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The Afterword #39: We Are Not Appreciated As The Mighty Fall

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Long threatened but now complete, the Afterword returns from its self enforced spring break with a podcast dedicated to The Fall. Your host DFB chats with Gavin “Whole” Hogg and Dr “Tim” Volume comparing the length of their Fall collections and many other matters

– The Russian roulette of The Fall in concert but isn’t that better than the dull alternative?
– What were Mark E Smith’s observations of the Scottish Hotel & Gretchen Franklin?
– The offshoot industry of the Fallen
– Would you pick up Mark if you saw him at a bus-stop?
– Where to start if you should ever want to enter the weird and frightening world.

Obviously contains Mark E Smith impressions (Dr Volume – excellent and uncanny / DFB- a combination of Patrick Marber’s northern drug dealer & Frank Sidebottom / Gavin – wisely opts out)

And remember, wherever two or three people gather to discuss M.E.S and The Fall there are thousands saying “Flipping muppets haven’t got a clue” – we salute you all – uh.


11

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  1. Additional supplementary informations

    Our recommended starting place for complete amateurs or the kurious is 50,000 Fall Fans
    https://www.discogs.com/Fall-50000-Fall-Fans-Cant-Be-Wrong-39-Golden-Greats/release/699059

    We state incorrectly on the pod that The Peel Session box is dirt cheap as we all picked it up for £10-£15 but its clearly now in short supply so keep em peeled (arf) in those second hand shops
    https://www.discogs.com/The-Fall-The-Complete-Peel-Sessions-1978-2004/release/530824

    And Gavin Hogg’s interview with Simon Wolstencroft can be found here

  3. Keeping up this thread’s meme, what was the last fall track you played-uh?
    This was mine, just the other day.

    “White Lightning”, a George Jones cover.

  4. I am most miffed I wasn’t invited to participate in this 😉

    The last Fall track I listened to was “Stout Man” from the last album (Sub-Lingual Tablet) – I’m surprised how much better this LP gets with each spin – at first I couldn’t be bothered as it sounded like the stereotypical aggressive drunk shouting in bus station stuff. Gradually I’m warming to the rollicking gruffness, particularly the last few tracks.

    I’m also increasingly of the opinion that the Peel Sessions box is all you need for their career until 2004 – OOAA

  8. Nice editing DFB – really loved hearing it with the strategically inserted clips and the intro from ‘Totale’s Turns’ is just perfect.
    If just one person decides to investigate The Fall-ah then our work is done.

    One thing that didn’t make the final cut was that The Fall have some very good live albums – specifically the aforementioned superbly bog eyed madness of ‘Totale’s Turns’, ‘A Part of America Therin’ and ‘The Fall in a Hole’ being particularly fine examples. “Last orders half past ten…”

  10. Thanks Poppy – will dig out my copy of Marshall Suite again. It’s been a while since I revisited.
    A couple of other links – this is a favourite clip that I uploaded from an old VHS that I had. Mark E Smith being interviewed in Germany in the last 80’s:

    And a Charity Shop Classics radio show I did with Steve Hanley and Olivia, his partner and co-writer of The Big Midweek:

    Enjoy!

  11. Nice one. I only have The Peel Sessions which I got as a download when it was priced at 2.99 or something a while back. Haven’t yet had the courage to dive in …

  13. Congratulations to all concerned for a superbly enjoyable podcast heard early today at work.
    It’s probably my fave of the AW podcasts so far, & the conversation reminded me that although I’m far from a fan, there’s a lot of Fall stuff I like.
    I mentioned it to a workmate ( a Fall head who’s seen them literally dozens of times & is personally acquainted with MES).
    Unaware of the excellent DB ending of the podcast, he smiled & said with quiet but absolute authority that they are obviously the greatest rock n roll band ever.
    He then told me how 5 or so years ago he took a pal ( who’d never seen them) to the Bristol Bierkeller to see them.
    Arriving in Bristol about 4pm, his hunch they’d find the band in a nearby pub paid off immediately & they found them holed up just down the road. They sat in with MES & co, most of my pal’s money going on slaking MES’s thirst – his mate was awestruck & said almost nothing & then with everyone suitably stewed the band trolled off for the sound check.
    At the gig proper, the Fall neophyte was straight down the front in an advanced state of refreshment & on a huge high from his earlier socialising & was so mentally ‘into it’ that the bouncers slung him out halfway through the FIRST song!
    My pal waited for a few minutes to see if he’d blag his way back in, but when that failed to occur went to find him, not being able to leave him in a city not his own.
    Sure enough, there he was 50 yards from the venue with his head in his hands, having experienced the full gamut of Fall fandom in a few short hours.

  14. 50,000 Fall fans can’t be wrong, is that what they say? Hmmm, there are a lot of Scientologists, a lot of, hell, christians, but that doesn’t, either, make them right. I don’t get it, see it or like it all. It is, really, an odd and borderline disturbed/clever and manipulative individual who has somehow managed to take the piss for decades and be praised for it. Nice work if you can get it, and keeps him in beer money, but it isn’t even as if he bothers with the new clothes. Dismal racket, live and on record.

    • It’s you not them.

      And therein lies most people’s ire against The Fall as we discussed on the podcast – the neophytes make them feel somehow defective in a way they don’t feel about not liking other bands.

      And therefore the reaction to them is more extreme also. Which would probably please MES no end.

      Thanks for all the thoughts people, makes it nice when people react

      • I think retro has a point though. The Fall are much like Steely Dan in that something needs to ‘click’ within the listener. Most people can tolerate the odd isolated track, like the TV advert or the introductory music for a comedian. However, it can take a while before the riff driven grooves and the verbal sludge dotted by a few moments of piercing clarity become the most wonderful noise known to man.

        Mind you, I find Chumbawamba dismal.

        • I think the analogy with the Dan is valid & well made.
          Superficially they are worlds apart & they obviously sound nothing alike.
          And yet…their respective devotees have an absolute certainty that those that don’t ‘get it’ are the ones losing out.
          They are both predominantly beloved of blokes for whom they provide an extensive catalogue of impenetrable lyrics and enough hair splitting details to keep the most devoted of anoraks content pretty much indefinitely.

          • All of which we covered in the podcast. It was the extreme reaction they create in those who don’t like them that we also discussed. It’s the other side of the same coin

              • Ha, I like neither. (Not strictly true, Can’t Buy and Countdown are fab, but someone had to make the statement. In truth, I would probably like the rest if I could summon the energy to play them, but it seems always too much effort.)

              • Well I like The Fall & love the Dan. I was extremely late coming to them & it was all based on taking seriously the opinions of those I respected. The ‘light’ didn’t go on for a long time, but when it did, boom! I think their mindset also suited my advancing years & a hankering for something accessible but really smart. Exploring the back catalogue was immensely satisfying.
                As a young punker, I was aware of The Fall from the off, saw them few times & put them in that ‘oh, yeah I like them’ bracket, but didn’t follow them closely & then one day noticed they’d been around forever & were STILL at it. I like the notion that I could still drill down into their stuff & become a Fall head if I want, but it seems an act of endless procrastination – a bit like Danny Baker feels about Jazz or classical – or I do about writing that novel. Probably won’t happen, but still might.

  15. For me The Fall defy Bob’s otherwise watertight maxim about music making you want to cry or laugh and tickle a musical erogenous zone that only they* have access to, a kind of discomfiting, shifting and perplexing musical comfort zone. There are too many different Fall sounds and their appeal too elusive to explain, but one thing I can say for sure, and something that keeps me coming back, is that they’re never ever pedestrian.

    I get why people don’t like them. I love that they feel the need to broadcast it.

    (*Note: ‘they’. Yes, MES, but it’s always been MES and an able musical lieutenant that makes The Fall special: Martin Bramah, Steve Hanley, Julia Nagle, Jim Watts… Which is partly the reason the latest incarnation is lacking.)

      • Yes! And it presents the same problem. Because the camps are so diametrically opposed it makes it difficult to have a more nuanced view. The opposing side’s voice is so loud you don’t want to reduce the impact of your counter-argument by saying, ‘You’re wrong, they’re great, although I do think they have gone off he boil of late.’

        You just want to roar back, ‘THE FALL RULE, ALWAYS!’

        ‘STEWART LEE IS A COMIC GENIUS, ALWAYS!’

        • Oh counter arguments are over-rated. I doubt we’ll change the mind of those “drunk at x bus stop” people but might give the semi curious a place to start or inexpensive taster.

          • Actually I happen to think David Hepworth’s review was a perfect summary of the band, I don’t just “get” the jokes, I am genuinely amused. Like when people call my taste in music “weird”, and I just hear a compliment.

  16. I’ve just bought tickets for next month’s gig in Leeds – the 14th time I’ll have seen them since ’88.
    I must be a very sophisticated fellow – and I expect to meet many more like me at the gig.

  17. I am struggling to find the time to get out these days. Young child, pregnant wife, busy job. It’s lucky there are many bus stops nearby with lurking shouty tramps. I grab my music where I can folks…

  18. I was beginning to worry that we’d heard the last of the podcasts, so thanks for making the effort to get back on it people.

    I can take The Fall or leave them, but the ‘cast made want to get back and listen again. My experience over the years has been that I absolutely love the opening bars of loads of Fall tracks but as the grooves settle in and MES winds up I sort of lose it too quickly.

    As you say DFB, I’m sure it’s me, not them. I’ll go back to “50,000…” over the weekend and see what happens.

  19. My Fall related story.

    Went to see Brix’s group The Extricated in Manchester in November. Walked into the venue and the first person I saw was my sons teacher from a few years ago.

    Me “Hello, what are you doing here”
    She ” My husband Paul is the drummer in The Extricated”
    Me ” Crickey.. I never knew that… How exciting”

    A few more moments of polite conversation before I returned to the bar with my mate and then a lightbulb moment as I looked at him…..”Of course, her name is Hanley!”

    Well, I was excited. All those years of parents evenings and “Good morning Mrs Hanley” and I just didn’t know.

    • Interview with Brix in new Q (read it at station this morning) where she’s asked what MES smells of.

      “Once he came back home and he didn’t smell of me. He smelt of someone else’s lady garden. But most of the time he reeked of whiskey and fans like any real men should “

  20. Great podcast – thanks for entertaining me when I should have been working/sleeping. Been listening to MES and co since the Brix years, with the odd decade long gap. Re-Mit and Steve Hanley’s biog now hovering in my Wishlist…

  21. Really enjoyed that podcast. A most agreeable and entertaining hour.

    A thought: Mark E Smith must be one of the most imitated singers. I don’t mean by other singers, I just mean by people in general when his name is mentioned. It’s a kneejerk response to suddenly start adopting his accent, shout/slur, and add -uh to the end of every sentence (as @dr-volume so ably demonstrated). Who else do we feel compelled to immediately mimic on hearing their name? Bob Dylan, I suppose. Any others?

    PS I like The Fall and I am a gurl.

  22. Great stuff, welcome back. Aided the decorating nicely. Would you all like to come round mine every other weekend or so and talk cobblers live while I paint?

    Bring on the next one.

  25. As someone who enjoys the Fall as much as Helen Keller might, i.e. being able to neither see or hear them, I enjoyed the review of Brix Smith’s new biography in Boho or Unshod*, which explains well why any woman would wish to have his tongue in her mouth. Which saves me buying the book. (Until this piece I hadn’t realised the wee girl on rudimentary keyboard was his wife, poor thing, as she seemed almost less essential than her husband to the music(!?)when I kook the plunge and watched ’em play live last year at Lunar.
    *Like Ant or Dec I can’t tell the difference.

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