Fall News - 9 Oct 1998

The Inertia tour of the US and Canada in Oct/Nov appears very unlikely to go ahead, at least in this incarnation. If anyone's wondering, this isn't the bands' fault. Any updates are likely to be found at the promoter's site at www.monsterclub23.com.

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The Biggest Library Yet, Issue 13 is now available - Covering all points on the Fall compass from 1977-1998, it retails at the bargain price of GBP 1-20 plus a 31p A5 SAE from Rob Waite, 19 Wellington Street, Retford, Notts, DN22 6PR. Annual subscription GBP 7-00 includes four quarterly fanzines, plus newsletters on behalf of the band between issues. Includes lots of stuff you won't read here!

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Subject: <fallnet> {article} Unibummer! - NME Student Guide 98, p.5

UNIBUMMER!

Students always take the piss out of me, so this is my chance to get my own back. But believe it or not, I've nothing against students and I never have had. I know I wrote the song 'Hey! Student' and all that, but I don't hate them. I think they're great; it's good that there's prople in the world that know things, but I left school when I was 15 and would never dream of studying myself.

I've played enough universities with The Fall and I wouldn't wish that lifestyle upon anyone - you know, having to live in places like Colchester, the seaside capital of Europe. Actually, the band played Manchester University the other day and it was horrible. All the staff there hate students, which is a pretty odd way to run the place. One of the things I really hate about Manchester University is that the bouncers boss these kids around. They might be ex-army, but they're not tough or anything. Anyone can gang up and boss people around if they're dealing with 18-year-olds. That just makes me puke.

"They have weird subjects at colleges nowadays. I don't know what they study. You can't do literature any more. I was looking at the courses in the paper and they're not very inspiring. It's not that these things aren't worth studying, it's that none of it seems very interesting. There's nothing about art apart from Fine Arts, and I've had a lot of problems with people in the group who've had Fine Arts degrees; they don't know fucking anything about Rembrandt and they can't paint. They take photos and that sort of stuff, but they don't know who Tintoretto is, which would be really nice to learn.

"Actually, I'm right into history. I've just been reading a book about the Hundred Years War; I've had it for ages and it was the final one I had in the pile to read while I was in the bath. It was mad. All the people in charge were about 22 and this war carried on for about 150 tears. It made me laugh because I was reading it while I was watching soccer and it's like nothing fucking changes.

"Kids are under a lot of pressure these days. It was a lot easier when I was young. Ten years ago no bugger gave a shit about 14 or 15 year olds; now they're always on about juvenile crime. I think back to when me and my mates were that age and we were terrible. Real Clockwork Orange - horrible. Half the time kids get sent away to college and there's no jobs at the end and they've wasted five years of their lives. I was pretty lucky really because my mum and dad just said, 'You're not going to college full stop, you're going out to earn money'. Nowadays parents are pressurising kids to go and half the time they're going away to university when they don't want to. You're not really interested in history when you're 17. When you get to my age - 39, 40 -you're really interested in the Hundred Years War, but if you leave school when you're 19 these days you're seen as a failure.

"In America it's unbelievable; 70 per cent don't leave school until they're 29 and they still can't read -all these football players and that. When I was in Chicago someone asked me when I left college. When I said 15 they thought I must have been a juvenile delinquent. They don't start jobs until they're about 30. You can tell that in films like Titanic, where there's all these rotten actors with no experience of life because they didn't leave drama school until they were 32.

Jim Wirth

NME STUDENT GUIDE'98

====

Fiona:

Peelie just said The Fall session is on the 18th of October (presumably being recorded).

====

Ezra:

The Sunday Times (London) October 4 1998

CASSIUS CLAY I Am the Greatest! Rev-ola CREVO57CD, £15.99
MARK E SMITH The Post Nearly Man Artful CD14, £15.99

TWO spoken- word offerings from two indisputable ideals of post- war manhood: Cassius Clay, aka Mohammed Ali, and pugilistic Fall vocalist Mark E Smith, both of whom aren't averse to a punch up. Columbia buried Ali's 1963 poetry album after he changed his name and signed up with the Nation of Islam, while Smith's solo debut unshackles his elliptical ramblings from the constraints of the band he's fronted for 20 years. Ali is caught at the height of his powers, pouring scorn on future victim Sonny Lipton and gently undermining his own arrogance with an inexhaustible supply of rhyming couplets and stand-up comedy snare drum rimshots.

Meanwhile Fall devotees have always called Smith a poet, but with overhead aircraft noise obscuring vital information, Burroughsian cut-up techniques scrambling sense, and clumsy supporting players stripping lines of meaning, Post Nearly Man won't convince doubters. But whether Smith is describing seafood, the geography of Manchester or a futuristic women's jousting competition, he remains, in his own words, the "dissolute singer . . . tapping away at the vast stamina bank". Cryptic, terrifying - and, somehow, very funny. SL

Andrew Smith, Mark Edwards, Stewart Lee and Robert Sandall

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I flicked through the new Virgin Top 1000 albums book. Usual stuff (1 - Revolver, 2 - Sgt Pepper, 3 - White Album, 4 - Pet Sounds, 5 - Abbey Road) but parked in there are five (count 'em) entries by The Fall. All the lower entries are 4 to a page with a cover pic and little write up, but the rundown (in reverse order) is:

890 - Hex Enduction Hour

836 - Wonderful and Frightening World

804 - Dragnet

702 - Shitework

569 - This Nation's Saving Grace

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GrahamC:

An interview with Jo Whiley in Minx, a mag for feisty young women, May 1998: the intro reads "she's the Doc-wearing queen of indie girls everywhere. She's the best thing on Radio One" etc... Cripes! It goes on to tell us that she's got five pairs of Doc Martens which she wears to look 'cool and hard', she wishes she was 'glam' like Zoe Ball or Jayne Middlemiss, she tries not to play 'shit' on her radio show, and the one person she wouldn't have on her TV show is... "Mark E Smith. I interviewed him after the Brats and he was such a twat."

re: Whiley. I have just tuned in on Tuesday 12:10 and she has followed Take That with the Lighthouse Family.

====

From: "Tad Reedy"

>I havent heard levitate yet but i read your lyrics page. the lyrics to
>spencer must die contained the lyrics :
>Superb sunflowers
>>From the outskirts
>the melodic experience
>amplified
>over centuries
>
>there is a mysterious document in the yale university library known as
>the voynich manuscript. the voynich manuscript has been dated with
>certainty to1586 at the court of rudolph the second of bavaria who
>purchased it for 600 ducats. it came with a letter from the rector of
>prague university which stated the authorship as being that of roger
>bacon the astronomer/monk of the 1200's. the manuscript contains
>drawings of various plants, naked women chorus dancing in interconnected
>vats, spiral galaxies. the text is written in no known alphabet and
>even the cia have declared it undecipherable. among the depictions of
>plants are what appear to be sunflowers. sunflower seeds supposedly
>didnt appear in europe until 1493.
=====

From:  Chris Kovin
RotY

AND THE WINNER IS
The grand prize winner of this year's White Castle recipe contest is Castle Stuffed Potatoes, submitted by Joy Bandemer of Bolingbrook, IL. The contest was judged by a panel of celebrities that included food critics and local connoisseurs. The grand prize is 520 White Castle hamburgers. That is a sack of 10 hamburgers each week for an entire year!

The ten runners-up sampled in this year's contest were:
White Castle Italiano sent in by Elio Desiderio of New York, NY; Fit For A King White Castle Ring sent in by Gloria Herdman of Pomeroy, OH; White Castle South Of The Border sent in by Maude Hopkins of Old Hickory, TN; White Castle Taco Fondue sent in by Marion Kisling of Kingwood, TX; Castle Parmigiana sent in by Judie Williams of El Lago, TX; Breakfast Enchiladas sent in by Adam T. of Washington, DC; Stubby's 3 Cheese White Castle Spinach Quiche sent in by Joseph Cittadino of Valley Stream, NY; Lasagne Royale sent in by Milent Kruc of Oak Forest, IL; Awesome White Castle Italian Style Pizza Burgers sent in by Jocelyn Williams of Park Forest, IL; and Castle Breakfast Quiche sent in by Juanita Helton of Bloomington, IL. Each runner-up will be awarded one sack of ten hamburgers. All 11 recipes will be featured in a White Castle recipe book later this year.

You can request a copy of the 1998 recipe book by sending an email to recipe@whitecastle.com <mailto:recipe@whitecastle.com> Please specify that you want the 1998 edition.
THE WINNING RECIPE!
CASTLE STUFFED POTATOES
Ingredients: 5 large baking potatoes, baked
10 White Castle hamburgers, no pickles
1 medium green pepper, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp. margarine
8 oz. sour cream
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
1½ cups cheddar cheese, grated
4 tbsp. chives
Cut baked potatoes in half. Scoop out most of potato and place in a large bowl. Roughly chop and mash potatoes. Add salt, pepper and sour cream. Cut White Castle hamburgers into small pieces and place into bowl. Lightly saut onions and green peppers and add to potato mixture. Mix well. Put potato/hamburger mixture into the potato skins. Fill them over the top until all filling is used. This will make 10 potato halves. Sprinkle grated cheese and chives on top. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes at 325° until cheese melts and potatoes are thoroughly warm. Can be used as a meal with tossed salad or soup. <<...>>

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Recent news....
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