I think they've been fairly consistently amazing for far too long. I'm generally a fan of everything apart from pre-Slates stuff. His lyrics, to my mind, have rarely slipped except for a few occasions. Despite the fact I'm sort of arguing for the musical element, it's the lyrics which seperate them from every other band.

I got into them around Levitate, which was the dying breath of 'old Fall', so it's a lot easier for me to like the newer stuff, methinks.

Meh, I haven't found newer Fall stuff all that amazing either to be honest although I haven't listened to all that much.

Theyll Be No Christmas For John Quays..............

Aaaaaaaaaaa Aaaaaaaaaa Aaaaaaa Aaaaaaaa Aaaaaaaaaaa Aaaaaaaaaa Aaaaaaa Aaaaaaaa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl9VieMg1zw

".....WHATS A COMPUTER???????????????"

I like The Fall but sometimes it can be a bit harsh on the ears.

I always thought that Mark E Smith was a bit of an idiot to be honest. He seems like the hardest person to stand, let alone being in a band and touring with him. Jesus, that would be hell!

Long may he live :)

mark is no fucking idiot i assure you but i get what you mean. it must be a bitch being in a band with him.

I reckon he's a cunt, but generally people in music who aren't at least a little bit cunty are talentless.

Semper idem sed non eodem modo...works for message board threads too.

It's about understanding the mechanics of a certain type of music.Once you get it,my love,you really have learned.The Fall are one of the few bands that can afford themselves to be a science rather than a band.Probably the only of this kind.

I don't want to get into an old Fall vs. new Fall argument but I do think that all the line-up changes affect the sound. In the 70s/80s Steve Hanley had that very unique Fall bass sound. I think that when he left (after a very long stint with them) things were more inconsistent with their sound in general. It's not that The Fall don't make good records anymore, they still come out with the occasional cracking tune (blindness for example) but they've lost something along the way. Having said that, when I saw them in Dublin a few months back I was very impressed with Mark's voice. It seemed to be stronger again and he was in good form too and not too sloppy on the mic.

fucking forgot about that one. i went to see em 4 years ago in dublin and the fucker never showed up!!!!

call me history because i think you're right.

it must be hard for the new bands to learn the old songs (the
reason why there isn't so many oldies played live...) because
the guitars are too wild to be tranposed easily for a newcomer
(does it make sense ?)

the new compositions are easier to "hear", to me at least.

Yeah, there's never a guarantee that the old codger will actually turn up. When I was bringing my friends to the gig I had to warn them about that. Every time that they tour there's usually at least one gig cancelled and that could be at the very last minute!

Yeah the newer stuff is a bit more straught forward 'rock' in a sense. They do attempt the occasional oldie though.

In the BBC documentary he says that he's had "Fall fans" in the band before who want to make it sound like The Fall, and that's not what he wants.

I've read that Ben Pritchard interview before, it's pretty brutal.. being in The Fall sounds like an absolute nightmare

yeah, and still he's not sure if he'd return if mark would ask...

Playing gigs with Mark sounds like a nightmare, i saw The Fall last year and he was fiddling around with the amps while the band were playing and then in between songs he was telling the band how and where to stand.

but then again he did get beaten up by his band on stage in the 90's..

yeah in the documentary the band members refer to this as "Live Mixing" haha, what a load of shit. I saw it when i saw them last year, it was pretty entertaining but it was just him fucking around with the amps.

I wrote something, then deleted. I'm hammered. The synopsis is - he's a genius, you're not. He doesn't know fuck all about musicality, which is why he's the most necessary character in music today.