updated 23 May

Mark was interviewed on 18 May for Eric Lawrence's show Dragnet on Santa Monica's KCRW radio station. The show aired early this morning, but in case you missed it it's been archived on the Dragnet site.

Sadly, the Fall's planned appearance on the Henry Rollins Show on IFC didn't work out. Nor the Brooklyn Lyceum gig on 3 June.

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added 23 May

Legend of the Fall by Michael Mannheimer. Los Angeles Alternative, 19 May.

It's 6:50 p.m. on Saturday, and I'm supposed to meet the Fall's infamous frontman Mark E. Smith for an interview in 10 minutes. Hollywood is always a mess on the weekends, and tonight is no different; the three blocks immediately surrounding the Knitting Factory are overrun with middle school tweens hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite Disney Channel stars at some premiere at the El Capitan. I'm deathly afraid of being late, but I have to fight the temptation to run over each and every one of them. My friend and I get to the venue just in time, walk into the designated meeting place, only to hear the horrible strains of some very opening band. No Fall. No Mark E. Smith. And honestly, I'm not that surprised.

I had my reservations coming in; I mean, this is fucking Mark E. Smith. The man is a legend, and for all the wrong reasons. Smith is notorious for his frantic, snarling vocals and abrasive yet oddly melodic music, as well as his behavior, documented by the BBC film The Fall: The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith, where Smith is so boozed up that you can barely understand a word he says. Back in the day, Smith and company took punk rock and disfigured the shit out of it—forcing power chord riffs and speed drumming to stay behind Smith's lyrical pontificating. Nowadays, Smith and Co. (different Co. of course) apply the same genre torture to post-punk: invalidating the term one keyboard solo at a time, with barked vocals and a grisly-toothed pop snarl.

So the fact that Smith is not at the “designated meeting spot” doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is running into Smith's very lovely, very welcoming, very sane wife Elena Poulou, who says her husband is waiting in the bar at the Roosevelt Hotel across the street. She instructed me to go to the second floor, and he'd be there.

So we go, and we wait. And wait. I call Poulou, but still no luck, and I soon make a shocking discovery: the Roosevelt Hotel has three bars—one in the restaurant, the private “Library” lounge, and the Tropicana Bar, located next to the pool. Poulou thinks that we are at the wrong one, and that maybe he's at the Tropicana Bar. I can just picture Smith, who's 48 but looks at least 10 years older, tossing back a few shots before tossing himself—curled into a perfect cannonball—straight into the deep end.

Smith has always been an enigma. For 30 years he has been the sole constant in the Fall, one of the most influential bands to emerge from the '80s post-punk era. His personality is both infectious and alienating—as evidenced by the nearly 50 ex-members of the band—and he's got that whole “I'm so cool that I really don't care” thing down cold. Hell, the man practically invented it. He's short, compact and very British. Like a larger version of the backwards talking midget in David Lynch's Twin Peaks.

Smith's stage presence that night—sauntering in late, stumbling to the mic and weaving in and out of the merry musical mess—is almost as awkward. During the set, he roamed around the stage, moving the mic stands, singing into two mics at once, messing with the knobs on all the amps and Poulou's keyboard. He took his coat off and folded it neatly onto one of the stands. One song later, he would put the jacket back on. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. The Fall.

Repetition, then, might be the reason that Smith has been able to make such consistently punishing music during his three decades with the Fall. The band's 25 albums have nothing but Smith's rants holding the songs together. The man simply oozes unpredictability. During the Fall's 1998 tour, Smith was put in jail for one night on assault charges, stemming from a fight with his own band mate. And at a May 8 tour stop in Phoenix, both Smith's backing band and tour opener the Talk quit the tour, supposedly due to an inability to work with Smith. Talk singer Justin Williams threw a banana peel at Smith's head during the show, and the ensuing melee questioned the validity of the remaining North American tour dates.

Immediately following the banana incident, Emmett Kelly of Narnack records (The Fall's American Label) called up bassist Rob Barbato of L.A. band Darker My Love and asked if he was interested in joining Smith for the tour.

“It was kinda shocking, because they were like ‘we need a band' and I was at work. Emmet called me, and he was like, ‘Drive to San Diego, they are canceling the San Diego show and the Pomona show, so you have a little time to rehearse,'” says Barbato. He quickly recruited Darker My love guitarist Tim Presley and old friend and drummer Orpheo McCord, and suddenly they were making music with Smith. “We got together, rehearsed once for three hours, fucking shitting our pants nervous, and I probably smoked three packs of cigarettes that day,” says Barbato. “And Mark has been very nice and respectful to us the whole time. We've had no problems.”

Here lies the problem. Smith seems so spontaneous from day to day, show-to-show, that you never really know what, or who, you are going to get. The Fall's latest record, 2005's Fall Heads Roll, documents a band in a serious deep groove. The songs are long and drony, perfect for Smith to spit both his astute observations and bizarre non-sequiturs over.

Perhaps the former backing band had a problem with the unstructured ramblings, or with the way Smith saunters onstage five minutes into the opening song. But despite his erratic behavior, the blame doesn't always lie with Smith. “People that talk shit on him are people that obviously have treated him a certain way so he reacts that way, and that's totally their problem,” says Presley. “He doesn't like people being around, I understand. But I mean, we have to be pretty vulnerable when we go out on stage but then we come back and regroup, he's very encouraging.”

After running around the Roosevelt Hotel for over an hour (and the ensuing two days worth of failed attempts at a phone conversation), all I have of Smith is that initial image of his entrance, his slight frame pacing the stage erratically, like he was lost, looking for something. Yet, it's a fitting picture of one of rock and roll's biggest puzzles. Is he really a huge egotistical asshole, or as Barbato says, “one chill dude?” Either way, he puts on one hell of a show.

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added 22 May

There's a good piece on the 1976-78 music scene in Manchester and Liverpool by Paul Morley in yesterday's Observer.

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added 18 May

Fall Down by Cole Coonce (L.A. City Beat, 18-24 May):

Mark E. Smith's platoon system meets its Waterloo at the Knit

“I've always got a reserve force with the Fall. Anyone gets stroppy with me, I've always got subs. I take no musician for granted. I don't like musicians. They elevate themselves, which is detrimental to the name of the Fall. I don't hold auditions, and it's a nasty thing to say, but it's like a platoon sort of thing. If the first three get shot, you have another three behind them.”
–Mark E. Smith, on the volatile and tumultuous nature of the Fall

“You call yourself bloody professionals?”
–Roman Totale, a.k.a. Mark E. Smith

A couple of weeks ago, a plane landed in Texas, and amongst its cargo were members of the Fall, a first-wave punk-rock band out of Manchester, England, who were across the pond to promote their 25th (!) in a series of perplexing, engaging albums, 2005's Fall Heads Roll. The L.A. date was at the Knitting Factory last Saturday night (May 13).

But by the time the Fall got to Phoenix, as far as hydrocarbonic intake goes, Glen Campbell had nothing on the soppy and stroppy Mark E. Smith, rock 'n' roll's resident Dylan Thomas. Tour reports were rife with incidents of Smith pouring a beer on his tour manager's noggin and also using his head as an ashtray, all while the poor tosser drove the van down the interstate and tried not to crash. Moreover, at that night's show, a member of the opening act assaulted Smith with a half-eaten plantain (!), and the band played on while MES chased the banana-assassin into the parking lot, where a scuffle ensued. This mayhem, coupled with Smith's notoriously fascistic task-making, had forced “the lads” (as he called his backing group) to skulk away under the cover of darkness and catch an aeroplane back to Old Sod.

Which did not bode well for L.A. But, being a “bloody professional” and all, Smith and wife/synthesist sidekick Elena Poulou endeavored to fulfill contractual obligations and finish the tour (a novel concept, if one knows the Fall's history).

Apparently the Fall's record label, Narnack, solicited as replacements a trio of alt-dirge rockers out of Chicago, who were hot-lapped into San Diego in time for the Fall's booking at the House of Blues, and – ka-pow ka-pow ka-pow – quick as a repeating rifle, the notion of the Fall being a platoon system was, in fact, realized.

Luckily for the new lads – guitarist Tim Presley, bassist Rob Barbato, and drummer Orpheo McCord – most of the Fall's latest songs are mere exercises in two-note rock riffs pounded into a repetitive groove, which serves as a foundation for Smith to free-associate lyrically, with gems such as “Dolly Parton and Lord Byron/They said patriotism is the last refuge/But now it's me” or haikus to that effect. In other words, if the riff never really changes, such subtleties and dynamics as a “chorus” are based on Smith terminating his J. Alfred Prufrock-ish free verse and repeating and chanting certain absurdist phrases (“Moderninity … what is it?” being a particularly catchy and toothsome example).

All of which means, platoon system or no, it is easier to fuck up a brand-new anvil. Which is what the Fall did, somehow.

I say somehow, but I know exactly how: booze, baby. Smith is a chaos-monger and a lush, and when the chips are down, he will find a way to turn over the card table. This night was true to form, as the joint was packed like a bowl of sweaty oatmeal with a legion of fervent Fall disciples, who waited for the gospel from their maniacal messiah. Instead of a pointed, galvanizing performance that would send the faithful to postmodern Valhalla, Smith showed up drunk, staggering and slurring through a rambling collection of dirges. For the duration, he was squint-eyed sauced, stumbling and unintelligible. The “band” struggled to find its cues and vainly tried to follow his meanderings.

At Waterloo, Mark E. Smith tripped on his dick and shot himself in the foot.

Methinks “the lads” had the right idea when they deserted their leader in Phoenix.

KCRW (89.9 FM) and Filter magazine present the Fall's return to the Knitting Factory, next Tue., May 23, at 8 p.m. $25. Info: (323) 463-0204 or Knittingfactory.com.

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added 13 May

Pop Quiz: Mark E. Smith of The Fall (San Francisco Chronicle, 14 May)

The woman answering the phone says Mark E Smith will call back from a land line in just a minute. A good hour later, the Fall singer, 48, is on the line, cackling uncontrollably and thinking he's speaking to someone from Colorado. So it is with the always charming and always unpredictable Smith, who since 1976 has released more than 80 albums and gone through more than 40 different band members. On the way, the Fall's askew post-punk music has made more than a conspicuous impression on everyone from Pavement to Franz Ferdinand, whom Smith has threatened to sue. The group returns to San Francisco for a pair of shows at the Independent today and tomorrow.

Q: Last time you were in America, the tour ended abruptly when you and two of your band members came to blows in the middle of a song.

A: Yeah. You read that?

Q: No, I remember it. And then you got arrested.

A: Right. Two nights in the cell.

Q: Before that, you broke your hip and had to sing from a wheelchair.

A: Yeah, I was a cripple. I had no escape.

Q: Should people be worried about seeing you this time?

A: No, no, no. The group is very on form, actually. You'll be surprised. They're all 10 years younger than me.

Q: What do you think of all these new bands that sound like the Fall?

A: It disturbs me a lot, actually.

Q: You're not honored?

A: No. I don't like being used like a trademark.

Q: Do you think any of them actually pull it off?

A: I don't think so. The Fall is the Fall. They're supposed to sound like us but I don't see it. Maybe I'm blind in one eye or something.

Q: I'm sure they mean it as a compliment.

A: It's like the last refuge of the scoundrel, "We're like the Fall." Even Boy George was on the telly a few years ago and he said he wants to sound like the Fall. Really, Boy?

Q: How much would it take to get you to listen to a Franz Ferdinand album?

A: Me? All the way through? About $100,000.

Q: Is that all? Do you ever hear anything you like on the radio?

A: I listen to a lot of local Manchester radio. They've got this fast Jamaican rap. It's like fast dance music with a bit of reggae. That's pretty good. Otherwise, it's the same old s -- : reggae and rock 'n' roll.

Q: What's your favorite record of all time?

A: I'm a big Fall fan. I don't listen to much, actually. I can't find my favorite records. I always hide them in the house. Do you ever do that? And then I can't find them.

Q: Where do you hide them?

A: Exactly.

Q: What are you hiding them from?

A: Nobody. I have all this crap I get for free. American indie bands and stuff like that.

Q: So you hide your good records?

A: Then I can't find them.

Q: When was the last time you cleaned your house?

A: Yesterday. Did a bit of spring cleaning.

Q: And did anything good turn up?

A: No, actually. I lost more stuff.

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added 10 May

From Smog Monsters to Smug Creatures. How a town was transformed by Riverside heroes by Martin Samuel (The Times, 10 May 2006)

“You've got to go to East Germany to see it — it's a horrible, horrible way to live. It's like Middlesbrough.” — Mark E. Smith, quoted in the New Musical Express, November 3, 1984.

WHEN a singer from Salford starts spitting bile in the direction of your home town, you know it truly is grim up north.

Smith, the post-punk Brian Clough with his band The Fall (Clough should have had the England job, Smith should have had Paul Weller's following, and the world would be a better place) has managed to find strange wonder in everything from working men's clubs and bingo callers to Prince William of Orange and Greek football hooligans. But not Middlesbrough.

You have to draw a line somewhere and Smith placed his where the North Yorkshire moors give way to a choking conglomeration of concrete and chemicals, east of the A1.

Middlesbrough folk are used to such idle slander now. There was a time when southern-based writers leaning too heavily on clichés about pollution and poverty could expect instant retribution by postbag (one former Times football correspondent had his Middlesbrough match report shredded word by painstaking word, so when he opened the envelope it fell on to his desk like irate confetti), but these days such gibes are more likely to be met with a defiant roar of assent.

The Smog Monsters lampooned by Newcastle United fans, who would turn up at the Riverside Stadium wearing gas masks and anti-radiation suits, have become the Smoggies that this season will follow their team to the final of the Uefa Cup in Eindhoven. Like Tottenham Hotspur supporters negating anti-Semitic slurs by adoption, so Middlesbrough has learnt to take pride in its industrial birthright.

“I was reading in The Times that most people these days regard themselves as middle-class,” Steve Gibson, the club chairman, said. “Not in Middlesbrough, they don't. Ask that question up here and 90 per cent would say they were working-class.”

And proud of it, he might have added. For that is what Gibson and his reborn, rebuilt football club have given the town. The reason the jokes no longer stick in the throat around Teesside is that Steve McClaren's team are putting Middlesbrough on the map.

The city of Liverpool was hit worst than most in the Eighties by the recession resulting from Margaret Thatcher's monetarist policies, yet the image of the typical Liverpudlian remained one of brashness, native wit and confidence — the infamous Scally. Even when the local economy was on the brink of ruin and the local council on the cusp of madness, Liverpool continued to produce musicians and writers, as if at the epicentre of a creative boom. The area may have been downtrodden by economics, but the people never were, for two reasons — The Beatles and the best football team in the world.

The dole queues were lengthening and the docks still and empty, but if you came from Liverpool you had a stake in the creation of modern music and modern football, not necessarily in that order. Middlesbrough is still waiting for its John and Paul, but in its own, smaller potatoes way this is the football team that could reposition the town in the national psyche.

If Middlesbrough win a European trophy, the city can claim one of the sporting achievements of the season, in addition to providing the next England manager and a group of young players that could one day be the nucleus of his squad. Smoggies may wish to start humming the theme tune from The Dambusters at this point.

Every so often, when a lower-league minnow faces extinction, the importance of football clubs is questioned. Businesses go to the wall all the time, runs the argument. What is so important about Newport County, Workington or Rotherham United anyway? It is this. If Rotherham United cease to exist, when will we ever hear that name again? Who will fly the flag for Rotherham? What will give the area its identity — a junction on the M1? Every Saturday afternoon, at five o'clock, men such as James Alexander Gordon put provincial Britain in its rightful place, at the heart of national culture. The reason Pete Winkelman, the owner of Franchise FC (aka Milton Keynes Dons), was so desperate for a football club that he had to “steal” one was because, without it, his city had no profile beyond new estates and concrete cows.

What is happening in Middlesbrough is reinvention through sport. The football club are giving the area something the politicians never could. “I've lived under ten Prime Ministers — and I've been bloody poor under every one of them,” Alf Garnett fumed. Gibson is taking the people of Middlesbrough away from all that.

“If you look at Middlesbrough and the area around the town,” Gibson said. “It has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the country, one of the worst percentages of cardiovascular disease, one of the highest rates of cancer. Then you list the local Members of Parliament: Tony Blair, William Hague, Alan Milburn, Peter Mandelson; there used to be Mo Mowlam, too. And while these career politicians are doing their stuff, advancing up the ladder, their constituents are dying young. So do we see ourselves as the flagship for the town? Too right we do.”

On the day Bryan Robson was appointed manager of Middlesbrough and this journey began in earnest, Gibson received a phone call from a local headmaster. He said it had been on the news that the former England captain would be presented at Ayresome Park. This would have a calamitous effect on attendance among boys between the ages of 12 and 16. How did Gibson propose to resolve that? The chairman said to invite them down and treat it as a day out. He would even lay on buses.

In the end, Robson spoke to 6,000 Middlesbrough children through a loud-hailer. As he opened his mouth, there was instant silence. The Deputy Chief Constable turned to Gibson in awe. “I wish we could get respect like that,” he said. From this snatch of conversation grew a programme in which the football club took responsibility for health education for several thousand young Teessiders. It costs £1 million annually to run and the players are required to be involved.

“We get the kids in and because of their background some of them have never even eaten breakfast before,” Gibson said. “So we start by saying, ‘Right, this is what an athlete has for breakfast.' They graduate after two days. We talk to them about drugs, about smoking, about drinking, about exercise, about playing sport, about eating the right food. We get them to design an anti-smoking poster. All the time there are these two guys with them, wearing Middlesbrough Football Club tracksuits, joking, laughing, helping them, getting through to them.

“At the end of the course, having won their trust, the two guys come in wearing their real work clothes. They're policemen. Some kids are told not to trust the police. This shows we are all part of the community.

“I'm not about trying to get through to the mum with three kids by three dads, smoking 60 fags a day and spending every night in the pub, but if we can reach her kids, that will make the difference. After the course, we have a youth development centre that takes kids from 8 to 16. What we found from that first day with Bryan Robson is that the football club is seen as representative of authority, so with that comes responsibility.

“If you go back 20 years, there was 27 per cent unemployment among males in Middlesbrough. The shipbuilding had gone, the steel industry was on its knees, the chemical industry was in recession and ICI, who are a huge local employer, were cutting back. We nearly lost the football club, too.

“Now, if you walk around the town, the buzz is incredible. It is not because we are building ships from local steel again. It is because the football club is doing well. That is how important we are.”

Mark E. Smith would scowl, no doubt, at the worthiness of the anti-smoking posters; and he does not look like a guy who has much time for breakfast (not a solid one, anyway). Yet he probably would approve of a scene that does not take its identity from London or its lead from the rising middle-class, that stays youthful and true to its roots and that, tonight in Eindhoven, might at last succeed in making an address in Middlesbrough appear preferable to one in 1980s Leipzig.

Gibson did not say it. He did not need to. The North has risen again.

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added 5 May

Fall Art Threat by Chris Ziegler

There's an entertaining if not entirely accurate article previewing the US tour in the OC Weekly.