Why does anyone like the Fall?

i’ve been meaning to do a *proper* piece of devil’s advocacy on this question for a while. the trigger for saying this now is just finding out that the spanish falangists had a ~27 point~ programme - this is probably known but it wasn’t by me.

may do it when i get back from espain

Well I’m pretty sure Mark was right wing, I’ve made my peace with that.

people like the fall because they're fuckin awesome

thanks

oh no! do we cancel them now? xpost

Hmm, first I find Eat Y'Self FItter and Smile are missing from (UK) Spotify release of Perverted by Language, now I see Leave the Capitol is missing from Slates. Wtf's going on with the licensing of these tracks? I daren't look at all their other albums and find what else is greyed out.

Mark’s estate must be a mess.

Yeah that really fucked me up. I had a perfect playlist built from Apple Music of The Fall in chronological order broken up into 3 phases. Basically pre-Brix, Brix and post-Brix, and suddenly key tracks disappeared. Usually those tracks exist on other releases, like a best-of or some compilation, and there's some rights that have switched or something. It really sucks. Eat Y'Self Fitter is on the 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong compilation so I had to pull it from there. Smile's nowhere. Leave the Capitol's nowhere, just some live version. Lie Dream is on the 50k comp etc.

I def started leaning to heavily on streaming so I could access these playlists in multiple places. Now it's fucked. I'd be better off finding a way to serve the playlists off my computer remotely.

50,000 Fall Fans comp not available on UK Spotify, alas, so can't plug the Eat Y'Self Fitter hole with that.

I'd dig out my old CDs if I still had a CD player! Ah well, there's always soulseek

just heard "A Past Gone Mad" for the first time a couple days ago and I was stunned not just that it was The Fall but that it was The Fall from 1993. might have to actually explore those later records I guess.

they are great

Infotainment Scan is a really good Fall record!

the perfection of "Blindness" (the Peel Session version) is completely shocking

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

Infotainment Scan is a really good Fall record!

I get "Hey! Student" stuck in my head not infrequently.

"Noel's Chemical Effluence" is a great lost 90s track, unique in their catalog.

Probably said this on another Fall thread but I really like Middle Class Revolt, the one time I saw them it was the current album and it was a great set

(xp I actually had Hey! Student stuck in my head for weeks after this show!)

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

yes that tour was the only time I saw them as well, with Brix!

that live version of middle class revolt they toured with was so f’ing good. brix appearing, incredibly, before we heard the amazing peel christmas session with her on. anyway the 27 points version captures it v well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyDVfnCCC1w

I saw that tour too, in Seattle. No way in those times of knowing brix was back in the band. When she came out me and others went nuts

MCR the album doesn’t connect for me somehow. The pieces are all in place but it fails to fly.

I found "Leave the Capital" on a different album on Spotify, "13”

Don't know if it's the exact same version, you know how these things run w/ The Fall.

There is a "complete fall albums" playlist consisting of the official albums, created by Cherry Red. I daresay some will have dropped off that for the same reason.

Anyone happen to know if the vinyl version of Sublingual Tablet ever got a non-vinyl release? iirc all the alternative versions were superior to their cd counterparts.

now you tell me! lol

As with much of the post-Beggars years, "Middle Class Revolt" is half great half meh. My picks for the great stuff:
15 Ways
Behind The Counter
M5#1
Middle Class Revolt!
Hey! Student
War

As for the Sublingual Tablet LP, only "Dedication Not Medication", "Auto Chip 2014-2016", "Pledge" and "Fibre Book Troll" were different on the LP. "Dedication" was definitely superior on the LP, "Auto Chip" was just an edit and the other two were a toss-up (I didn't feel "Fibre" should be twice as long).

I have MP3's of them if you're interested, ILXMail me.

Starting in 1994 or so I subscribed to the Fall email discussion list (remember those?) so I was aware of the lineup comings and goings. The list was very rockist though, most hated Brix and anything after 1982. (I've always loved Brix and the Beggars albums rule so hard).

Anyone happen to know if the vinyl version of Sublingual Tablet ever got a non-vinyl release? iirc all the alternative versions were superior to their cd counterparts.

As with much of the post-Beggars years, "Middle Class Revolt" is half great half meh. My picks for the great stuff:
15 Ways
Behind The Counter
M5#1
Middle Class Revolt!
Hey! Student
War

As for the Sublingual Tablet LP, only "Dedication Not Medication", "Auto Chip 2014-2016", "Pledge" and "Fibre Book Troll" were different on the LP. "Dedication" was definitely superior on the LP, "Auto Chip" was just an edit and the other two were a toss-up (I didn't feel "Fibre" should be twice as long).

I have MP3's of them if you're interested, ILXMail me.

Well now this is a good read:

https://thequietus.com/articles/34037-the-fall-marc-riley-craig-scanlon-paul-steve-hanley

The four of them were on the Hanley Bros podcast together a couple yrs back, well worth the listen

I lurve Marc Riley, I wish he'd reissue his Creepers stuff.

been listening to O-Mit, an EP of stuff left off Re-Mit, it's really great

nice, had no idea that existed

got one of those great Fall song titles that cracks me up: "A Disco (City)", the parenthesis kill me for some reason, miss u Mark E.

How do they feel about this description? “It really was a great band,” says Riley. “The two drummer lineup [with Karl Burns] was an amazing thing to be involved in. It felt absolutely infallible pretty much every night. We felt like we could take anybody on. We once played with The Birthday Party [in 1982] and they really went for it, it was a bit like a 'follow that...' scenario. And we did. We did a 13 minute version of ‘And This Day’, and we went hell for leather. For my money we were better than The Birthday Party that night, who were one of the greatest live bands in the world.” Scanlon then adds: “although we did play with The Cramps and they blew us off stage. Fucking ruined us.”

one for the "blew them off stage" thread! i find the image evoked by the lewder reading of that innocuous line truly delightful.

further to the interview, there is a pretty significant subset of fall cratediggers who will listen to all these different recordings critically and point out standouts - not sure if they've been in touch with those folks, but god i bet they could curate some truly killer sets based on their tapes. far better than the grey-market piles of crap that come out now.

It is wild how much stuff seems to get added to the pile every time I take a look - there’s a 4-disc reissue of Are You Are Missing Winner?

One of those sets has four renditions of "Das Boot". I mean, yeah, but

Even if there WEREN’T any outtakes from Re-Mit, they’d still have to make an outtakes ep called O-Mit

We could use a good live album of the fall heads roll tour from before the explosion of that lineup

that would be great