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There's an article on Pitchforkmedia that distills the latest Fall News.

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From Billions Corporation:

THE FALL ANNOUNCES NORTH AMERICAN TOUR!
Billions is very proud to announce representation of The Fall. Mancunian of the Year Mark E. Smith and the band are set to issue a compelling new album called "Country on the Click" on May 12 although a US domestic release has yet to be confirmed. No matter, though. The band will play an extended set of long-awaited dates in the US and Canada that begins at the Casbah in San Diego on June 19, ends on July 17 in Dallas, and includes an appearance at All Tomorrow's Parties Los Angeles on June 20. Consult the Tours section at Billions Online for all the details coming soon. As longtime fans know, the only constant during The Fall's twenty-five-year tenure on this planet has been the uncompromising and memorable singularity of Mark E. Smith's musical vision. Don't miss your chance to experience one of the best and most important rock bands ever assembled anywhere.

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I've been trying to get a hold of Action Records about Country on the Click, but they haven't replied*. I've been told that Mark was not completely happy with the final mix of the album and wanted to redo some tracks. If that's the case, I would guess that the release will be pushed back (it's scheduled to come out on April 14). The fact that Action is not advertising the album on their website is also a bit worrying, since they usually let you pre-order albums.

* Action replied on April 3: "The reason we have not been in touch is we are trying to sort it out but we will be back in touch as soon as we have something to tell you."

April 9: Amazon.co.uk says that the album will be out May 12. In the meantime, here's an mp3 of Dean Martin's Houston (covered as Ho(e)uston on CotC). I'll leave it up for a few days.

April 17: Opal Music says it'll be out on April 28. Amazon still says May 12.

April 28: It's not out today, and I've heard rumours that it might not be out on May 12 either...

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Steven Bending's wonderful The Fall Multimedia Project website has the Fall segments from Made in the Northwest as well as Tom "Lofty" Watts performing Subterranean Homesick Blues.

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All Tomorrow's Parties, Camber Sands, April 4, 2003:

Thanks to David Moore for the setlist:

Behind the Counter / Telephone Thing / And Therein / Green-Eyed Loco Man / Bourgeois Town / Mountain Energei / F-'Oldin' Money > Kick the Can / Mr. Pharmacist / Theme from Sparta F.C. / Big New Prinz / I Am Damo Suzuki / Dr. Buck's Letter

Ian (an excerpt from his Playlouder review):

Mind you, while they've [Thirstin Howl III] parked their bathtowel on an inspired spot of the mad-but-ace beach, they're still no match for The Fall, which is something of a surprise, seeing as how the mercurial Mr Smith swung his sacking axe over about half the band just the other week. Good news is, though, that apparently the replacements don't know the new stuff too well, so the disappointing 'Are You Are Missing Winner' material gets overlooked here in favour of, well, not so much The Hits, but certainly a fistful of unexpected crowd-pleasers, with Mark as fantastically focussed as he was in last year's back-on-form performance. So 'Dr. Buck's Letter' growls along like a stuttering locomotive, 'And Therein...''s a veritable bouncy castle of a song, and as for 'Bournemouth Runner', probably the third best track on the best Fall album evah! (just behind 'U.S. 80s-90s' and the underrated 'Riddler' on 'Bend Sinister', since you ask)... phfffffftt! *collapses*

Eliot:

I just returned from All Tomorrow's Parties, where I saw the Fall for the second time in twelve or so years of abject fandom. It was a crackin set - I am not the type to remember songlist orders, so I'll leave that to someone else, but they finished with Dr. Buck's Letter, they nearly brought the fucking place down. Then Public Enemy came on...a nice two-step combo, MES to Chuck D, in a dual hectoring smackdown. PE did "War HA, good god, what is it good for" - a nice moment.

After the gig, I finally got to meet MES - I jabbered on about some useless information and then, when he was about to leave, thanked him for introducing Literature to Rock 'n Roll. He ambled over and gave me a great big hug.

Kek-W:

The Fall were bloody great. Both MES and band were on cracking form. Smith looked relaxed and healthy in a smart standard-issue Orwellian grey shirt/black trousers combo. Chewing gum and drinking mineral water (!!!?), he almost seemed to be enjoying himself as he prowled the stage, scowling and injecting lyrical venom into a handful of classic Fall tracks. No walk-offs, amp-twiddling or random keyboard interjections, just an occasional mike swap-around to go walk-about. Still, it's early days yet...

This was definitely a rhythm-dominated incarnation of The Fall: Tight Motorik drumming and springy, propulsive bass combined to form a scuzzed-up Krautrockabilly garage hybrid, while Eleanor's keyboard contributions added an old-school Una Baines late-70's edge to the proceedings. Here's what I can remember before the gin kicked in: Telephone Thing was tight, off-kilter funkabilly. A killer version of Bourgeois Town. Big New Prinz was slightly fussy, but - Bloody Hell! - did I imagine it or did they play Bournemouth Runner while I was at the bar? Call-and-response from the audience during F-foldin' Money. Mr. Pharmacist blew away the version on 2G+2. Two or three songs I didn't recognise, one of which was almost certainly Green-eyed Loco Man. Oh, nearly forgot: And Therein...

I thought my mate Darryl was going to have an embolism when they played Damo Suzuki. Bless you, Ben: that guitar-line still sends goose-bumps down my spine. And, just when you think they've turned into a Bizzaro-World Pontins Holiday Camp Professional Fall Tribute Band they end with a blurry, strange-o version of Dr. Buck's Letter.

Like I said: Bloody great.

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A review of in: Palace of Swords Reversed by Bob Nickas (from Sound Collector Audio Review):

Mark E. Smith's Northern work ethic always came down to: everything recorded shall be released. And for a prolific band that's been around this long there's a lot of vinyl out there. Every year since 1979 The Fall have almost without fail released a studio album, some years even two, not counting a live album now and then, singles and EPs tossed out in quick succession, and compilations at regular intervals meant to keep track of it all. Recent years have seen more and more compilations, few in any way essential, many re-packaging material still in print or certainly in the collections of die-hard fans. Of which I am one. Unrepentant to the end.

1987 is one of only two bare bones moments in The Fall discography. The only new studio material released that year was a twelve-inch EP featuring their cover of R. Dean Taylor's "There's a Ghost in My House." The original came out in 1966 on Tamla Motown, followed by Taylor's album, "I Think, Therefore I Am," which appeared on the Rare Earth label a year later. One of the best song-stories to be found on that album is "Gotta See Jane," a little road movie with a rain-swept highway and windshield wipers keeping time. No big surprise that Mark E. Smith would eventually get around to that one, giving it a faithful reading on last year's "Are You Are Missing Winner?"

Of their own material on that '87 EP was one of Smith¹s most cryptic tales, "Haf Found Bormann." Smith may have fronted a band with a huge following in Germany, but he never shied away from his fascination for the history and character of the Fatherland. (This, the man who wrote "Who Makes the Nazis?," declaring them a "longhorn breed.") In Bormann, Hitler's private secretary and closest confidant, powerful, treacherous, feared even by high ranking party members, Smith had one of the war's great unsolved mysteries. Reportedly killed as he fled Berlin in 1945, Bormann was reported to have been seen in various South American capitals well into the '70s. Smith's song is like a radio dispatch from agents on his trail, crackly messages intercepted and ultimately lost, phantom, like the man himself.

And then there's "Mark¹ll Sink Us," a live recording from who knows where. "The ward was arrayed with spats of blood. The victim, castigate, and yet part of us." And later "... I am desolate. I live the black and blue of the night. Friend depression comes now and again, once in a blue moon it points backwards thus." That super low-down, languorous bass of Stephen Hanley cuts a wide swath below a spidery piano, together sounding as resigned as a seedy smoke-filled bar long after last call. Not that Mark would need one for the road, notoriously hard-drinking and with a legendary short fuse. ("He smoked forty cigarettes a day and shouted at his band.") Despite Smith's temperament he would join right in with the rest of the band on the chorus, "Mark will sink us, Mark will sink us." And he did! Everyone who plays on this song was either divorced, lost to attrition, or cast off like so much unwanted baggage. (Thank god fans can't be fired ...) In the long history of The Falls' gone-round-the-bend B-sides is this EP's "Sleep Debt Snatches." Listen for yourself...

But 1987 also saw the release of a now-classic compilation, "in: Palace of Swords Reversed", which collects The Fall's most anthemic early songs alongside some of their most eccentric. That people referred to The Fall as punk still boggles the mind. Who but Smith could have imagined "How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'" ("Life hould be full of strangeness, like a rich painting") and "An Older Lover," an oddly brooding sci-fi tale ("... get ready to hear old stories of teenage sex from the early ¹'60s")? Amidst scraping, plinking guitars and an ominous, hypnotic rumble, and dips into jaunty Northern folk, The Fall seem a million miles away from the Clash et al. Hell, they even brought in kazoos, acoustic guitars, piano, harmonica, and cowbell on earlier tunes. Try and find a kazoo anywhere else in quote/unquote punk rock! And then there are the rockabilly-inflected -- or is that infected? -- songs; the speed-folk of "Fit and Working Again," as amphetamine-fueled as the early Sun sessions; "Marquis Cha-Cha," Smith's Falklands Island commentary set to a cabaret shuffle; and the hyper-kinetic "Totally Wired," just one of many odes to the stimulant-fueled life. "I drank a jar of coffee and then I took some of these."

Words are the web from which The Fall have always been spun, and Mark wrote on a portable typewriter well into the 80s. You have to wonder how much of the clickety-clack of the machine influenced the music and, in turn, the rhythm of the writing. The manual typewriter, after all, is essentially a percussive instrument, fingers tapping its keys. For these early years in particular, the sound of the typewriter can be thought of as a kind of rhythmic skeleton for songs later fleshed out by the band. "Pay Your Rates" rollicks along, "City Hobgoblins" (added to the CD) barrels and lurches by, a runaway train of a tune barely kept to the tracks. And then there's the breakneck "Prole Art Threat," with its double-time drums and "Brrrptzzap the subject," Mark working late into the night: "Everyone hears the hum at 3 a.m."

Also included is a live version of "Neighbourhood of Infinity" ("I used to have this thing about Link Wray. I used to play him every Saturday"), the time/space travel of "Wings," the football rant, "Kicker Conspiracy," and one of their all-time mind-benders, "The Man Whose Head Expanded." Another CD-only bonus is "Leave the Capitol," a piss-take on London that merges one of the band¹s most buoyant, tuneful numbers with Mark's trademark snarl and all sorts of spoken and goofy, cartoon-voice parts. There's harmonica, quick-strummed acoustic guitars, "Hotel maids smile in unison..." It's a song you can drive to and get there, or away from there, faster. Another nuts-on B-side is "Putta Bloc," one of Mark's great tape-splice experiments, connecting a handful of live recordings as if he was writing Burroughs cut-up style. Mark harangues the crowd: "Have you ever heard a Bill Haley LP? What is this shitaaah." At one point he claims: "Me and the guys played this for charity for spastics. We played it a thousand times and raised five shillings and seven and a half pence." Hilarious. Here he also recommends "the complete restructure of your pretentious life," and concludes: "The only reason you know this is that it was well documented." Just like The Fall.

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Some earth-shattering Fall News: Jeremy Vine played Leave the Capitol ("in full," a listener reports) on his BBC Radio 2 programme (1255 GMT Friday, 11 April, in case you want all the details).

Neil Young adds:
Vine didn't just play CAPITOL in full (including the swearing bit), but when it ended he said "fan-tastic!"

I have sent an e-mail to the show congratulating them.

Ian Greaves:
About two years ago, Jeremy Vine was making a point of showing his new wave credentials in public - interviewing New Order for The Big Issue and, when he filled in for Jimmy Young on Radio 2 in the Summer of 2001, I remember he played either Leave The Capitol or Fit and Working Again. So, when's he moving onto tracks from Grotesque (After The Gramme)?

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Perverted by Language / Live at Leeds out soon on DVD:

John Bentham of Visionary / Screen Edge has authored the Ikon's PBL-bis video for DVD. The disc will also feature a gig from Leeds University from February (or March?) 1981. The DVD, which will be encoded Region 0 and thus playable on all DVD players, should be out on Cherry Red sometime in May.

There's a chance of more vintage Fall gigs on DVD - possibly the Manchester Hacienda gigs from July 27, 1983; June 29, 1984; October 18, 1984; and October 9, 1985.

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Bestselling scifi author Al Reynolds:

"I've created a crap new web page for things called "The Fall" which aren't anything to do with "The Fall". I'd welcome any additions." http://members.tripod.com/~voxish/fall.html

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Releases on Castle / Sanctuary:

It's the New Thing - The Step Forward Years (Castle CMQCD697 - out on March 31)

A selection of singles and album tracks from 1978-1980, originally released on Step Forward records. Presented as a companion piece to Castle's Rough Trade Anthology with similar packaging - cardboard slipcase, fold out booklet with detailed liner notes by Daryl Easlea of Record Collector magazine and vintage photos. Tracks licensed from Voiceprint, using the recent 24-bit remasters.

1. Psycho Mafia
2. Repetition
3. It's The New Thing!
4. Frightened
5. Crap Rap 2 - Like To Blow
6. Rebellious Jukebox
7. No Christmas For John Quays (sic)
8. Industrial Estate
9. Futures And Pasts
10. Music Scene
11. Rowche Rumble
12. Psykick Dancehall
13. Flat Of Angles
14. Dice Man
15. Before The Moon Falls
16. Muzorewi's Daughter
17. Choc-Stock
18. Spectre Vs Rector
19. Second Dark Age
20. Fiery Jack

Words of Expectation: The BBC Sessions (Castle CMEDD696 - out on May 26):

A 2xCD set of the first seven John Peel sessions: Session 1 Rebellious Juke Box / Mother Sister / Industrial Estate / Futures and Pasts Session 2 Put Away / Mess of My / No Xmas for John Quays / Like to Blow Session 3 Container Drivers / Jawbone And The Air-Rifle / New Puritan / New Face In Hell Session 4 Middlemass / Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul / Hip Priest / C'n'C-Hassle Schmuck Session 5 Deer Park / Look, Know / Winter / Who Makes The Nazis? Session 6 Smile / Garden / Hexen Definitive - Strife Knot / Eat Y'self Fitter Session 7 Pat Trip Dispenser / 2 x 4 / Words Of Expectation / C.R.E.E.P.

You can pre-order the BBC set from Key Mail Order for £7.99: a good deal (thanks to Rich for the info)

And finally, for 2G+2 fans, Sanctuary also has a Bootleg Box Set in the works that'll consist of tracks taken from several 2001 gigs.

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French Fall Forum:

Hello Stefan, my name is Jerôme, i'm writing from Toulouse, France. I'm 29. I just want to say that i create a Fall Forum on a music site named Bewlay-brothers.com. I would like to see this one become a place of chat for French Fall fans. http://www.liebart-gallery.com/index.php. The access of the Fall forum ( and all the others) need an username for the general site.

After you register I think they approve you manually, so wait for an email from the administrator.

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From the Guardian's The Fiver email list:

In answer to the following question submitted by a reader:

Tom Paternoster is getting married in June, but he and his other half Charlotte are stumped for a first song. Like a fool, he yesterday left it up to you to decide what that special, forever-cherished tune should be.

Jonathan submitted the following:

"How about Black Theme Part II by The Fall?" suggests Jonathan Holford, clearing his throat. "It goes: 'I hate you you you you you you you you you you you you, baby/ Because you make me hate you you you you you you you you you you you you, baby/ You maladjusted little monkey, you.'"

Jonathan emailed me:

I just had to point out that the Guardian, in their intinife widsom (sic?), edited what I sent! I actually suggested 'Black Monk Theme Part II', but they chose to omit the 'Monk' to leave 'Black Theme Part II'.

Not that it actually matters, because I think I was wrong anyway. I think the lyrics I quoted are actaully from 'Black Monk Theme Part I'.

But what a fabulous song it is...

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Web users suffer from the Fall

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Made in the Northwest:

The Fall were on this Granada TV show on March 27. It sounds like things didn't go too well. A few reviews:

From Spencer, who was there:
The soundcheck went well - Green-Eyed Loco Man. The show however began with an instrumental version of Behind The Counter.

I asked Smith how come he didn't do the opener. He said they didn't tell him he was on. Jackie [show presenter] said they couldn't find him. I briefly spoke to some of the band, they seemed in good spirits, very friendly.

Dave the drummer wasn't there because his wife isn't well and a drummer called Stuart stood in for him. He looked a bit like Tom Head but I think he was someone to do with Jackie, the show's introducer. Also, it nearly became an acoustic set at about 6 o'clock due to technical problems.

From Graham, who was there too:
Well I was there too - the band did seem to want MES get up for Behind the Counter but he wasn't budging from his seat about 6ft from the stage. He'd been there with the rest of the band for at least 15mins before the show started. There'd been the odd heated debate between hm & some of the people in the Fall 'entourage' but nothing out of the ordinary I don't think. No one from the TV crew came to get him when the song started, that's true, but then they didn't for the second song either (he was traditionally slow getting onstage for that too). However, he did make a half-hearted apology to the drummer when the band came off stage after BTC.

Anyway, I thought the sound was good for both songs, but I loved Green Eyed Loco Man. Maybe I'm easily pleased, but I enjoyed myself - and I was stone cold sober.

Terry Titter was a bag of sweaty nerves though.

A few excerpts from Fallnet:
... So who's watching? ... Instrumental MES-less Behind the Counter??? Fuck off. Keyboarder looked shitscared. Not sure if it was Evets on bass or not. I'm glad I didn't trek over there for that shite. Wonder if they'll get another track before the end of the show.

... Show ended with someone's drunk grandpa staggering onto the stage for an incoherant version of "Green Eyed Loco Man". Editors rolled the credits before the advertising commissioners could phone in to cancel. A true return to form - I preferred the instrumental.

... Can't believe I was looking forward to this all week. And smith was supposed to be 'excited' about this? And then not even turning up during BTC? Jeez... His ladywife on keyboards did seem to be looking for him amongst the crowd during that though. Ben looked odd with his hat. It was Steve Evets on bass. Passable but hardly exceptional. A bit too tuneful and not really pounding enough. What a wasted opportunity.

... Must say it was a load of old bollocks. Mrs MES was miming, Mr MES was missing for the first song, the drummer was improvising and the bassist uninspired. I didnt much care for Loco man either despitre all the praise from this list. The music sounded very ordinary - kind of polished 'rock' music which is not how the fall should sound.

Mick:
Bit disappointing last night. The band kicked the show off with Behind the Counter with no MES and then straight after one of the presenters said how great it was to have the Fall and MES there! The rest of the show was awful, poor comedy and Mint Royale playing two songs that could have quite easily induced sleep before the Fall returned to finish the show with Green Eyed Loco Man. No sign of MES to start off with, but he stumbled on stage in time and mumbled through the song which was cut off by the credits.

Gary:
i dont agrre with all this slaggin off of the tv performance b.t.c with no m.e.s. only added to the tension an loco man was fuckin electric,just play it loud.

Tom:
Often a Fall gig is as much about the clutter of questions that immediately require answering, viz; Is she his new wife? Who's that on bass/drums/guitar/bongos? Is he turning up? Where is he? Are they really doing that song? Is this off the album? & cetera.

Having all the questions answered before seeing the performance can draw away the initial shock and leave The Fall - like a purda screen being drawn away from in front of a beautiful, bewitching India princess. Ahem.

This is all by way of saying that looking at it this morning, admittedly in serious need of a Fall fix, I thought it rather spiffing.

Playing without the singer who has fronted them for two decades, two changed members, and a deadpan gothic dolly bird fronting on keyboards -and yet it is still The Fall. It's the knife, blade and handle question - but with the best band in the world.

I like the way that even Fall instrumentals exude Fallness, like Overture to Kurious Oranj, The Knight, the Devil and Death. It's the muzak in Temple Fall, Khazakastan, or the music that is played over the airwaves when Smith takes over Westminster and shuts down the BBC (if you don't believe me just ask the Free Range video).

It's also funny, because the only reason the media take any interest in The Fall is to see if Smith will perform for their gaudy, self-promoting, huckster-philosophy minds to laugh at. ('What makes a mockery of us, we will make a mockery of' school of thought school).

I thought Smith was looking good. Increasingly like something you'd find at the bottom of a totem-pole, admittedly. But that is surely a good thing. It's a damned sight better than those horribly preserved 40-year-old business managers and people communicators who dunk their head in french creams each morning to give the illusion that they can look down teenager's cleavages on the tube with impunity.

And, to me anyway, Green-Eyed Loco man sounded just as good as on Peel. The more I listen to it, the better its split personality tale sounds.

Lines like "I'm moving fast, but you're tired, your reflected fractured eyes take me through the night" that then go into the Gut of the Quantifier drums while Smith intones the theme over the top, don't come along every day.

If only they hadn't faded out.

Mrs Smith's marionette impression was fun. Actually, just seeing them side by side was quite startling, too.

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Etan:

From an interview with Britt Daniel of Spoon: http://pitchforkmedia.com/interviews/s/spoon-03/:

Pitchfork: A record that helps facilitate your anger.

Britt: The Fall, Grotesque.

Pitchfork: You just picked that because its right in front of you!

Britt: Well... it's a good one. It's right in front of me, but it's a great record. I put this record on when my mom comes over. Usually, whenever my mom would come over I would try and put on music that I thought she would like just to make her feel more at ease. The last couple times I put on the Fall just to see what would happen.

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From the Guardian (March 29, thanks to Tom):

THE FALL Touch Sensitive (Artful)
Still, it seems to be bring-and-buy week here at Singles, with The Fall, of all people, re-releasing a track co-opted as a jingle for the Vauxhall Corsa. Or, as it should probably be henceforth known, the Vauxhall Cors-uh. Touch Sensitive isn't in the top rank of Fall singles - not much is - but Mark E Smith's baleful, eccentric presence, sort of a punk rock Grandpa Simpson, is more welcome in the charts than ever, and the knighthood is long overdue.

and

ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES
It's the classic seaside vacation - sun, sand, sea and, if not exactly sex, then certainly a very stirring set by The Fall.

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The Orchestra Pit:

THE ORCHESTRA PIT - the first evening of a new club drawing together strands from experimental rock and adventurous new music on an every other month basis. Featuring:

NOUGHT- a powerful sonic blend of instrumentalists soldering rock, jazz and avant garde noise experimentation. Unique!

HIDEOUS REPLICAS - London's finest historical re-enactment society of The Fall, select interpretations/covers of Mark E Smith's classics circa 1977-1982.

POCKET - bright and bouncy pop played noisily and cleverly-fine instrumentals. 'Electrified Sunshine' - Baggage Reclaim.

Spinners of discs include S R Meixner (ex Contrastate), goodvillage, and a special selection of The Fall's back catalogue spun by Bad CB. The event will be hosted by Mark Braby.

Friday, 16th May 2003.
The Arts Café (28 commercial street, London E1.)
Nearest tube: Aldgate East/Liverpool Street.
7.30pm-12.30am.
Admission £5

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Courtesy www.whitehouse.org:

Click the thumbnail for a larger version to print out and plaster about town.

Also, this homage to Dr. Seuss from Boston's Weekly Dig is worth a read.

And of course, the always brilliant Get Your War On from http://mnftiu.cc

And from fp.collectibles.com, there's:

April 29, 2003

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.