In a perfect world, the notion behind compiling a box set by a seminal artist from the rock ’n’ roll canon is as follows: to present the argument for why that artist is truly essential to the history of recorded music. This can be accomplished in any number of ways, but the ideal method involves assembling the best-known album and single tracks, live stuff and (if possible) unreleased material that shows the artist in the best possible light—all this in a dynamite package. Too often, however, record labels get lazy and go for the quick easy fix, doling out too many previously released catalog items with a couple of inconsequential rarities to make the purchase necessary for diehard fans.
Not so in the case of Rhino’s Faces retrospective, Five Guys Walked Into A Bar. Building on the band’s excellent Good Boys When They’re Asleep best-of, this collection is the new standard by which box sets should be judged. The Faces—Ronnie Lane (bass), Ron Wood (guitar), Kenny Jones (drums), Ian McLagan (keyboards) and some guy named Rod Stewart (vocals)—were, between 1970 and 1973, one of the most exciting live rock bands in the world. During these years they toured the States almost incessantly and it was in rust-belt towns like Detroit where they made their mark—in jaded L.A. they’d play a club, in the Motor City, a 6,000-seat auditorium. That their records were never properly received is an injustice that has slowly but surely been amended by time.
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