Taken from the LP ‘Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake’ | (Immediate IMLP 012) June 1968

Small Faces | “Rene” | (Immediate) | I found this Small Faces LP inside the jacket of another album. This is not an uncommon experience when raking around long-forgotten and unwanted albums in charity and junk shops. But it means I don’t have the LP sleeve to scan.

The record playing surface is badly scratched in some places, but fortunately nothing too deep. It plays through fine apart from a couple of skips on “Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake”, the lead off track on side one.

I only paid £1 for this though, so well worth the bin lid I donated to Scope charity shop for it!

I’ve delved into my ’60s music press archives and found some vintage reviews and articles relevant to this ground-breaking 1968 release by the Small Faces.

Small Faces Storm – Brain LP In Round Sleeve

The Small Faces new album “Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake” (Immediate), apart from being encased in the first circular sleeve I have ever seen, is a landmark for the group – “A Storm-braining Electrilode of the Highest Tudeimagns” as their narrator on side 2, Stanley Unwin, might put it — and almost certain to put the group in the same smash album selling bracket as the Beach Boys, the Stones, the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

SIDE 1

A FEW words from Mr. Ronnie “Plonk” Lane about the first fantastic side of this album which includes no less than four tracks which were considered to be singles at one time and three others which deserve to be. Straight from his long run in Dusseldorf Herr Lane!

OGDENS’ NUT GONE FLAKE is an instrumental on which we use strings sparingly, We’ve always wanted to release an instrumental single — this is heavy. A nice one.

AFTER GLOW — a new idea for lyric — it’s about “Love,” but we’ve jazzed it up a bit to make it a hit. Features Maurice Ponk on the introductory vocal and Mac on the electrical harpsichord with a rhythm refrain by the Queens. Recorded at the same session as “Lazy Sunday.”

LONG AGOS AND WORLDS APART: This Is Mac’s song — he wrote and he sings it and it’s a mid-tempo-shuffler — very straight and very nice. We recorded it only a couple of weeks ago.

SONG OF A BAKER: This is my song. I wrote it and I sing it — it’s all about a geezer who wants some bread. Acoustic guitars—a straight forward load of XX??XXX!

Small Faces | “Rene” | (Immediate)

RENEE: This is a filthy song which we wrote and will never get any plugs on the BBC. I used to have one called “Daisy,” who lived downstairs from me. It’s happy happy raver which is absolutely revolting and we all love it. Steve does it very fine vocal.

LAZY SUNDAY: Is the original all time Small Faces hit single which we hope you will still like—we do.

IF YOU THINK YOU’RE GROOVY or BE MY BABY: The difficulty here is that we need a variable speed machine to mix “If You Think You’re Groovy,” which we originally wrote for P. P. Arnold. But as we can’t get into Olympic at present which is the only place we can get one we may not be able to make it.

The alternative is the Ronettes old hit. “Be My Baby ” which we recorded for a giggle one day In the studio.

The real problem is that as I write it’s Tuesday and Immediate want the album in the shop this Friday (today). Everything is ready but us, but don’t worry, our Captain will win out. If you happen to see Andrew Oldham‘s Rolls-Royce with a “Stop Me And Buy One” poster slapped on the side you know we had a last-minute distribution problem!

SIDE 2

ONE listen to the mind-blasting adventures of HAPPINESS STAN, which is one continuous band including six new Marriott and Lane compositions is likely to reduce the average reviewer who attempts to convey the clever effects and electrical inspiration to a gibbering heap, writes Keith Altham.

Professor Unwin’s voice first heard enquiring if we are all sitting “comfortybol two square on your bottles” before “Happiness Stan” crashes about our ears. Stan lives in the land of greens and coloured dreams, deep inside a rainbow.

His big problem is that he cannot understand the mysteries on the other side of the moon and this Steve sings to the thrashing accompaniment of piano, organ, drums and harpsichord.

Unwin comes back to take up the story of how, “once upon a polytito, dangly in the heavenly bode Stan was all smashed and flaked,” and that takes us into ROLLING OVER.

A solid, raving sound that could only be the Faces with shades of Jerry Lee Lewis on piano and that hard, rasping vocal of Steve’s emerging from the barrage of beat with some brass mixed in for good measure.

Our next track concerns the story of THE HUNGRY INTRUDER a fly who comes to share Stan’s shepherd’s pie! Strings and cellos in this one with those beautiful “soppy” nursery rhyme lyrics which only the Faces can make meaningful. Lots of nice sounds and an acoustic guitar that sounds like something else.

Small Faces | “Rene” | (Immediate)

With a rolling of the magical sleeve, Stan turns the fly into an insect big enough to transport him to the other side of the moon and so to THE JOURNEY. This really is a kind of “Organ Into Space” bit with the kind of inspired electronics that defy the printed word.

Once upon the moon they discover a character known as MAD JOHN, who sings with the birds 1n the morning and listens to the wind at night — he’s considered not quite right! But John as this joyous little opus points nut has “sussed” it out and “loves all haters until their hate turns to fear.”

These last two tracks are my particular favourites because of the sentiments expressed and clever simplicity of the music. And it is quite all right if you do not have a clue what I’m talking about because you have to hear it—you just have to hear it.

The final song is HAPPY DAYS TOY TOWN and is John’s song. A beautiful song in big boots and a red nose which quite plainly says what it is all about as “Little Boy Blue”, “Knees Up Mother Brodie” and “Jackie Jill” all join in at Stanley Unwin’s invitation and Marriott La and Co give a stirring rendition of the immortal line—”Life is just bowl of All Bran!”

A magnificent side to an album full of Western Promise – the first real attempt at a musical space-age fairy tale. A portent of even greater things to come. (NME, 25/05/68) * pre album chat. I don’t think the album came out on 24/05/68 as suggested from the information circulating widely online.

Small Faces | “Rene” | (Immediate)

Small Faces (Immediate): Remember when you thought records came in square sleeves? Well, the Small Faces just changed all that with round sleeve made to look like a tobacco tin.

Side One is under the general title “Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake” and side two is a suite under the heading “Happiness Stan”. In general, the attempt to produce something a bit different is a huge success though three tracks may be a little too much of Steve’s happy, cockney pub singer bit.

And Stanley Unwin’s gibberish introductions on “Happiness Stan” becomes irritating after a time. Still there’s a lot of good writing, playing and singing on this very different album which should be in every pop fan’s home.

Individual tracks include: “Lazy Sunday”, “Afterglow,” “Rollin’ Over” and “Mad John”. (Melody Maker, 08/06/68)

Brilliant Dynamite For Small Faces Fans

SMALL FACES: “Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake.” Title track; Afterglow; Long Agos And Worlds Apart; Rene; Song Of A Baker; Lazy Sunday. Side 2—”Happiness Stan.” Title Track; Rollin’ Over; The Hungry Intruder; The Journey; Mad John; Happydaystoytown. (Immediate).

Some people always said that one day, the Small Faces would make a great record. Their last three singles were very good indeed, pointing out the general direction the Faces were going; now they BURST upon us with this, which amply fulfils if not surpasses all those hopes for the great record. It is.

Not only is the music superlative throughout; the record also has one of the most awesome covers ever seen. Actually it’s not so much a cover, more a cardboard replica of an old-fashioned tobacco tin—”Ogden’s Special Nut Gone Celebrated Flake Tobacco.” It keeps unfolding, layer after layer, to finally reveal four superb photos of the boys themselves, all looking exceptionally bright and happy—and with this record behind them, who could blame them for that?

Stanley Unwin

One of the most beautiful things about the record is having the mad Professor Stanley Unwin relating the long story on side two of Happiness Stan’s search for the eternal truth (and the other half of the moon!)—and finding it in the words “Life is just a bowl of All-Bran.”

It is a really beautiful story, including the other characters Mad John who finally reveals all, and the giant magic fly who takes him there (“if all the flies in the world were one fly, what an enormous fly it would be!”) Stan climbs on the fly’s back and soars away on the seven-day journey to the forest where dwells Mad John—who is, like the Faces, a hip Cockney and proud of it.

And the music is all incredibly, unbelievably irresistible—just so groovy and quite indescribable. You just must hear this LP—and buy it! The Faces have reached and passed their “Sgt. Pepper;” or, as Prof. Unwin puts it: “Freaked them out and blasted their mindboles!” (Disc & Music Echo, 08/06/68)

Reader Pounces On Pious Pun

FANTASTIC LP

I’VE just bought The Small Faces new L.P. “Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake” and, in my opinion, it’s the most fantastic L.P. of all time. The cover is revolutionary and well worth an award for the most enterprising way to beat that extra 4s. tax.

And the contents? Well, they’re just too much! “Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake” is the most terrific instrumental I’ve ever heard and it really shows what the Faces can do. “Afterglow” and “Long Agos And World’s Apart” are so fantastic my breath is taken away.

“Rene” and “Song Of A Baker” are also so very good I can’t start to rave about them. Then there’s yer actual “Lazy Sunday”. What more needs to be said?

The second side is so wild that words can’t do it justice. Stanley Unwin’s a real gas! It’s a fairy tale full of beautiful ideas and feelings well worthy of all grannies to tell the kiddies in 2068.

Yet, it’s not at all childish. The Faces have really proved their worth in this L.P. and it’s about time all the vultures in the critic world apologised to them. I’ve been an ardent Small Faces fan since 1966 and a lot of wonderful ideas have been produced by them, but I think this is the idea, the one that’s going to get them the respect they deserve, especially after all the knocks they’ve had to put up with.

There’s only one thing I can say to them — Thank you, I’m proud to be your fan! — Cher, The Old Rectory, Church Lane, Hutton, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. (Record Mirror, 15/06/69)

Small Faces labeled disgusting, distasteful and other goodies . . .

THEY should be banned from ever making another record! He should be banned from being a publicist! They should be taken to court and their names scandalised the world over and they should be excommunicated from which ever religious denomination they belong to (if any)!

Who am I talking about? — The SMALL FACES and their PUBLICIST! It must surely be an accepted fact, by now, that pop singers, much as they may dislike it, ARE moral leaders to their hero-worshipping, ignorant fans.

What kind of moral leadership is the advert promoting the latest Faces album?

This is the advert: “Small Faces, Which were in their studios, Hallowed be thy name, Thy music come. Thy song be sung, On this album as they come from your heads, We give you this our daily bread, Give us thy album in a round cover, As we give thee 37/9. Lead us into thy record stores and deliver us `Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake’, For nice is the music the sleeve and the story, For ever and ever.”

Just how disgusting and distasteful can you get? What are they trying to do — cripple the new generation’s acceptance of Christianity? — a subject about which they themselves apparently know nothing.

If they did they would never display such ignorance as this mockery of the Lord’s prayer. I hope the authorities seize on this as their opportunity to put a censorship on sensation seeking publicity and that the people concerned offer a public apology. Nigel P. Heatley, 1 Brixton Terrace, Penrose Road, Helston, Cornwall. Val: ‘Disgusting and distasteful’ or just good humour to the majority . . . ? (Record Mirror, 15/06/68)

Small Faces Advert Starts Furore

In their never-ending quest for I eye-catching gimmicks, you never know what those Ad Boys will get up to next.

Now, a storm is buzzing around the unsuspecting heads of the Small Faces. All over that parody of the Lord’s Prayer in the MM on June 1. For it went thisaway: “Small Faces — which were in the studio, hallowed by thy name, thy music come, thy songs be sung.” And so on.

Advertising

All in the cause of advertising the latest Small Faces album, ” Ogdens’ Nut Gone Celebrated Flake.”

And what a who-ha it triggered off. Admitted a spokesman for Immediate Records: There has been a lot of comment about it. But we didn’t write it. We borrowed it from God. We merely changed the words a bit.”

One gentleman who objected to the advert in the MM was P. R. Dawes, of Kings College, Taunton, Somerset. Dipping his pen in vitriol, he blasted: “How dare these exponents of popular codswallop presume upon something dear, and very real, to countless millions of people?

“I refer to the disgusting, deplorable, nauseating, sickening, base, vulgar and pretentious way in which the Small Faces have dared to interpret the Lord’s Prayer in advertising their latest mass wax wastage.

Concerned

“This must surely rank with the sacrilegious crime of the decade for these four ‘musicians’ to associate themselves and their `music’ with anything as beautiful and perfect as the Lord’s Prayer.”

Strong words, indeed. But words that call for a reply from Small Face Steve Marriott.

Says Steve: “We didn’t know a thing about the ad until we saw it in the music papers. And frankly, we got the horrors at first. We realise it could be taken as a serious knock against religion.

“But on thinking it over, we don’t feel it is either particularly good or bad. It’s just another form of advertising. We don’t particularly agree or disagree with it. We’re not all that concerned about it. We’re more concerned in writing our music and producing our records. We have nothing to do with the publicity.

Religious

“But I must admit I thought the advert a bit cheeky. I only hope it doesn’t go any further.

“I think most people will consider it as just an advert, and nothing more.

“That chap who wrote to the MM obviously goes to church and is a very religious man. I’m sorry he was so upset. And he obviously doesn’t like groups.

“Personally, I’m not that much concerned about religion. I haven’t been to church since I was a choirboy. I realised then religion wasn’t for me. We attended weddings and funerals, and it was all such a bore.

“But if people want to be religious, that’s their business. There will always be people who have to have something to believe in.

“Me? I just believe in life. Life goes on.” (Melody Maker, 22/06/68)

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cost of record: £1
from: Scope charity shop