All the Rage: My Life with the Small Faces, the Faces, and the Rolling Stones Review

Number one on my list of Top Ten Rock 'n' Roll Books is Ian "Mac" McLagan's All the Rage: My High Life with the Small Faces, the Faces, and the Roling Stones (also known as All the Rage: A Riotous Romp Through Rock 'n' Roll History), a brutally honest and incredibly entertaining chronicle of Mac's wild days and nights playing the Hammond organ and electric piano for some of my favorite bands.

I missed witnessing Mac with the Small Faces (one of the greatest British bands of the '60s) and the Faces (the ultimate lads' band and so much more than Rod Stewart's backing band), but I did see him play with the Stones and the New Barbarians (a supergroup with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, orignally formed to play court-mandated concerts stemming from Keith's Canadian drug bust), and several times with his current group, the Bump Band, who appear regularly at the legendary happy hour at Austin's Lucky Lounge.

 While other, more famous rockers have gotten book deals and had their drug-addled memories transcribed by underpaid ghost-writers, very, very few have told their stories with the charm and candor McLagan demonstrates in this book. Having met the man, it is easy to hear his voice as I re-read All the Rage, and get to relive the ups and downs of his life in music.