Hey, Bill Holmes...and everyone else....

Faces to release boxed set in May

NEW YORK (Billboard) - The Faces, a band 
known as much for its excess as for its music, 
will return for one more round with the four-disc 
box set "Faces: Five Guys Walk Into a Bar..."

Due May 25 from Rhino, the collection includes 
material from the band's four studio albums, 
recorded between 1969 and 1973, as well as 
plenty of rarities.

Among the treats are covers of John Lennon's 
"Jealous Guy," Free's "The Stealer," Luther 
Ingram's "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't 
Want To Be Right" and Paul McCartney's 
"Maybe I'm Amazed," sourced from album 
recording sessions and BBC television and 
radio appearances.

"I don't remember too many gigs," singer Rod 
Stewart remembers in the set's liner notes. "Still, 
we were never so drunk we couldn't play. It was
an air of merriment."

When Small Faces singer Steve Marriott 
exited the band in 1969, organist/piano 
player Ian McLagan, drummer Kenney Jones 
and bassist Ronnie Lane decided to continue. 
They recruited Stewart and guitarist Ron 
Wood from the Jeff Beck Group and changed
their name to the Faces.

The collection also boasts alternate takes of 
many tracks and outtakes, as well as captured 
tomfoolery in the studio and hotel room 
recordings the band made while on the road. 

Liner notes written by Rolling Stone senior 
editor David Fricke include interviews with all 
of the band's surviving members. McLagan 
also contributes anecdotes from the band's 
heyday, as well as memories of Lane, 
who lost his fight with multiple sclerosis in 
1997.

"He was a rascal and charmer," McLagan writes. 
"And he always seemed to get away with it. And 
though he never rated himself highly, he was simply 
the most melodic and subtly inventive bass player 
I've ever heard... A lot of people don't know who
he is anymore, but he shines throughout here."

Lane exited the band following the recording of 
1973's "Ooh La La," opting for a solo career that 
remained active through the 1970s. The rest of the 
band threw in the towel after a tour the following 
year. Stewart continued in earnest with the solo f
career that began to take off in 1971, while Wood 
would go on to join the Rolling Stones. Jones served 
as the drummer in the early '80s incarnation of the 
Who, following the death of Keith Moon.

McLagan played with everyone from the Stones 
and Buddy Guy to Bonnie Raitt and Billy Bragg. 
Last year, he appeared on Ryan Adams' "Love Is 
Hell" EPs (Lost Highway) and Robert Earl Keen's 
"Farm Fresh Onions" (Audium) and released the 
solo album "Rise and Shine" (Gaff Music).

Reuters/Billboard
03/09/04 18:27 ET