RIP Mark E. Smith

text a v good friend and fall fan (we used to get stoned as teenagers and listen to their records):

“I know you said when you saw the Fall last he looked like he was ill. And that it was one of their best ever performances you'd seen”

I was playing 'Fortress/deer park' in the car on the way home today (thanks to an Uncut freebie - worth the money for once but anyway) and wondered how long he had left.

Having said that, I'm never more than a month away from having played some Fall, and I made a point of playing that Singles (a's and b's) before he goes..

So, bring on the tribs. Including the News at ten..

he may have ended with his most challenging record to date (New Facts Emerge) which is really fucking saying something

"Couples vs. Jobless Mid 30s" is such an insane piece of work

"Couples vs. Jobless Mid 30s"

speaking of which, greatest song/album title-r in rock history??

yep :) to both your posts

Man City team must surely wear black armbands on SUnday as he was the only famous person who admitted to supporting them for about 30 years or so.

even his crap albums were called things like Are You Are Missing Winner, making them actually not-crap. and then you listen and realise they were never crap

there's them gallaghers but totally agree that they should xp

Just chuckling away at "Cary Grant's Wedding" right now.

Literally chuckling.

someone on facebook said he wrote a note to be read to the crowd at the last cancelled show? is there a link to it?

I can never tell if “Bill is Dead” is genuinely tender or totally vicious satire. Maybe both, who knows.

Is the Fall's 'Bill is dead' the most romantic song ever written?

Going to go with genuinely tender.

Just chuckling away at "Cary Grant's Wedding" right now.

Np YFOC really fuckin loud

xxpost Scott, here

A Message to All, to All. From Mark E. Smith/The Fall group. As I, like Pr Rupert leave Bristol with my tail between my legs, I wish to give my great apologies to everybody. This idiotic idea to do both shows was purely my idea, against the advice of Pamela and The Fall group, agent & promoter. Hope to replace shows within 4 - 6 weeks. In the interim we have eight new songs ready to go and will try and let you hear a few before Christmas. From head patient to you, the patients. I love you all but cannot embrace you all, Mark E. Smith

just said to a friend:

i'm not interested in sentimentality about this. they always reached beyond, into and around death, mocking and laughing and vicious. idk. memorialise, feel sad, but stand up.

O
T
M

Hard to be sad listening to them, he was so fucking funny.

YFOC such a classic album xp

yes to Fizzles, proper response here is "LOL fuk u death" IMO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBUiPs1PxKo

this will never not cheer me up

Completely gutted and fucked right now. Someone queue up a the live vers of "NWRA" from the Part of America Therein at brain bleeding volumes and I'll take a Laphroaig and Peroni while yr up.

Hard to be sad listening to them, he was so fucking funny.

The great palimpsest

yes to Fizzles, proper response here is "LOL fuk u death" IMO

Yarbles. To. Even.

ilx0r: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/arts/music/mark-e-smith-the-fall-best-songs.html

We need an interview with MES talking abt the recently passed MES and how he, MES, never really was much of a fan of MES, though he was certainly aware of him and was a proper frontman, not dancing about

Gotta blast “Garden” when I get home, that song contains so much.

He’s the young generation dancing troupe, trying to perform country and western
(Do a dance here)

He knew the evil of the phone
He knew the evil of the phone
The bells stopped on Sunday when he rose
The bells, stopped, on Sunday, when HE rose!

"feel sad, but stand up."

in smoking and drinking years he had to be about 400, no? which is why i'm not shocked i guess. though i don't know what his final illness was.

xp to LBI Gideon Coe playing lots of Fall on 6Music now, public service broadcasting...

A magnificent rebus, like Dylan on the wrong meds.
(and a brief nod to Von Südenfed, one of my great faves)

yes that Von Südenfed album is fantastic

"I will leave this fucking dump".

Sorry it's impossible to listen to the Fall and not quote every other line.

I really need that Von Südenfed record, thanks for reminder

xxxp - part of the charm. almost felt like he'd conquered death, the way he lived

was always surprised by how *young* he was, compared to the way he looked

hard to process this one. dude was so brilliant, can't think of another lyricist quite like him, and I was always amazed how seamlessly The Fall were able to transition from one era to the next

Even if your granny shows up with some bongos, it still won’t be The Fall. R.I.P.

http://open.spotify.com/user/bentelec/playlist/7tbIoONKtyQtSsrsnzD0VQ

A spotify playlist, from the ILX tracks/ballot

"I will leave this fucking dump".

Sorry it's impossible to listen to the Fall and not quote every other line.

xp Neil, ta, blasting it now

The greatest lyricist in musical history, to such an extent that the word ‘lyrics’ is unfit to describe what he did. Other than miles, probably the greatest assembler-of-performers-into-something-unforeseeable there ever was.

These are close to my exact thoughts (expressed better than I could have done). He was a true "visionary" -- as overused as that term may be -- who realized his vision over & over, in a way that made both the expression, and the intent behind the expression, seem entirely sui generis.

I hope he's walking back among us soon, in an expanded / remastered / dodgy-label 2CD version. RIP forever...

The longer late album cuts, like Couples vs. Jobless, Weather Report, Blindness, 50 Year Old Man, Dr. Bucks' Letter are probably my favorite mode of MES songwriting. Those songs are tunnels to get lost in. You emerge at the end and it's a different day.

xP.S. -- if indeed "There are twelve people in the world / The rest are paste" -- I think we were just left with only 11...

"Stop eating all that chocolate. Eat salad instead. In fact, you're a half-wit."

He was the first
To wear an idiotic jacket
In the pub

From the "Record Collection Rock" thread, 2018.

the fall were maybe the pioneers in this field, they obviously borrowed from a whole host of cool but also not-so-cool influences, but then again they don't really fit because it never seemed like just a shallow exercise in showing off what hip records they were into

MES, "New Puritan", 1980.

I curse your preoccupation
With your record collection
New puritan has no time
It's only music, John

“i’m at the barrier between writer and singer” printhead

typical of course for him to see it gleefully as a barrier.

Who tells you what
To tape on your vid. chip
How do you know the progs you miss
Are worse than those you single out?
And what'll you do when the rental's up?
And your bottom rack is full of vids
Of programs you will nay look at
The way they act is, oh, sheer delight
Cardboard copyright
Make it right

poetry FFS

mystical magical ranter, rest in peace.