The Small Faces - Afterglow - 1968

In 1968, The Small Faces released their post-summer of love concept album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake. Critically acclaimed, six weeks at number one in the UK, often described with words such as masterpiece and classic. So why does the album rub me the wrong way? The musicianship is superb. The songwriting is excellent. And Steve Marriot's voice is amazing. So what's my problem?

The album has two big things going against it for me. The first is that it starts with an instrumental. I can deal with instrumentals if they are buried within the LP or a short intro before the singing starts if it's not too long but two and a half minutes is too much for me to wait for the vocals to start. The second thing is side two. I'm not a big fan of concept albums or rock operas but a children's story with narration? Count me out. And then there is what Wikipedia describes as psychedelic cockney knees-up songs, not a fan.

I was ready to throw the album out when I started to wonder if it could be fixed. It just so happens that the band was working on a follow up before they split up. Along with a couple of B sides and the songs slated for the next album we have plenty of songs to make a great album.

Side One
01 Rollin' Over
02 Long Agos And Worlds Apart
03 Autumn stone
04 Wham bam thank you Mam
05 Red balloon
06 Lazy Sunday

Side Two
01 Call it something nice
02 Rene
03 Song Of A Baker
04 Donkey Rides, A Penny, A Glass
05 The universal
06 Afterglow

Reality Notes

I never got into The Small Faces. I was aware of them. I knew Itchycoo Park but not much else. I love Humble Pie. I love The Faces. I just never explored the band that spawned them. So when I started seeing other constructors putting together their versions of 1862, the abandoned follow up to Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake I got curious and downloaded Ogden's to give it a spin. I honestly thought I had a corrupted file and downloaded it again. I was a bit disappointed.

To fix the album I set two basic rules, no instrumentals and no story time. I dropped the title track on side one and discarded all but Rollin' Over from side two and utilized the B sides and leftovers which can be found on the compilation Autumn Stone to fill the album out. The album went through a few different iterations before I was happy with the results.

I did do one "clever" little edit. Autumn Stone has an alternate version of Afterglow which I preferred so I took the intro from the album version and tacked that on to Rollin' Over to open the album and closed the album with the alternate version. I kept Lazy Sunday as the closer of side one.

All-in-all I have been enjoying this construction very much, even the psychedelic cockney knees-up songs. I didn't actually throw out side two. After taking out Rollin' Over, I split The Journey into two parts and created an EP. It's a good story and seems to work much better in the smaller, stand alone format.

Happiness Stan

Side One
01 Happiness Stan
02 The Hungry Intruder
03 The Journey Pt 1

Side Two
01 The Journey Pt 2
02 Mad John
03 Happy Days Toy Town

I'm imagining that the EP was released first as a stopgap while they finished recording the rest of the album. I do feel that this gives the band a much better ending than splitting up in the middle of recording a new album. And there's still some leftover tracks for you kids to gather together if you feel the need.

For the cover of Afterglow I went with the full front portrait with no text. Similar to Abbey Road or Badfinger's Straight Up. For the EP I imagined they licensed an illustration from John Lennon's In His Own Write.