Customer Reviews

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

During the 60's it was the norm for British groups to present their best attepmt at interpreting black American R&B -- The early Beatles, Who, Stones, Pretty Things, Animals, etc. fit this description, and the Small Faces led by Steve Marriot were no exception. This album, which was the group's last cohesive effort before splitting up, took a different approach. It's as if the band was saying, we're a happy bunch of English blokes and we want the world to know. So there's a lot less of the compelling soul-stirring Marriot vocals that defined the band's early sound here, and more direct Cockney influence. Still, it's a musically diverse album. There's some good hard rock in songs like "Rollin' Over" and "Afterglow", mixed with the silliness of "Lazy Sunday" and "Happy Days Toystown". Instrumentally the band steps up to the plate and hits a home run. Marriot's guitar playing is more assertive than ever and he cranks out some killer soloes. Check out "Song of A Baker". Ronnie Lane's singing is superb on a few numbers, the best possibly being the aforementioned song and "The Journey". Drummer Kenny Jones' playing is solid throughout -- his powerhouse drumming was the group's secret weapon. And Ian McLagan shines on keyboards throughout. He was really the groups "lead" instrumentalist and this album was no exception. His composition and vocal on "Long Agos And World's Apart" fit in perfectly, as does Marriot's phased guitar solo. Side two is very British indeed, with the warped Cockney narrative between tunes tying the storyline of "Happiness Stan" together. Not really a rock opera, more like a Mother Goose fable. The concept here seems to be that the English can truly rock out, and on their own terms not just America's. It's a shame that the band broke up following the peak of their creativity. Marriot's Humble Pie and the Rod Stewart-led Faces never came close to matching the originality and fine line between "innocence and naughtiness" that typified the music of the Small Faces.

It's so good to see most reviewers getting the point of this album. The Small Faces were never meant to be compared with other bands. They were simply there, in their own inimitable cockney idiom. Ogden's Nut Gone Flake was a statement for the time, full of bouncy English humour, good musicianship, and meant to be enjoyed by an audience who had been through the Carnaby Street thing with them , or had fought on the beach at Brighton on the bank holiday, and who lived in a grey depressing terraced-house suburbia.

The trick is not to apply excessive analysis, but to accept the LP for what it actually is, a piece of late-sixties pop culture beautifully executed by guys who were living the whole experience at the time; ..........'nuff said!

This sounds to me , at times, like the group Family with it's roughness and it's unique english-60s-sound. Get it if you like rock n roll as it is meant to be: bouncy and hum-able yet challenging and full of ideas.

'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake' possesses a wide variety of quite unique pop/psychedelic/rock songs. In fact, it's unlikely that most Americans would have heard much of anything like 'Ogden's...'. While this 1968 disc is widely touted as the Small Faces finest album, it also exists as their swan song, with Steve Marriott exiting the band in the middle of a concert on New Years Day in 1969. The album includes two songs that charted well in England, but not in the US. 'Lazy Sunday' rose to number two, eclipsed only by Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World', and 'Afterglow' reached number 36. The bonus track, a live version of 'Tin Soldier' was a #9 hit in England, and served as the b-side to the band's only US hit, 'Itchycoo Park'. It's fitting that the bonus track, more than any other song on the disc, sounds more like the band Marriott would go on to lead (with Peter Frampton as his lead guitarist) and have his greatest success with, Humble Pie.

The Small Faces and 'Ogden's...' were never America's cup o' tea. It's a bit hard to say why, but some art simply doesn't translate from one culture to another. While most British work shares enough of America's sensibility to be integrated here, every once in a while the Atlantic gulf between us surfaces. Such is the case, for instance, with the British comedy, 'Coronation Street', and the same is true for the Small Faces and 'Ogden's...'. That being said, it isn't difficult to perceive from this production what gave Marriott and lead guitarist Ronnie Lane success in their homeland. There are many sweet tunes on 'Ogden's...', beginning with the vibrant instrumental opener bearing the album's title. 'Afterglow' follows, opening with curious sounds and the melody delivered in a whistle, while the chorus is almost inaudibly spoken, "I'm happy just to be with you, and loving you the way I do". It possesses a thoughtful feel which permeates nearly every song that follows.

Being the psychedelic '60's, 'Ogdens...' frequently meanders into experimental use of echo, alternating channels, and other techniques that work at times, and at other times sound stilted and dated. Several songs, such as 'Long Agos and Worlds Apart' and 'Mad John' develop into engaging, loping rock numbers that fade away all too soon. On the original vinyl, the first six songs formed side one, and this is the strongest collection of tracks, with the fourth entry, 'Rene', being the stand-out. The thick British accents make the lyrics a bit hard to understand, but the codo runs long and features some nice lead guitar, a pounding bass, and rap/scat-like vocal sounds. 'Song of a Baker' features more tomfoolery in the control booth, but a sweet electric guitar.

Side two on the original vinyl represented half a concept album, telling the difficult to understand tale of Happiness Stan. Actor Stanley Holloway, who passed away in 1982, provides the Cockney-laden between songs narration. You pick up a few words here-and-there, but grasping an entire sentence requires a bit of close listening and plenty of interpretation. There are more sweet tunes, including the hard-rocking, drum and vocal driven 'Rollin' Over'. 'The Hungry Intruder' features a nice sounding chorus, and 'Mad John' possesses a complelling chant as a coda. The closer, 'Happydaystoytown' is a feel-good march, prodding the listeners to get up, lock elbows, and "everyone sing together now!". I'm not sure what it's all about, and while it is entertaining, it's also easy to see why it never caught on in the states.

The album times out at about 42 minutes, with the shortest song ('The Hungry Intruder') timing out at 2:15, and the longest ('Rene') clocking in at 4:30. The time listings for the final 6 songs are a bit misleading, however, as they include Holloway's narration, which runs over a minute in several instances.

If you visit ebay and feed "nut gone" and "cd" into the search engine you'll turn up perhaps 10 hits. Nearly every version (and there are numerous versions of this disc available... mine doesn't even appear among the 11 reissues offered here at Amazon) being offered is accompanied by a price listed in British pounds. I think you had to be there, literally, to truly "get it", and that's still pretty much true today.

This seems to me like an album that's occasionally being overlooked, any rock fan should own this in my opinion. From start to finish though the Small Faces reel off a list of impressive and memorable psychedelic rock songs. Even the title-track which is really just an intro to the album sounds great. There's just a happy feeling to the whole thing that makes it something you'd want to listen to again and again. A lot of the songs on here might be familiar to some people without them really knowing it, such as Lazy Sunday or Afterglow. Sing them to someone and they'd say "Oh I've heard that!" but they may not be able to pinpoint the band and song.

The bass and keyboards are the instruments that really drive it, there are some great basslines in some of the songs and the keyboard is used to great effect as well. Another great aspect though is the vocals, which fit with everything else to give it that "English" feel, and it's great! The album is really split into two parts, such that you'd think you were listening to two separate albums at times. The first six tracks are all great and up until then it's a flawless album with some great songs like Song of a Baker, Lazy Sunday and Rene. Then we're greeted with a spoken word intro to Happiness Stan, and this is where it changes into a concept album halfway through. I can honestly say I've never heard a CD change into a concept album halfway through, it's an interesting experiment. It's hard to judge the second half story telling against the first half, but I do prefer the songs of the first half.

So who should get this then? Anyone, if you like any bands like The Who or The Beatles and you don't own this, you're missing out, and the two totally different halves to it mean that you need to listen to it all the way through, and appreciate the brilliant songwriting, musicianship and story-telling involved. Five stars.

I have been a Smallfaces fan for years and really pleased to see other fans on this website. I play there music a lot and I particulary like Ogdens Nutgone Flake from start to finish it's just a brilliant album to listen too. Ronnie Lane singing on Song of a Baker with Steve Marriotts soulful voice joining in is exceptionally good also the music just so enjoyable to listen too and thats what it's all about. With Stanley Unwin talking in between tracks makes it quite a fun album also some of the tracks is fun. Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott were a good song writing team it's so sad they are no longer with us even if they did part there ways when they were alive they did get back together before Steve Marriott died, but on a lighter note we still have there music to listen to and I personally love listening to Steve Marriotts soulful voice my favourite track which is not on this album is I'm only Dreaming a song that really attracts you to his voice. Definitely will not waste any money spent on anything by the Smallfaces.

A treasure trove of naughty Cockney humor and clever melodies, the Small Faces fulfill their potential as master tunesmiths and bratty lyricists in "Ogden's Nut." Despite an undistinguished beginning that is the album's only slump (the instrumental title track), the remainder is nothing but a masterpiece held up by tales of filth, made-up myths, and irrascible next-door neighbors, and all this pushed to glorious heights by a musical craftsmanship that would leave modern contenders speechless. Stylistically, it's a banquet for all tastes without compromising the album's seemingly reckless and happy-go-lucky psychedelia. From folksy introductions with sing-along choruses, to comical ballroom swing, to rocking riffs, to spaced-out melodrama, the album is nevertheless as tight as anything that was ever labelled a concept record. Of course, with their tongues firmly in their cheeks, it carries none of the overbearing seriousness with which later concept albums would burden us. It would be difficult to heap more praise on a collection of songs that stands as quintessential British rock at its most inventive and unassuming. Suffice it to say that "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" is no less than music made color.

(A note on the bonus track, "Tin Soldier," tagged at the end: a Small Faces classic that ranks up there with The Who's "Pinball Wizzard").

The only consistent album-length example of English psychedelia besides this album is Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd's "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn." This album will bring a smile to your face. From the raw, churning rock n roll of the first half to the English whimsical fairy tale of the second half. A fitting swan song for one of the greatest band's out of the U.K.

I know that my meager descriptions couldn't possibly do this album justice. Critics have often compared "Ogden" with "Sgt. Pepper," and the comparison is apt. But "Ogden" is at once more whimsical and more satisfying musically. The second half is slightly marred by a narrated story between the songs, but the accent is so thick that it just sounds like English background noise. The rest is the Small Faces' great British mod/R&B taken to musical territory that most bands only dreamed of. Only the Beatles, Traffic, and Procol Harum have made albums in the same league.

"Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" is, quite simply, the greatest rock masterpiece that no one has ever heard of. If you like psychedelia, 60's rock, the British Invasion, progressive rock, etc., please - PLEASE - buy this album.

Unfortunately, I'm seeing a lot of effort put forth by some reviewers who just don't get this album and give it a poor review. That's tantamount to someone who doesn't like classical music reviewing a Mozart disc.

This album has been one of my favorites since I first stumbled across it in the 80s. It's excellent songwriting, both musically and lyrically. I've always wished I could write songs like "Afterglow", and "Song of a Baker" rocks as hard as any Sixties power tune -- and it's about making bread!

But what truly makes this album special is side two, the story of Happiness Stan searching for the missing half of the moon. I don't understand how one reviewer can separate the musical tracks from the narrative. They are part and parcel; it's a musical story with a brilliant Cockney narration. The reviewer imagining that the band thought it was "funny as hell" to have "some English quack" narrate just demonstrates he doesn't understand what he's listening to.

Which is fine -- but why review it? This is that tough line that separates criticism from opinion. I will acknowledge the right of anyone not to like this album, but I certainly will NOT concede that it is anything less than a fantastic record.

So, kids, don't let the reviews put you off. Try it! Some don't like it -- but that's just because it's because it simply isn't their cup of tea. A lot of people don't like Mozart either.

My one abiding criticism of this album is the quality of the recording. The sound levels are fairly uneven, the instrumentation unbalanced, and there's too much of what one review aptly called "tomfoolery" going on in the mixing room.