OK, so I’ve slowly and gingerly* been exploring the output of The Fall up to about 1994 – basically the studio albums and singles. I also have the Peel Sessions box. But I’ve a hankering for some live material – particularly from the 80s. I’ve a few bits and bobs like those on the Totally Wired set, are there any gigs or live compos I should be listening to? Official, semi-official or Eel-tastic recommendations welcomed.
To give you an idea of what I’m after, what starts to happen at about 1.30 into this The Tube clip should give you an idea.
(*how else?)
Paging @moseleymoles , @dr-volume , @pessoa , @bartleby
My top three:
Austurbaejarbio
Live In Cambridge 1988
Live At The Knitting Factory, New York
Thank you Tiggs. I didn’t tag you and now I feel like an ungentlemanly cur.
I shall of course kill myself.
That’s OK. Those four are more expert than me. I’m a jack of all trades and master of none.
Beggars Banquet recently issued a ten CD box of live shows, limited edition, cost over a hundred quid. I haven’t heard it.
Have to say that although I saw the Fall many times and they were sometimes great, sometimes mediocre, the fall live on record is something I only rarely dabble in. Totales Turns is magnificent if you’ve not got there yet but I feel that there is so much studio to go into the live is beyond me. Guess I am actually a lightweight.
Actually I am not a great live albums person in general whatever the act. Love the gigs but usually happy with the studio version. This may not go down well I know.
I think the bits on Totally Wired come from Totales Turns. That’s automatically on the To-Do list along with Fall In a Hole and A Part Of America Therein. I was assuming they were too obvious for our resident Fall heads (roll)
I’m like a real Fall fan (have you read my legendary review of the legendary 84cd box set?) so you can believe me when I categorically state without fear of contradiction from anyone with an ounce of sense (sorry Moose, that rules you out) that there is nothing, absolutely nothing The Fall has ever released that is “worth listening to”. I go further, I would rather listen to the legendary (some say imaginary) bootleg of “Gong, Gentle Giant and Steve Howe In Concert” than ever ever ever listen to another note of ME Smith’s juvenile and pretentious wankery
Oh god, I knew you’d turn up. Can somebody open a window please?
I love BB though.
Doesn’t everybody. Absolutely everybody by now I should think.
Seriously, if you’re right wing – which almost everyone is these days one way or another – how do you deal with Billy Bragg?
“Lefty rubbish”
“Lefty yes, but not rubbish. Clearly not. That’s scientifically not true”
“Ahhh shit…. (whining in familiar self-pity) Why can’t we have someone like that on our side?”
“Well you’ve got… I dunno… Morrissey? (snigger)”
“HE’S A VEGETARIAN!!!”
My advice is tread carefully. There is an avalanche of Fall live CDs and LPs out there with zero quality control due to a chaotic and unfathomable web of licensing deals that MES may or may not have made over the years. Add to that mix a glob of releases from the piss poor Ozit/Morpheus/”Dandelion” label who have produced some notorious semi-bootleg shit which they claim is legitimate and “approved” by Mark E Smith including some Record Store Day ‘exclusives’ complete with sleeves pasted from royalty-free clip art. This is the label that brought you endless dubious Beefheart ‘rarities’ and put out what they claimed was a collaboration between Martin Hannett and Delia Derbyshire which turned out to be, mostly, a copy of some De Wulf Library Music found in Hannet’s personal tape collection:
https://www.discogs.com/release/10764813-Hannetts-Electronic-Recordings-Homage-To-Delia-Derbyshire/reviews#c847207
Anyway, from the 80s I highly recommend ‘Fall in a Hole’ – recorded in NZ in 1982 featuring the Twin drummer line up of Hanley and Burns, excellent sound quality and the best live Fall LP for my money – get the 2 CD version with the extra stuff.
‘A Part of America Therein’ is really good too although a bit Lo-Fi. Totale’s Turns is similarly Lo-Fi but enjoyably murky and it’s a great, ferocious early performance – worth it for “Last orders half past ten…” and “Will you fuckin’ get it together instead of showing off….”
The one I remember from the 80s features Michael Clark’s dancers – who were in the New Order True Faith video – appearing on either Whistle Test (sic) or Oxford Road Show . The dancers wore costumes that exposed most of their arses. A pantomime cow features, dispensing cartons of milk from its body.
Your honour, the Prosecution will call no further witnesses
I saw that show live in Edinburgh with The Fall onstage, the stage show that Kurious Oranj is the soundtrack to, and it was bloody brilliant.
Here it is
Why would Michael Clark possibly want to write a ballet that involved a lot of fit young men showing their arses? The mind boggles.
Objection, objection! Your honour I most protest at this blatant attempt to sway the jury with fit young men showing their arses. Did we win the war for nothing?
What war? The War Against Intelligence? eh? Eh?
….I’ll get me Presto shopping bag
I’m told each citizen of the UK has 54 Bags For Life. I’m also told you have 4523.
Of course. The more you get, the longer you live, durrr!
Austurbaejarbio Is The Fall’s equivalent of the John Coltrane Live in Japan Album: an untypical lineup of the group pushing the stops out for a new audience and achieving something extraordinary. Try to hear it if you can. Otherwise, as wiser people have said already, A Part of America Within is worth it for a great Totally Wired, and Totale Turns has the definitive Fiery Jack/ Rowche Rumble. However many of the other live cds released in the 90s/ 00s had poor sound quality, although the best moments were cherry picked for the recent reissues.
( But oh, why the hate? I am on such good behavior when the good people here share their love of Jethro Tull, and I even enjoy reading their justification for it, so let us have The Fall)
In answer, I have no hate for The Fall just a head-spinning disbelief that anyone, including dear old John, thinks they were anything else but laughably bad.
Even though groups like The Mighty Tull are never going to grace my record library (not since 1970 anyway) even bitter old twisted me can easily understand why other apparently sane people can enthuse and adore. But The Fall…..
We’ll take it as testament to their power that you feel quite so strongly about them.
I’m looking forward to asking for Austurbaejarbio at the record counter at Woolworths.
“Pick’n’mix is over there, pal”
For me it’s a bit of a case of diminishing returns on Fall live releases, the more recent releases tend to be little more than just widely distributed bootleg tapes. Having said that you can get tainted by what your favourite Fall period is.
For recommendations I’d start with “Austurbaejarbio” a rock solid unrelenting performance from a band in transition, Brix was about to join. I think @Tiggerlion also suggested this one.
Next I’d go with either “Fall in a Hole” or “Live to Air in Melbourne” from the Australia/New Zealand tour in ’82. I said either as the track listing is similar but in reality you should get both because, well, you just should.
There’s series of live CD with Smith flicking the V on the cover some of these a great and some are for collectors only, in that they’re unlistenable but you have to have them to be a sad completest. Of this series I like the “Live Various Years” as it compilation of live stuff from roughly 88 to 95ish and some of the tracks are deeper cuts rather just the “hits”. Another suggestion from ‘Tiggerlion was the “Live in Cambridge” that’s a big yes from me as well and I’d throw in “Live in Zagreb” too.
There’s a popular bootleg you could find online in seconds called “CREEP Show”, this is from ’84 and is a really good companion to Austurbaejarbio as it’s the same band but with Brix about a year later and you can hear the change.
Once you’ve got through this lot then you’ll be into the realms of the “Chaos Tapes/Live in London” and “America Therein” at that point you’ve entered the version of Narnia populated by sad old blokes humming the chorus to “Eat Y’self Fitter”
You’ll just get a shrug off me for the live releases from the last 10/15 years, it’s not really “my” Fall period but I would stick my neck and say give “Creative Distortion” a try. For some reason this is one I like from the last few years this maybe because there is a smattering of older song.
No matter how cheap you see them DO NOT buy any Fall CDs on Receiver Records, just don’t. My only excuse is dinnertime drinking and I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself.
Thanks all (except old fuckface).
Mister Old Fuckface to you
The title of your autobiography right there.
These are but flesh wounds. And anyways my autobiography is already entitled “Lodestone – Still Sexy After All These Years”
Those trees will die in vain I tell you.
In vain!
Wotcher Moose,
My Fall era is pretty much Brix and beyond. And I’m not a great fan of bootleg quality. As such, my live Fall favourites are Seminal Live and Live at the Phoenix Festival. The former combines new – and superlative – studio tracks (Dead Beat Descendent and H.O.W.) with great live versions of Brix era highlights (Victoria, LA, Frenz, Cruisers Creek, Kurious Oranj), the odd bit of weirdness (Mollusc in Tyrrol, Squid Law, a pissed ranty Bill Grundy) and a left field cover version (Pinball Machine). Phoenix Festival is more straightforward but well recorded and thumping. Hammersmith Palais captures one of the last bands in good form, but having been at the gig, I find the CD thin sounding compared to the pounding we heard on the night.
Ta. I do have Seminal already, and think it’s underrated. You can hear them in transition.
Wotcher Moose is prolly a good Fall song title. All it’s missing is some random punctuation.
Wotcher Moose Atrocity Bingo
My two favourite live Fall albums are 1.) Live to Air in Melbourne ’82. You can really feel the push and pull between him and Marc Riley on this gig. Not only is it a great performance. It’s also a radio broadcast so it sounds mint, and there’s an amazing wig-out version of Deer Park, with lots of MES additions, plus a really long, grinding version of Tempo House. They really were amazing during this period.
2.) I Am As Pure As Oranj, which — I think — is taken wholesale from one of the I Am Kurious Oranj performances. Again the sound quality is superb and there are brilliant versions of Jerusalem, a version of Hip Priest that crashes (and it really does crash) into New Big Prinz, Cab it Up and Bremen Nacht.
Some of those Receiver comps are worth a listen, by the way. I often give Fiend With a Violin a play. The version of The Man Whose Head Expanded on there is immense.
Oh, and if you’re after a really great live/ bootleg oddity, try Googling for “Mark E Smith Greenwich Sound Radio 1983”. It includes the famous ‘Mark E Smith’s Guide to Writing Guide’.
Thank you for the further homework… I think.
Anyone who is interested might like to know that three of the gigs mentioned upthread (Australia & NZ) are collected on the current 1982 set (which is built around Hex Enduction Hour).
The southern hemisphere will rise again.
In case you were worried, THIS is what I was after.
….after listening to this on headphones for the first time I had to have a lie down.
Just… extraordinary.
I fkin love music, me.