ILX Artist Ballot no #33 : Fron Witch Trials to Ersatz it's THE FALL (Albums, Tracks, heck why not Members also?)

Is twenty tracks enough to get sufficient overlap between ballots? Just thinking they have about 450 songs to choose from. Be quite easy to do a ballot where no-one else has voted for any of the songs on it.

Yeah I def expect 2/3 of my ballot to not make it

Thirty days for the poll would give everyone time to listen to one album a day...which everyone should do at some point anyway.

remember to googleproof, bentelec

Apologies, I will donate a high vote for "Weather Report 2" to the G00gl3pr00f Memorial Fund! It is so evidently The Last Fall Song that it was kind of a bummer when Ersatz GB came out; MES getting ground up in his own misanthropy.

It is so evidently The Last Fall Song

NEVER

Off the top of my head, the only semi-obscure track of theirs that's likely to crack my top 20 is "Mark'll Sink Us," partly because it's both great *and* a little unusual for the band. There used to be a youtube of it (studio version), but that seems to be gone, though it is on Spotify.

Apologies, I will donate a high vote for "Weather Report 2" to the G00gl3pr00f Memorial Fund! It is so evidently The Last Fall Song that it was kind of a bummer when Ersatz GB came out; MES getting ground up in his own misanthropy.

― bentelec

The last album was really awful in every way. Even Mark agrees http://entertainment.ca.msn.com/celebs/mark-e-smith-hates-the-falls-last-album-1

I get the Last Fall Song vibe from "Weather Report 2"; it feels like it was written from his deathbed.

Re Ersatz GB: I liked it when it first came out but I really never feel like going back to it. "Greenway" was fun, I guess.

I did get a vote in for Hurricane Edward which is one of my favorite of the 'reality rupture' Fall tracks

^^^will be in my top 10

Ersatz GB wasn't that bad! Taking Off, Greenway and Monocard were the standouts for me

Oh lord. After cramming hard for the Miles poll, I just don't have the energy for the Fall. As a longtime casual fan, I'll just look forward to the results.

I like "Hurricane Edward", but if anything from Levitate makes my ballot, it will be "4.5 Inch".

I have my ballot narrowed down to 30 tracks, and they're pretty much evenly distributed throughout the history of the group. Some difficult decisions ahead. I definitely know my #1, but that's about it.

i wanna rep for this track, i put it high in my list

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbMG1v7qDqs

THe 'straightest' fall track?

I voted for 4.5 Inch too; Levitate has become one of my favorite albums of the 90s

I really should do this one, shouldn't I?

with you on those DAM, unsurprisingly! Levitate's in my all-time top 10

For #1 I'm leaning towards the earlier "big" songs: Garden, Tempo House, Classical, Hip Priest. Especially Garden, which is funny because for the longest time it just struck me as the kind of thing you'd play if you wanted to turn someone off from the Fall. They did have a scope (if that's the right word) or ambition maybe, early on, that I think tailed off as they went along, even though I do like them straight through to the end.

It's a shame that Shift Work and Code: Selfish are out of print. That's my favorite period.

yeah garden is great ... stays in my head long after hearing it.

does "fall members" exclude mes?
― sleepingsignal, Monday, March 25, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He'd be pissed off if he was eligible and came fourth. <--let's do this
― Jeff W, Monday, March 25, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or if he came behind marc riley.

'Garden' will sure as hell be on my tracks ballot. And Levitate on my albums.

They did have a scope (if that's the right word) or ambition maybe, early on, that I think tailed off as they went along, even though I do like them straight through to the end.

I hear this; lyrically, "I am a psychic haunted by the grim past" is a better hook to hang your obscurities off of than "I am a bitter goblin who hates Mumford and Sons." Out of all the forms of the band, though, it's the creeping, monolithic vein you cite ("Tempo House," "Hip Priest") that does the least for me; I think "Garden" is better when it's condensed into "Hotel Bloedel."

The second Fall, the Riley/Scanlon/Hanley/plus group, was pretty ambitious and fairly experimental. I've got a little musicological piece I wrote years ago about some of the things they did - counterpoint, dissonance, key and tempo changes, etc. These are the songs it focuses on:

How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'
Putta Block
Pay Your Rates
Middle Mass
An Older Lover, Etc.
Prole Art Threat
Fit and Working Again
Iceland
Marquis Cha-Cha
The Man Whose Head Expanded
Kicker Conspiracy
Wings

I should try to put it up somewhere.

Whittled down to 23 tracks at the moment. Having a real hard time trying to lose three, let alone rank them beyond my #1.

Tim, most of those tracks are in my top 20. That's the period of The Fall that still transfixes me

'Palace of Swords Reversed' has almost all of these tracks and is a good place to start with exploring early-ish Fall.

Favorite obscure Fall track: "Ludd Gang"! It may make my list, which will skew 90s/00s as that material isn't as played out as 70s/80s Fall.

Ok, there is no Fall material that's played out for me, just some that's less played.

Tim, put that up. A bunch of those songs made my ballot. 79-83 Fall are p much my personal paradigm for what makes a great band

OK, I've got to type it out. Not crazy about the whole piece, but I guess now I can fix it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D150aOFgOsk

Probably a wasted vote, but I love this gem at the end of the Peel Sessions box. Kind of a companion piece to Dr. Bucks' Letter (fried-sounding, friendship, implied DJ insults, "recompense").

Thought I'd just put up the tunes one at a time as I edit them. Here's the first one:

"How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'" (fourth single, July, 1980) - A fairly lengthy single at 4:22, this has four verses that are all different lengths, all of which feature irregular measure groupings (10 bars, 14 bars, 21 bars, and 25 bars). Verses three and four both have spoken word introductions (or, in the case of the fourth verse, switching from spoken word to text that's sung on the line "The only thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes"). Features a one-chord rockabilly groove in the verses and a dissonant, all major chord progression in the chorus (C# major, A major, C# major, B major, G# major, E major, G# major, F# major).

Implicit point in a lot of this stuff, of course, is how unusual it is.

Man, listen to the guitars and bass on "Putta Block" and tell me that is not a serious Sonic Youth precursor.

The rabbit killer did not eat for a week
And no way he can look at meat
No bottle has he anymore
It could be his mangled teeth
He sees jawbones on the street
Advertisements become carnivores
And roadworkers turn into jawbones
And he has visions of islands, heavily covered in slime
The villagers dance round pre-fabs
And laugh through twisted mouths
Don't eat
It's disallowed
Suck on marrowbones and energy from the mainland

other tracks I would stan for:

Before The Moon Falls
Your Heart Out
Neighbourhood Of Infinity
Gut Of The Quantifier
Sing! Harpy
Spine-Trak
Sparta FC (Peel version)
Totally Wired (A Part Of America Therein live version)

&c &c

anyone got a link for putta block? I can't remember it. I'm intrigued....

Just slsk'd it. An incredible collage of the NWRA, New Puritan and a shifting, restless Fall at the peak of their powers. May have to go on my list now.

"Putta Block" (b-side of fourth single, 1980) - A fairly experimental b-side, this track begins with a 1:22 extract from a live recording of the band playing what sounds like the beginning of their song "The NWRA." The studio recording of the band then begins with a sloppy, chordal guitar riff that seems to be centered around some voicing of B major. Harmonically, this is entirely unrelated to the key center of D major that's subsequently established. The verse section involves a very proto-Sonic Youth guitar and bass counterpoint over a D chord (minor thirds played in the guitar, major thirds played in the bass line). A tempo change occurs in the chorus, where they modulate down to C major (once again the only chord that is heard). Two verses and two choruses are followed by a repeat of that strange guitar riff and then they're done. Quite an abstract little piece.

you know sy recorded a peel session of just fall songs?

their version of "My New House" was blistering.

"We don't beg. We just take." Yeah, love Putta Block.

Unfortunately Palace of Swords Reversed doesn't appear to be on Spotify so the link below is missing the last section that is a tape edit going from them starting up what sounds like the drum beat from 'Rowche Rumble' and MES talking about how much money they raised playing for a "charity of spastics" to another tape edit where I pulled my username: "Hail, new puritan, Righteous maelstrom. Have you ever heard a Bill Haley LP?" And then they go straight into 'Cary Grant's Wedding' with the word: "Everybody...!" and the song ends.

http://open.spotify.com/track/0SG2QfMNJrArA60s29asop

Putta Block is the bomb, but Elastic Man is like my sixth favorite song of all time

Sent my ballot last night and already regretting all the stuff I had to leave off, like Psychomafia, the above-mentioned Cary Grant's Wedding, Marquis Cha Cha, Look Know, Fantastic Life, Middlemass; not to mention Martin Bramah and Una Baines in greatest Fall members.

I wish I couldve vited for Yvonne Pawlett. Playing keyboards on Rowche Rumble = coolest person alive

...she's still alive right?

Yvonne Pawlett is an art therapist who helps people to recover from mental health problems and overcome learning difficulties through visual arts and crafts.

Nice!

Any rules on versions? Is a vote for a song a vote for the song, regardless of the fact that one might love a Peel session version but hate the official version?

In summary: Votes are for the 'song', and specific versions will be given an addendum where necessary, sort of like this:

60. TWO STATES (1995) [115 points, 6 votes, 1 Number1, Specific versions:2="Slanted and Enchanted"

burns is the hero of this btw.

http://youtu.be/yE-6xoh1khg

awesome vid btw. my favorite line-up.

yeah, they just all look *amazing*. the intensity in their body shapes, The Fall physiology, bristling with electricity and power, with this still angle in the middle, all cornucopia-minded and with a voice so unnourished it seems to come through Auden's crack in the teacup.

holy clanking call to arms

I know thread is over but... Off top ofmy head:
New Puritan
Muzorewi's Daughter
No Xmas For John Quays
Mere Pseud Mag Ed
Copped It
Chicago Now
Idiot Joy Showland
Birmingham School Of Business
Why Are People Grudgeful?
You're Up To Much
The Joke
Feeling Numb
Cheetham Hill
Crying Marshall
Shake Off
Two Librans
Way Round
Jim's The Fall
Green Eyed Loco Man
Portugal
Blindness
Fall Sound
I've Been Duped
Bury
Taking Off
Nate Will Not Return
Noise
Dedicatiin Not Medication
Auto Chip
Second House
Gibus Gibson

did this ever happen? the search is failing me.

FALL RESULTS ROLL Post Tender Loving Care - PART ONE The Albums (Pre-mit)

"People get ready, strip down your houses because it's the FALL TRACKS BALLOT ROLL- OUT!" - PART TWO The Tracks (Pre-wray)

ta!

Kinda look back bore