Why does anyone like the Fall?

OK I 'm just gonna brace myself for this one, for some weird reason (probably the local friend-of-friends aspect)I think Fred Cole's death has made me simply accept that all of these artists I care about are gonna die real soon.

the absence of MES from this level will be something that will give me grinding dissonance for years and years

i feel dread

Jon I was thinking about you when I made that post, hugs

oh great pere ubu have just cancelled the rest of their tour and DT is in the hospital (serious but stable condition)

(the closest thing we have to a domestic Fall afaic. croaker behemoth please get better)

hugs sleeve

Fuck :(

xp and DT too?! :(

apparently so, read it on the visi fall forum just now

A Message to All, to All. From Mark E. Smith/The Fall group. As I, like Pr Rupert leave Bristol with my tail between my legs, I wish to give my great apologies to everybody. This idiotic idea to do both shows was purely my idea, against the advice of Pamela and The Fall group, agent & promoter. Hope to replace shows within 4 - 6 weeks. In the interim we have eight new songs ready to go and will try and let you hear a few before Christmas. From head patient to you, the patients. I love you all but cannot embrace you all, Mark E. Smith

UMS and I saw Ubu last week in Chicago and they were great and Thomas in particular was in great voice, but he did seem to be deflated physically.

MES...this line in particular really breaks my heart "This idiotic idea to do both shows was purely my idea, against the advice of Pamela and The Fall group, agent & promoter. "

I hope both of these characters get well soon.

I can't imagine MES talking like that, it's so far removed from his usual tone. What is the story behind this statement and are they actually going to plan more shows? All really odd and not entirely reassuring.

The Prince Rupert line is enough to convince me w/o a doubt it is a statement from the Group Field Commander ME Smith

It's legit.

He used to send out Christmas tidings but I think it's been a while...agreed that the unusual warmth of this one may not bode well.

Yeah, if someone was going to pretend to be MES, you know how it would sound-ah.

Yes, the ring of MES prose has always had quite a sweet intelligent nature to it. I like the 'head patient' line. (I do wish he'd written more prose, especially wrt that 'as-told-to' biography which lacked the sweetness and contained much of the latter-day tedium.)

The circumstances of the message are worrying though, I agree.

Been listening to the new album again, in part prompted by an imago tweet, and i've come to the conclusion it's v good. love the giant homeric cogs of fol-de-rol. still digesting and cogging couples v jobless.

on the bus the other day i had the conception of them as a psychic net or mesh (itself a fall image of course). this was an extension from what I thought when i saw them in manchester. You know the way a water filter in an office water dispenser captures all the dirt and ends up coated in a thick, black (and somewhat alarming) sludge? It's how i sort of perceived Smith at that gig. Looking like a thousand year old witch, bubonic, lank, sparse hair, sort of *leaning into* illness and death. A baffle for all the drugs and drink and strung-out psychic living of his life, so that the filth and sludge and mundane part of intoxication is caught in his body and organs. that he's done this for his musical and imaginative exploration.

i hope i don't romanticise here. it would be tempting to carry that analogy too far and say that he then delivered the purity of art, but that's bollocks (and a dangerous conception).

Because what The Fall do anyway is to focus on that sludge at the same time as the elation and strangeness. There is no *purifying* at work thank christ. The poor unfortunates of their early albums, like Grotesque, are laughable and insane and grotesque, but although there is a lot of crisp hate for pseuds and enfranchised crooks, there's a lot of sympathy there too.

grotesqueness is our *condition*. laughter and pity and mockery is the appropriate response to this condition. we are grotesque and absurd flesh and twisted out of shape character, we *are* the sludge, prey to megrims, paranoia, insanity and over and over again solitude, occupying a world of revenants, minatory and monitory governments, and governed by abstract, pointless numbers.

and of course they're such fun. This is an endlessly renewed observation, prompted this time by the IIIIIIIIIIIIII crave DRAMA! line in Victoria Station Massacre. It's delivered with such glee and exuberance at the terribleness of the person he's temporarily inhabiting with mocking mimicry.

On the way into work the other day, listening to fol-de-rol, with its keening guitar, and messy, phlegmy background, it occurred to me the same is the case for the fall's music as it is for mes. it acts as a sort of wind harp for the mess and substance, the mocking, spindly, frail guitar (so often in the 80s getting its riff from smith's central intonations - 'i work off the lyric'), and sludge of the world, with exuberant energy gained from this... *stuff* that they've caught in their net of music.

anyway, god bless the fall, and god bless smith.

i vant ar corman sludge hai choi

Massive promotional tour. Hemel Hempstead! East Retford!

http://thefall.org/gigography/image/79_dragnet_nmead.jpg

fuck west retford, honestly

sludge hai choi chase chase on indeed. lovely flyer. god, how fucking liberating and weird they must have been, in those tiny venues, creating a barbaric racket out of those rudimentary sounds, with that *boy* with so much stuff, so many thoughts, things, characters and words, in his head. brilliant.

yeah I tweeted about it but I'm extremely glad Chris prompted the trip to Chicago to see Pere Ubu.

Dave sat prior to the show folded into himself on a stool in the back corner by the merch booth, Deflated really is the only word, all his intimidating bulk is slack.

I went out for a smoke and realized I'd somehow misplaced my lighter, and literally the only person out smoking was Mr. Thomas himself, bent over a cane. I politely asked for a light which he politely handed over to me. I was momentarily tempted to say something but I imagine fan interaction is horrifying to him, and he looked so frail. I managed a thanks for the light and "take care"

he shakes and needs a cane to walk, but onstage seated on a stool, he was mesmerizing, whatever life force he has left goes into his voice and his stare and still theatrical hand gestures. the band right now is amazing actually.

but he looks like a dead man walking no doubt.

great posts you both

Yeah, heartbreaking. I can totally see David Thomas (who tbf has been sitting at concert for ages) looking so fragile, and yet when he's on stage, that force is gigantic.

Outstanding post by fizzles there. Both Thomas and Smith are major art heroes for me, personally, and I'm very much saddened by this news. With Chilton and Van Vliet already gone, this will be the coup de grace for my personal "pantheon". Love these guys. Godspeed to you both!!

Ref to Fizzles

"The Wings rot and feather under me"

right yes. good line, lot of rotting and decay.

have been seeing pere ubu a lot in recent years and was convinced a v frail DT was going to die a few years ago. as with smith i hope he persists even tho they seem in tight pinches at the moment (i really love pere ubu and associated projects recent work and performances tho haven’t heard the most recent album)

I'm loving New Facts Emerge more and more, it's maniacal

MES and DT are an odd ying-yang pair, both are resolutely emblematic of their countries (Smith is so utterly English, Thomas is so utterly American) and yet both both seem so divorced from those places, Thomas being an expat in England and Smith has always felt like an exile under house arrest in his own country.

Thomas, who is such a massive physical presence onstage, even now, even when it appears his body is betraying him, whereas Smith has cultivated this weird, "anti-frontman" thing for decades, not seeming to know how microphones work, wandering around the stage, fiddling with gear, seemingly oblivious to everything go on around him.

Both Beefheart/VU fanatics, both tyrannical band leaders, both have continued to forge weird new directions in spite of what the heritage rock scene would love for them to do, just to revisit their back catalogs with aplomb (Thomas though in a very American move will do it for the right price, Smith doesn't have time for "look back bores"), both probably think the other is a nut job.

God I love 'em both.

great post and otm

I'm not a Pere Ubu fan at all, and I could easily do without a lot of Fall stuff from after about 1986 or 1987, but I find the deterioration of both quite sad.

I legit almost teared up at A Message to All

He's so Brian Clough.

The day I've been dreading.

"It is with deep regret that we announce the passing of Mark E. Smith. He passed this morning at home.... 1/2

— Fall news (@fallnews) January 24, 2018

no nono no no no

I've just been investigating this, looks to be true :(

exit mark

Oh man

damnit I figured this was gonna be the next bump :/

RIP Mark E. Smith

Goddamit.I've been dreading this day for a while now. Without hesitation, I say he/they were the single greatest influence on my musical/esthetic life. I simply can't imagine how different it would been without him. For all his character flaws(and they were numerous) i loved and respected him (though we never met) very much. Hard to think of another artist who "stood their ground" artistically as he did. Raw primitive music with really weird vocals. For all their stylistic changes over the years, he never really go of that ideal. I don't believe we'll ever see the likes of him again. Personally this hits me WAY harder than all proceeding rock deaths. And I know how I'll be spending my day. Watching the awesome Fall dvd from Cherry Red and after that any one of the dozens of ops by The Mighty Fall. bye Mark. You will be terribly missed by me and many others. This world will be a much less interesting place without you.

Stupid spell check that's lps of course

No you guys
No
I don’t want to say goodbye to that mind

Oh fuck. Playing Slates now.

no no fucking no

as someone who always feels a little bit weird abt public grief over celebrities I have to say I feel fucking devastated and honestly don;t know what to do with myself

an inferno of a human being and a monster poet who shaped my perspective from a young age and more than any other artist electrified my thoughts and inspired me to keep moving sideways

I'm so full of gratitude to him for refusing to ever rest in peace. I hope that now he can.

we're also mourning/talking over here

RIP Mark E. Smith

My main regret is that reformation post tlc did not sound even slightly like the mammoth hawkwindesque show they played here when the Americans and the current Britishes were briefly all in the lineup together

― or at night (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, June 13, 2017 3:42 PM (seven months ago)

Jon is this the gig you were thinking of?

North 6, Brooklyn, NY 2004-10-15

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1 (57:08)

01 Bo Doodak................................(3:50)
02 Boxoctosis...............................(3:30)
03 All Clasp Hands..........................(2:57)
04 Theme From Sparta F.C....................(3:56)
05 Mod Mock Goth............................(4:41)
06 Wrong Place, Right Time..................(2:55)
07 I Can Hear The Grass Grow................(3:14)
08 Mr. Pharmacist...........................(2:06)
09 Mountain Energei.........................(4:42)
10 What About Us?...........................(7:37)
11 Janet, Johnny + James....................(3:12)
12 Green-Eyed Loco Man......................(5:10)
13 Blindness................................(7:01)
14 White Lightning..........................(2:08)

LINE UP

July - December 2004 : lineup # 51 : Mark E. Smith (vocals),
Elenor Poulou (keyboards), Ben Pritchard (guitar), Jim Watts (guitar),
Steve Trafford (bass), Spencer Birtwistle (drums).

No... it was definitely in greenpoint not Williamsburg and it was Tim Presley and the other American guy still left over from the post-implosion lineup, plus the newly added Dave the Eagle et al

thanks, I'll keep looking :)

ah, found the gig listing at least:

Friday, 2 June 2006 Southpaw, Brooklyn, NY

http://thefall.org/gigography/gig06.html

I do have a recording of that lineup in Pomono CA around 3 weeks prior, 2nd gig with the improvised new lineup, hit me up offline for a copy

"Pomona" sorry