Why does anyone like the Fall?

thx lbi

That was unexpected... on many levels.

Voice as instrument, indeed.

april fools

The unutterable truth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Np_3kiqp1M

killjoy

Booo

https://thequietus.com/articles/28202-the-fall-totales-turns-grotesque-anniversary-review

^Totale's Turns is my go-to/"pick-one-only" Fall album (and I'm on intimate terms with their entire catalogue through Extricate).

Well that's different!

I mean, Hex and PBL are world-class, gold-standard albums... but I'm reaching for some Fall, Totale's is what I hit Play on.

Post-Extricate Fall are clearly worth getting intimate with. Only fair-weather fall fans listen to the first 12 albums and ignore the final 19! ;)

I've bought a few over the years, but nothing's really Clicked (that's a clever album-title pun)... I fully admit I'm like the Star Wars fan who's only seen the big movies, etc.

love star wars

Aren't all Star Wars films big movies?

I mean, hasn't read any of the books or watched the animated TV series, like next-level SW fans. If it's unfair to compare '90s/'00s Fall appreciation to that level of fan devotion, choose yr own analogy!

Post-Extricate Fall has many, many great songs but I find their albums inconsistent. Even the mighty "Unutterable" falls down the last 4 or so tracks. But a cherry-picked 90s/00s/10s playlist will take your head off.

Aren't all Star Wars films big movies?

the fourth one didn't even get a theatrical release in the US tbf

Country on the Click is all killer nó filler imo

yep

Listened to The Unutterable again and yeah, there is a tail off towards the end. Also however, Octo Realm/ Ketamine Sun is even more strange than remembered, it's like some sort of bitter foodstuff which is also bad for you but is somehow completely addictive, Each of its three parts is terrible in it's own way, and also I love all of it and have probably listened to it more than any other post-80s Fall, what is wrong here?

I've had "this is a top quality Fall album" and "I can't stand this right now" moments with every Fall album, even Hex, Unutterable, Nations. Your Future Our Clutter was the last one that scoured new heights for me (not that they displaced the old heights). I'm surprised how things that struck me as clunkers at first (Re-Mit, Reformation Post TCL) sometime hit the spot perfectly.

I think it was the last album where for me he sounded like what everyone else said he sounded like to them.

https://thequietus.com/articles/28383-kay-carroll-obituary

that is great

yeah excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtUI7KSXZ68

This whole clip is classic but specifically skip to 3:15 for 2 minutes of Kay busting Tony Wilson down to his component pieces

Great article!

Awww RIP. I'd found her on FB when MES died but never followed up... :(

smdh at anyone who doesn’t think post-extricate fall as rich and strange as pre. that’s my hill and i’m dying on it.

anyway, friend sent me this lovely piece when Carroll died, of a reminiscence of hers when Smith died. (apologies if this has been posted elsewhere):

A repost of Kay's missive after MES' passing: "It's been a long couple of days now since the news of the shocking death of The Smith... my head forever spinning with triggers, travels, and lyrics. So much so that I have felt compelled to say something that would be both anecdotal and amusing, but not surprisingly, I struggled to find some stories that would encompass both of them at the same time. He was, to me, quite simply an enigma. I have thought of many stories over those seven or so years we spent together, as his friend, his lover, cohort, and manager of The Fall. Some very personal reminiscences, some totally Fall business and/or combinations of both, and although most of them started off as really interesting and amusing, they would however end up making me angry and pissed off. It is the nature of the beast I suppose. So for the prevention, I think, for my sanity, and his dignity, it feels appropriate to tell of the last meeting Mark and I had, and it’s the word Serendipity that springs to mind...

I was visiting England for three weeks in the summer of 2011. I’d been thinking of trying to make contact with him once I got to Manchester. I still had some unresolved issues with him that I wanted to address, but had been warned by more than a few people that he had become quite the recluse, and tended not to answer his calls; both phone and door. So I thought, ah well screw it,why bother? The day after I had arrived, I was showing my daughter and now ex- husband around Prestwich village. We had just come out of a thrift store near the Foresters. I turned around, and there at the bus stop, six feet away stood himself. My family went off in a different direction, so I walked over to him, and with that iconic plastic shopping bag in hand, I said "Hiya Mark." I think I kind of stunned him a little at first. It had been some time since we last met (New York 86). He said "I thought you were living in America." I said "I still am." “What you doing here then?" he said. "Oh I decided to come back and kill you." I said with a straight face, and held the comment there for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. He laughed too, but it was obvious to me, he still wasn't sure. Anyway we exchanged some pleasantries. He said he was off to Berlin in a couple of days but would be back in two weeks and to give him a ring, and we could meet up then. I asked, and he gave me his phone number as the bus was fast approaching. He got on it, shouting "Call!" and he was gone.

Two weeks later, my US family returned back to the States so I could spend the last week or so with my UK family and friends. Time to give Mark a call. Of course I got voice mail. I left a message and not surprisingly, no response. I did that another couple of times over the next 2 days and pondered to myself, “Maybe I really have come back to kill him.” Finally I decided to hell with it and moseyed over to his house in Sedgley Park and knocked on his door. There was a rustling of the blinds at the side of the bay window. I knocked again, but still nobody came to the door. I opened the letter box and shouted “I know you're in there ya daft sod! Open the bloody door!” His voice echoed back, and he came out with some crazy ramblings on why he couldn't open the door, and our conversation continued through the letterbox. So after a few more choice comments from me, I angrily retorted back through the letterbox "OK have a good life!! and walked away. Over the years, in retrospect, I have found myself laughing out loud every time I think of our letterbox meeting. Anyway, that day, a little pissed off, I just shook it off, got on the bus and went back to the village. I thought I would drop by The Foresters to see if any old friends were in there. I had just stepped inside the lounge, through the back door, when my cell phone went off. It was Mark. "Sorry about that. Wanna meet at the Woodthorpe on Friday?” So we did.

It was a beautiful summer evening, and there he was, sat outside on the patio of the Woodthorpe. Pint in hand, as though he had been waiting there for years. Nothing seemed to have changed.We looked at each other. He stood up. We smiled and hugged. He offered to buy me a drink, but I wasn't sure how he would react after I told him I had been in sobriety since 2006, (still am). As per usual, Mark surprised me. He didn't say a word. No put downs. No smart arsed comments. Nothing. He just offered to buy me a non alcoholic drink and a few more after that, and those momentary thoughts, previously of killing him, just drifted away.

We talked about his dad, especially knowing this pub was his dads local, and who had since passed away. If you knew Mark, you knew his dad, the apple didn't fall far from the tree. I asked, and we talked about his mum and his sisters who he loved a lot, and of course the freakin music biz, which was spoken by us both, with its usual passion and chagrin. He seemed even more disillusioned than ever. Obviously due to the arrival of the internet, with its downloads, copyright infringements, and such. We spoke of and reminded ourselves, with lots of laughter of "what happened to…” conversations, and of all of those characters, both friends and foes, who had drifted in and out of our lives all those years ago.We also spoke of the ones who were with him now, and his plans, and ideas and of course those sardonic perceptions of his. It felt like time had just stood still for me. I got my issues resolved, and I flashed back to remembering the love, the magic, and intensity of just being together. Before I left, I thanked him for getting me involved, as well as other things including becoming the manager of The Fall, even though I knew he had some ulterior motives.We laughed at the way in which he had finally coerced me into the “job” by saying "You can be like, Faye Dunaway in Network.” Mmmm, I think I got close, but I think I was a little more sensitive, and had softer edges than Diana Christensen.

There were no regrets from each of us, and we told each other. So, I called a cab, and told him I wouldn't have missed it for the world, and how amazing things seem to have worked out. "Great seeing you Kay" he said. "Same here, Mark.” I offered him a ride when the cab arrived, but he said "No, I like to walk". It was the last thing he said to me and then we laughed again. One final hug and kiss. The exorcism was over.

He was supposed to come to New York with The Fall this February. My friend Katy, who rescued me back in Boston when I walked away from the band in 83, had tickets lined up for us, and I was going to fly out,but it got cancelled due to his poor health.

You were a complex character my friend. Unwavering, a brilliant writer of prose and poetry. A visionary. You perceived things that not many people could see, let alone wanted to see.You were at times so funny and loving, and yet could be so infuriating, hard arsed, and yes cruel, but you also knew how to turn on the charm and reset the bar, and it changed people, and for me, it was for the better. There was nobody quite like you MES. A true Northern soul, and I felt this world change when you left on the 24th. The old paradigm just shattered into a thousand pieces. Poof! Gone! So now it’s time to create a new one, and I know you would want that, in whatever form it came in. In fact you would insist upon it. So my old friend, farewell. You gave it everything you had babe, and more. And for myself I thank you for all those wake up calls, and to also listening to mine too.
With love and kick ass always your friend K xxx"

thanks

I read it at the time but not since and it was great to read it again, thanks ;_;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjdog5tErS4

Three years today already.

the pace had slowed enough twd the end that's it's really only this past year I'm feeling the absence of a new record

https://www.castlefacerecords.com/products/the-fall-live-at-st-helens-technical-college-81?variant=33451616632918

the recording sounds fantastic

https://soundcloud.com/castle-face-1/the-fall-leave-the-capitol

Oh shit, that write-up is from John Dwyer from Osees. That is, indeed, righteous.

yeah that sound is great comnpared to recent spate of "official" live stuff

lol already sold out in preorder, guess I'll wait for the CD

thanks for the heads up!

Damn, I didn't catch that, I was debating ordering it tonight.

Midheaven has it.

There will be a CD? There usually aren’t with these kind of things. Or even a paid download.

Yeah, I wouldn’t count on a CD release, though I will happily take one! Stuff like this from Castle Face has lately been fairly exclusive to small vinyl runs. Here’s hoping we get another shot though!

This is great fun, would love a pint with Grant Showbiz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SoICqXUgMM

Thanks for posting that — fun to see a couple of old Fall Forum characters in it, and yes, Showbiz's enthusiasm and bafflement are infectious.

Are those guys from the Fall forum? There was a sense of... disdain from one of them.

Here's the whole St Helens show

https://theperlichpost.blogspot.com/2020/07/listen-to-fall-live-at-st-helens.html

Gotta say, sounds like they didn't take enough speed, they're a little slow. Quality is great but I think I prefer Fall in a Hole and Part of American Therein. Still cool I guess but not worth 30 bucks for me

watching that documentary now. Grant Showbiz did just make a factual error though, he said the Fall played on the main stage at Reading festival after sacking their drummer after a fight with MES. They weren't on the main stage, they were in the tent. (I was there but I didn't trust my recollection so I checked)

he did say that though didn't he?...he says second stage.

the setlist from what appears to be this show in that documentary is great

Two Librans / Cyber Insekt / And Therein / Bourgeois Town / Ben's > F-'Oldin' Money > Kick the Can / Mr. Pharmacist / Way Round / I Am Damo Suzuki / Enigrammatic Dream / The Joke / Ketamine Sun / Antidotes / Dr. Buck's Letter / I Wake up in the City (instr.)

Hanley brothers podcast coming soon!!!

Very cool... Paul's book on Hex was excellent.