Thus it was that, armed with my own reservations and a transcript of Barbara Charone’s interview with Rod, I went up to yet another blandly plush hotel room to call on the Faces. Or at least Ron Wood and Ian MacLagan, the two more voluble cornerstones of this organization. Here in 1975, time of the bland-out, rock ‘n’ roll was at a dreary pass, and the Faces seemed to be suffering by it no less than everybody else. I’d talked to them on their last Stateside tour, in February, and despite their show of good cheer they’d seemed pretty down at that time if you peered through the wisecracks. The oddity was that in spite of their questionable corporate status the band was playing better than ever. Now things had, on the surface at least, taken an even darker turn: Wood had been loaned out to the Stones for their summer tour, amid myriad rumors of permanent defection; meanwhile Rod had sought professional help in Muscle Shoals (Steve Cropper, A1 Jackson, etc.) for the recording of his latest solo album, and released it accompanied by a fusillade of personal and professional insults aimed at his long-time cohorts, whom he seemed ready to write off as punchup drinking buddies and nothing more.

It wasn’t the first time Stewart had slapped his Faces around in the press -not long after Ooh La La was released, he went out of his way to let an English trade paper know that he considered the album an embarrassment and implied that the Faces would rather juice it up than take care of business — but never had h$ maligned them in such blanket, final terms. Arid yet here they were, scant days later, beginning another tour together, their longest in years. The mood around the, Faces’ office in New York was harried; Rod had his own personal PR people, and was keeping pretty much to himself and his blonde consort, Britt Eklund.