Ian McLagan sits in the late afternoon light at a window table in the
Draught
Horse, a fairly faithful approximation of an English pub on Medical
Parkway. He
takes a sip of his Guinness and recounts how this one-time keyboard
player for
English rock leg-ends the Faces (née the Small Faces) landed in
Austin.
“We were sitting in a bar, knowing we were going to leave L.A.,” he
explains,
referring to his wife Kim, who is over at the bar getting another
round.
“It wasn’t a very good bar, and I said, `Damn it, we know how to have
a bar.
We know what a bar should be like – we spend a lot of time in bars.’ So
I said,
`Let’s open a bar in Austin.’ So Kim wrote it down in her diary. We had
a lot
of friends here, and we didn’t really think about it after that. There
really
wasn’t any doubt then.”
Although McLagan’s Pub is right now limited to a refrigerator stocked
with
cans of Guinness at their Manor country home, and the ice chest (yes,
of
Guinness) that Ian takes along to sessions, one of rock & roll’s
finest
Hammond B-3 and electric piano players is serious about his
semi-retirement
plans here in Austin. “It would be a tea shop, it would be a bar, and
it would
have English foods,” he says. “For instance, we can’t get Coleman’s Dry
Mustard
around here.” Right, mate – I’m there. But before we can start calling
him “the
guv’nor” and going ’round to McLagan’s for a late afternoon pint, he’s
got a
bit of work to do: a tour with his former Faces bandmate Rod Stewart
that will
take McLagan around the world until Christmas, 1996. It should help
“Mac,” as
everyone calls him, get the seed capital to open McLagan’s. In the
meantime,
Austin will be just a little less flavorful and diverse without him.
In the last year that McLagan has lived in Austin, he’s become a rich
and
delightful addition to the local music menu. His band Monkey Jump –
with
guitarist “Scrappy” Jud Newcomb of Loose Diamonds, bass veteran Sarah
Brown,
and drummer/Austin Rehearsal Complex co-owner Don Harvey – offers a
hearty jolt
of good ol’ rock & roll that mixes Faces goodies with new McLagan
songs; it
also showcases the punchy B-3 swells and rhythmic pianistics that have
made
McLagan a top player in the musical big leagues, touring with the
Rolling
Stones, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and others in addition
to
Stewart. While here, McLagan’s also graced both records and gigs by
Lucinda
Williams and Michael Fracasso, bringing to the local table a style and
sound
that’s as full and well brewed as, well, a pint of Guinness.
It’s a long way from Hounslow in West London, where McLagan grew up,
to
Central Texas. But when McLagan and Monkey Jump launch into a Faces
chestnut
like “Cindy Incidentally,” the spirit of Swinging London, and the
incendiary
mixture of R&B and Brit-pop finesse that McLagan was an integral
part of,
comes alive.
Born in London of an Irish mother and a father of Scottish descent, Ian Patrick McLagan got into
music as
a teen, thanks to Bill Haley, Elvis, Little Richard, and (later) Buddy
Holly
and the Everly Brothers, all of which led him back to the blues. “The
first
album I ever bought was Muddy Waters Live at Newport,and
Thelonious Monk, Monk’s Moods,” he says. “You’d think they were
quite a
long way apart, but they really weren’t.”
It wasn’t until he was in art school – the great breeding ground of
the
British Invasion – that he became involved in music. “I used to go see
the
Stones,” he recalls. “I had heard about this band at a party; this guy
had told
me about this great blues band playing in Richmond. I said, `Blues
band! Wow,
you’re kidding!’ picturing in my mind – because he didn’t tell me what
they
looked like – that they were old black guys from Chicago, because
that’s what a
blues band is.
“I’m in line to get in, and they started playing – da, da, dah; da
dah, da dah
– and I’m going, yeah, fuckin’ great! I came in and there’s these white
boys,
the same age as me! It was a revelation, and I started going every
Sunday. So
that was what made me think: maybe I can do it.”
Soon after, he started a band with his art schoolmates called the
Muleskinners. “I booked the Stones for our end-of-school dance at Eel
Pie
Island for [[sterling]]150, and put my band on to open for them,”
McLagan
recounts. “I helped them with the equipment, paid them, and because I
had
booked them, I had gone to their agent and told him I had a band. And
just as
easy as that we got on some Stones gigs” (including one where they also
shared
the bill with Steampacket, featuring a young Scottish singer named Rod
Stewart).
By this time, McLagan had scammed himself a Hammond L-100 organ and
a Leslie
cabinet from a music store, jumping from one band to another until he
landed in
the Small Faces. Hitting the U.K. charts with raucous pop like “Sha La
La La
Lee” and later in America with incipient psychedelia like “Itchykoo
Park,” the
Small Faces – McLagan, Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane (who would later
move to
Austin), and Kenny Jones – mutated into simply the Faces when Marriott
left and
Ron Wood and Rod Stewart, late of the first Jeff Beck Group, joined up.
As the
premier party band of the early Seventies arena and stadium circuit,
the Faces
were renowned for their musical revelry (including an onstage circus
troupe)
and legendary offstage antics.
When the Faces broke up in 1975 after Wood joined the Rolling Stones
and
Stewart opted out for his burgeoning solo career, McLagan participated
in a
brief Small Faces reunion, and then cut two solo albums for Mercury
Records.
His Los Angeles group the Bump Band was recruited to record and play
with
Bonnie Raitt, and he also began touring with the Stones (in 1978 and
1981). In
1983, he “gave up music and drugs” for a spell, but soon “realized it
wasn’t
the music I gave up, but the drugs.” The next year, he got a call “to
go and
have a play” with Bob Dylan, and ended up touring Europe for the
summer. Stints
with the Everly Brothers, Jackson Browne, David Lindley, and Pat
McLaughlin
followed, but Ian and Kim McLagan were growing tired of Los Angeles and
the
rock & roll rat race.
“Actually, I played here with my very first [solo] band, opening for
the
Thunderbirds [at Steamboat and Soap Creek],” says McLagan. “I also came
here a
lot with Bonnie, because Bonnie had a soft spot for Austin, and we’d
always
arrange to stay a few days. This is the greatest place to play.”
McLagan had
dreamed of living in America as a youngster. “There was so much of an
image
about America, I knew I’d have to live here from when I was young. A
lot of
English kids who were into the music and the movies had to come
here,”
he notes. “And I’m still constantly fascinated by this country. I
haven’t lost
the enjoyment for the size of it, and what there is here. I find it
amazing
that Americans want to go to Europe. You could drive all day every day
for the
rest of your life and find something amazing.”
But Los Angeles, where McLagan had lived for 16 years, had paled
after
earthquakes, mudslides, riots, and fires, and he and his wife (the
former Mrs.
Keith Moon) found their own lovely slice of America in Austin last
spring. “Kim
had never been here, so she came out here on Rod’s tour and fell in
love with
the place,” he enthuses. A week later, they’d bought a home and within
a month
they were here. And McLagan certainly finds Austin a congenial
locale.
“I read this `Rant’n’Rave’ in the Austin American-Statesman… that’s
such a bunch of shit.” says McLagan about the daily’s phone-in forum
for local
gripes. “People complain about the drivers here. Jesus, take a short
flight to
L.A.!” As Kim heads off to go shopping – “Be sure to get a lot of those
[Guinness] cans!” he tells her – McLagan reflects on a life in rock
& roll
that has shown him everything from the heights of stardom to the lowest
ripoffs. “That’s the tragedy of the Small Faces,” he explains. “We
never got
paid a penny for our records.”
Yet McLagan remains an infectiously ebullient presence, bubbling with
the same
vitality and wit that colors his playing. And perhaps part of his joy
is from
knowing that he’s found a home. “I want to get off the road, really.
I’ve been
doing it for a long time,” he says. When he does, expect Monkey Jump to
pop up
again, and keep your eyes open for McLagan’s.
“This has been a great year,” he concludes. “So many people have
welcomed me
here. I was never welcomed to L.A. in 16 years. That’s the wonderful
thing
about Austin.” Cheers, mate. Welcome home.
This article appears in April 28 • 1995 and April 28 • 1995 (Cover).