Customer Reviews

Ogdens Nut Gone Flake

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Not so long ago, I was leafing through Ronnie Wood's autobiography. He mentioned how he kept listening to this album till he wore the record out.

And I thought, hmm, if a Rolling Stone listened to this album till he wore it out, it must be good. When I went to buy it, all that was available was a $47 import version. Fortunately, this new version of the album with 14 bonus tracks is now available.

Released in 1968, this psychedelic concept album, went to No 1 in the UK for 6 weeks. Unfortunately, not long after, the group, on the verge of superstardom disbanded. Lead singer Steve Marriott went on to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton. The other members went on to form The Faces with Rod Stewart, and Ronnie Wood...

Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, a parody of a popular tobacco, is a most unusual concept album. It's rock but not as we understand it. It's folky, mythical, fairytale, surreal, original and fun.

I can't really say what it's about. There's a popular prostitute called Rene, and someone's looking for half a moon. Songs you may already know Itchycoo Park, and Lazy Sunday. There is some inspired narration, using nonsense lyrics like Lewis Caroll in Jabberwocky. Mind expanding. Think Alice in Wonderland meets White Album, and you have some idea of its eclecticism:

Over bridge of sighs,
To rest my eyes in shades of green.
Under dreamin spires,
To Itchycoo Park,
That's where I've been.

Personally, I love the opening track, and Here Comes the Nice, and those Jabberwocky tracks.

Ronnie Wood has great taste in music.

I hope this was helpful, and I think you'll love it.

"Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" was the album that really established Small Faces as a band that wished to and should be taken seriously. Sadly the band had split up within a year of the album's release. A lot can be (and has been) said about the round tobacco box, I'll stick to giving a few comments about the music.

The original two album sides were more or less two sections, where side one was a regular album, with outstandings songs like "Afterglow", "Song of a Baker" and "Lazy Sunday" - the three other tracks are just good.

Side two is the experimental and ambitious side where the songs are tied together with a strange narration by comedian Stan Unwin. It's a fairytale story about Happiness Stan who goes looking for the other half of the moon.

The songs are all great melodic tunes, with quite an impressive variation in style and instrumentation - several of them sung by bassist Ronnie Lane. The narration overlaps the music in several cases with is quite charming, but personally I would havev liked to hear the music of "Happiness Stan", "The Hungry Intruder" and "Mad John" without Unwin's narration - hopefully some day a version with just the music will be released.

This version contains no less than 14 bonus-tracks - most of them singles A's and B's. A few rarities have been included too, "Groovy" which the band recorded with P.P. Arnold and "Don't Burst my Bubble" from one their last studio-sessions. It seems the band was well half-ways into the recordings of a follow-up album, when Steve Marriott decided to leave and form "Humble Pie" with Peter Frampton".

Many of these recordings were released on the 1969 album "The Autumn Stone", which also included a lot of previously released material.

Other post "ONGF" recordings here are "The Universal", "The Autumn Stone" and "Wham Bam Thank You Mam".

The last two tracks here are 1968 live-recordings.

I have been replacing all my old LPs with either MP3 downloads or CDs. When I recently came across this amazing LP, I simply couldn't bring myself to part with such a rare classic. So, I purchased the CD (with bonus features) and was definitely not disappointed. It blows my mind every bit as much today as it did in my budding hippie days!

Excellent, thanks a lot! I really enjoy buy it!

Excellent, thanks a lot! I really enjoy buy it!

Excellent, thanks a lot! I really enjoy buy it!

There are so many reasons to like the Small Faces. And I am a huge fan of their first record as well as the classic "There Are But Four Small Faces." This record has fantastic hooks and generally rocks, but the problem is the story that precedes each track on the second side. Vaguely reminiscent of Traffic's first album in that here we have four crackerjack rockers at the top of their game, except that they're saddled by all the hippie/psychedelia silliness of the late 60s. It just keeps me from loving this one.

ONFT (Ogden's Nutgone Flake Tobacco) is a master piece. It ranks up there with Dark Side of the Moon, or Sgt. Pepper's, yet in many ways exceeds them all. It has raw soul and emotion that you can't find in those other albums that came later. Even without herbal enlightenment the story of Happiness Stan is mind blowing. That this long lost gem of the late 1960's is issued with other hard to find great Small Faces songs, makes this an absolute necessity.

A psychedelic rock classic from one of the most underrated bands in history. Although the Small Faces enjoyed great fame in their homeland they only enjoyed moderate success here in the States. If you like Sgt Peppers from the fab four (rated number one album by Rolling Stone) then check this out - from my perspective this is better. Fantastic album from start to finish - plus, this CD's bonus tracks are no fillers - this is great stuff.

I seem to always have to explain to various friends that there was a "Small Faces" group that was better, though less well known, than the later, more popular "Faces" group which included Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood.

The Small Faces may have only been a "One-Album" wonder, but what a wonder it was! (I am not claiming they only recorded one album... just that this is the only one I am aware that is worth noting)

I first heard this album in a high school Art class in the 1960s, as it was not played on our local (crap) rock station. The hipper students in the class were allowed to bring in a portable turntable, and this was one of the records they played frequently.

I still have the original round-tobacco-tin packaged vinyl LP, albeit played to death and filled with snaps, crackles, and pops. I think its the only album I remember seeing where the outer packaging was round. It came in a square plastic bag, which was needed so that the record album wouldn't roll off your shelf!

If the packaging didn't sell you, the first side of killer songs certainly did. Very powerful and psychedelic. But the second, more quirky side, was what made this album unique. Although I wouldn't mind versions of these same songs without the narration, it was the outrageously funny narration that made this side a jewel.

This brings me to the one caveat: The bonus material. This CD release has more bonus material than just about any other CD I have purchased. The inclusion of "Itchycoo Park" was the coup-de-grace. I think "Lazy Sunday" and "Itchycoo park" were the two really big hits by this early permutation of the group. So I always wished Itchycoo were included. (My memory of those days is not so good, but It seems a safe guess that Itchycoo was recorded after this release).

The other 13 songs are a wash; very weak. I would have rather they had included the second side songs without narration as the "bonus" tracks, instead of these.

One other thought: the only thing that would have made this even better is if they had packaged this in a thick, heavy, ROUND plastic jewel box, simulating the original packaging, and further simulating the round tobacco tin!

Nevertheless, the original Ogden's Nut Gone Flake + Itchycoo Park is enough to make this worth buying, and then some!

One of those rare, perfect, uber-poppy CDs (like The Who Sell Out) that you can play over & over for days/weeks without ever getting sick of the songs. A note-by-note masterpiece of pop rock! Sure, not all the extra cuts are great, but some are very good & it's worth picking up this edition for all 38 cuts. perhaps it's an old Brit expression, but I thought of this CD when Robert Downey as Sherlock Holmes said, "Are you all sitting comfortably? Right, then I'll begin..." ;-)

I was 8 years old when this came out. Never heard it before---only some of the extra tracks
like "Itchycoo Park" and "Tin Soldier", bought it from Amazon in May 2010 after coming across
it in other reviews. I was surprised how much fun it is. All of it. Great everything going on
here. I love the music, the vocals, the lyrics, and Stanley Unwin is an inspired choice as the
narrator for the "Happiness Stan" fable. The Unwinese was not "too difficult and that to sort it
out, mate, once I gave it a 'deep thocus'". I've since put all of the "Happiness Stan" songs on
a playlist on me olde iPod and when I want a mood lifter I play it on a loop. It makes me feel
good and that alone makes me wish I'd come across it during my adolescence. No matter! I have it
now and if you are thinking even remotely of buying this and you dig early very British rock,
I say give it a go. Five stars alone for best song with a friendly buzzy buzzy fly as its subject.
"Stay cool, won't you?" Enjoy!