Week 01: 1st June 1977 - 19th February 1978

So here we go. This year I plan to listen to every song released by the Mighty Fall. First some rules: 1. No Bootlegs - unless they have an official release (as on the Discogs discography) I'm not going to try and get them. 2. No chasing hard to find records. So no need for the original Marquis Cha Cha, nor that 2nd CD of the Behind the Counter single because it has the Mixmaster Mike remix. 3. Listen to everything in chronological order.

So with those in mind I have constructed the Fall Spreadsheet of Doom. I worked through the Discogs Albums and Singles listings, noting the date of release for single and album tracks and the date of recording for live tracks. All told the spreadsheet has a bit of repetition (ha!) but it also has 1608 rows. Ordering by date gives us a start point of the 1st June 1977. The project ends on the 31st December 2014 so that computes down to about 13727 days of the Fall, or about 9 months every week. Heeding my failure at the rap blog, I am buying things I need a month in advance.

So for this week, in typical Fall fashion, the first week of existence and they haven't even released a record. We start with the extremely dodgy "Rehearsal Early 1977" which the Dave Thompson book places in "Summer 1977" so hence the 1st June. Volume 1 indeed!

The sound quality is pretty good and we find the group in full on punk snarl. Dresden Dolls was a live staple but I don't think it ever made it onto wax. Psycho Mafia is full on 77 punk, and Industrial Estate is the most Fall like of homages. The drumming throughout is way up in the mix and suitably furious. The Bible (henceforth the Dave Thompson book will be referred to as the bible) indicates that this was the mysterious "Dave" who was in the drum chair before Karl Burns took over.

Then there's the two tracks on the Short Circuit 10". More known now for the early Joy Division tracks, this is a surprisingly well recorded couple of songs, both again not making onto a record proper. I remember having Last Orders on my Fall tape way back when I used to listen to John Peel and record any Fall tracks he played.

And finally the Live 1977 recording which the Bible says is from 23rd December 1977. The quality here is beyond ropey and the band are surprisingly together though and race through the first few songs before getting a bit bored and jaded on the remainder. It's 1977 so they have to ask the audience to stop spitting and throwing beer at least three times. The track listing is fascinating - all the staples from above, plus a few more that would make it onto Live At The Witch Trials. And Bingo Master's Breakout, which I always thought was just too strange to play live but I'm clearly wrong. Mark is on good form, not quite at the peak of his powers but on his way there. The band are really good, quite tight and urgent. The two tracks which are really interesting though: Oh Brother and Copped It which wouldn't make it onto record for another 7 years or so are surprisingly not that different from their Brix'd up versions. Add to this Hey Student (recorded finally in 1994) as Hey Fascist, and a shout out for John Tyndall and it's a pretty pinked up gig - consistent with the live footage from the time.

They end the show with an atrocious cover of Louie Louie (The Bible claims John The Postman is on this one) which is 6 minutes long and all over the place, with the sound quality equally wavering. Could this be the blueprint for the equally trying "And This Day". Mark is like your drunken uncle, having a turn at a wedding.

So that was the first 9 months of The Fall. There's little hints of what was to come but the general thread in this bunch of records is that they were a surprisingly accomplished punk band with some weirdo lyrics. What can go wrong.