SMALL FACES

A live recording of the Who is coming out--26 years after being recorded. “Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970,” due from Sony’s Legacy label Oct. 29, contains the band’s entire headlining set from the English event, including the only complete live version of “Tommy” to be released featuring the band’s original lineup with drummer Keith Moon. That same date, Legacy will release “Message to Love,” the soundtrack to a newly compiled film of that festival featuring long-unavailable or never-released performances by, among others, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Bob Dylan and Miles Davis. . . .

Daphne Rubin-Vega, noted for her role as the AIDS-afflicted S&M; dancer in the Tony-winning musical “Rent,” has signed a deal with Mercury Records. With her career being handled by Ramon Hervey (who has managed Vanessa Williams and Babyface), she’ll start work on an album in the R&B; diva mold, with a release expected in mid-’97. . . .

The late counterculture guru Timothy Leary will be celebrated with “Beyond Life With Timothy Leary,” mixing dance-trance tracks with interview clips and selections from his 1967 album “Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out.” Also on the album, due Nov. 19, will be the debut of the Moody Blues’ new recording of “Legend of a Mind,” with the line “Timothy Leary’s dead” altered to “Timothy Leary lives.” . . .

A Vanessa Williams Christmas album, “Star Bright,” is due Nov. 5, with a guest vocal appearance by Bobby Caldwell. . . . Gus Van Sant is directing a video for Allen Ginsberg’s “The Ballad of the Skeletons,” a new song produced by Lenny Kaye (of the Patti Smith Group) and featuring musical backing from Paul McCartney and Philip Glass. . . .

Donna Summer and Robin S are featured on “Mouse House,” an upcoming album of new dance versions of Disney tunes, doing beat-heavy takes on “Someday” from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “The Colors of the Wind” from “Pocahontas,” respectively. Among other tracks is a club mix of “Cruella DeVil” using sampled vocals from the animated “101 Dalmatians” original.