[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by tesla69

I used to tell people HEx INduction Hour was my favorite all time album, I don't know if that that is still not true.

[...] The Fall will be forgotten.

You have less than zero respect for the English language.

 

[guest]

this one's hitting me really hard again. the concept of a world without the fall is pretty mind boggling.....

keep having flashbacks to seeing them 3 nights in a row a couple of years back and thinking they were far better than any band deserves to be after four decades....autochip's gotta go down as one of their utter masterpieces right? will more than happily go in to bat for pretty much everything they've done in the last decade.

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

You have less than zero respect for the English language.

 

Bit harsh there, lad

[Massenvernichtungswaffen]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Bit harsh there, lad

He is the Soup Nazi, after all.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Bit harsh there, lad

Bit mild, actually, compared to my posts on the Trump thread. Which are GLORIOUS! In any case, I'm pretty sure t69's got me on his "ignore" list, so it's not like I'm putting a gun to his head. I think.

 

[Severian]

Originally Posted by guest

this one's hitting me really hard again. the concept of a world without the fall is pretty mind boggling.....

keep having flashbacks to seeing them 3 nights in a row a couple of years back and thinking they were far better than any band deserves to be after four decades....autochip's gotta go down as one of their utter masterpieces right? will more than happily go in to bat for pretty much everything they've done in the last decade.

I like their more recent stuff as well. I’ve taken a bit of shit for liking Fall Heads Roll because “Blindness” was featured in some commercial. I couldn’t give less of a shit. It’s a properly ass-kicking song from an ass-kicking album from a band that’s been incredibly consistent for how completely inconsistent they’ve been personnel-wise.

[The Soup Nazi]

The Wire has set up a Mark E Smith & The Fall Archive Portal. (I'm afraid you have to be a subscriber to access all its contents, though). Incidentally, here are some (just some!) of Savage Pencil's takes on MES through the years:

April 2006:

 

 

June 2009:

 

March 2015:

 

[The Soup Nazi]

Mark E Smith's final Uncut interview
Smith discusses The Fall past and present, America and art in this feature from September 2017

Essential reading. One of my favorite bits is...

Are you still in touch with the Dudes [the American group for 2007 album Reformation Post TLC]?

Yeah. Tim [Presley]'s lost in Wales, int'he? I warned him. I bet they fuckin' ate him or summat. I saw him at the Green Man festival and he says, "I'm off to Cardiff for two weeks." I said, "Don't fucking go. The women are like fucking demons." And he was like, "Oh, Mark…" 'Cos I'm always filling them with these horror stories about Britain, but they never believe me. You can't warn guitarists, though.

...which squares perfectly with Cate Le Bon's recollection as it appeared on The Guardian:

I was playing guitar for White Fence, who are led by former Fall member Tim Presley, and he introduced us. When Mark came out to see us play in Manchester's Soup Kitchen, we were met with the warmth of an old friend. He visibly adored Tim. When the time came to stop the drinking and get the band back in the van, Mark protested, but we really had to leave. When we got to the van, Tim was nowhere to be seen. When he finally returned, he told us that Mark had grabbed him, and said they were "going to another pub, come on". Tim was also beaming. Like a good bad uncle, Mark had left him with a gift and some sterling advice: some yellow powder scrunched up in a piece of newspaper and the advice to not spend too much time in Wales, as they'll kill and eat you – and that Welsh women were demons.

Cate's music certainly has a dash of The Fall in it, and it's more so with DRINKS, her project with Tim Presley. If you don't have their album Hermits On Holiday (great fuckin' title!), seek it out at all costs.

[the ikara cult]

Those Savage Pencil pieces are just brilliant

[tesla69]

The Record Collector issue with MES on the cover is hitting Stateside...

[guest]

Originally Posted by Severian

I like their more recent stuff as well. I’ve taken a bit of shit for liking Fall Heads Roll because “Blindness” was featured in some commercial. I couldn’t give less of a shit. It’s a properly ass-kicking song from an ass-kicking album from a band that’s been incredibly consistent for how completely inconsistent they’ve been personnel-wise.

missed this....fall heads roll for some reason I'm not the biggest fan of, the songs are routinely excellent but the production is weird, heavy on these really thick sounds that are mixed as to be thin? doesn't make much sense. and the takes on the tracks feel really sluggish, especially what about us (much preferred the live versions with the reformation group). but midnight aspen is astonishing, and have a real soft spot for break the rules, ride away's sick too. closer is one of the worst fall songs ever put to tape though.

new facts emerge is similar to me, interesting songs but they're made middling by the production which makes them sound like a drowning pub rock band. re-mit's fun though, yfoc obviously great (weather report's a wonder) and sub-lingual tablet has some real highs. ersatz is weird, think my enjoyment of it's largely perverse but it's just got such an odd, erratic atmosphere that it overcomes how trashy it is. will also defend reformation endlessly, total rush job but that line-up was really something special, and all the tracks tim presley chucked onto those later records were all top.

[tesla69]

Originally Posted by RanaldoNecro

Well, when you will fully choose to not promote your band this is what happens.

Can you explain what you meant a little bit, because I think this untrue - if by "not promoting" you mean they should have done more than tour globally regularly and do print interviews along with radio and TV appearances regularly? Mark was known to be unfriendly to stupid journos if thats what you mean. I went to a free show at the old Virgin Megacenter Union Square, its ridiculous but they were working to promote their record as best they could while in NY.

At the end of the day, I just don't think Rolling Stones level-stardom awaited them. When I was in high school in the early 80's, I was in the unique position of turning on a bunch of adults to new wave music, they loved the B52s and Clash and Police and XTC and T-Heads and Delta 5 and Slits I played for them, but not even Totally Wired could bring them around to the Fall.

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by tesla69

Can you explain what you meant a little bit, because I think this untrue - if by "not promoting" you mean they should have done more than tour globally regularly and do print interviews along with radio and TV appearances regularly? Mark was known to be unfriendly to stupid journos if thats what you mean. I went to a free show at the old Virgin Megacenter Union Square, its ridiculous but they were working to promote their record as best they could while in NY.

At the end of the day, I just don't think Rolling Stones level-stardom awaited them. When I was in high school in the early 80's, I was in the unique position of turning on a bunch of adults to new wave music, they loved the B52s and Clash and Police and XTC and T-Heads and Delta 5 and Slits I played for them, but not even Totally Wired could bring them around to the Fall.

Probably exactly how they/he wanted it.

[Genteel Death]

Maybe not Rolling Stones - level stardom, but some of the albums in the early 90s seem to contain more than a few licks and production sounds that wouldn't have been out of place on a New Order album at their most commercial around the same time. The first Fall song I've ever heard on the radio is ''It's a Curse'', which is an example that springs to mind.

[tesla69]

I never got to see a bad show-maybe the boogaloo - we crammed into a hallway while they played around the corner out of sight in a small room
The Rat, Boston 1983
The New Ritz, NYC 18 May 90
Slim's, San Francisco 4 Sep 93
Slim's SF 5 Sep 93
The Fillmore, San Francisco 24 Sep 94
Knitting Factory, NYC 7 Jul 03
Knitting Factory, NYC 9 Apr 04
Boogaloo Bar, South Williamsburg, Brooklyn 22 May 2004
Virgin Megacenter, Union Square, NYC 15 Oct 04
N. 6th, Williamsburg, NYC 15 Oct 04