POO -- The Fall

Jawbone and the air rifle for the following reasons:

The lines" The villagers dance round prefabs and laugh through twisted mouths, don't eat it's disallowed, suck on a marrowbone or energy from the mainland" These words bring to mind an image only suppassed by the "Wicheta lineman"

The "We don't give a shit if we can sing" Out of tune backing vocals, Scanlon and Hanley I think, on every live version I have ever heard.

The line "Getting drunk fills me with guilt" Which pretty much sums up my own feelings every time that after hours drink turns into a beerfest finishing in the early hours of the morning (Usually with me singing Fall songs and scaring taxi drivers/my wife/my daughter)

Just the sheer Fallness of the song as a whole. It encapsulates most of what has ever been great about the band, Loud scrapey guitars, simple repetative bassline and Incredibly skewed lyrical content.

For REAL gutsy ballsy Fall I go for 'Couldn't get ahead'.

ans = "spectre vs rector"

(With print you substitute an ear for an extra useless eye)

Guest Informant, now that Tom mentions it, would be my second choice, for the section where the two sets of vocals overlap and there's this rilly great spoken-word meets polyrhythm that puts all the best of the L.A.N.G.U.A.G.E. poets to shame. Bremen Nacht because I imagine a decedent weimar era brass band belting it out as the reichstag burns and they know that tomorrow they will flee.

Third best fall track: Conduit For Sale, followed closely by The Empty Page.

It opens with 'The X in Xmas is a substitute crucifix for Christ', stops in the middle for a brief rendition of Good King Wenceslas before descending into horrendously atonal 'ahhhhh, ah-ah ah AHHHHHHH's for pretty much for the rest of the song, and because the (possibly aforementioned) live version features Mess shouting 'CANYERFUCKINGEDDIT T'GETHER INSTEAD'OSHOWINOFF' at the bassist for pissing about too much.

It will not drag me down
I will leave this ten times town
I will leave this fucking dump
One room, one room
Hotel maids smile in unison
Then you know in your brain
You know in your brain
LEAVE THE CAPITOL
EXIT THIS ROMAN SHELL

I have since bought Grotesque. I would probably go with "Pay Your Rates" now, but that 2nd unnamed track on my CD copy of Grotesque is great, too. I am so clueless on the Fall that I don't even know what the song is called.

I had heard and loved "Totally Wired" before I bought Grotesque, but on the album it fairly pales next to "How I Wrote Elastic Man". What a fecking great album.

Second choice: "Mr.Pharmacist".

Or you can make a choice that seems all wrong by the above criterion, but which in the concealed, outlawed context makes the only kind of coherent sense.

So I'm picking a bloody cover version of all things.

'I'm Going To Spain'

At the moment, for song alone, I'd say 'Tempo House'. That rhythm kicks my arse, and the lyrics are great; "Winston Churchill had a speech imp-p-pedament, and look what he did; erased half of London..." "Hooray hooray". At one stage though, I used to dance around my room in my underwear doing air guitar to 'Hip Priest'.

you are extremely wrong

it is the worst thing I have ever heard them do by a wide margin

that I specifically remembered how bad it was after 57 CDs should tell you something

"Repetition" -- the blueprint for the Fall and the Universe.

― Jack Cole, Tuesday, June 25, 2002 5:00 PM (nineteen years ago)

thought the Bingo-Master's Break-Out! single from 1978, with Psycho Mafia, Bingo Master, and Repetition was great

liked The Unutterable, also Von Südenfed's Tromatic Reflexxions

‘Tis the season: https://nealmarkowski.bandcamp.com/album/hex-mas-enduction-hour

Sleeve, which 90s albums did you find the most consistent?

Shift-Work is my fave, Extricate a close second, Light User Syndrome 3rd, then probably Code Selfish > Infotainment > Levitate = Middle Class Revolt = Cerebral Caustic

27 Points is a lot of fun as well because of Brix involvement, same with the era's Peel sessions (that Glam-Racket/Star <3)

I note also that Shift-Work is the only one with the violin player, which may explain why I adore its idiosyncratic sound

Marshall Suite would also be in that last group altho the high points are really high

e.g. "The Crying Marshall" which is just unbelievably great

Wasn’t that Perl Session after he had the fight with his band and beat up his girlfriend in New York?

yep, and it shows. that was in April.

'his girlfriend' is no way to refer to Julia Nagle, architect of their sound during my preferred period for the band (Levitate through Unutterable) and my clear favourite 'other' Fall member

also, *I* am extremely wrong? I was simply presenting another user's opinion, one which has stayed with me through the years, as counterpoint to your own

The Crying Marshall is indeed superb, the Nagle era is noticeable for each album having a monster-banger dance remix on it (4 1/2 Inch, TCM, Serum)

I note also that Shift-Work is the only one with the violin player

on Extricate too!

Code Selfish and Levitate are my favorite 90s fall, followed by Infotainment Scan

Disc 1 of A World Bewitched is ridiculously essential as well

damn, haven't been watching the Fall discography since MES' death, but I count 24 live sets plus a 10 show/11 CD set released since 2018? any recommendations from that flood?

The 1982 box is great stuff
I’m not sure about all the other live releases, some of them have certainly looked pretty half assed. Clitheroe Castle is a great concert but shitty sound

There's some excitement on the Fall Forum about two recently discovered archival recordings: the full Electric Circus gig (along with all the other bands' EC gigs recorded by Virgin), as well as what's purportedly the first or second Fall gig, recorded to a reel-to-reel.

yeah I would avoid the live cash-ins, except for the St. Helens 1981 set on Castle Face which iirc is the only legit one?m also very good.

have been spending some time with middle-class revolt recently. pretty unloved album i gather but i saw them around that time and thought it was really great - this very gig in fact

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rx2Y956Oq0

reckoning, m5, hey student, 15 ways, behind the counter - they’re pretty good! maybe bad fall songs? I dunno i am no fall scholar clearly

(I also saw them sometime in the 2010s and thought it was pretty awful)

Always and forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzNe1NeFzRE

I defy Anyone (that’s Anyone) who hates, or is indifferent, or the rest of us, yeah?, to not acknowledge that this is brilliant!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIZ7AhqflYM

Never liked "No Bulbs" much and that long version has always tested my patience (though Wonderful and Frightening is one of my favorite Fall albums).

Oh the long version is one of my favorite tracks evah!!

The extra long No Bulbs is the Fall’s own Marquee Moon

Wow

have been spending some time with middle-class revolt recently. pretty unloved album i gather but i saw them around that time and thought it was really great - this very gig in fact

📹

reckoning, m5, hey student, 15 ways, behind the counter - they’re pretty good! maybe bad fall songs? I dunno i am no fall scholar clearly

(I also saw them sometime in the 2010s and thought it was pretty awful)

I'd say MES had already gotten pretty personal on the Fontana albums (Bill Is Dead, Edinburgh Man).

MCR is a weird one in that about half of it is really good, or at least fun, but as a whole it just kind of drags. Infotainment is one of the most consistently excellent Fall albums, but it almost goes down too smooth. (Their lone top 10 album!)

I think I agree with that, I don't dislike MCR by any means but it's uneven

that live version of "War" from the Phoenix set linked above is really good

I always took Bill is Dead as kind of ironic and, due to the unavailability of the other Fontana albums in the uUS never heard Edinburgh Man until years later— and I didn’t even know until he’d died that he had relocated there briefly.

Is this the best Fall thread?

Just found this footage of them playing Beefheart's "Dropout Boogie" in 2015 and had to share.

Youtube link - track starts around 28:30 if the timing doesn't work.