The Small Faces: the coolest band after the Beatles?

Watching their videos, great songs, and interesting personalities, these guys seemed like the next Beatles in so many ways...unfortunately it fell apart all to soon. Any impressions on the band?
You have the dual songwriting team of Steve Marriot/Ronnie Lane, the dual singers in the same guys, very good instrumentalists, a great look and stage presence (especially Marriot).
They seemed to have everthing going for them except what sounds like bad marketing according to what I've read.

 

More bad management than bad marketing. They were managed by Don Arden, and the theory goes that he played favorites, meaning that he considered the other groups he managed to be "competition" to The Move (who he put quite a bit of time and effort into promoting). Also, Arden's decision to keep Small Faces away from the USA is a completely unjustifiable sabotage of their career. Send them to Australia and skip over the States? I mean, who does that?

 

Unbelievably cool band.

Soul, style and substance.

The dogs bollocks, the mutts nuts, the terriers testicles, etc. Just fantastic.

In my head, they're a multi-platinum stadium act that got all the praise and recognition they were denied in the real world.

RIP Plonk, Steve and Mac.

 

Seriously??? Who's left????

 

In my house Small Faces are waaaay cooler than The Beatles. I thoroughly appreciate and respect The Beatles but it's not even close, imho

As for who's left...only Kenney Jones

 

Kenney Jones (who I believe posts here under the name Baba Oh Really). Great drummer, fantastic feel.

 

Jimmy Winston is still around. Turned 71 this year!

 

My favorite band after The Beatles is probably The Rolling Stones. Not very original but that's just the way it is. I love "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake".

 

I would venture to say they were cooler than the Beatles.

 

With all due respect, when you think of cool bands Velvet Underground, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, etc. come to mind, not the Beatles.

 

Definitely a very cool band with loads of talent, a great sound and engaging personalities. They delivered some outstanding singles, including "Itchycoo Park" (with the heart-rending "I'm Only Dreaming" as a great b-side) and the mighty "Tin Soldier". Though I enjoy their Immediate albums in particular, I think that maybe they fell a little short of delivering an all out masterpiece. Ogden's is very good, but the Happiness Stan suite seems a little half baked to me. I really wish that these guys had managed to stick it out for at least one more album, delivering more of a back to basics affair as some of their later recordings suggest. For all his early promise as a songwriter, Marriott seemed to lose the plot over the years with Humble Pie, pissing away his gifts. Ronnie Lane, on the other hand, matured quite nicely as a songwriter both with the Faces and then on his own.

 

Definitely.

 

Great band but their mod/popsike sound was already going out of fashion. The Move and The Who also abandoned it around the same time.

The '70s wanted earnestness rather than good-spirited humor.

One bit of history would change if I could -- I wish they'd've had a greater presence in America: a few tours, guest shots on Sullivan, the Smothers Brothers, and Bandstand that we could watch now on YouTube. Maybe then people here would know a SF track other than "Itchykoo Park".

 

Before the Anthology tv series and CD sets were released in the mid 90s, that would have been my impression and this is what I was thinking as soon as I saw the thread title. Or maybe it's because I had just got into the Small Faces a few years before and was playing their music over and over. I was actually thinking of playing Ogden's this evening but am actually needledropping a few Beatles LPs as I type. Anyway...

There was the tv documentary where rock journo Charles Shaar Murray said that they were 'authentic' all the way through - from being mods to soul boys on acid. I've tried to find what it was (it was on UK tv Channel Four in the mid 90s); I recorded and watched it many times. I could see and totally agree with what he was saying - my quote will be pretty close to what he did say.

I don't know about coolest - all relative I suppose, but they were utterly and remain so, in my book!

 

One of those bands that should have been huge, not middling. Great band.

 

I'm not sure if it's truly earnest but The Autumn Stone shows where they could have headed.

 

Gotta love Mac.

 

Great band. Sad story.

 

#1 in England?
That's a big fat advertising lie, it went to #3.

 

So where is the Deluxe version of Autumn Stone, Kenney?

 

The Beatles were cool?