RIP Mark E. Smith

I loved the directness with which he ground a path through the preciousness and anxiety of indie music making in the UK. Like he was the only one who actually knew what he wanted, while everyone else nervously looked at each other for some kind of reaction or validation.

excellent point MK.

it's true that he made the world a better place when he called Mumford & Sons a "mongoloid Irish folk band."

Karl it's always been my understanding that he did in fact take the band name from the Camus book, but I don't have a primary source for that at hand

we need a thread with just MES stories imo

It was clear in the window eye
The brick outlined the blue sky
And I had to go round the gay graduates in the toilets
And Good King Harry was there
Fucking Jimmy Savile

"that entire violent album (levitate) is extraordinary."

yeah I really loved that album. it felt like they were on some other plane there, and to an extent I don't feel like they ever really got back there musically. it's an abstract, weird album; missing winner kind of sucked, marshall was pretty good, everything since has been good but definitely the same musical template to a degree. Maybe Levitate was fueled by some other weird drugs. I don't know.

Mat Osman‏ @matosman

I have a Mark E Smith story actually. Back in the day Suede got asked to support The Fall on a couple of dates. To a man we were massive fans and VERY excited to be asked. Everyone told us he could be rough on support bands but he was great. Lots of time to soundcheck. (1)

He was friendly, helpful, told us to come straight to him with any problem. The shows were great, his crowd were great, The Fall were great. On our way home in the van we were listening to Richard Skinner and he had an interview with Mark. We listened in intently. (2)

Especially when Skinner asked, "Do you like any of the new bands who are calling you an influence." Mark said "Like who?" Skinner asked "Well, like Suede." There was a perfectly timed beat. "Never heard of them."

loooool

It was just me
The hoover
And the OAP

Btw that living too late verse quoted itt, those words go through my mind all the time

Tony Friel was reading The Fall and took the name from the title. My favourite band; this hasn't sunk in properly yet. Had been expecting/dreading it for years, tbh.

The Fall were everything to me

Can't bring myself to listen to any records yet somehow, but following on in the spirit of Mark being funny as fuck, anyone who hasn't already should check out the gigography section of thefall.org. Many many shows include various intros, asides and changed lyrics. And the later ones are just as amazing and strange as the ones from 81 or whenever.

A few choice ones:

"If only you could come from the Nynex gymnasium in your baseball jacket and comprehend. If only." (amended lyrics to "10 Houses of Eve")

"This is the last time you will ever see me reading lyrics again. Don't trust me. I love the carpet of Astoria 2. It's the only carpet that's worse than my house." (amended lyrics to "Spencer Must Die")

"I am Mark E Smith, these are my folk festival boys. Looking out for a grant. One! From the state culture 2000 of Suffolk."

"You walk into glass crystal mazes as the S.S. Viking regiment did. Into black. Into space. Into (...). You walk down into valley of kings. Out of glass. Out of space. In seventies disco lights." (amended lyrics to "Way Round")

"Now, who wrote the GM Vauxhall advert? Was it a, Neville Wilding? Was it 2, Julia Nagle? Or was it c, Richard and Judy? Or was it d? And the answer is e and f put together." (amended lyrics to "Touch Sensitive")

RIP

mes was on a coldcut record over acid house, right? the fall also covered a trucking song. he slagged it all but he quietly loved a lot too. music anyway.

Aw, MES. The Coldcut record is below. Friend who posted it said ‘oh look, he invented LCD Soundsystem!’

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gOmwVOTfh8g&t=64s

Andy Zax @andyzax
I would never ordinarily advocate or endorse such a thing, but I feel as if the best tribute one could pay to Mark E Smith tonight would be to find a band playing in a club somewhere, wander onstage, and turn the guitarist’s amp down.

Priory – that's a superb topic / thought. One of the things that were very important to me were how their live shows were often nothing like the records. I still feel aggrieved when groups make every effort to sound exactly like their record releases. The shifting and improvised lyrics were a hilarious and brilliant aspect of that. He was doing it in Manchester last year – commenting at the audience. Can't remember what it was, but i seem to have given myself a massive hangover by staying up till half three drinking and watching Fall vids.

Now up eating cereal and listening to Last Orders and Stepping Out on Live at the Electric Circus.

'Everyone's in prison or in the army, all sincere, all phoney'

a good thing – i'll still be working out and being delighted and astonished by his lyrics till the day i die.

"I think I'll drop out
Become a no man
And live my rules

But I'm the sort that gets out of the bath with a dirty face."

Ha ha, from the same song ('Various Times')

'A good case for
the systems
we like
we get'

(that from 'The Present' - the past is a camp guard in berlin, The future - 'the beer is so weak, since they got rid of time round here' aaaand, 'The Lathe of Heaven', Smith's ref to UKlG, who pre-deceased him by a day)

Pink press threat!

MAN WITH CHIP: I'm riding third class on a one-class train.
I'm set at nought like a wimpey crane.

I'm a pink prole threat.

GENT IN SAFE-HOUSE: Get out the pink press threat file
and Um-brrrptzzap the subject.

MAN WITH CHIP: It's de-louse, recluse time

(now v. bitter) When I get to the safe house
Hanging rhyme
Hang this crummy blitz trad. by its neck

Pink press threat
I escaped the pink prole effect

GENT IN SAFE-HOUSE: It's a new prole art threat,
So it's recluse, safehouse time

NARRATOR: Then the clan began
Give them nail files soon
Then the clan began
Agenda Item One

Pink press threat
Get out the pink press threat file
New prole art, the subject
It's safe-house, safe-house time

Everybody hears the hum at 3 a.m.
But in the safe-house, it's not around

Pink press threat
Get out the wet lib file
New prole art, the subject
Safe-house, safe-house tone

That clan has got away with 100 years of sheer brilliance until now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAob4ONlBmo

now listening to the post-nearly man. hanging out with the grand fella

can’t believe i didn’t post this earlier:

https://youtube/wygQmJ59E4Q

and slates is amazing.

shouldn't have listened to 'bill is dead' today, too much

it just goes to show what an amazing artist he was that all the FB posts about his death on my feed have a completely different song attached. more than anyone, he was persistently brilliant.

modernity, moderninity
water lane zero one seven one fifty five double nine
dream sat may
tents and tomatoes at Blackpool
where Jimmy Bloomfield has been brought back to host
Jousts In Moderninity
one of the many football grounds
have been converted to hold this revived sport

NTS doing an MES tribute show this morning https://www.nts.live/ currently playing "Service" which is making me feel sad

Fizzles's link fixed (for me at least): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygQmJ59E4Q

Always loved this bit from Winter 2:

The mad kid had 4 lights, the average is 2.5 lights
The mediocre has 2 lights, the sign of genius is three lights
There's one light left, that's the one light
That's the science law

listening to that track right now, the Peel session version is also great

I live in the same suburb of Manchester as MES, feels appropriate to share some sightings "in the wild"...

A few years back I was having lunch in a local Italian restaurant with my wife and parents and spotted Mark with Elena on the pavement outside, animatedly admiring an immaculate 1980 type Honda Civic.

He was also a regular in The Foresters Arms pub just up the road, owned by nearby brewery Joseph Holt. This determinedly local boozer has invitingly frosted windows and a big sign next to the front door: "NO CHILDREN, NO EXCEPTIONS".

The last time I saw him was about 8 months ago, alone in another pub, sitting at a tall table with his notebook just having a drink and writing. I had my daft/lovely medium format film camera with me and was *this close* to asking if I could take his picture, but didn't want to disturb his train of thought (or get a telling off).

a thing i loved about that song is the line

“two white clouds cross the sky
look like krakens”

which with extraordinary economy and strangeness conveys the world of a frozen submarine and subterranean landscape.

xpost about winter.

bill those are lovely sightings/observations - thanks.

(and thanks for fixing the link, tim)

the fall have the unique distinction of being the only band i can't start playing and have on in the background while i try to do something else - i just have to listen to mark and his lyrics, it just feels wrong not to pay attention

rip you hilarious brilliant arsehole

listening to that track right now, the Peel session version is also great

It's the best version.

Just picking up on Mark Riley's show last night via iplayer - pretty much broke on his show around 8:30 so its well yeah.

xp that session is, for me, the highlight of what is pretty much uniformly pure gold, the Complete Peel Sessions box set:

2-1 Deer Park 4:26
2-2 Look, Know 5:05
2-3 Winter 8:03
2-4 Who Makes The Nazis? 2:54

https://www.discogs.com/The-Fall-The-Complete-Peel-Sessions-1978-2004/release/530824

It's funny, in the past few weeks, I've been listening to the later and "lesser" Fall albums and have been really enjoying them, after not having listened to the Fall for a long time. I'm liking the more casual vibe on them, where there doesn't seem this pressure to make "great" albums. Lord knows I've listened to Hex and This Nation's too many times. I really like The Real New Fall LP.

my one sighting of MES in the wild was him going into a bookies on the lower broughton road in salford ca 1989

My one sighting, of the whole lot of them, they were walking down the Great West Road in the direction of Island's Peter Square studios (they might not have been going there, just I knew where that was as I'd done some work here in the past).

Anyway, it looked exactly like the first bit of the "Eat Yrself Fitter" video. I went "Blimey, it's the Fall" but I was alone so hey.

St Peter's Square.. But you knew that, right?

I once served MES when I was working at the Music and Video Exchange bookshop in Notting Hill. He bought a copy of Rudolph Grey's oral biography of Ed Wood, Nightmare of Ecstasy. He was incredibly polite.

Had a piss alongside him once.

go on...

There's not much more to the story tbh!

well there goes my hope of writing the first anatomically-correct mark e smith erotic fiction :(

i am damo suzuki's wang

i was once being served next to him in a pub in derby, and I nodded, and after saying 'all right' he said 'i love derby, you know - there's nothing to do here.'