I make no apologies when I say that The Fall were,
and still are my favourite ever band. I could write reams on them as
their career spanned over 40 years, but shall try and keep this down to
my normal blog length. Again, I won’t bore you with their various line
ups, as only the leader, Mark E. Smith remained constant throughout. Mark
formed the band in 1976 in Prestwich, Manchester. Their music has
always been indefinable and I go along with everyone who labelled Mark a
genius. Their songs covered most subjects and were generally driven by a
repetitive guitar sound, with tense drum & bass rhythms. He had a
menacing voice, and often sang out of tune, having had no formal
musical training. The Fall never really covered any widespread
commercial success, but always maintained an immensely strong cult
following. They were called “the most prolific band of the British
post-punk movement”. They released 31 studio albums, and more than three
times more other albums such as compilations. They also recorded 24
sessions for the Peel Show. Mark and John had a strange relationship in
that despite Peel championing their cause at every opportunity, they
rarely exchanged anything more than friendly ‘grunts’. Smith wasn’t
known for being ‘a great bloke’, and in fact his prickly nature always
dictated that he would be outspoken in most things. In
1977 The Fall recorded heir first EP ‘Bingo Master’s Break-out’ and
their first LP was released in 1979 entitled ‘Live at the Witch
Trials.’ (still sounds good today) A sixteen year old Marc Riley
(remember him?) was the band’s roadie, but was recruited to play bass. In
the early eighties, Mark had an American girlfriend, Brix Smith, whom
he married, and she joined the band, and her quest was to find a wider
audience for The Fall. She liked to dress elegantly which Mark felt
belied the group’s working class image, but they achieved modest success
with cover versions of R. Dean Taylor’s ‘There’s a ghost in my house’
and the Kinks ‘Victoria’. Several LP’s followed , but one stood out –
‘I am Kurious Oranj’ which was a collaboration between Smith and dancer
Michael Clark. Brix left the band in 1989, and her marriage to Smith
ended in divorce, but in the early nineties, The Fall had modest
success with the singles ‘Telephone Thing’, ‘White Lightning’ ‘Free
Range’ and ‘Why are people grudgeful’. In 1997 following ‘Levitate’s
release, the NME’s Steven Wells wrote “If you’ve never heard The Fall,
‘Levitate’ will be the best and worst record you’ve ever heard”. When
a short U.S. Tour ended one evening with Smith fighting on stage with
other members of the band, the following day he was arrested on charges
of assault. In September 2002, Smith’s third wife Elaena Poulou took
over keyboard playing, and this brought about some much needed stability
to the Band, especially with the release of ‘The Real New Fall LP’,
and it is from this album, that I am requesting lex to play my all time
favourite ‘Theme from Sparta FC’. There are many other tunes of theirs
that I love, like ‘Rebellious Jukebox’, ‘Mr Pharmacist’ & ‘The day
I wrote Elastic Man’, but for me ‘Sparta FC’ shades it. Incidentally
there is an amazing BBC4 tv programme ‘The Fall : The wonderful and
frightening World of Mark E Smith’, which is good viewing and
downloadable on YouTube. Smith thought it hilarious that John Peel’s
producer John Walters had said to him “You lot are even worse than
Siouxsie & the Banshees.....would you like to do a session for us?” Mark E Smith, musician, & artist died on 24 January 2018 having been diagnosed with terminal lung & kidney cancer. As I said earlier, I could go on writing about The Fall, but I hope this blog will suffice. |
