Memories of Mark E Smith …
Listening to Fiery Jack between Treason by The Teardrop Explodes and Outdoor Miner by Wire on a mixtape my mate Pete had recorded of songs culled off late night radio. Thinking – what’s this? A joke, a novelty? Or something altogether other?
C’n’C S Mithering on John Peel’s show, late 1980. Not heard anything like this before. Poetry for today’s world. A rant but a highly articulate one with minimalist, almost primitive musical backing. Intriguing.
MES at the front – where else – of the queue for taxis at Euston Station. A normal guy, normally dressed, though with two plastic bags where everyone else had a briefcase.
My wife: “I can see there’s something going on here, even though I don’t get it myself. But why do you chuckle when you listen to The Fall? I can’t hear anything funny.”
A friend of my son’s, who’s into Gorillaz; I show him MES at Glastonbury with Damon’s band. He’s confused. “But who is this guy?”
All the stories and the anecdotes about false teeth and walk-offs and amp-fiddling and the endless merry-go-round of Fall members, all rather missing the point. The band were the greatest of their era.
It’s been said you can exist on a diet of Guinness and oranges alone. From the mid ‘sixties for the next 50 years you could listen every year to new releases by The Beatles, Neil Young, then, from 1980 onwards, The Fall - and survive on that musical nutrition alone. I mean, in the end, you’d want some carrots and chocolate as well. But, you know, if you had to.
Tracklist:
Blindness (Peel Session), The Fall
Wolf kidult man, The Fall
Mountain energei, The Fall
Bombast, The Fall
The mixer, The Fall
Venice with the girls, The Fall
Is this new, The Fall
Gross chapel- British grenadiers, The Fall
Prole art threat, The Fall
I’m a mummy, The Fall
The man whose head expanded, The Fall
Midnight in Aspen, The Fall
C’n’C S Mithering, The Fall