The Fall were never quite my favorite band (okay, maybe during the last six months of 1988, in the wake of the glorious one-two LP punch of THE FRENZ EXPERIMENT and I AM KURIOUS ORANJ!), but their obstreperous uniqueness, unfathomable longevity, truly remarkable consistency, and unshakable integrity grew more admirable and undeniable with each passing year, starting with the onset of The Brix (Smith) Era in 1983.
I once came face to face with The Fall’s avatar, Mark E. Smith, and his then-spouse Brix whilst strolling along the sidewalk in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, one very warm afternoon in May 1988, carrying a bag filled with their then-recent records and on my way to see The Fall play the old 9:30 Club. I was, for once, rendered speechless, but to my own smile and nod, Brix (mercifully) said “Hi!” very sweetly, and Mark smiled. I’ve seldom encountered a couple who looked so utterly delighted by one another’s company.
Though I was by then a longtime fan of several other famed Manchester bands (The Buzzcocks, Joy Division, New Order, and Magazine, for starters), and even an early devotee of The Fall’s greatest offshoot, Blue Orchids, The Fall had grown on me more slowly. In large part, that had to do with my never living anywhere that boasted true “College Radio” ’til I was pushing thirty, but also with the difficulty for many years of finding their albums out in the American Hinterland, where distribution of same was virtually nil.
Instead my earliest acquaintance with Mark E. Smith & Co. came via their fortunate inclusion on a handful of early Punk, Postpunk, and Indie compilations, which whetted my appetite thusly:
“How I Wrote Elastic Man” (THE ROUGH TRADE RECORDS COMPILATION, German import, ’81)
“Rebellious Jukebox” (I.R.S. GREATEST HITS, VOLS. 2 & 3, ’81)
“Bingo Masters Breakout” (BURNING AMBITIONS: A HISTORY OF PUNK, UK import, ’82)
“Tempo House” and “Smile” (live versions from SPEED TRIALS, ’84)
“The Man Whose Head Expanded” (live), plus a brief interview with Mark E. Smith (BANG ZOOM #7 cassette fanzine, ’86)
The sole actual Fall release I acquired before the UK’s mighty Beggars Banquet label (first via a ca. ’84 deal with U.S. indie label PVC, and later via RCA) began to (gradually) raise The Fall’s Stateside profile was their masterful, mid-1983 Rough Trade single, “The Man Whose Head Expanded”, which luckily emerged just before the sainted RT suddenly shut down its domestic mail-order operation, thus cutting off my chief means of acquiring obscure UK recordings.
I adored “The Man….”–with its inimitable Casio rhythm box-meets-The Velvets rhythmic lurch–from my first listen, but as I was then marooned in the high desert of Northern New Mexico’s Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation (where I spent that summer with my family), there was no possibility of further Fall investigation!
Bottom line, I came far LATER to The Fall than might now seem plausible, from either my ensuing fandom or our present vantage. But that’s simply the way it was back then, for the vast majority of American underground music fans. The dozens and dozens (and dozens) of LPs, 12-inch singles, EPs, cassettes, and compact discs I subsequently acquired were merely my attempt to make slight recompense, and to fully immerse in one of the most amazing discographies in the entire history of Rock!
Although I hadn’t seen him perform since the late-’90s, I will truly miss Mark E. Smith. Iconoclasm of HIS caliber has seldom been observed in the world, and I’m just glad his good and great works will continue to warp and inspire minds that NEED his brand of resolute, 180-proof NON-conformity!
In addition to the two ca. 1988 Fall albums mentioned at the outset, I would unequivocally recommend the following LPs (listed chronologically) to anyone “kurious” to explore the man’s exhilarating highways and byways:
HEX ENDUCTION HOUR (1982)
THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING WORLD OF THE FALL (1984)
THIS NATION’S SAVING GRACE (1985)
THE INFOTAINMENT SCAN (1993)
THE COMPLETE PEEL SESSIONS 1978-2004 (2005)
That last may well be their greatest accomplishment–across six crammed discs and 24 discrete sessions, you can track the entire Fall career, practically season-by-season, up through the death of their greatest advocate, the immortal Brit DJ John Peel. The sound is vivid, the surprises are many, the “hits” just keep on comin’, and the scale is appropriate to a musical Life Achievement that brokers few comparisons!
If forced to pick a solitary track, however, for me there could be no other!
MES:RIP
– Tom Kipp
For those “kurious” to learn more but on a tight budget, I’d heartily recommend Beggar’s Banquet’s splendid 2004 overview–50,000 FALL FANS CAN’T BE WRONG: 39 GOLDEN GREATS–which lays out nearly-forty of Mark E. Smith’s greatest tracks, in appropriately chronological order! It’ll git ya HOOKED, but good. From there a lifetime of rewarding EXPLORATION may commence!
And who can resist verbal/visual puns of this caliber!
Part of an honorable tradition, actually:
