Why does anyone like the Fall?

I had a fortuitous chat with Brix last year, while she was looking for a bus, after one of the Steve Hanley promotional talks. She was great. Talked about how being in front of the rhythm section was like being at the head of a freight train, and said talking about and remembering it still gave her goosebumps and made the hairs on her arms and neck stick up (something which she indicated).

She was generally worried about Mark, and we talked a bit about whether there can be a poetry of decline or decay - she doubted it and said even if that was the case, it was hard for hear to listen to. She mentioned she'd be doing her autobiography next year, and said there were numerous things that Steve hadn't been able to say because of not wanting to embarrass his family.

The general point being that she was really interesting about The Fall and her contribution to it, and their power, and was fun and energetic. But all of the ex-members seem to display an inability to resolve or correlate their experiences of The Fall satisfactorily. That's probably understandable, but Hanley's book is almost the perfect expression of it. The general theme is that the more 'the group' are left alone by Smith, the better the album, and that Smith marred as much or more than he made.

There's one very small section where Hanley mentions that a lot of the best work came out of individual musician's writing sessions with Mark round at his house, but nothing else in the book explores that relationship. And Hanley's view is that the most successful Fall material is that least meddled with, something as a fan I don't agree with at all.

They're all badly scarred by their time in The Fall - Hanley said they'd all had nervous breakdowns after leaving, and it wasn't a joke, certainly not by the exchanged glances and silence after he said it.

One thing Brix said sounded extremely unlikely - that she wouldn't rule out the old Fall playing with Smith again, because he was always so hard up for cash. The latter's certainly true, but it's an impossible misconception of Smith and The Fall that he'd engage in some mysterious reformation - opposed to everything he stands for and implying that there isn't even a current group.

Certainly wish them all well, but there is an energy and disruption to Smith's management and mind, absent which any performances of the music are unalive.

Sublingual Tablet sounds like it will be out in April - there was a new song played on Liz Kershaw, this morning called 'First One Today' which sounds like it's a social media analogue of Webb Pierce's There Stands the Glass.

Fantastic! Thank you for this.

I recently read john French's book on being in the magic band and there are so many parallels with what you just wrote. Both men drew a lot of art power from destruction and prevention. DVV seems like he was more often simply destructive, causing the work to die or happen way too slowly, whereas MES is master of a highly creative (and highly productive) destruction. In both cases a painful process for band members, who end up rehashing the attendant paradoxes in their minds for the rest of their lives. (I think the fall must have been tons more fun on a good day than the coercive privations of the magic band though)

I gotta get the Hanley book

Gave up on the John French book when he covered Greg Davidson's brief tenure in the Magic Band by listing the fast food restaurants he'd visited with Davidson and Beefheart.

She was generally worried about Mark

His health or...?

A+ update Fizzles, my Fernet Branca offer still stands

Sub-Lingual Tablet out May 25th!

1. Venice With The Girls
2. Black Root
3. Dedication Not Medication
4. First One Today
5. Junger Cloth
6. Stout Man
7. Auto Chip 2014-2016
8. Pledge
9. Snazzy
10. Fibre Book Troll
11. Quit iPhone

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=5022

"Sub-Lingual Tablet comprises 11 tracks and is being released on CD and limited edition vinyl. The vinyl features different mixes."

Oof. But great album title!

Great song titles!

Different mixes? Fuck a vinyl.

They did that before, see Kurious Oranj

Yeah I know, but it's just so 80s.

I'm good w the different mixes, esp. after the lousy (or just not interesting) sound on the last couple records—esp. Ersatz GB. It's like having safety copies of the tracks MES inevitably decides to sabotage at the last minute.

"Quit iPhone" is so brilliantly stupid/on-the-nose! I'm more psyched for this one than I have been the last few, maybe it's the longer layoff....

Last 2 Fall albums have been disappointing but a longer layoff might mean more quality

Great song titles but can't help thinking Sub-Lingual Tablet wouldve been the perfect place for a song called "Return to Forum"

I'm gonna try to keep my expectations reasonable here, have not been able to get into the last two at all

while this thread is active, can somebody please tell me which version of Fall In A Hole I should buy? or are all the CD reissues screwed up? iirc the single disc is a bad vinyl rip, and I see reviews that the 23CD version is clipped/overmodulated. any input? please don't make me buy an original.

Its a bad vinyl rip because there's a jump in one of the tracks, apart from that its alright. The album was always one up from a bootleg anyway.

(I have the 'second' l.p. Issue, it has the same catch groove which was disconcerting because naturally you want to clean/fix it but it always played the jump three times then continued. Which is not what lp's do.

I've got the Castle 2CD reissue and I'm very happy with it. You're talking about a legal bootleg, after all, I'm not that concerned with pristine quality. If it's a vinyl transfer, I can't tell.

which song Mark?

thanks, Gerald!

I don't recall..

hang on I'll look..

Here you go:

http://thefall.org/discography/data/live04.html

The man who's head expanded.

oh right, I knew I had seen that breakdown before. thanks!

You want the castle version or the sanctuary version.

I actually think In A Hole is the best sounding of the live albums of this era

Just don't buy the cog sinister version. Of anything. Except Listening In, that's a great disc.

I saw an original in virgin recs tcr back in the day, it was a bit pricey so didn't get it, and I effectively missedout.

Years later I saw the one I have now inthat good record shop in Amsterdam, went wow and bought it. Should have known it was a boot, but, yr honour..

There's more good uncollected 90s b-sides. I compiled them and called it "Listening Out".

YSI???

Sure! ILXMail me.

"My rhythm section can do that shit when they apply themselves"

"Quit iPhone"

Can't wait for the Samsung advertisement/cross-promotion.

I recently *finally* got around to reading the MES autobiography and easily the best revelation is that he's a big fan of Dr Karl from Neighbours.

yeah i liked that bit

tho dude is an unreliable narrator of courtney love proportions

Meet Cute:

http://www.keithmcdougall.com/#!ill-be-your-mirror/c1o9m

Awwww

Just finished Steve Hanley's book. That predates this...

Haha that was great

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/07/the-fall-sub-lingual-tablet-review

also i didn't really like Re-Mit, but i always come back to fall albums just to see and i'm digging it today

Elena is such a a cool keyboardist, she does't get enough credit as an awesome fall member

so true, plus she totally slays the vocals on "I've Been Duped"

Longest serving fall member by now?

I think Hanley still has a couple of years on her, didn't she start right at the end of the century?

Steve Hanley was exactly 19 years, Eleana Smith has now 12.5 years.

So, come 2022,she will overtake him.

First impression: this record rules.

It's pretty much the same vibe as the last two and it seems to have been approached the same way, where it's like 50% songs that were written ahead of time and worked out in the live set, and 50% shit being made up on the spot, but as long as you're cool with that it's pretty fun.

Yeah it's all right.

## Sub Lingual Tablet ##

Got hold of the new album the other week at a gig. I'm beginning to realise I've got a few criteria for evaluating new Fall albums:

1) Is there a great, all-time Fall song on there?

Early LPs were crammed with them but I don't think there's been a preponderance of great tracks on a single LP since... This Nation's Saving Grace for definite, maybe up to and including The Frenz Experiment. Might include The Unutterable as well. I'd have the last incontrovertibly great song on a Fall LP as Weather Report #2, though I think Hittite Man off the last album might be up there.

Not sure there's anything of that sort on this one - Junger Cloth probably closest for me (obviously this is all 'personally' or 'for me', so I'll try and dispense with such crypto-humility.) A lack of musical invention feels like it's the critical factor here - early to mid-Fall had music that was as strange and intense as the Smith's lyrics.

** 2) Does the album have focus, subject matter, a loose-ish unity, a sense of latent purpose? **

The last album scores really highly on this I think. That's partly because of the fairly simple mechanism of having a fair bit of noise/spoken word glue between the tracks. It gives a sense of continuity - interrupted by strange commentaries and flares of electronic irritability, like one of his spoken word albums. The subject matter of the LP gave off a feeling of an old England of the future. There's the stuttering and drunkenly incoherent Sir William Wray (from which Smith stated he'd deliberately removed any recognisable words - tho it does contain the contemptuous 'All you do is touch gesture' - electronic tablets are a fairly constant source of derangement over the last couple of years). No Respects Rev - "and judge your soul's realm, the god and the (???) damned, in the words of.... (wails and skrrttching sounds), in 12 years, do you take.. . in a cove, location in Whitby. England you schweinhund, why are you here? why are you here?"

Then there's the extremely enjoyable Victrola Time, Edwardian/MDMA subject matter - feels like a rip of Betjeman's Indoor Games at Shrewsbury - motorik backing, a very lunatic vocal opening and an ending that reminds me of The Vampyr. Finally, Loadstones, which feels like a Quatermass/Children of the Stones future neolithic landscapes, with a great opening: Local! Loadstones! After a dark sunset, my brother and I - we walked up the path, far from the tower, a light sea breeze, ruffled (our clothes?).

The whole exudes a sense of ancientness and futurity, strange landscapes, history seeping through and seething behind the current technological wallpaper. There's no great songs on there, I don't think, but the total effect is extremely strong. I think I said at the time, although it's more dilute, it feels like it has the same heft as Slates (no, not anywhere near as good, not by a long chalk, but a minor classic - the sort of book you might find in an old library, with the writing of the spine obscured, written by a local parson, that on opening reveals itself to be rather alarming...)

So yeah, I agree with UM S@kedown!

This one is less good, more like Ersatz GB, but it's very enjoyable. As a friend said 'As ever, no idea whether it's actually "good", but it's much rocking and lol, so the entertainment value is high.'

I want to write more on specific songs, but i gotta get on a plane!

oh and sleeve - yes, fernet and get together would be amazing! You're west coast right? If you're East, I'm in NYC until the weekend, then DC and Atlanta until at the beginning of next week. If you're not, I'll have a fernet anyway and toast you anyway!

This one is less good, more like Ersatz GB, but it's very enjoyable. As a friend said 'As ever, no idea whether it's actually "good", but it's much rocking and lol, so the entertainment value is high.'

This is pretty otm. I think Re-Mit is probably the best of these recent three--I'd put "Jetplane" and "Loadstones" up there with the best of their work, not nearly as high as "Weather Report 2", but up there--and while there's nothing so far on the new one that jumps out as an all-time classic, I'm still enjoying it quite a bit. This is another one with no Elena lead vocals, though. :(