What does it sound like?:
A late summer evening in 1978. A softly-spoken Liverpudlian DJ “Yet another listener writes in, a Mr Wrongness from Norfolk. Mr Wrongness says “ I think God Save The Queen is the best single since Jailhouse Rock and whilst I never want to listen to Yes or Ten Years After ever again what’s so bad about playing the odd Grateful Dead track?”
A long pause. “Well listeners I promise I will never play a Grateful Dead track on my show again. Now, the next one from The Fall, another 92 from them later….”
Have I ever played a Fall track all the way through? I fear not – that voice, an ever-changing band, that voice. When last did I actually listen to anything, by The Fall – early nineties perhaps? It is therefore obvious, at least to me, I am just the man to help my old mate Bargepole out. I accept the daunting task of reviewing “The Fall Singles” but obviously I still have not been forgiven – seven, count ‘em, seven cds drop into my box that same evening.
41 years and during that time sixty-six, count ‘em, sixty six different band members, the only constant Mark E. Smith. 37 albums, a whole bunch more if one counts live recordings and compilations.
I assume that during that time The Fall’s musical style has changed and evolved, that Smith’s voice has matured and perhaps, just perhaps, hidden away in these seven CDs are at least a couple of tunes to shine a golden light on my woeful ignorance. To strive, to seek, to find and not yield. My quest is to answer the question: Why were The Fall seen by the aforementioned Peel as his favourite band ever – “Always different, always the same”?
So off we go. Day 1, Disc 1 – ah, the punk years. To be honest I would have guessed Bingo-Master Breakout was a track by Half Man Half Biscuit so in its own way it’s ok, a period piece from more innocent times. I last two more tracks then put Hitchhiker on, Neil’s soft druggie voice a soothing balm.
Day2. Jingsaroonie, the rest of CD1 is hard work, some amusing lyrics here, some astute observations there but this stuff has not aged well. I end my listening day with Tinariwen, blues from the desert cleansing my soul.
Day 3, Disc 2. Mark has been listening to Talking Heads maybe even David Bowie: Living Too Late is a fine song jogging along very nicely until completely ruined by his peculiar (ie absurd) mid-track interjection of falsetto warbling. Is Victoria The Fall’s Waterloo Sunset? This is the best tune so far but still I can’t make it all the way through all 18 tracks. I dad-dance around the living room to Taylor Swift’s 1984 instead.
Day 4. No Fall today. I sit on the beach and watch the blue-remembered hills of Catalonia shimmer knowing a hundred miles further south the streets of Barcelona are covered in red and yellow whilst friendly policemen whack people over the head. I eat my barbecued prawns, drink my beer and listen to Van Morrison. Somehow Snow in San Anselmo seems most appropriate.
Day 5. I finish off Disc 2, it’s a lot, lot better than Disc 1 which, perhaps foolishly, gives me great hopes for Disc 3. My ears ringing (I don’t listen much through headphones these day but there is no way Lady Wrongness will tolerate any more than 45 seconds of The Fall) I watch a couple of episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend wondering if there has ever been a better TV series (there hasn’t).
Day 6. Oh silly me – the horror that is Disc 3. Smith’s voice veers from mid-Atlantic sneer to pseudo-angry rant. Do I remember someone once saying something like “What if Mark E. Smith is a drunken old tramp who wakes up drunk and writes these lyrics which we think are poetry but really they are just the ramblings of a drunken old tramp?”. We now seemed to have, inexplicably, wandered into the realm of Rockabilly but not Rockabilly as we know it, oh no. The mean streets of Salford have a lot to answer for. Halfway through I give up. I try instead the new David Crosby but it really doesn’t sound right after all that discordant tosh so it’s New Riders of the Purple Sage followed by the second half of Scotland v Slovenia. Of course those bastard Scots score in the last minute, of course all us Scots know it will all end in tears in a few days time.
Day 7 and I somehow finish Disc 3. Sir William Wray may well be the worst song ever recorded ( but see later) but then suddenly there’s Theme from Sparta FC – recorded in 2004 but if laid down in 1978 it would be hailed of something of a masterpiece. I have a sneaky feeling that clever old Mark has just given us some sort of cutting pastiche or a biting commentary on the state of English football. I don’t care, it’s easily the best track so far. Unfortunately it’s followed by Distilled Mug Mix 15 which is laughingly , excruciatingly, abysmally awful.
For the first time I seriously consider giving up, a quiet apology to Bargepole a dignified exit from the AW. Instead opt for a blast of The Clash’s Sandinista washed down by Mary Gauthier’s Drag Queens and Limousines.
Day 8. Are these seven discs in chronological order? The musical style of each song seems to jump back and forth like an unsure, uncertain teenager trying this look, then that. I find an attached booklet which displays the singles’ covers (only for for the first discs?). If I had never heard of The Fall I would seriously consider buying the 7 CD set just for these alone. Charming, provocative, silly, some could even be considered as works of art: and, yes, the cover notes reveal I am indeed listening in chronological order. I spend a long time looking at the covers and suddenly I find it is too late for any listening today.
Day 9 and it’s on with Disc 4. Second track in C.R.E.E.P – a minute passes whilst one of those stylophone thingies plinks away, then some other band members wake up and start strumming, a bunch of girls warble “c.r.e.e.p” and now the man himself
From the bright sun he came one morn
Populist as well in his class at least
But then came the REAL AGE and for that we must all pay
(And for that we all do pay)
Whilst I internally digest those profound words I stagger on. Lucifer Over Lancashire has I assume nothing to do with the arty film of the same title I watched a hundred years ago in some Hampstead fleapit – I still remember with startling and disturbing clarity sitting next to an old tramp (Mark, was it Mark?) who masturbated under his dirty coat whilst some buxom young women cavorted on the big screen above. I cannot seem to wash that image away so it’s time for a glass of red and Steve Earle telling me his name is John Lee Pettimore Later that evening the tiny wee players of Scotland get steamrollered by much bigger Eastern European bullies – thank the lord we don’t have to go through the agony of the play-offs or, even worse, the World Cup Finals themselves
Day 13 – ok, you have spotted I’ve had a few days off, I got my mum to write a sick note, but I’m back at my desk just raring to go with Disc 5. Ah, I see what I have done, played Disc 5 thinking it was Disc 4. Putting this glitch behind me I start: surely Psycho Mafia is from 1977, surely Repetition is some kind of sick joke, surely Putta Black is the most tuneless track ever, surely Wings was recorded in a Salford kindergarten (“Right, Mark grab that tambourine, Mark stop pulling Mary Jane’s pigtails, Mark this is your last warning, Mark put that gun down!”) ?? Make it through somehow to Track 15 O! Brothers – the band tunes up waiting for Mark to arrive, the drummer has switched on his machine and gone for a fag, Mark’s brother picks up a guitar and starts strumming (he’s only seven, poor wee lamb), the bass lopes along quite nicely then a long, long time later Mark walks in.
Oh little brother
We are in a mess
And whose fault is that Mark, eh eh?
Listen to some sad losers called The Disappointment Band – sweet harmonies and lovely singing, try listening to The Fall you smug bastards!!
Day 14, Disc 6
Track 1 Haf Found Bormann “This song is originally from MES’s play “Hey! Luciani,” with Brix and Marcia Schofield assuming the role of Israeli commandos tracking down Martin Bormann, Hitler’s personal secretary.” In order to retain some of my sanity I initially refuse to investigate any further. I relent and press Search (who needs sanity?) – “A cross between Shakespeare and The Prisoner” quoth Mark. If only, if only. Back in the day I somehow managed to miss the play’s two weeks run: bet it’s on YouTube but if you think I’m going there….
Hit The North Part 2 is on the other hand sheer joy, has some studio jester slipped in a track from the Tom Tom Club, funky reggae rhythm, tight band, WTF is going on? Thankfully the next half dozen tracks revert to type, teenaged playing, shouty singing et al. British People in Hot Weather presumably is supposed to be a biting satire but is just plain silly and to be honest sneeringly nasty.
But you know what, the second half of Disc 6 is not half bad!! What would John Peel have made of all this musicality, professional production and lyrics freed from the self-imposed chains of self-importance? Would The Fall have joined The Grateful Dead in the Perfumed Garden trash can?
Glam Rock is apparently a put-down of Brett Anderson but even if that’s not true the song itself is a belter. Antidote, leads us out, howling feedback, swirling violins, a fine impersonation of Johnny Rotten, strangely, compellingly listenable.
I need drugs obviously and I need them now but make-do with a blast of Tom Petty. I’m not one who usually starts playing records of someone just because he died recently and whilst I really liked Tom I would never have classed myself as a real fan. I have, however, watched those early OGWT clips (my, how punk they all look, how cool!) and played some of his tracks nearly every day – I hope he is still running down that dream somewhere.
Day 16 – after the shock of Disc 6 being, y’know, good I took a day off to recover so c’mon Disc 7 sock it to me!
Perfect Day (New Version). Apart from the exceedingly silly singing (Mark E pretending for some deep reason no doubt to be 4 years old) it’s not a bad song: imagine a strange pub in a strange town, twenty one customers, all pissed, thirty four dogs at their feet. In the corner a band with very tinny equipment plays to themselves. The lead singer is hunched on his knees, tatty overcoat, his mouth enveloping the microphone with anguished spit:
I need nothing
I need no fun
I don’t need nothing
Nothing at all
You drink your pint ignoring the dirty glass then let the dark night swallow you up.
Up next is I Wake Up In The City. Imagine it’s a strange city and you have just walked into a strange pub….
A hapless live track then I Wake Up In The City (Mix 5) – Jesus H, there are at least three other versions of this tosh !
Some truly dreadful stuff follows, I will spare you the gory details, until we reach Jetplane. A surrealistic tale, Desolation Row taken to Heathrow and Johanna to Milan, which compared to the past fifteen minutes is poetic genius. Another two tracks and we have arrived, we have reached shore, it’s Track 117 of 117. And then the crushing disappointment – it’s 8 minutes and 17 seconds long!!
Murky, thin sound (and that’s not in a good way), Mark E clearly is making it up as he goes along, the bass playing is good, the drumming passable, the “singing” cringingly, terrifyingly appallingly…you get the message. A fitting end to the longest walk of my life.
What does it all *mean*?
Buggered if I know: some people will listen to anything? Some people gain notoriety and/or fame by impersonating drunken old tramps?
Goes well with…
Buggered if know: banging your head with a hammer whilst removing your toenails with rusty pliers whilst a hooded man with a chainsaw stares at your genitalia?
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
Mark E. Smith (although even then ploughing through all 117 tracks is not for the faint-hearted).
Did you know you can today buy Singles The Clash for £7.69? 66 tracks with nary a duffer, lovely packaging, extensive liner notes, radio interviews etc etc. The world is indeed a strange place….
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Well I buggered all that HTML stuff up, didn’t I??
Sewer Robot says
If it helps with your confusion, you definitely did not listen to the songs in chronological order.
“Discordant Tosh” would have been an ace title, so props for that!
Super-entertaining review – more please!
(*crumbs – you’ve wazzed the HTML for me too*)
Lodestone of Wrongness says
There is no end to my talents apparently… I kinda wondered if somewhere in the Dropbox experience the songs got out of chronological order
Bargepole says
Ooh – you’ve made the whole page appear in italics!
Nice review though -I admire your perseverance 😉
(a pic of sleeve would have been good)
Lodestone of Wrongness says
A pic? Did you want me to break the internet?
Freddy Steady says
Did you not like them then?
Bartleby says
What a wasted opportunity when there are so many Fall fans among the massive.
Moose the Mooche says
I found his Bob Harris-type palate cleansers very amusing.
Next: Deramdaze on the new Liam album.
The Afterword…For People Who Think They Are Edgy But Are Actually Extreeeemely Conservative
Bartleby says
As did I, but still. Would you be the one to review a box set of Mahavishnu singles? How about a Depeche Mode boxset reviewed by our dear departed Johnny Concheroo? I think not.
Moose the Mooche says
I love the Vish! A better one for me would be the execrable GnR.
I won’t be writing any anyway because nee boogah reads them. At least people will read this, albeit while getting a crick in their neck.
Bartleby says
Fair points all round. Still, where can I turn to for a proper review of the boxset? Nee boogah outside the Fall fanbase knows the score and nee boogah in the Fall fanbase had any objectivity. Bah!
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Pitchfork, Quietus or some such bunch will no doubt publish a ‘proper’ review sometime in November.
Mind you we do have Catch 22 here: a non-devotee is hardly likely to converted by a 117-strong collection, belters, turkeys and so-sos. A Falliac will no doubt find a b-side or a single
he (do The Fall have any female devotees, hmmm?) missed back in the day that is worth the cost of buying the 7 CDs ( and if that cost is more than £7.69 then I give up)
Bartleby says
A 7 disc retrospective is unlikely to be anyone’s opening Fall purchase. Besides, that argument holds for every band under the sun with a devoted (and knowledgeable) fanbase.
I cut my journalistic teeth in student journalism and have given out my share of product to be reviewed by the ignorant, antipathetic and even hostile. Essentially, you get the same ‘review’ every time – “One or two tracks weren’t bad, unlikely to convert any new fans, but devotees will lap it up”. It’s unedifying, a waste of the talent on here and a disservice to the band and their Massive fans.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Oops! I certainly didn’t mean to diss you or the “many ” Fall fans on here. I speak fearfully here, only too mindful of causing offence: I took the gig on
1 an apology to Bargepole
2 I really had no knowledge of The Fall apart from the always-certain-sometimes-wrong view that I hated them
3 it was an arduous task but in the end great fun!
Bargepole says
I asked for a volunteer to review this, and Lodes (bravely) stuck up his hand, for which I was very grateful!
retropath2 says
I thought it a fabulous review.
Having strenuously avoided the Fall for as long as I can, then seen them play live twice, last year and the year before, listening to them never again is my idea of heaven, with or without the chainsaw guy in a mask.
Bartleby says
I didn’t see that thread, but you and I discussed reviewing Fall material only a couple of months back Barge. Shame. No disrespect to Lodey for the entertaining outsider perspective and all that.
minibreakfast says
Hoi!
deramdaze says
Liam Brady’s done an album … who knew?
moseleymoles says
Even as a confirmed Fall-ite one can easily do too much. A clear case of over-Smithing. I would say that even one CD is sometimes too much. They are at their absolute best as a single blast popping up on the radio (times were) or now on a shuffled playlist IMHO.
Moose the Mooche says
Slates!
Slates!
moseleymoles says
Good call (26:00) – possibly stretch as far as 40:00 which brings in some of their shorter albums (Room to live, This Nations..), but even something as mighty as Hex Enducation Hour needs a breather between sides 1 and 2.
minibreakfast says
It’s a bit lacklustre.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
A deer walks up to the fence and looks over – “You know she’s a smartarse, don’t you”?
I smile then reply ” Yebbut , I kinda love ‘er”
The deer shakes his head and wanders off back over the vineyards,” is that gunfire, bugger it’s hunting season again”
fentonsteve says
Where can one buy Singles The Clash for £7.69?
Lodestone of Wrongness says
A certain tax-dodging emporium, although the sellers are third party.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Vinyl a mere £99.99
fentonsteve says
Cassette, tho, innit? Or am I missing sumfink?
Lodestone of Wrongness says
I swear earlier today the CD box-set was £7.69 now it seems to be 25 smackers – I feel certain this will be cheaper than The Fall on release date..
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Ah, £7.99 on ebay
Moose the Mooche says
You mean £7.99 on ebay-Ah
Lodestone of Wrongness says
And without trying I have posted photies on the OT! (?) Now, if only I knew how to correct all that HTML stuff and if only there were some Admins on this site who knew what they were doing.
Tiggerlion says
Best Nights In ever!!
Lodestone of Wrongness says
See you at the bus shelter at 11? Bring your gloves.
Tiggerlion says
That’ll be a Nights Out.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Maybe not a whole night…..
Skirky says
I stand with @Tiggerlion.
Jeff says
My in-head voice has read this entire thread with a whispered and intensive urgency.
I’m exhausted now.
Pessoa says
Indulge me: I am reviving this thread from the void because I finally got my copy this week and want to stick my oar in. As a fan, I obviously enjoy picking over many of the songs again in a one-stop, remastered hard copy, although I’m not going to try and convince the naysayers. But, also as a fan to others, I wonder what is the precise point of this release? There are no liner notes or extended archive material of any interest other than efficient recording details, and the “one b side only” rule makes harsh work of memorable non-album releases from the golden age of the 12″ (No “Australians in Europe”!). At least it has the extended mix of “No Bulbs” rather than the shorter edit. My real point is that when the only people still buying box sets like these are bound to be committed listeners, why not go all out to make it comprehensive and gap-filling product (like the wonderful Peel Sessions box set) rather this more tentative approach? As you were, and merry xmas! (and, yikes, this is still in italics)
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Pessoa – he’s the man (or perhaps she’s the woman – although given this is The Fall I’m guessing Pessoa is well -trousered)
Moose the Mooche says
By jingo, haven’t you heard old son? Gels are allowed to wear trizers these days as well as the cheps!