Don't know if its been mentioned already but a Mac Interview from '04 was on Fresh Air Today, it will replay tonight.

A personal favorite...

Love this....





What a drag it is gettin' old

And this.....

Really rather glorious, The faces tearing the arse out of Macca's 'Maybe I'm Amazed' in 1972. Marvellous as the original is, this really has something to it.





What a drag it is gettin' old



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-12-06 11:18 by 68to72.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-12-11 20:18 by child-of-the-moon.

This heavy sorrow is so stunning and remote from what we're used to feeling in relation to Mac and Bobby
Love and light and thanks and praises, for good.





At the end of that clip those are my hands framing Mac in the front row of the 02 Bubble - what a joy that show was


- London, August 11th 2010

Hi all.

Terrible sad.

Rest in peace.

This was another sad news for one week. Now IanMcLagan, too. We will thankfully be reminded from now on in many instances when listening to recorded presentation of the band.

Thanx Greenlady..

Too soon gone, such a loss. I never had the chance to see him.

I also find myself thinking of our old IORR friend Rooster, who was a massive fan and must be gutted. He's in good comany.

Quote
CMH516
I kind of remember a picture from an after party on the '81 tour where Mick was wearing a t shirt that had various mis spellings of Mac's name (McLagen, MacLegen etc).

anyone else recall that?

Yes, I remember that photo and it's written in All The Rage for a memory of Bill Graham.

At 81 tour, Bill Graham made programmes but it misspelled Mac's name as "Maclagen".

Bill corrected the error, and brought a box-full of new t-shirts which print "McLagan McLagan McLagan...." as an apology and to make sure everyone knew how to spell his name .

Mac was astonished by that, and handed them to band and crew.

Sad week! RIP Ian McLagan.

Don't know how many are familiar with James McMurtry, but Mac joined him on his '09-'10 tour of Europe which produced a live album. Here's Ian ripping up "Choctaw Bingo".
[www.youtube.com]

THIS is the real deal...enjoy and remember Mac.

Seen a hundred times, but now I realised Mac adjusting
his gear seconds before the show:

Hey everyone, I'm new here and a huge Stones fan. How sad to lose Mac and Bobby in one week. Just finished listening to Coast to Coast / Overtures and Beginners. Mac was great on the keys,indeed.

The Small Faces: Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones tell the story of their singles


The death of Ian McLagan this week seems more than enough reason to celebrate the genius of the keyboardist and his bandmates in the Small Faces – in this piece from the Uncut archives (March 2014, Take 202), McLagan and Kenney Jones reveal the stories behind every one of the band’s historic 45s, and how Ronnie Lane “found beauty in a nettle patch in the East End of London.” Story: Garry Mulholland

________________________

Whatcha Gonna Do About It?
Decca, August 1965. UK: 14; US: N/A
Spotted at London’s own Cavern club in Leicester Square by manager Don Arden, the Small Faces sign to Decca. Their debut single – an aspiring soul standard – is written for them.

Kenney Jones: “We recorded it at IBC Studios with Ian Samwell, who wrote the song with Brian Potter. IBC was opposite the BBC at Portland Place. We hadn’t fully established our own songwriting abilities – our stage show was mainly covers of things like Otis Redding’s ‘Shake’ – and this really suited the power of Steve’s voice. The style was very indicative of the time and we loved it. We never set out to be a mod band. We were just young and liked clothes. The feedback was Steve’s idea; he was pissing about in front of his old Marshall amp and it sounded lovely, so we kept it. ‘Sammy’ Samwell was charming. He wrote Cliff’s ‘Move It’ and was virtually a member of The Shadows. Did Don Arden spend £12,000 on buying it into the charts? That’s what he told us. Everybody did that at the time, including The Beatles. Probably still do.”


I’ve Got Mine
Decca, November 1965. UK: N/A; US: N/A
Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane’s first self-penned single. A soulful mid-tempo ballad with a hint of The Kinks’ “See My Friends”, it bombs. Ian McLagan replaces original keyboardist Jimmy Winston.

Jones: “We’d had a hit after being in the business for about five minutes so we thought, ‘Well… we’ve written a song.’ I loved it ’cos it was more expressive on the drums and had this guitar line through a Leslie amp. Stunning. It’s underestimated and still one of my favourite Small Faces songs. But because it wasn’t a hit… that was it. Don Arden said, ‘We can’t afford to have another flop. I’m bringing Kenny Lynch in.’ Plus the film that was meant to promote it, Dateline Diamonds, didn’t come out until months after the single. But we did launch the first ever Transit van. It was some kind of tie-in with Radio Caroline, the film and Ford. This was the first phase of business greed.”
Ian McLagan: “‘I Got Mine’ came out the week I joined. I had to buy a guitar so I could play the part that Jimmy Winston played on the record. I still have that guitar to this day.”


Sha-La-La-La-Lee
Decca, Jan 1966. UK: 3; US: N/A
A charming-but-lightweight Kenny Lynch/Mort Shuman song, this is a big teenybop hit for the band. Lynch also wrote Marriott’s unsuccessful ’63 debut solo single, “Give Her My Regards”.

Jones: “This is where Don Arden steered us towards being a pop band when we wanted to be an experimental band, more like Booker T & The MG’s and The Yardbirds. It was stifling and we never entirely lost that pop idol thing. We recorded this at the Decca studios in West Hampstead. I was getting into the song and Kenny Lynch came over the tannoy: ‘Don’t play anything you can’t mime to!’ He’s the one singing the high harmonies on the chorus. We got along with him, though. Kenny was Jack-the-lad and I still see him as often as I can.”
McLagan: “I’d joined an R’n’B/soul band and almost immediately we’d become a pop group. The kids coming to our shows became mostly little girls.” Hey


Girl
Decca, May 1966. UK: 10; US: N/A
Marriott/Lane’s first hit, released the week before their debut album. A commercially leaning single, but the cutesy “hold my hand/…understand” lyrics stand in sharp contrast to where The Beatles, The Who and The Kinks are in spring 1966.

Jones: “We insisted that, if we were gonna do these commercial songs, we weren’t going to let any more outside songwriters in. So we wrote a commercial one.”
McLagan: “It was almost as bad as ‘Sha-La-La-La- Lee’. Just a little pop song. Steve and Ronnie were being shrewd. After that, they were the writers. I was musically frustrated in the studio at this point, but live we were raw and raucous. We played ‘Sha-La-La-La-Lee’ until we had ‘Hey Girl’ and then never played it again. But in those early days, the bridge of ‘Hey Girl’, which goes to a minor key, became a pattern. Steve would ask me to play a solo on piano and organ for a new song and I’d be thinking, ‘Hang on – haven’t I played this bridge before?’ They were writing very fast.”


All Or Nothing
Decca, August 1966. UK: 1; US: N/A
The Small Faces’ only UK No 1. Steve Marriott’s white soul masterpiece finally revealed the full scope of the band’s powers.

Jones: “We were on tour and staying in the Station Hotel, Leeds, when Steve suddenly runs down the corridor screaming, ‘I’ve got it! I’ve just written our next hit!’ We did it in IBC and it didn’t take long to record. I mean, we did the first album in a morning! I based the opening drum fill on the intro of Wilson Pickett’s ‘In The Midnight Hour’. I was proud that we had a No 1. But we had to share it… we were joint No 1 with ‘Yellow Submarine’. That week the last photos on the chart rundown on Top Of The Pops were half-Beatle, half-Small Face; they spliced my face with Ringo’s.”
McLagan: “I remember we always used to go into the studio dressed for a gig. We’d get up, go to [publicist] Tony Brainsby’s office for photo sessions, then on to the studio for three hours to cut an A-side. Then… quick… B-side! Then in the car, and off to a gig. IBC was a four-track studio, and we didn’t get to use an eight-track until we went to Immediate. Soon after this, we took acid and that turned our music a little bit sideways for a while.”


My Mind’s Eye
Decca, November 1966. UK: 4; US: N/A
Experimental demo released by Arden and Decca while the band are on tour. The kids love the self-mocking psych-lite. The band don’t.

Jones: “This was so commercial it reminded me of Christmas. The ‘Ding Dong Merrily On High’ steal was a piss take, but it had some good backing vocals on it. When we realised it had been released behind our backs it was just awful. Enter Andrew Oldham and Tony Calder. One thing I should say: no-one ever – ever – told me what to play in the Small Faces. Everyone just let me get on with it. My nickname was Shut Up Kenney. Because while they were trying to work out a song in the studio, I was playing away, trying to work out what drums would fit. But I was very proud of my bandmates for allowing me that. Because I did @#$%& annoy ’em.”
McLagan: “You could say Steve and Ronnie led the sessions, but really we were all equals in the studio. Just the four of us: no session men at all in the Decca days, contrary to some belief. There was no @#$%& about. It was quick and painless.”


I Can’t Make It
Decca, march 1967. UK: 26; US: N/A
Despite leaving Arden and Decca for Tony Calder and Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label, this funky soul-rocker is released on Decca as part of the severance package. The band refuse to promote it, while the BBC ban it.

McLagan: “This was another one with that familiar kind of bridge. A good song. And at Olympic Studios recording became much more fun. We were experimenting with different sounds. Nobody told me what to play. Sometimes I would ask, and invariably that would be Ronnie Lane, because he had good arranging ideas and melodies.”
Jones: “There was a little tiny room in the basement of Olympic. We put a speaker in there with a mic and fed that back through the mixing desk, and that’s what gave us our reverb and echo. That’s where my great snare drum sound came from. I’d get Glyn Johns to put those effects through my cans while I was recording so I could pick up the feel from there. The strange thing was that the BBC banned ‘I Can’t Make It’ because they reckoned it had some sexual reference, but happily played ‘Here Come The Nice’, which was blatantly about our drug pusher.”


Here Come The Nice
Immediate, June 1967. UK: 12; US: N/A
The Small Faces join the Summer Of Love party with their own catchy psych single laced with drug references.

Jones: “By this time we were writing songs that meant a lot to us, not commercial crap. Stories about our everyday lives. Calling our pusher ‘The Nice’ was inspired by Lord Buckley’s skit, ‘The Nazz’. I always bracket this song with ‘Tin Soldier’ because they’re very similar in their arrangement.”
McLagan: “I bought a different Hammond organ for this; an M102. It was what Booker T played on ‘Green Onions’… it was a sturdier version of the B3. That changed the sound a little bit. They had a nice Steinway at Olympic and I had my Wurlitzer. The weird things to me about this song are, a) that it was never banned, and b) that it was about Methadrine, which was a horrible drug. I mean, we loved smoking dope.”
Jones: “The ending was our attempt to imitate a speed comedown.”
McLagan: “It sounds like crap now.”


Itchycoo Park
Immediate, August 1967. UK: 3; US: 16
It’s all too beautiful! Another Summer Of Love anthem. Kaftans are involved. Also: the band’s only US hit single.

Jones: “We were definitely influenced here by the circumstance of flower power. We were experimenting with Mellotrons, and me and Glyn were always doing experiments with drums, which is how phasing came about [see panel].”
McLagan: “We tried to replicate the phasing effect when we played it live. It was @#$%& hopeless. I never liked ‘Itchycoo Park’ because me and Ronnie had to sing, ‘It’s all too beautiful’, and you sing that a few times, and you think… it’s not. But years after that I finally, properly, checked out the words, and realised it was about education and privilege. The ‘bridge of sighs’ is the one in Cambridge. The ‘dreaming spires’ are a reference to Oxford. Then ‘to Itchycoo Park… that’s where I’ve been’. Ronnie was saying, ‘I didn’t need privilege or education. I found beauty in a nettle patch in the East End of London.’”
Jones: “Its success did vindicate being left to our own devices, but we were still entering dodgy waters. It offered something different, but it was still commercial. There was one photo session for ‘Itchycoo Park’ where I wore a kaftan. I’m still very embarrassed about it.”


Tin Soldier
Immediate, december 1967. UK: 9; US: 73
A powerful love letter from Marriott to his future wife. A key example of the fusion between rock and soul.

McLagan: “This is the best track we cut. It was us going back to our roots.”
Jones: “Dramatic, great build-up, lovely key change, and it suited Steve’s personality and vocals. Then there’s PP Arnold’s backing vocals… ah, this was right where we wanted to be. It was originally meant for PP but the one we did give to her was ‘(If You Think You’re) Groovy’, one of my all-time favourites. Steve Marriott was such a great singer; that high voice at the end… we kept asking, ‘How the @#$%& can he do that?’ The answer was, ‘Because he’s Steve Marriott.’ He loved Ray Charles and James Brown and you can hear those influences here. He had three different voices: the gentle, soft one, the screaming, soulful rocker and the cockney actor. And then, on something like ‘I’m Only Dreaming’ [‘Itchycoo Park’ B-side], he’d combine all three.”


Lazy Sunday
Immediate, April 1968. UK: 2; US N/A
English pop-psych classic, “lumbago”, “khazi” and all. Although never intended as a single, Loog Oldham’s pop instincts prevail. A No 2 hit, and a hefty promotional gift for the parent LP, Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake.

McLagan: “When Steve came in with this it was slower. We started taking the piss out of it while he was out of the room. The ‘Root-ti-doo-ti-di-day’ thing. And he laughed when he came back in and heard us. So we cut it like that. It was a pisstake!”
Jones: “This is a record I’m still not sure about. Steve had been a child actor, he was the first Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart’s Oliver! in the West End. He brought that theatricality to this. Once again, we were on tour in Germany, picked up Melody Maker… and this was a hit! Andrew had released it without our knowledge, like ‘My Mind’s Eye’. So this dragged us back into poppy-land. We wanted to be known for being as good as the Claptons of this world. We wanted a tougher image. It wasn’t a fair representation of Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake.”
McLagan: “After we’d done Ogdens’…, things with Steve got kinda strange. And then he wrote ‘The Universal’.”


The Universal
Immediate, July 1968. UK: 16; US: N/A
Marriott records this dig at the hollowness of Swinging London in the back garden of Mick Jagger’s house. A sudden change of style that bewilders fan and Small Face alike.

Jones: “He brought it into the studio, we overdubbed drums and stuff onto it… and that was basically it. It’s certainly not ‘Tin Soldier’.”
McLagan: “I’m not even on this. The drums and bass are so clear on it that they’ve obviously just been stuck on top of Steve’s cassette recording.”
Jones: “People love it because it’s very relaxed and shows where our heads were at the time. Even the dog barks in time. Yes, of course the ‘Mick’ in the song was Jagger. And maybe the song was Steve’s sort of goodbye to the London scene because he was planning his departure.”
McLagan: “I quit around this time. Steve started telling me what to play. As soon as I left he phoned Nicky Hopkins and got him to play on some tracks. I came back but it hurt me. Steve was in his own world by this time. He wanted Peter Frampton to join the band. @#$%& that.”


Afterglow (Of Your Love)
Immediate, March 1969. UK: 36; US: N/A
Marriott quits the Small Faces onstage at Alexandra Palace on New Year’s Eve 1968. Immediate rush out this stunning farewell. But the British rock audience, like Marriott, have moved on.

McLagan: “This, ‘Tin Soldier’ and ‘All Or Nothing’ are the best Small Faces recordings.”
Jones: “There were two reasons why Steve left. One was that, no matter what we did, we never lost this pop image. And this affected Steve more than anyone else. Another was Ogdens’…. We always knew, in the back of our minds: how are we gonna top this? The only thing I hated was him leaving us onstage standing there like twats – he should’ve realised we all felt the same way.”
McLagan: “Steve and I fell out over the B-side, ‘Wham Bam Thank You Man’, which was a hint to what Steve wanted to do in Humble Pie. It was all a bit obvious and a bit heavy, man. He was already on his way out.”
Jones: “There was never a discussion about carrying on the Small Faces without Steve. People still think we replaced Steve Marriott with Rod Stewart. We didn’t. The Faces were a completely new and different band.”


[www.uncut.co.uk]

I must've listened to "Live Coast To Coast - Overture And Beginners" a zillion times. He really was involved in the contribution of great,great music.

Quote
shadooby
THIS is the real deal...enjoy and remember Mac.

Damn that was awesome! Thanks for the post. Yes Mac really knew how to keep a song groovin' without stepping on any of the other players. Great playing.

Also great frame clip of withssoul's hands framing Mac. Some sweet looking hands there...

peace

Any news on the funeral, BTW?

No news as of yet.

It's been a really rough week here in Austin...

68to72 and shadooby, I really enjoyed those numbers, thank you.
I never saw him live either, sadly.

withsssoul, nice, glad you got to be there!

RIP Ian McLagan, Mac.

~"Love is Strong"~

Wednesday sure didn’t turn out the way anyone expected it to.

The staff of the Current was ecstatic at the prospect of getting Nick Lowe, Los Straitjackets, and Ian “Mac” McLagan into our studios for a recording session on the day of their tour launch at First Avenue. Instead, just as Lowe and the band arrived, we received word that Mac had fallen, experienced a stroke, and was in critical condition. Lowe, a consummate pro, played the session as planned, saying, “As we all know, (Mac) was a fellow who loved life, and there’s no question of us not carrying on with the tour.” As Lowe wrapped up the session with a version of his classic “Peace, Love and Understanding,” it was hard not to reflect on our loss and enjoy the salve of great performance, despite the fact that Lowe had only rehearsed two days with Los Straitjackets.

At First Avenue that night, with word of Mac’s passing that afternoon, the mood was reflective and subdued, with the generally older crowd contemplating the loss of a legend so many had hoped to see perform. Mac was one of the rare rock legends who if you met him once, you considered him a friend—he was generous, funny, spirited, and a tremendous talent. For McLagan, this was to be a great tour: on the heels of his 2014 United States release, an opportunity to connect with Lowe’s appreciative audience and share the spotlight with a great peer. It’s a shame to have lost him as he was slated to go from this tour to prepping for a long-anticipated Faces reunion in 2015 with Rod Stewart, Kenny Jones, and Ronnie Wood. (Revisit some of McLagan’s seminal work with a ten-song set presented by the Current’s Bill DeVille.)

With McLagan’s absence, First Avenue called on the Cactus Blossoms to open the show. The smooth harmonies and restrained playing of the Twin Cities’ favorite old-time country duo set the right tone for the night. Their song “Traveler’s Paradise” expressed the thoughts a lot of people were feeling about Mac’s passing. “Goodbye, sure is good to know ya / I’m so thankful for ya / that’s how I’ll always feel.”

Nick Lowe came on solo to start the show, performing two songs before stopping to address the hole in the hearts of many. “To say we’re reeling backstage is an understatement,” Lowe said. “But the show must go on. No one knew it better than Mac.” And then, “Mac, are you listening?” Lowe asked, his eyes gazing skyward. “I need your help.”

At times it seemed Lowe did need help, apologizing for his voice giving out during his big hit “Cruel to Be Kind.” The arrangements with Los Straitjackets carried the seat-of-our-pants feel of being the opening night of their collaboration, and you could tell that the flow of the show will likely be tweaked and improved as the tour goes on. But on a night of infinite sadness, those flaws could be forgotten—especially when Los Straitjackets took over for a mini-set of their surf-rockabilly-Christmas hijinks, and when the artists’ combined efforts clicked on tunes like Lowe’s “Raging Eyes” and “Half a Boy and Half a Man.”

Ending his set with a subdued version of “Peace, Love and Understanding” felt right, and you could hear a pin drop when Lowe ended the show with a lovely reading of his former mentee Elvis Costello’s “Allison.” True aim on a somber night, where like so many times in our lives, it’s the music that keeps us going through sadness and heartache.

[blog.thecurrent.org]

Thanks for posting Cristiano.
Must have been a difficult and emotional night for Nick Lowe and everyone else who were playing, and in the audience.

The show must go on................as Mac, I'm sure will have wanted.

Very difficult indeed. And I liked Nick's radio set along with Los Straitjackets, on that link I've posted above.

you could hear a pin drop when Lowe ended the show with a lovely reading of his former mentee Elvis Costello’s “Allison.”


Nice post Cristiano, thanks. Would have loved to hear that last number, must have been sweet.

peace

Thanks for posting, Cristiano - moving blog story and nice audio piece.

That's a nice song. Thanks!