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the latest:

• Mark was on Razor Cuts Sunday night (December 1, 8-10 p.m. GMT) on Virgin Radio, chatting to Pete Mitchell and choosing a few songs (Bo Diddley, "Hey Bo Diddley"; R. Dean Taylor, "Indiana Wants Me"; Aqua, "Barbie Girl"; Big Youth, "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing"; Can, "Vitamin C"; The Impressions, "First Impressions"; Velvet Underground, "I Heard Her Call My Name." The mighty Stephen Bending has an mp3 of it on his website.
• Mark said the band have studio time booked in the next week or two, and the new album should be out early in the new year.
• MES was on Liz Kershaw's BBC 6FM show on Nov. 25.
• The Fall are booked to record their 23rd Peel session on January 15.
• The DVD of the Blackburn "25th anniversary" gig should be out in February.
• The Fall will feature in an upcoming issue of Turkey's LULL magazine.

Shaun Brennan:

Thought this might be of interest to readers in the San Francisco / Berkeley area. The relevant bit's right down at the bottom of the page. http://www.fineartscinema.com/home.cgi

There's not much info on the page - just:

November 30 to December 4
Special Late Nite: THE FALL 11:15 nightly

A rare collection of entrancing work based in and supported by the music of Mark E. Smith and The Fall.

The Fine Arts Theater is at

2451 Shattuck Avenue (at Haste)
Berkeley
phone 510-848-1143

Voiceprint coupons redux:

Those Voiceprint coupons for the free MES mystery CD... it turns out that Voiceprint wants you to collect and send in eight coupons, not one coupon, to get the free CD. The eight new CDs containing the coupons are the remastered Live at the Witch Trials, Dragnet, Hex Enduction Hour, Room to Live, In a Hole, Extricate, plus the new Listening In and Early Singles compilations. Listening In, Witch Trials, and Dragnet are out now apparently, and the rest will be out very soon. Obviously no one in their right mind is actually going to buy all these rereleases when they already have perfectly good copies of Dragnet, Hex, RTL, and Extricate, so I wouldn't be surprised if Voiceprint rethinks this most generous offer in the future.

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New single out now:

7" 1. Susan vs. Youthclub (Smith / Milner) 2. Janet vs. Johnny (Smith / Pritchard) CD single 1. Susan vs. Youthclub 2. Janet vs. Johnny 3. Susan vs. Youthclub - remix (remixed by Vertical Smile) Engineered by blzproductions.com The 7" was supposed to come out on blue vinyl, but due to a pressing plant error, it's regulation black after all.

Ian:

Heard the single on Peel last night - On first listening sounds like its about some woman called Susan who has a bit of an accident and goes back to being 16 again - Wasn't this a storyline in "Neighbours" recently, where the teacher, Susan lost her memory, and wandered into the School disco, confused by everyones reaction cos she thought she was the same age as them? Not that I watch such daytime piffle..........

Philip:

Haven't seen Neighbours in years, but that exact same plot was used in Twin Peaks.

Mark:

I have too much time on my hands...

... for last night I attempted to transcribe the lyrix to the new single. Suspected Neighbours plotline involves into "Calendar" guitarist denture stealing incident:

Susan vs youthclub

Susan had an accident
Reverted back to age sixteen
Went down the youthclub
In a mirror looked and started to scream

And a similar thing happened to me
When I was of the age thirteen
Reflection held a picture of a man
If two-hundred and three

And it was all in all safe and warm
Safe and warm

Reading book I had no teeth
To talk about on that day
Badly Boy Drawn had confiscated them
And put them in
A mouldy old accoustic case safe and warm
For a Saturday

And it was all in all safe and warm

The reflection held
I hel... looked a whole lot better
Distinguished
Picking crumbs off the floor
Sophisticated

Susan had an accident
Reverted back to age sixteen
Went down the youthclub
In a mirror looked and started to scream

And it was all in all safe and warm (to fade)

I quite like this track, mainly because of the effects on MES's voice & they way he says most of the words on the off-beats.

Janet vs Johnny

What if all the (world)
(Carroted and mashed)
Into your eyelids
Neopotism

It's me and (?)
Through your (collar/colour)
Janet and Johnny
And James
(Crash/crush your mind)
(Crash/crush your mind)

Eager, smug and positive
With appointment
You never make it

Janet and Johnny
And James
(Crash/crush your mind)
(Crash/crush your mind)

I, weak man
With too much power
(Droop/troop) out the door
A weakened person
The discarded columns
Form a circle
On your rubbish throwout
What if all the (world)
(Carroted and mashed)
It happens all the time

Janet and Johnny
And James
(Crash/crush your mind)
(Crash/crush your mind)

Susan vs youthclub remix

Sixteen...

And it was all in all safe and warm
An accid...
All in all safe and warm
An accid...
All in all safe and warm
Went down the youthclub
All in all safe and warm
An accid...

And it was all in all safe and warm
All in all safe and warm
All in all safe and warm

All in all
And it was all in all
All in all

And it was all in all safe and warm
And it was
And it was

Sounds like a completely different track to me, with snippets of the orig's vox plastered over the top. Kicking bass, Jim!

Stuart:

Badly Drawn Boy's version of the teeth incident, from Q, July 2002.

"Have you given Mark E Smith's jacket and false teeth back?

Well seeing as Mark is referring to me as a "fat fucker" these days, then I' ll tell this story. I was waiting for Andy Votel (Twisted Nerve/Label boss) outside a bar called Night & Day in Manchester and he staggered out of the bar, opened my car door, got in and said, "Take me to Stockport", [Laughs] So I did, for a laugh. When he got out I realised he'd left his jacket in there. I offered to give it back, but he didn't want it. And as for the teeth, I cleaned the car the day after. When I was clawing out all the empty McDonalds packets wrappers I found this set of teeth, which I kept in the glove compartment for a couple of years, but no, I was never tempted to hang them from the rear view mirror."

Also, from this week's Time Out:

The Fall, "The Fall vs 2003," Action Records.

As the Marquis and co approach their twenty-fifth anniversary, there's clearly no need for a retirement whip-round yet. Analogue synths fizz and buzz in a manner that's thoroughly de nos jours, keyboards buckle, Mr Smith"sings" as if stricken by chronic toothache in a wind tunnel and the whole lurches along in a twisted disco fashion that pees triumphantly on all those nu-electro upstarts.

Sharon O'Connell

Johnathan:

I preferred the guitar-driven live version I saw the other week, rather than the more electronic recorded version that I've just heard.

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Out now on Voiceprint:

Also out now are 24-bit remasters of Witch Trials (guaranteed 100% skip-free!), Dragnet, and Hex Enduction Hour.

"Live at the Witch Trials +" (COGVP138CD) includes the bonus tracks Bingo Master's Break-out, Psycho Mafia, and Repetition.

"Dragnet +" (COGVP140CD) includes the bonus tracks Rowche Rumble, In My Area, Fiery Jack, 2nd Dark Age, and Psykick Dancehall No.2.

"Hex Enduction Hour" (COGVP141CD) includes the bonus tracks Look, Know and I'm Into C.B.

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Electric Ballroom, Camden, November 21, 2002:

Nigel:

Fall tight, focused, decent sound, probably the best of the 2002 gigs IMHO.

Mansion>To: Nkroachment Yarbles / 2 Librans / And Therein / Mere Pseud Mag Ed / Bens>F-oldin Money>Kick the Can / Behind the Counter / Bourgeois Town / Mr Pharmacist / Susan vs Youth Club / Janet vs Johnny > Enigrammatic Dream > Ketamine Sun / There's a Ghost in my House / The Classical / White Lightning / Dr Buck's Letter // Way Round

Tom:

Got to The Spreadeagle at about 7.00, had a couple of pints and then straight to the Electric Ballroom.

Nought were excellent, with a masterly set of sparse, jangling emptiness, and their usual breakneck rock.

Dr Freak's Padded Cell were two men and a keyboard, with the occasional girl on backing vocals. One of the men had a megaphone and pretended to be Mark E Smith. He imitated Smith's vocal style and he imitated Smith's lyrics, both badly. A friend said to me that they sounded like someone who really hated The Fall, and really hated New Order, and wanted to do a vicious parody of both. I didn't think they were quite as bad as everyone else, but it was a close thing.

The Fall were poor. It started off with Two Librans, which was good, as was And Therein which followed. Susan vs Youth Club was pretty good, better, I thought, live, than on record, and I couldn't give a hoot if Smith wants to sit down to read his lyrics. It wasn't a patch on the new stuff that was debuted for Are You Are Missing WInner though. The song which followed I think must have been the B-side. It was a sedate number with guitars lifted off a Western. That was a cut above the rest, too.

The rest of the gig was old rope. They performed old songs badly. They gave the impression of being imitators, or automatons. There is little point in bothering to describe White Lightning, Ghost in My House, Mere Pseud, The Classical, Behind the Counter etc. You all know what they sound like, so needless to say they just about survived the band's ennervation of them by being halfway decent songs. Dr Buck's Letter was weedy, although it managed to thrash about fairly effectively at the end. Way Round had some zest.

The crowd was OK, but the gig was lazy and dull, band and Smith inclusive which, as you can imagine, really rattled my cage.

Before the gig I jokingly said to someone that I tow the party line, a sort of Fall apparatchik. I have never seen a Fall gig that I haven't liked, and this was my 27th or thereabouts. All of them, the murky, the disrupted, the inaudible, the slapdash, have in some way been great. But this one is best forgotten, really.

Jonathan:

Marvellous show at the Electric Ballroom last night.

During "Dr Buck" the singer from the piss-awful support band Dr Thrill's Padded Cell came on and joined in the vocals.

MES startlingly sober throughout, though making occasional trips offstage, causing a 2-minute intro to "Bourgeouis Town".

"Two Librans" started off with the band going straight into the chorus and thus getting out-of-sync with MES, who then meandered off into the lyrics to "Hey Student" and even "Race With The Devil". "And Therein" was sluggish as well. But then a lyric-perfect rendition of "Pseud Mag" kicked it all into gear. "Classical" was also correct apart from missing the non-PC lines at the start. Could have done with 2 guitarists though.

During "Behind The Counter" I thought "This really needs the keyboards"... which Mark clearly thought at the same moment, because he went over to tinkle inaudibly with a keyboard at the side of the stage. Jim the bassist did play on it later on.

The only time he ever needed to consult a lyric sheet was during "Susan Vs Youthclub", which sounds much like the last album. For "Janet Vs Johnny" MES switched to a full reading of "Enigrammatic" whilst the band gradually mutated the sound seamlessly from the seesaw rhythm into what at first sounded like it was going to become "Antidotes", but then turned into "Ketamine Sun".

The guitar-driven "Ghost In My House" was a joy as well.

The audience was divided into a third who had clearly heard "The Classical" in 1982, a third who thought it was a new song, and a third who didn't fit into the other 2 thirds. Luke Haines was there as well.

Sean:

Eectric ballroom. A TOP NIGHT!

ketamine Sun and Dr Burkes letter where excellent, The band still don't match the spark that Nevail brought to proceedings but hugh improvement on the Form gig. There where a sorry bunch of chancers throwing tins and punching punters but you pay your money you take your chance. Can't spoil a Fall gig when the man is in such top form!

Highlight was to hear white lighening finally!

Big hello to the America couple who come over every year to catch The Fall. Now thats what i call fans (not the 28 gig going moaners!)

Paul:

The Fall returned to their old hunting ground of the Electric Ballroom and delivered a set that included showcase versions of both sides of the new single Susan vs Youth Club along with the current live regulars.

The now obligatory opener for 2002 "Mansion" kicks off the evening with M E Smith entering stage left donning a black leather jack. MES appears to be in a mischievous mood tonight as he dodges an unusually high amount of beer being thrown from all directions at the stage. "And Therin" closes with MES winding up the volume control on the guitar amp to full. The guitarist looks on with displeasure before deciding to wait until Smith takes a breather towards the side of the stage to take his chance to return the controls to normal.

Bourgeois Town is the highlight of the opening songs. The trad. Fall song is only spoilt by the lack of an additional five minutes of guitar and bass - the end is far too normal by Fall standards.

Some tourists in the audience woop as the band kick into the tried and trusted "Mr Pharmacist" while for The Fall devotees in the crowd and there look to be plenty, the highlight is hearing the new single material. "Susan" is a strange affair and probably the weakest Fall single for sometime. It plods along without really going anywhere. It's followed by the 'B' side "Janet vs Johnny". This has a catchy guitar rift that sounds familiar but not in a Fall sense. The song panned out into a recital of the MES spoken word classic "Enigrammatic Dream" before drifting to "Ketamine Sun". It was mixture that really worked and had the majority of the crowd mesmerised by its close.

More whooping greeted "Ghost" before a strangely guitar orientated version of "The Classical" with fully compromised 2002 lyrics. Underneath the song somewhere was a Fall classic.

"White Lightning" stirred the beer pit down the front again. The bassist takes a full pint in the chest, scowls into the audience and considers jumping in to gain revenge. He takes the safer option and hides behind a virtually unused keyboard.

The lead singer of support band Dr Freak's Padded Cell is called on stage for the closing song of the set "Dr Buck's Letter". The combination comes off as the song builds up to a decent frenzy of sound montage. A microphone is eaten by the audience.

A member of the roadcrew are not impressed. MES actually apologies saying it was his fault (seriously). MES throws another microphone into the bass drum to further modify the sound and departs the stage to allow the DFPC singer to complete the song and the main set.

"Way Round" is thrashed out for the encore and the evening is over all too quick. New material and further gigs in 2003 are awaited with interest.

Luke (from http://www.thestereoeffect.com):

The last time The Fall played London they were crap. Not merely on an off-day, but terribly, almost wilfully bad. Mark E Smith seemed a caricature of himself; too drunk, stained trousers, wandering offstage, messing up the sound to an extreme. That night, The Fall were bettered by the support acts, which, as anyone who has witnessed more than a few Fall gigs will tell you, happens rarely, if at all. But what a difference a few months makes. For tonight's gig was a stellar performance, up among their best and arguably, a contender for gig of the year. But why?

For a start, Smith seemed to be in particularly good cheer. Yes, he still looks like a lizard-tongued denizen of a Dickensian netherworld... but tonight he appears almost debonair in his smart jumper, khaki cords and even clean hair. He's also behaving well - although he disappears offstage for long enough for Bourgeois Town to get an extended intro, everyone is sure that he is going to return. And when he prowls the stage, he's a threatening presence to be sure, fiddling with amps, putting his mic inside the bass drum, gesticulating at the audience, but it's a presence that complements the music rather than draws it and the gig into farcical parody. Then there's the lineup of the band, unchanged now in a year, a stability which seems to have given The Fall a new, tighter edge. Admittedly, some of the more recent material such as Dr Bucks Letter, off 2000's return-to-form LP The Unutterable, could have done with some more digital effects and squelches, but overall the band hold everything together perfectly.

Of course, at a Fall gig there'll always be a contingent in the audience (normally fat, male, grimly clutching warm pints) who maintain that The Fall have never been as good as back when they saw them at North London Poly in '81. But these people miss the point, as the set list tonight demonstrates. In addition to the new, almost jaunty single Janet vs. Johnny, there's material that stretches back over The Fall's career. From The Classical through Mr Pharmacist via a mix of F'oldin' Money and Kick the Can that you could almost classify a bootleg, these are all songs that prove that the infernal mechanism within Smith's brain is still very much alive and ticking.

Nearly all of their one-time contemporaries resort to embarrassing revival tours or filthy lucre reformations, merely coming across as laughable and forgettable relics of a bygone era. The Fall, on the other hand, have it within them to make much of this year's new breed seem irrelevant. When The Fall are bad, they're terrible. But when they play like tonight, there are very few who can touch them.

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Jane Law, David Harrop's partner, wrote in. As mentioned in the previous Fall News, Dave, a longtime Fall fan and loyal Fallnet and website contributor, passed away last month. We all miss him on Fallnet.

Just a word to all the people out there who knew / had contact with Dave Harrop who died suddenly on 14th October aged 43.

Today (Monday) we scatter Dave's ashes in the Autumn Garden at Walton Lea Crematorium in Warrington at 3.30 pm. We thought this garden would be apt because of course it is "The Fall".

I know Dave would ask me to thank all of you who wrote to me with their condolences. A number of you mentioned that you knew of Dave but never met or even saw him. I attach a picture taken when he visited Niagara Falls in about 1998. Dave called it his "Heavenly" picture and I thought now is an apt time to share this with you.

Regards. Jane

P.S. I note the new album "Listening In" has a track entitled Funeral Mix. Give it a blast for Dave!!

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Three Fall albums made it into Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1980s: Perverted by Language (82), Hex Enduction Hour (33), and This Nation's Saving Grace (13).

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With many thanks to The Wire's Editor-in-Chief Tony Herrington, here's next month's "Death Row" column:

How would Mark E. Smith spend his last day on Earth?

You are allowed...

Three records:
Essential Sun Rockabillies Vol 3
Big Youth: Natty Cultural Dread
Kenny Everett: The World¹s Worst Record Show

One film:
The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup or
Ang Lee¹s Ride With The Devil

One book:
Wyndham Lewis: Blast No 1

Three visitors:
My wife
Napolean
the Editor-in-Chief of The Wire

Last meal:
Danish blue cheese on tortillas and one bottle of Glenmorangie

Final message for the world:
Hand over that crate of Hölsten Pils. Hurry up!

Music for the funeral:
The Velvet Underground: "Sister Ray"

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From Manchester Online:

Mark E Smith is reader's greatest Mancunian

Mark E Smith is the reader's choice for the Greatest Mancunian of all time. Manchester continued the trend from the first poll - which Morrissey won by a mile - and turned to its musical roots to elect the greatest of all its citizens.

Maybe it wasn't the same landslide victory as the former Smiths frontman achieved, but nethertheless, Mark E Smith polled almost TWICE as many votes as his nearest rival, speedway champion Peter Collins.

The singer-songwriter, born in Salford and once dubbed the grumpiest man in pop by New Musical Express, has kept The Fall, together since 1977. His success will come as a disappointment to all those who voted for the Bee Gee's, who received 18th of Mark E Smith's result.

With Peter Collins in second place, it was back to music with Ian Brown, the former Stone Roses frontman coming in third.

In sport, Frenchman Eric Cantona came fourth, with more than three times as many votes as the former Manchester City goalkeeper Bert Trautmann.

And the Smiths have even made a big impression in our second poll with the legendary guitarist Johnny Marr arriving in fifth place.

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With thanks to Paul Lewis, here are 16 photos of the Oxford Zodiac gig (Sept. 27, 2002), including a great shot of the new keyboard player, who I assume is Elena?

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Brief reviews from Uncut:

2G+2 (3 stars out of 5)
Pander! Panda! Panzer! (3 stars out of 5)

Latest Additions to Bafflingly Huge Discography

Repeating the formula of 1989's Seminal Live, this year's official "new Fall LP", 2G+2, mixes a 2001 Seattle concert with three new studio cuts, of which New Formation Sermon is quintessential; a sublime rockabilly rap that wouldn't sound amiss on 1981's Slates EP.

Smith's second spoken-word offering, Pander! Panda! Panzer!, is weirder but more interesting. Part lyric recital (1991's Idiot Joy Showland makes an exemplary monologue), part stand-up LP, complete with foot-and-mouth jokes. Godlike genius aplenty on both releases.

Simon Goddard

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A few readers like playing with Googlism.

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Trent:

There's a review up at Pissfork for the new Pavement Slanted & Enchanted Deluxxe release that is really disingenuous in regards to the influence The Fall had on the band.

The writer, in sarcastic affectation quips: "It's not like Pavement ripped off The Fall. What *IS* that?? What, Malkmus talks in 'Conduit for Sale'. Big Fucking Deal. Mark E. Smith says Malkmus is driving around in his BMW. But Ghoul, I gotta tell you: you can't sing. Malkmus can."

I'm trying to think of a suitable riposte, just for the fuck of it, but maybe one of you will beat me to it.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/p/pavement/slanted-and-enchanted.shtml

They scanned in handwritten pages for this with all sorts of comments in the margins. Get it? You know, the way Pavement started the whole trend of scribbling all sorts of minutia on their record covers? Oh, sorry, that was The Fall wasn't it?

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Spoon-Fed:

A webcast of a recent question and answer session with John Peel is currently available on the Radio 1 website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/nottingham/cafe/webcasts.shtml.

Reference is made about 30 minutes in to MES's appearance on the Breezeblock.

If you can get past the rather gushing introduction by Mary-Anne Hobbs, there are some rather entertaining moments to be had - Peel's tale about the 1968 Buxton Music Festival being one of them.

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Conway:

Since I've now had 2 or 3 people asking, here are the links again for the Fall wallpaper and animated screensaver.
http://liquid2k.com/conwaypaton/fallpaper.jpg (1024x768) http://liquid2k.com/conwaypaton/fallpaper-800x600.jpg
http://fallscreensaver.cjb.net

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Tom Hingley (ex-Inspiral Carpet) and the Lovers (including Steve and Paul Hanley) tour dates:

Nov. 16    Fleetwood scooter rally (2 p.m.)
Nov. 16    Theatre Royal, Workington (9 p.m.)
Nov. 22    Dancehouse Theatre, Manchester
Nov. 30    Black Swan, Spalding
Dec. 03   Blue Cat Cafe, Heaton, Mersey
Dec. 05   Sandinos, Derry
Dec. 06   Brysons Magherafelt, N. Ireland
Dec. 07   Arch Inn, Cardonagh, Ireland
Dec. 11   Roddens, Buncrana
Dec. 13   Kilkenny
Dec. 28   Hungerford

further details on Tom's website: http://www.tomhingley.co.uk/

Dec. 4, 2002

This is the latest news and gossip off FallNet for those with weak stomachs.

If you have anything to say, you can mail Stefan, but you can't mail the FallNet mailing list direct anymore. To subscribe to FallNet, send mail to fallnet-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com. The Freedonia list is out of action.