1967 was the year when the hippie subculture and the psychedelic era reached their peak. Although the heavy use of psychedelic drugs was in the center of rock music back then, more commercial pop acts were not surpassed by the psychedelic influences. “Small Faces” were one of those acts that embraced the “sound of LSD” into their music, just like The Beach Boys, The Zombies, and many other pop acts did. The video you’re watching in the background is from that same year (1967), and the song is called “Itchycoo Park,” one of the band's biggest hits and a song that has become a classic of its time. It reached number 16 on the US Billboard charts and number three on the UK charts.
The song is an example of the group’s constant lookout for innovative production sounds, as they readily agreed to use a flanging effect on this single, proposed by their sound engineer Glyn Johns. Although many devices were soon created that could produce the same effect by purely electronic means, the effect as used on "Itchycoo Park" was at that time an electromechanical studio process, which makes it unique in the sense of innovation and sound. The effect can be heard in the bridge section after each chorus.
BBC had banned the song for its overt drug references, but the members came up with a story “ that Itchycoo Park was a piece of waste ground in the East End that the band had played on as kids – we put the story out at ten and by lunchtime we were told the ban was off.” Some sources claim the song's name is derived from the nickname of Little Ilford Park, on Church Road in the London suburb of Manor Park, where Small Faces' singer and songwriter Steve Marriott grew up. The "itchycoo" nickname is, in turn, attributed to the stinging nettles which grew there. Other sources cite nearby Wanstead Flats (Manor Park end) as the inspiration for the song.
Small Faces were an English rock band from East London. The group was founded in 1965 by members Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Jimmy Winston, although by 1966 Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan as the band's keyboardist. The band is remembered as one of the most acclaimed and influential mod groups of the 1960s.
