Fall (post-1985 / compilations): Search & Destroy

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One of my fave early Fall LPs is the live "Totales Turns (It's now or never)" - Not entirely sure if that's the right title - someone borrowed my copy about 15 yrs ago and hasn't returned it yet. The sound is utterly lo-fi, the playing is all stop-start itchy-scratchy repetition & dodgy drum rolls, the songs are fantastic (Spector VS Rector; No Xmas for J Quays; Fiery Jack; etc), and mark smiths inter/intra song banter is both hilarious ("mind out you'll 'ave the fuckin' monitors over fer chrissakes") and dangerous (would you introduce yourself to a working mens club in Doncaster with the line "the difference between you and us is ... we have brains"). A work of conceptual genius, I reckon.

All the mid 80s stuff is pretty smart ... from Hexenduction Hour thru Perverted by Language, W'ful F'ing Wrld, This N'ns S'vng Grace, and even Bend Sinister ... after that things went downhill a bit, not that it stopped me from buying all their LPs... 90's favourites were Infotainment Scan & Middle Class Revolt - As good as anything they've done ... And just listen to MES's self produced cover of Lost In Music - Ahh, genius at work...

― I.M.Belong, Saturday, 14 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

dodgy drum rolls - thee most unfairly overlooked Fall drummer, Mr Mike Leigh. quit to make the classic english social realist movies "Meantime" &....OK OK I know it's not really the same guy, i wish it was tho, that'd be SO COOL. But he has the most absurdly dinky little drum style where he always does the same textbk round-the-kit dakkadakkadoogadoogaDOOGADOOGADOOGA DOOGA roll, it cracks me up every time he does it. In one song on that live album he gets told off by the singer for doing it too much, that's really funny too.

― duane zarakov, Sunday, 15 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I was going to mention Mike Leigh on the all 77-83 thread - easily my favourite short-term Fall member. Have you seen a picture of him? He was an ageing teddy boy IIRC, and yes, he always plays the same elongated roll-around that not-very good drummers do when they think they're Ginger Baker or someone.

Best Fall drummer = Karl Burns. The two-drum line up with P. Hanley was great live. Didn't Burns originally leave when MES set his coat on fire in a pub? Sounds likely.

My favorite MES moment - backstage somewhere or other (Lyceum?) :

Friend Of Mine : "Mark, what's Middlemass about?" MES (aggressively) : "People like YOU"

― Dr. C, Sunday, 15 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

What I want to know is - why does Nick D like the Fall so much anyway? I don't understand. I don't see them having much in common with some other things I know he likes (Beatles - Nick Drake - Smiths - Go-Betweens - Smiths). Actually, yes I can see one connection: both G-Bs and Fall are relatively unmelodic.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 15 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I met Karl Burns once, drummer with some total unknowns when I was guitar player w. ditto: A VERY SCARY MAN. If I recall he left c.Dragnet time: MES culled those who wd not curb their acid intake (tho whether KB went for this reason, or in solidarity, or merely coincidemtally, I do not know). Martin Bramah's offshoot the Blue Orchids made one kinda grate LP The Greatest Hit.

The Pinefox's question I do not at all understand. What these musicmakers have "in common" is that Nick D likes them. What else do they need?

― mark s, Sunday, 15 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I don't need them to have something in common. Maybe Nick D doesn't either. The idea I am getting at is a simple one that I'm sure you do understand, namely: often, when an individual likes various things, it's possible to see some kind of relation between them - some common ground, red thread, whatever. I can see, roughly, what the other things I mentioned (which are some of the many things that ND likes) might have in common, in that way. I can't see quite where the Fall fit in. I know Nick D, and nothing about him says 'The Fall' to me. That doesn't mean he shouldn't like the Fall, or anything else. If he happens to like loads of things that have nothing much else to do with the many other things he likes, then fair enough. That's up to him and is great. I was just wondering if Nick D could elaborate a little bit on how the Fall actually do fit into his world (which they seem to do).

Perhaps one reason I say this, by the way, is that ND strikes me as someone who does try to make things add up - who thinks long and hard about what he likes and why he likes it. So I thought he might have some interesting things to say here.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 15 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

This is getting wierd. First I was going to post about M. Leigh, but got beaten to it. This time, I was intending to mention The Blue Orchids, and ole Mark S barges in first. Story of my life!

Anyway, yes, The Greatest Hit is 'grate'. I have the compilation CD which has all the singles too. Fine stuff, nicely underproduced with a nice swirly organ sound - best track - "Dumb Magician" with a completely nutz guitar solo which swoops in out of the blue for about 10 seconds or so half way thru.

― Dr. C, Sunday, 15 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

that blue orchids alb is topp on my wants list ! (just by the way) (i got their singles but never got round to scoring the alb.)

― duane, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Karl (Rush fan) Burns is not just the best Fall drummer, he's 1 of the best British rock drummers since I don't fuckin know when. (not that the UK has thrown up many even sorta-good drummers since...uh...I don't fuckin know when). Him + Paul Hanley tag-team = a human steamroller! just DOPE ,110%! they'd just aqcuired that 2-drummer lineup when they came to NZ in 1982 & I saw 'em at both Christchurch shows. it was killer.

― duane, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

At some of the shows I saw with the 2 drummers KB was also spending time on bass and even mumbling into a tape recorder occasionally.

― Dr. C, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I don't know how to respond the the pf, except to say I think the Fall and the Smiths sit together very easily in my mind. And that not liking the Fall would be a really weird position to take.

― Nick, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Dr C. - yeah in Chch Burns played some gtr & maybe other things...this may be a false memory but I think Marc Riley played some drums too (it was just before he got kicked out).

― duane, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

twenty years pass...

I only really know 80s fall, is it ok if I ask here what are the can’t miss post-80s fall albums? I might get to them all eventually.

― brimstead, Wednesday, 23 March 2022 02:05 (two years ago) link

i'm not any kind of expert on that period but "fall heads roll" is a real good one

― unknown or illegal user (doo rag), Wednesday, 23 March 2022 04:21 (two years ago) link

I only really know 80s fall, is it ok if I ask here what are the can’t miss post-80s fall albums? I might get to them all eventually.

there’s a strong run of early 90s albums where their character and concerns really changed - domestic concerns and people, even relationships, are written about in a more rounded way - still identifiably fall like ofc. that’s probably most notable and best on Extricate and Shift Work.

The Infotainment Scan is extremely accessible and enjoyable.

there’s a sort of media/information/revival of the past set of concerns, and intermittent texts on mittel europe and european politics in all of this period.

then i’d jump straight to levitate - the group as a cohesive unit we’re in total free fall, as was smith, and the most important sleeve note for levitate is “Produced by Mark E Smith”. it’s sonically and lyrically dissolute, attenuated and wired. both spacious and dense. with strange landscapes of sound and voices caught on choppy gusts of electrical interference and sudden voids.

there’s a v strong period with a new group from 1999 from which i’d pick The Unutterable - but The Marshall Suite and The Real New Fall LP (formerly Country on the Click) are also v good.

Then it all becomes a bit more patchy. Your Future Our Clutter is an exceptional high point as, in fact, is the last album, New Facts Emerge.

It’s also worth seeking out The Remainderer EP from this late period; it’s an absolute blast.

one way of getting a good in on the 90s stuff is the final two and a half cds in the john peel sessions box set. The 1999 session comprising Bound Soul One, Antidotes, Shake Off and This Perfect Day, which announced their return after apparent annihilation and preluded The Marshall Suite is one of my favourite things they’ve done - raw, unhinged and howling with contempt and twist, “almost feels like they’ve gone back to the 1970s” Peel said when he played it.

― Fizzles, Wednesday, 23 March 2022 05:25 (two years ago) link

Excellent post.

― Kim Kimberly, Wednesday, 23 March 2022 05:35 (two years ago) link

just cobbled together a slightly capricious sample of tracks from the 90s onward *not* included in the list above.

Reptilian! Mythical! Sea-Tremors!

confined myself to one per album but allowed myself some latitude for singles not on the original album tho now on “deluxe” streaming album listings eg Ed’s Babe, Calendar and I Wake Up in the City (Calendar important for the whole “mirror psychosis” refractive reflection motivs in later Fall) (I Wake Up in the City important for uh the lyric “Even Jesus had a tail, General Custer was the same, and that old dollar bill came out backwards in the machine”)

tried to avoid obvious generally compiled stuff like Free Range but didn’t stick hard and fast to that.

― Fizzles, Wednesday, 23 March 2022 07:28 (two years ago) link

oh also included a track off The Post Nearly Man, which i love, but isn’t strictly a Fall album, tho it uses the Ol’ Gang theme from Levitate on this particular track.

― Fizzles, Wednesday, 23 March 2022 07:31 (two years ago) link

real new fall lp is a barnstormer absolute classic
the unutterable is excellent
imperial wax solvent is excellent
also have soft spot for infotainment scan / your future our clutter

the peel sessions box set released during this time and covering their whole career is wall to wall astonishing

coming round on are you missing are winner / Marshall suite /new facts

I love the fall though and would never write off any record you find great stuff on everything

― clouds (peanutbuttereverysingleday), Wednesday, 23 March 2022 09:11 (two years ago) link

thank you!

― brimstead, Wednesday, 23 March 2022 15:17 (two years ago) link

yeah I think "The Real New Fall LP" is maybe their best album overall, but I do get frustrated with the different mixes. like why does the American version just delete the bass line on "Recovery Kit"? it's so good!!

― frogbs, Wednesday, 23 March 2022 15:51 (two years ago) link

The albums mentioned above are the best of the post-1990 crop but I still find all of them an odd combination of absolute bangers and complete misses. I go for the two 90s compilations, "A Past Gone Mad" and "A World Bewitched". No overlap and they collect almost all the best stuff from that decade. I've put together my own 21st century comp in lieu of something official.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 23 March 2022 18:33 (two years ago) link

A World Bewitched is especially useful for containing a disc of B-sides and MES collaboration one-offs, many of which are not collected elsewhere.

― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Wednesday, 23 March 2022 21:57 (two years ago) link

I can't be the only one that did a double-take at this:

twenty years pass...

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 23 March 2022 22:04 (two years ago) link

For me:
Code Selfish
A World Bewitched
Levitate
The Real New Fall LP
Your Future Our Clutter

The Peel Session with Blindness/Clasp Hands/What About Us/Grass Grow is so blindingly strong it preempts Fall Heads Roll almost completely

Special shoutout to the batch of bootleg recordings documenting the shambling-then-swaggering series of shows with the hastily-assembled US guys right after the mid-tour breakup, downloading each one as they happened was an incredible feeling of "news from the front"

― covidsbundlertanze op. 6 (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 24 March 2022 15:34 (two years ago) link

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