rekindling an old flame

Late night internet searches can, duh, take you to weird places. You never know what you may stumble upon and how you may react to it. I had one such chance encounter recently, and it confirmed why once I gave my heart to this person/persons.
Whaaa???




The site was You Tube, the name I entered was The Fall. Yes, that band that's one of a kind, really and truly. A genre unto themselves, one step in to the influence and you're already 3/4 of the way to obvious and unforgivable copycatdom.

The Fall. Born in Manchester, England in 1977, the brainchild of truly working class, literate speed freak/booze hound genius Mark E. Smith, possessor of no instrumental skills, then or now. 30 years later they still exist, M.E.S. being the only constant. No less than 30 or 40 people can say they were in The Fall, be it for 15 years or 15 minutes. Also, their 30-something albums have been on 20 something different labels.

No hits, no arena shows, just a loyal following that ebbs and flows. Never heard them? Do you know Take early Pavement mixed with some Pulp and maybe you might get somewhat close.

You can't really hum a bar of most of their songs, and often cannot decipher what Mark E. Smith is on about. After 200 listens to "Cruiser's Creek", I recently read it's about an office party in which a bomb goes off. I never knew and I kind of didn't care. Even when read, it's full of not even booksmart references, but in many cases, his own slang (thus, a song called Slang King).

What influences M.E.S.? Well, they've covered stuff by classic country, soul, psychedelic pop and reggae artists. So it's all over the map.

My first encounter with them: my friend Todd, soon to be singer of That Cat, and then Sourpuss, was sitting in Dunkin' Donuts in North Andover, with a large coffee and a pack of Marlboros listening to headphones. He was the coolest person I knew at that moment. I asked what he was listening to and he said The Fall.
He rewound his walkman to a song he thought was a good starting point.
C.R.E.E.P. came on--their first "poppy" song, with a synth riff, produced by John Leckie...
I dug it, but didn't really get it.

Months later, Todd and I met for coffee and butts on an almost nightly basis. One night he showed me a Fall video tape he just got.
It started to make sense. This Mark E. Smith guy was weird. Skinny, sarcastic, semi-unintelligible....the band was like a cult. Almost like a Grateful Dead for the post-punk. You were either on the bus or off the bus.
I wanted to get on the bus.

And much like the Dead, when someone tried to get me into them via the slick "Terrapin Station" album, with its uber 1977 production, I didn't get it. It wasn't until I heard 1968's feedback-laden "Anthem of the Sun" that I understood.

Now, I was loaned The Fall's dark, trippy 1983 album "Perverted By language" and I got it. I got where Pavement got some things, where Sonic Youth got some things..

I decided I liked the early to mid period--pre sequencers. More guitar than keyboard driven. And two drummers! And M.E.S. hot American wife Brix on guitar!

I got a job that summer delivering Boston Globes--250 of them--every friggin night/morning from 3-7 am. That summer I finally understood.
Ephedrine kept me going and Mark E. Smith was singing/talking about being "Totally Wired" and I was hooked. it was a surreal summer---Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy" being the other main soundtrack, as well as XTC's The Dub Experiements (and really, who listens to THAT except wired paper boys? at 3:45am?)

No wonder I returned to school on the verge of mental collapse that fall.

Aahh..so I've rediscovered the most indescribable of bands.
"But Brian, I thought you like melody and hooks and.."

I do, but there's something there...like, no offense to lots of people I know, but I will never get the appeal of Dire Straits. Much like you may never understand The Fall. But maybe you will.

Try these on for size:

kicker conspiracy-1982

Totally Wired 1981

Cruisers Creek (their only sorta hit--1985)

So, yeah--he's a bit of a drunk and a tyrant, but his interviews are much less embarassing than say Andy partridge's (if you want to go the "eccentric limey route)

see these surreal television interviews--he's quite hillarious.


Thanks.
Oh, yeah..seen them twice--once in '93, once in '95 (with Ken, in fact) both times at Axis in Boston. Or Avalon.

Oh, and read this and this--they're excerpt from a new autobiography.
They explain a lot.