RIP Mark E Smith

[Tactful Cactus]

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

Nice thanks for posting that

[The Modernist]

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

The one about the teddy bear? How do you know?

[naughty boy]

It was corroborated by Brix in her book. And there are scans of one or two postcards in one of the MES/Fall biogs. I'll try and find it.

[The Write Profile]

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.

I'm much the same as Baron, although my age means I didn't get into them until the early 2000s. It recently struck me that I probably own more albums by the Fall than any other artist in my record collection, but I've barely scratched the surface. The Peel Sessions were a revelatory experience for me: a band surprisingly tight yet able to peel off massive shards of sound, with Mark E Smith's ability to turn non-sequiturs into something meaningful, funny, intense and whatever else you could imagine. I wish I could have seen them live. RIP Mark E Smith. A true original. Condolences to JC too.

As an aside,here's an interesting article about the Falls first-ever tour of New Zealand, back in 1982.

[The Modernist]

It was corroborated by Brix in her book. And there are scans of one or two postcards in one of the MES/Fall biogs. I'll try and find it.

I believe you!
It reminded me a bit of the Bowie story that was going the rounds after he died about him him comforting an autistic lad with this mask story. They seemed a bit urban-myth to me -nice to hear it's true!

[bobzilla77]

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

They were/ are beloved in LA. Jack Brewer of Saccharine Trust was a huge fan, it's one of the only punk-era bands that weren't his neighbors, that I've heard him talk about as an influence. Chris D from the Flesh Eaters just published a nice memorial on FB yesterday too.

[naughty boy]

They influenced every alt-rock band of the last 40 years, really.

[echolalia]

I was out tonight with my mate who knew Smith well. They were friends from pre-Fall times, and later he worked with the group. He was reminiscing fondly and re-telling my favourite MES story, which is the time they went camping in the Lake District. I would tell the tale but you'd never go camping again!

[Snarfyguy]

I would tell the tale but you'd never go camping again!

I never will anyway!

[Tom Waits For No One]

I was out tonight with my mate who knew Smith well. They were friends from pre-Fall times, and later he worked with the group. He was reminiscing fondly and re-telling my favourite MES story, which is the time they went camping in the Lake District. I would tell the tale but you'd never go camping again!

Tell the tale. Go on.

[naughty boy]

Yeah, please tell!

[Fonz]

Can't claim to be a fan, but genuinely intrigued by the things people are writing.
'Contrarian' is a word that comes up a lot. Which makes me wonder if I should explore more.

http://thequietus.com/articles/23928-ma ... tuary-obit

[naughty boy]

There are certain lines you read again and again about MES and The Fall, recycled mostly by unimaginative journos.

He was only 'contrarian' in that he was genuinely different to all other singers/artists. He was absolutely 'uncompromising', in that he always did exactly what he wanted to do. He could be 'curmudgeonly', but he was often charming (I met him twice and the first time he was certainly that). He was probably 'bloody-minded' and he definitely drank too much. 'Wizened'? sometimes. 'working class'? I think so.

And then there's 'me and yer granny on bongos', 'always different, always the same', 'hiring and firing tyrant', etc. etc. ad nauseam. And when the hacks aren't dribbling out those cliches to fill their columns, they're writing shitloads of pretentious gibberish - which don't really reflect what the band or what the man was about at all.

However I think he needed the approbation of The Guardian (cover/feature in today's G2 supplement), and earlier the NME, because, simply put, it meant money in the bank and a touch of respectability. But just dig those tunes!

[Goat Boy]

I think he was contrary but often in a joking way designed to wind people up so it was so superficial. In interviews there were times when you weren’t quite sure whether what he was saying was MES TRUE THOUGHTS, ken?

That doesn’t necessarily mean he was a contrarian but maybe I’m making a false distinction there.

What were they about then? What was he about?

[clive gash]

I liked those notes to his mate when he was a shipping clerk, full of fun with words, in-jokes and itchy insolence. He was a fully formed oddity before the Fall.

[Deebank]

There was a time in the late '80s when the NME was ultra PC (the SWP influence no doubt) and MES would talk admiringly about people like Bernard Manning and outrage would ensue.

In general he would slag off the kind of Rough Trade lefty causes and people he might have been expected to like and express admiration for stuff that was otherwise deeply uncool - like the Falklands War.

In that respect he was a contrarian. And I think they were sincere, if perhaps exaggerated for effect.

His background was also not what people expected - he had a nice normal house in suburban Prestwich. His grandfather (and then dad) ran a plumbing business and he went to grammar school That's not to say he was some middle class fake, but he was proud that his family were a cut above - if only a bit above

[Jeff K]

Lovely words from Brix.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/ ... ?CMP=fb_gu

[KeithPratt]

I've read a lot of eloquent prose on MES since he died. And I'll be honest and say that, like I guess with all artists when they die, you only miss them when they're gone.

I think what I liked most was someone saying that he relentlessly avoided anyone being able to categorise what they were at any one moment. I like that aesthetic, even if I didn't really buy into the actual form it took. There was no "Classic Fall" for example.

[Penk!]

http://www.wsc.co.uk/features/14033-from-the-archive-mark-e-smith-interview-so-you-call-yourself-a-football-fan

I applied for a clerical job at the Edwards family’s meat factory after I left school. It was £9 a week. It might even have been Martin Edwards who did the interview. He said “Well the meat wagons come in, just sit there, fill in these forms and file them.” I said, “When would the job start?” and he said “You’ve started” and he left me in the office.
How long did you keep the job?
An hour. I was there all by myself. He’d locked the door. When he came back, I left...

...And you get big pints of beer at German matches for, like, 25p, and a nice clean sausage...

...And they turned up in replica Liverpool kits with “The Icicle Works” on the front and they’ve got this mock European Cup with them. It was 20 minutes each way and we went 5-4 in front in injury time and their tour manager’s the referee, so it went on and on until they won 6-5. It’d gone dark by the time we finished and in the bar they’re telling all the music journos they’ve won and passing the European Cup around...

[Goat Boy]

There's a clip on youtube where some fella from the Inspiral Carpets is talking about doing TOTP with MES.

It's worth listening to.