RIP Mark E Smith

[toomanyhatz]

Amusing article about tracking down all the many ex-members:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/ ... are_btn_fb

[The Red Heifer]

Amusing article about tracking down all the many ex-members:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/ ... are_btn_fb

The resulting book is a cracking read!

[Jimbo]

And that BAND! at their best, they were as thrilling as anyone.

Glad you said that.

Rest in peace-ah.

[northernsky]

Amusing article about tracking down all the many ex-members:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/ ... are_btn_fb

The resulting book is a cracking read!

Yeah.
Nice tribute from Simpson here:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jan/24/mark-e-smith-the-fall

the Fall’s contract to appear on Later … with Jools Holland included a clause stipulating that under no circumstances was Holland to play boogie-woogie piano anywhere near the Fall

[copehead]

Muzorewi's Daughter, in the dark on the Peel show some time around 1980 I guess. Frightening.

Leading to Totale's Turns being my first Fall purchase. The audience really did not like them much

That man loved us. He came down from Hovis land. Is that a kazoo?

Still have it somewhere but I listen to the Peel sessions box set if I want to listen to the Fall, why did they always sound so much better when given less time and money to record?

[naughty boy]

Muzorewi's Daughter, in the dark on the Peel show some time around 1980 I guess. Frightening.

Isn't it? yelping, jungle drums, twisted 'surf guitar' - scary enough in the daytime!

I think Dragnet is probably their strangest and most uncompromising album. Deliberately badly recorded and all the better for it.

Mike Watt posted quite a bit about his Fall-love yesterday on Twitter - and most of it was about that album. I've always liked that fella but he went up even further in my estimation

but I listen to the Peel sessions box set if I want to listen to the Fall, why did they always sound so much better when given less time and money to record?

Every obsessive music fan should own a copy of that box. It shakes the birds out of the trees. Just magical.

[never/ever]

That is stunning news. The last bunch of pics I saw of him didn't look promising though.
What slays me is that he was only 60????

Best wishes to you John.

[Pool Hall Richard]

I got into The Fall in 89/90. I was 17/18. The 458489 compilations came out - A-sides great, B-sides even better. But then was listening to Peel show and heard the sessions for the new album - Extricate, still my favourite by The Fall. Saw them half a dozen times all told in the early/mid 90s. Great each time, aside from the last, when Brix returned. London show, was an utter mess. Sadly never saw them again although reconnected with my cousin after many years who told me she is a big Fall fan. Hence plans were made for "whenever they play next in London." Sadly not going to happen.

R.I.P. you old bugger. Not in the mood to play the albums yet but will do soon. Love this track though. My favourite.

[naughty boy]

I think The Fall are probably as great as any British band from after the punk explosion. With that said, a little goes a long way with me and I only actually listen to them once or twice a year. Like most things, I finally got to hear them in the 90s. I wish I had heard them earlier, I can see how they would be absolutely formative. Respect to MES. Condolences to JC.

Thanks!

Formative, no kidding. It was thrilling that there was a British band in the 80s that had all of the wonderful and frightening elements that made all the best 60s stuff (Beefheart, VU, Elevators, Stooges, Can) so essential. We were lucky for a while. And if you don't believe me, give Slates another spin.

That is stunning news. The last bunch of pics I saw of him didn't look promising though.
What slays me is that he was only 60????

Best wishes to you John.

Thank you. He'd had a hard life, really. But I thought he'd outlive Shane, at least

[KeithPratt]

A friend of mine knows one of what was the current band members and says that one of his jobs was to pick up MES for band practice. MES refused to wear a seat belt so they'd drive through Manchester for about 20 minutes with this bleeping sound in his car.

I think that gets to the heart of what MES was about - probably in all honesty that he was basically a cunt. But that singular bloody-mindedness and refusal to compromise made him and his project what it was.

[never/ever]

I really love these tribute photos put against lamp posts in Prestwich...



https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... responsive

[Deebank]

Amusing article about tracking down all the many ex-members:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/ ... are_btn_fb

The resulting book is a cracking read!

Yeah.
Nice tribute from Simpson here:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jan/24/mark-e-smith-the-fall

the Fall’s contract to appear on Later … with Jools Holland included a clause stipulating that under no circumstances was Holland to play boogie-woogie piano anywhere near the Fall

Loved Simpson's book - The Fallen is still the most entertaining Fall-related book I think. MES's own Renegade was a bit of a disappointment but Brix's, Stephen Hanley's and Si Wolstencroft's memoirs are all great and perhaps surprisingly all on the whole complementary to the great man.

[Deebank]

A friend of mine knows one of what was the current band members and says that one of his jobs was to pick up MES for band practice. MES refused to wear a seat belt so they'd drive through Manchester for about 20 minutes with this bleeping sound in his car.

I think that gets to the heart of what MES was about - probably in all honesty that he was basically a cunt. But that singular bloody-mindedness and refusal to compromise made him and his project what it was.

I don't know about that. Certainly he could be a total cunt - and I have witnessed that side of his character in action (Worthing Assembly Hall some time in the late'90s). But pretty much all of his friends, collaborators and band members from Brix (who should have the longest list of grievances), Julian Cope and Ian MacCullough in the early days to Andi Toma and Jan St Werner and others in more recent years all seem have a genuine fondness for the old scrote.

[Nuts]

Great piece by Stewart Lee
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/ ... nwall-1984

[northernsky]

Love this track though. My favourite.

Oh, me too! But I always think that’s ’cause I’m not, frankly, a hard-bitten fan. But my introduction to the Fall was a schoolfriend giving me a C90 with Extricate and The Infotainment Scan on respective sides in the balmy summer of ’97, and ”Bill is Dead” was one of my go-to songs for waking up on someone’s floor, in someone’s tent, or in someone’s hedge.

[The Modernist]

One of my favourite Smith quotes. Still makes me chuckle when I read it.

"But if Jesus had seen U2 he'd have been very mad indeed, Jesus would throw bottles at U2. We supported U2 once, at Elland Road, and people were going 'Satanists! Satanists!' and throwing Bibles and crosses at us".

[Goat Boy]

That's surely made up.

Not that it matters mind.

[harvey k-tel]

Yeah, a friend of mine posted this on Facebook, surely it can't be true:

[naughty boy]

That last one’s definitely true. But he was prone to self-mythologising

[Pool Hall Richard]

Love this track though. My favourite.

Oh, me too! But I always think that’s ’cause I’m not, frankly, a hard-bitten fan. But my introduction to the Fall was a schoolfriend giving me a C90 with Extricate and The Infotainment Scan on respective sides in the balmy summer of ’97, and ”Bill is Dead” was one of my go-to songs for waking up on someone’s floor, in someone’s tent, or in someone’s hedge.

I have a long Fall playlist, a real mix of it all from Witch Trials to Middle Class Revolt. All good. I love the raw and the melodic. For every Kicker Conspiracy or Futures and Pasts you get Time Enough At Last and Edinburgh Man. The latter is just as beautiful as Bill is Dead.