Fall News

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News for October 1997 - last u/date 13 Oct 97

Records

With sinking hearts, we note the threat of two more Receiver releases:
Oxymoron: Contains "previously unreleased material", a mixture of live and studio tracks: Oxymoron, PowderKeg, White Lines, Pearl City, Birmingham School of Business School, Hostile, Glam Racket, Italiano, He Pep, Rainmaster, Behind The Counter, Bill is Dead, ESP Disco, Interlude/Chilinism, Life Just Bounces. Release Date: 27-Oct-97
(From: Joe - Kard2000
White Lines is a an approximate three minute instrumental by smith/wosltencroft
Italiano is another synth driven instrumental by MES three minutes or so
ESP Disco is a live version of Psychick Dancehall)

Cheetham Hill: incl. Time Enough At Last, Free Range, Chiselers, Spinetrak, Oleano. Release Date: 24-Nov-97
 

Tours

Dublin Mean Fiddler booking office: 6705011 (0035316705011 from UK) or cheque by post (Mean Fiddler, 26 Wexford Street, Dublin 2)
Belfast gig, Fri 7th Nov: The phone number for credit card bookings at the Belfast Empire Music Hall is: 01232 249276
The Forum, Kentish Town, London on Friday 5 December: tickets 12 quid from 0171 344 0044 (credit card, probably booking fee).
 

Putative US tour has now turned into a 20+ UK/Eire tour. Playing in Cork either 6 or 8 Nov,  Manchester 13 Nov; Sheffield, Glasgow and Edinburgh also mentioned,
 

Band

Here's a recent MES interview from The Guardian. Another one from The Times of 4 Oct.

Band at Dingwalls: Smith, Hanley, Burns, Nagle, Crooks (additional arsehole played by Michael Clark)

Line-up on Levitate:
MES:  vocals, keyboard
S. Hanley: bass
J. Nagle: keyboards, guitar, programming, arranging
S. Wolstencroft: Drums
K. Burns:  Drums
Andy Hackett: Guitar (ex-Rockingbirds?)
Tommy Crooks: Guitar

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: David John
Subject: SONIC MOOK EXPERIMENT

Well, the appearance of Mark E. Smith at the 333 was one to remember.

The venue looks like a squat that has been done up for the night. There was
a good atmosphere and there was none of the aggression or posing that
occurs in most trendy clubs. The ground floor, about half the size of
Dingwalls, is dominated by the bar with it’s over-hanging spiky football
sized glass balls. 70s TV programmes and films were projected in slow
motion onto the walls through strategically placed screens, (Battlestar
Galactica could be seen while Mark E. Smith was on). The music was an
uninspired mix that relies too heavily on 70s funk. One room upstairs looks
and sounds like a school youth club, with an uneven pool table and ageing
sound equipment that kept breaking down during a selection of soft metal,
punk and un-cool novelty songs. The other upstairs room is a darkened chill
out cloak room. The basement contains the hard-core dance DJs.

Mark E. Smith was listed in the dj slot on the ground floor between 1 and
1:45. He was on early as testified by the bludgeoning feedback from his
mic. He was behind the decks with a woman who showed him how to work the
faders. This didn’t help as there were loud crunches  as the needle was
taken off records and silence between tracks. Other djs shook there heads
and looked anxious about the safety of their equipment.

At times watching MES finding the centre of the record on the turn table
and throwing used records down at the side was like watching Captain
Sensible falling over at Damned gigs, but there was more to than that. Mark
E. Smith did not appear too drunk, and was clearly enjoying himself.

A photographer pushed his way to front, who almost blinded him with his
flash and then apologised. Mark told him to ask first, then duly obliged
with a series of poses with his assistant. He handed the mic round the
audience at one stage; a couple of people mumbled or shouted something
unintelligible then passed it on but luckily we did not have a sing along
like at Dingwalls. Carina was handed the mic and MES pointed at her to say
something, but sensibly she handed the mic back.

He played some records unaccompanied, such the Gene Vincent song that
sounds like Race With the Devil but isn't. He mixed other records, such as
The Happening by the Supremes, during which he played about with the
faders, and even provided the guitar solo to another Gene Vincent record
Blue Jean Bop, with a techno drum beat that he proudly slowed down to match
the original.

The most enjoyable parts were when a beat was established and he was able
to rant over the top. Through feedback and distortion it was difficult to
understand what was being said, but he was referring to himself as both
Mark E. Smith and MES, and appeared to be making observations about the
locality and the locals. This was Mark E. Smith at his best. He was not
reading from notes and it was unclear whether he was reciting from memory
or was improvising, but the words flowed unhesitatingly. He started getting
into it (HUP) but it was all too brief. After about 20 - 25 minutes he said
thank you and made a quick exit.

He may have been fooling about, as the result of one drunken night placing
a bet with a DJ with an ego, that anyone could do it. He could have been
curious to find out how he would cope without the rest of the band.
Frustration with the other musicians on stage with The Fall often causes
him to strum various guitars, bang on the keyboard and hit the drums and
cymbals, however, behind the decks there is theoretically more control over
the selections of music being blended.

At it’s most flowing the night showed that the trademark Mark E. Smith rant
is just as successful outside The Fall, and as I said to Alan in his cream
top (Hi), Mark E. Smith is the best DJ since Robbie Coltraine in the Comic
Strip's Supergrass film.

Dave
 

Extras from Alan McBride:
 

I was really very impressed by the club.  The hanging, transparent screens
on which were projected various stuff including 70s movies (incredible hulk,
shaft, battlestar, sometimes in slow motion, other times in reverse) were
very effective.  There was another video loop of (I think) Eric B and Rakim
playing continuously all night.  Other graphics included schematics of old
movie cameras.

only downer was that a fine powder of plaster kept spilling down from the
ceiling and falling in my drink :-(

The first DJ upstairs was Mimi (she looked about 35).  She was the woman who
later helped out Mark on the decks (mark - '...I'd like to introduce...my er
 assistant...', passes mike to woman, her - '...mimi...', back to mark).

Other acts included the Lo Fidelity Allstars - pretty good again, not as
good as at Cardiff where they shared the bill with the fall.

David continues...
>  Mark E. Smith was listed in the dj slot on the ground floor between 1 and
>  1:45. He was on early as testified by the bludgeoning feedback from his
>  mic.

He kept doing that deliberately - cranking up the volume to send out a
barrage of feedback.

>  E. Smith did not appear too drunk, and was clearly enjoying himself.

Absolutely.  As sober as I've ever seen him, and his trademarked furtive,
mischievous, half-embarrassed grin firmly affixed to his joker-hysterical
face.  Dressed in short-sleeved black shirt with black leather jacket on
top.  A bit of banter to start (did I hear him introduce himself as
marky-mark smith?).

>  A photographer pushed his way to front, who almost blinded him with his
>  flash and then apologized.

Yeah - he bantered with the cameraman over the mike, even though the guy was
three feet from his face.  The cameraman asked for a picture of 'the tooth'.
 Mark said ok, but you have to be quick, and opened his mouth wide for a
second.  The cameraman seemed to get the shot.  He got some classic shots,
actually.  Wonder if they'll turn up anywhere?

> This was Mark E. Smith at his best.

yeah - great stuff.  some spine-chilling moments when it all came together.
 can't remember what he was on about, but I remember one line as he cast his
eyes about the audience, seemingly commenting on what he saw, he sang
'...some of them are coloured...some of them are (something else)...'.

I think there were two tracks that he practically sang/ranted an entire
vocal over the top.  another line from a track was '...the streets of
london, are falling down...'.  pity there probably isn't a tape of it all.

>  He was not reading from notes and it was unclear whether he was reciting
>   from memory or was improvising,

definitely mostly rehearsed, I reckon.  probably some stuff that will
eventually appear in fall trax.

at the end one 'song' he was doing degenerated into a very un-smith like
bellow, where he simply roared into the mike.  then he said something like
'...err...sorry about this like...I like...I told them to...you know....get
some other bloke like...I told them...just get some other guy...but you
know...'.  and then he just pissed off.  20 mins of smith's blistering,
brilliant nonsense.  a total and delicious shambles.

at the end he came out and hung around a bit on the main floor while some
fans had some chat with him, then he made towards the stage again.  thought
he might be going back up, but himself, julia and the (possibly) hairdresser
guy were just making their way to the exit.

my sister said he sounded like 'the sound engineer, setting the equipment up
for the real act'.
 

From: David John
Subject: RE: SONIC MOOK EXPERIMENT

Peter:
>Did Smith appear to do beat matching himself (I mean getting techno beatsover
>Gene Vincent)? Also, what was the crowd reaction when the music stopped and
>unexpected records came on? The club doesn't sound a million miles away from
>some things round here.

Most of the song was unaccompanied but he let the drum track go as soon as
the guitar solo started. He was not wearing any headphones and so had no
way of matching the beat before hand. His assistant lurched forward in
horror as the drums were hopeless out of time, so he appeared to move a
slider to slow the beat down. Once in time, he cackled proudly and she
grinned approval back at him.

From where we were it appeared that most of the crowd who filled the tiny
dance floor were knew and were waiting for Mark E. Smith. He was well
received, however, most people watched with disbelief.

 Top
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indie Dingwalls review 26 Sep 1997

The unsettling world of Mark E Smith

The Fall
Dingwalls, London

It's widely accepted that if you marshalled all the musicians who
have ever been influenced by The Fall into a field and dropped a
bomb on them, the industry would be left with only Celine Dion
and a session guitarist from Pinner called Kevin. If only
originality and daring translated into sales: then the band's
mastermind Mark E Smith would have been indulging in acts of
bacchanalian excess on the shores of his own Caribbean Island
this week.  Instead, The Fall were playing the matchbox-sized
Dingwalls, where they frightened the bejeesus out of an audience
who had quite reasonably expected that two decades of this
nasty, absurd and audacious band would have diminished the
element of surprise.  No chance.
 
It remains one of the strangest and most unsettling gigs I have
ever seen, and I speak as someone who has sat through the
encores at a Roxette concert.  The Fall are a cryptogram, a
90mph collision between order and chaos.  They may appear to
be drunken brickies having a stab at performance art but their
ramshackle stage manner cannot conceal a muscular musical
prowess tight as a drum skin.  The songs come at you at full pelt;
the brutal thump of the rhythm section could crack ribs.  The
temptation to wheel out a greatest hits set is resisted, though
favourites such as "Idiot Joy Showland" and "Lie Dream of a
Casino Soul" are greeted like death-row reprieves.  Mostly, we
get songs from the new album Levitate, like "Ten Houses of
Eve", the world's first jungle ballad.  Throughout, Smith rents
and gurgles into the microphone, his Alsatian tongue slurping
over a Rumpelstiltskin face that's as gnarled as an old oak.

The first thing he does when he walks on stage is slam his hand
on the keyboard which Julia Nagle is valiantly attempting to
play. Then he interferes with the guitarist's fretwork.  During the
final encore, "New Big Prinz", which is more of a bulldozer than
a song, he carefully positions an electric fan on the snare drum,
while the drummer carries on playing is though this is the most
natural thing in the world.  Not bizarre enough? Then here is the
ballet dancer Michael Clark with a nappy pin in one ear, laying
on and under a chair that he will later hurl into the audience.

Although it is the occasion of'The Fall's 20th anniversary. there
will be no limited edition CD-Rom to celebrate.  Wednesday's
show was heartening because the band did not pause to reflect on
the past; they utilised every second to prove why they still exist.
Why they have to exist.  They are our Modern Lovers, our Frank
Zappa. We should continue to give them our time and money as
long as they keep throwing things at us: chairs, insane ideas, our
own preconceptions.

Ryan Gilbey
 
 

 From The Times, 4 Oct 1997

http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/97/10/04/timmetmms02001.html?1026402

 
   He hates The Verve, likes 2 Unlimited, and thinks we're heading for a
   police state. Mark E. Smith shares a few conspiracy theories with
   Charlie Porter
 
   E BY GLUM: Mark E. Smith's chaos theory  "The song words are wrong,
   but they are right in spirit"David Pearson
   Photograph: DAVID PEARSON
 
   The Fall guy
 
   It would suit Mark E. Smith to have his image as an old misery
   perpetuated. There is a story of the singer's tetchy behaviour for
   almost every week in the 18-year recording history of his band, The
   Fall. Only a fortnight ago, he was alleged to have stubbed a cigarette
   out in the face of a Loaded journalist who did not meet with his
   favour.
 
   However, sitting in a pub in west London, he is a gentleman, getting
   to his feet and bowing his head as he shakes your hand, his body small
   and compact. He has a smile which is not a grin or a gesture, but
   denotes a continuing fascination with what is going on around him.
   "Ideas matter," he says, his voice level, "opinions matter to me. I'm
   very anti-musician. Musicians go into the studio and say 'oh, that
   should have been like that'. I don't, I go and do the washing-up."
 
   Smith has been opposed to musicians ever since he formed The Fall in
   1977 as a teenage Mancunian bored of his desk job in the docks. The
   ramshackle sound they made heralded the tail end of punk, and came to
   be known as "garage". But while the other amateur garage bands stopped
   making noise, Smith has never tired of creating original, chaotic
   music over and again. By sticking to his unique vision, he steered
   post-punk music into Eighties indie, influencing everyone from The
   Smiths to The Wedding Present.
 
   He also cast a spell over independent American spirits such as Sonic
   Youth, Pavement and Hole. He says he is 59, though a more accurate
   estimate puts his age at around 40.
 
   "If bands split up it makes me laugh," he says. "When we started all
   the groups were 22, like they are now. We were 16. All these so-called
   outrageous groups go to college, then they start their bands, and by
   the time they're 35 they are accountants." This is not meant as an
   insult, just a fact of life. Anyway, one of Smith's three sisters is
   an accountant.
 
   Smith's unconcealed distaste for music industry ethics has led him to
   remain living in Manchester, where he has created 29 albums in under
   two decades. This is an average of one every seven months, the last
   being the widely ignored Light Users Syndrome. The 30th, Levitate, has
   just been released  14 songs of what at first sounds like spontaneous
   lunacy, but then reveals itself to be considered and controlled. To
   his ear, chaos is the best noise you can get.
 
   "Three quarters of the songs on Levitate have been worked out over two
   years," he says. "They've been driving me mad, actually. Two years in
   the back of my brain. But when it comes to recording, a lot of the
   vocals only take me ten minutes. Half the time the words are wrong,
   but they are right in spirit." This is why his songs are like everyday
   talk. If they don't come out perfectly, which they rarely do, then
   that is how it happened, and that is how it has to be.
 
   Along the way as ambassador for The Fall, Smith, with original members
   Karl Burns and Steven Harley plus relative newcomer Julie Nagle, has
   embraced new technologies and forms of music. He is not pretending he
   is young again, but realises that synthesisers and drum machines have
   a lot of scope for making his beloved noise. Indeed, he has no respect
   for what is supposed to be cool.
 
   "The Verve? It's Genesis, isn't it?" He laughs, and snaps his head
   back so hard he looks close to dislocating his spine. "You're not
   meant to say that, are you? People will think you are jealous of them.
   I put 2 Unlimited on. F***ing much more rebellious. You'd think The
   Verve were a school youth project for Open University, wouldn't you.
   Well wouldn't you?"
 
   He is deadly serious, as he is about most things. The uninitiated may
   think the topics of his songs are random and wayward. But barely
   concealed is a continuing batch of depressing reports on the decline
   of Britain. "Some East German friends of mine were round my house last
   week," he says. "They can't believe it. They think we're the last Iron
   Curtain country in the world."
 
   Smith is clearly no admirer of Tony Blair. "I think it's horrific. Get
   a computer on every desk, you are the same as your Prime Minister, he
   is the same as you. It reminds East Germans of when they were ten. In
   the old Czechoslovakia, there was a time when all the decent Czech
   groups and artists were in concentration camps, while the guys who did
   sub-AC/DC records went and met the President." And look which two
   mouthy boys have helped Blair ensnare the youth vote . . .
 
   This may seem far-fetched, but Mark E. Smith is not a dumb conspiracy
   theorist. He has had many bull's-eyes with the truth, most memorably
   on his 1992 album Code: Selfish, where he accurately predicted the
   current curious mix of paranoia and apathy that surrounds the brave
   new world of the European Economic Union.
 
   "We've got security guards going down the street and you don't know
   who they work for. You think, 'but I'm an Englishman'. There was this
   poll of 19-year-olds recently, and they didn't know who John Prescott
   was. They all voted Labour.
 
   "They knew Margaret Thatcher was 'a dead evil person', but even in the
   Czech Republic they still have pictures in schoolbooks of Hitler
   saying 'bad man' and of Stalin saying 'good man'. Of course, if you
   say anything, you're a nutcase like me. A drunken nutcase.
 
   "I do get my paranoia. 'They're gonna come for me, knocking at the
   door' and all that. We ought to start making a new resistance from the
   Blairite SS squad." I ask if he believes in violence, and he smiles.
   Remembering the Loaded journalist rumour, I realise this is a stupid
   question. "You know what I was going to call the album? Recipe For
   Fascism. But then I'm a bumbling old fool, me." His eyes pierce, and
   you can only hope that this time he has got it terribly wrong.
 
     Levitate (Artful) is out now. The album is reviewed on page 14. The
   Fall play live at Dublin Mean Fiddler, Nov 6; Belfast Empire Music
   Hall, Nov 7; London Forum, Dec 5. Mark E. Smith plays 333, London EC1,
   Oct 10.
 
 

And, kindly sent in by Paul Wilson:

By gum, it's Mr Grumpy (The Guardian 22 September 1997)

He's getting old and his teeth are falling out, but The Fall's Mark E.
Smith is as fresh as ever, says Caroline Sullivan

Mark E Smith could grump for England, but he has his lighter moments. Take
the time two weeks ago, when he was visiting the Notting Hill office of his
publicist. He was in customarily dour spirits until he spotted a crane
parked next to the building, its operator at the top repairing its
scaffolding He entered the empty cab and spent the next few minutes
gleefully raising and lowering the hapless operator. Mark E Smith is 39.

Last week, he recalled the incident with the faintest shadow of a smile. "I
don't like this new breed of modern workman. Always strutting around with
their cranes, going up and down like that," he propounds, slumped in a
Manchester pub.

Since forming The Fall - the band that arguably launched indie music -
Smith has been pop's voice of Northern bile. This year the group celebrate
their 20th anniversary; and he's more cantankerous than even He is not
appeased by the fact that the Fall are DJ John Peel's all-time favourite
band, or that they are passionately admired by anyone who was at university
in the eighties. He's still Disgusted of Salford, much keener to rail at
his bugbears than discuss the band's new album.

Levitate is their 27th release, and falls into the same stylistic
parameters as its many predecessors. The one constant has been Smith's
aggrieved shouting, as he vents his spleen about love, injustice and the
price of cauliflower. The music has veered from classic indie-guitar in the
early days, to a light industrial, middle period, and, in recently, to the
dance-inspired. The versatility reflects not only the number of people
who've passed through the band - well into double figures - but also
Smith's febrile creativity.

"Levitate is a good one for devotees to pick over,' says Peel. "It's full
of weird gurglings, and some songs are just him repeating the title over
and over.' It also contains the band's first stab at surf music in the
track I Am A Mummy and, as ever, Smith's sly wit and considerable
intelligence.

Congratulate him on it, though, and he mumbles, "We want to break away from
the typical perception of The Fall. I want a cleaner, sparser sound with no
guitars, but the people who book you want the classic Fall- with-guitars.
That was the problem when Brix left." Brix, his guitarist ex-wife, left him
and the group for Nigel Kennedy years ago, but Smith is referring to their
most recent tour; having rejoined the Fall temporarily, Brix left midway
through, enraging Smith.

Out-stare  the blankness that accompanies this fact and Smith finally,
almost, breaks into a smile. He reveals grey-brown teeth studded with gaps.
Then you find he carries in his pocket a false tooth - which he can slip in
to one of the holes. It doesn't make an appreciable difference. Both teeth
and face are worn for a man not yet 40, but then, Mark E (it stands for
Edward) is a champion drinker, smoker and carnivore.

"I don't eat vegetables," he proudly claims. "Vegetarians are why music is
so wimpy today. And I have a lot of problems with them. You can smell
vegetarians." (A few hours later he puts his money where his mouth is,
bolting down spare ribs and sweet and sour chicken with utter disregard for
cutlery. He stops only to breathe and curse record firms that release
substandard Fall compilations.)

Smith's features embody his personality, every Jack Duckworthesque crevice
conjuring up a North thathardly exists today even on Coronation Street. He
looks like Morrissey and the Gallaghers would have if they'd stayed in
Manchester rather than gone to Spain and London. It can only be a matter of
time before the city council - which, mysteriously; he loathes - gives him
landmark status.

Nonetheless, he hates ingratiation. When an NME writer recently tried to
compliment him, he responded by throwing the hack's notebook in a lake.
With Peel, though, there's mutual respect. "The few times our paths have
crossed, we've said hello and punched each other in a manly fashion," says
Peel.

So, given their unremarkable record sales (their biggest hit, a cover
version of R Dean Taylor's There's A Ghost In My House, reached 30), to
what does Smith ascribe The Fall's longevity? "We can play anywhere, any
time," he says. "We can lock in to the prevailing feeling anywhere, and we
don't do all our hits, either; which is why we don't get to do festivals."

We've now moved on - Smith, keyboardist Julia Nagle, the press officer; me
- to a sleek theme pub near Chinatown. Smith strikes a light and a waitress
cruises up. "This is a no-smoking area, but you can smoke over there," she
says politely. His face curdles.  "Its all right, we're leaving."

Later he says: "You should be able to do anything you like onstage. Gorilla
noises...its no one's business."

Th BBC recently roused his ire by asking him to do a retrospective
documentary. "I hate all that retro shit, especially when you reach our
age. We got asked to do this three-day punk festival in Blackpool." You can
probably imagine his face as he speaks. "Those nostalgia bands, those X-Ray
Spex bands, they're putting people out of work." Well, that's a unique
perspective. "It's cheaper to hire old people for 50 quid a time than young
bands,' he emphasises.

The Fall were never really punk anyway, sharing with that movement only a
desire to release records without going through traditional channels. He'd
have little to say to fellow Mancunians The Buzzocks, who now make a
living on the revival circuit. That said, he'd have even less to say to his
former keyboardist Marc "Lard" Riley, who's become far more famous in a few
months on Radio 1 than Smith has done in his entire life. Is he amused by
Riley's renowned northern wit? "He only made me laugh when he played. I
used to hope he'd become successful so he'd go away."

We're interrupted as an elderly drunk slides into the spare chair "Is this
Manchester?" he pleads. Smith's reply is just as compassionate as you'd
expect. "Of course it's fooking Manchester. Are you daft?" Godlike.
 
 
 

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