Week 02: 02/19/1977 - 10/11/1978

And so straight into week 2. And of course, it's the Fall so they haven't even released an album yet but the two singles are out at least to make up for it. And my first omission - there's a live recording from Oldham that I failed to get in time, so I'll revisit that when it arrives and add it to this post.

And also a true first: The first Fall Peel Session: 15th June 1978, Rebellious Jukebox, Mother-Sister, Industrial Estate and Futures and Pasts - all of which would end up on the debut LP. What's surprising is how much the band is polished and how much the sound aligns with the Witch Trials sound - all high end and that annoying organ.  I love Futures and Pasts from this time - full on high intensity punk with some daft lyrics.

Then it's the "Live At Deeply Vale" recording which doesn't get a mention in the Bible but it's from The People's Free Festival 22nd July 1978. The sound quality is pretty bad and Mark sounds like he's on Helium. There's no real surprises in the track listing, and the on-stage banter is borderline embarrasing. And then a weirdo bonus track of Psycho Mafia/Dresden Dolls/Industrial Estate as a studio medley. I'm convinced I've heard these before and think they're from the Tony Wilson show. Maybe.

And then another badly recorded concert - Liverpool, Mr Pickwicks, 1978. Not much to say about it, it's hard to pick things out, but again there's more humerous banter and less requests for the audience to stop spitting on this one. They do Music Scene with a cheery intro which I always liked on the LP but live it doesn't seem to work so well but it's interesting to hear these tracks before they got over produced.

And then the two singles: Bingo Master's Breakout and It's the New Thing. Out of the two the latter works better for me. BMB was always a little too novelty, and the drums had been lost from Psycho Mafia which squashed it a little. Repetition is cited in Wikipedia as being "The manifesto for the band" for years to come which I suppose is fair but as a song it's pretty boring. New Thing, though, chugs along with some beautiful insights "Houdini believed his tricks: that is why he died". Various Times is the first song that for me really captures the menace of the band in these early recordings. They're a pretty frightening lot on this song. Though they are still just a punk band with some interesting lyrics at the moment.

Week 2 was a 2 hour 4 minute playlist, just about fitting my commute - the songs are a little too plain (or maybe I know them too well) for them to open up over the course of the week so maybe the band are still a little too immature to start producing some interesting stuff with complexities. Onwards!

A bonus catch up: Live in Oldham, 1978. Marks goes on about the Witch Trials before going into Repetition, which is an odd way to open the set but there we go. Standard Fall setlist, some between members banter, a pretty standard Witch Trials stuff  it's solid but not really outstanding.