Author:Jim Melly

'There was this terrible trough in the mid-70s: England didn't qualify forthe 1974 World Cup, Miss Hall our English teacher left school, and the Faces split.' Billy BraggDo you remember The Faces? The group that was born out of the ashes of the legendary sixties band the Small Faces, but with the addition of Ron Wood on guitar (later to join the Stones) and Rod Stewart on vocals. Last Orders, Please is the first biography of the band who have acquired legendary status in the annals of rock 'n' roll history. It's also a book about Britain in a forgotten era - the early seventies. Not the seventies of Glam Rock, Sweet and Gary Glitter, but the real seventies of the three day week, trade union strikes, blackouts, the IRA, steak, chips and warm beer. In these difficult times it was the Faces - a soulful, goodtime band who drank and played hard, who didn't dress to impress, but just got on with the job - that the working class adopted as its own. In the days before football was fashionable the Faces played soccer on stage on TOTP. In 1974 this was a near-political act that confirmed The Faces as truly a people's band, and they are still loved, and revered to this day.