All or nothing (Small Faces) (LP 314 - 315)

Small Faces The Autumn Stone (Vinyl - Immediate, 1969) ****
Small Faces Biggest Small Faces (Vinyl - Immediate, 1972) ****

Genre: English pop  

Places I remember: Vinyl Countdown, New Plymouth 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Tin Soldier




Gear costume: Itchycoo Park  

Active compensatory factors: This one is an oddity in a crazy discography that is really... odd. Small Faces (the definite article is pesky with this band - there isn't one) were largely a singles band (Ogden's is the exception) whose first two albums were both called 'Small Faces'. Odd!

Compilations quickly became the order of the day after they split in 1968. With Decca and Immediate both having claims to various songs. 

The Autumn Stone was a double album mop up of singles, rare live recordings and material for their last album that was never released.

To add to the oddity, Biggest Small Faces was a single album culled from The Autumn Stone released three years earlier!! ODD!!

As you can see, the cover is similar and it was cheap! Which is where I come in, having bought this truncated version in 1972. 

It's a highly schizophrenic document, with a studio side and a live side (The Autumn Stone mixes them all up! Course it does). 

Of course I knew nothing of all this history at the time: I was seduced by the few hits I recognised and the low budget price (hey - I was a teenager in 1972 with a very limited source of parental income).

I've grown fonder of it over time, having sold it many years ago and bought it again recently.

Where do they all belong? The best place to start is this recent Ultimate Collection CD package that finally unites the different labels and provides a great overview of this dynamic, but doomed band.

Remember them this way!