social anxiety that is terribly funny, maybe even his funniest work in the realm of album covers [which has stiff competition]. There’s just something about the lack of correlation between the photo of the quite frankly scared looking group of adult men paired with the budding genius each of the songs showcases is exactly what the whole band's existence felt like: a fever dream.
First Step would make little to no waves for Faces. It would be followed up with three more albums, a live album, and countless tours that would gain them a reputation of being less than stellar hotel guests. None of the other albums feel quite as polished as First Step though. It almost reads like, despite the lack of serious behavior around their career, they really did put their best foot forward for their debut, an album that by all accounts is a hidden gem amongst even their own, very small, output. The album was the right music for the right time, and just enough fun mixed with just enough talent to not be pretentious whilst also not being complete fools. Even if reviewers would come away from the project calling it “patchy”, or it later being viewed as their least focused or cohesive work, it still stands pretty well for itself when re-spun. Faces would eventually break up in late 1975, with what can only be described as “creative differences” as the cause. For a while their future was so promising some described them as the band that would have rivialed The Rolling Stones - not a bad claim to have to your name. But as it stands, and stood, they simply faded before they could really have fulfilled their prophecy.
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