Week 07: 01/10/81 - 22/06/1982

Wigan Soul Scene! In The Fall lyrics book there's a Wigan Soul Poem which is actually quite lovely. Week 7 of The Fall project and it's a first: the first playlist which stretched beyond the length of my commute. 5 Hours 1 Minute. As such the music's been a little hard to digest.

Anyway: Lie Dream of a Casino Soul / Fantastic Life - I love the cover, the single doesn't really do it for me. Lie Dream is okay, better live but Fantastic Life drags a little. The two live outtakes: Session Muscian which I kind of like, it's raucous and rolling. I'm Into CB / Stars on 45 which is fun but ultimately poor recording lets it down.

Then some live tracks from Hip Priest and Kamarads. I had this way before I got Hex Enduction (that LP was pretty hard to get hold of back in the day). As such I knew these four tracks like the back of my hand: A Shimmering Who Makes The Nazis, a punctual Just Step Sideways. And then the bestest version of Jawbone ever - all angular and Mark sounds like he's singing through a rag. A non-Marc Riley Harmony and on the line "The Air Rifle lets out a mis-placed shot" the drummer hits a cymbal. Boof!

And then the worst of the week: And This Day. The live version is 15 minutes of that annoying riff over and over - they seemed to really like this song even though it was way too long and too much for me.

Which leads into Hex iteself. I never really got on with this album - a lot of it either sounds too polished or too throwaway. There's great moments on it but to me, with the build up it really sounds like the band are exhausted and just going through the motions. The Classical is a great opener, and Jawbone remains one of their best songs for me. Hip Priest is, of course, the Fall and this is probably the best version all tension and weirdness. Fortress is throwaway for me, from the silly opener - Deer Park is great but again, better live. Mere Pseud Mag is almost punk by the numbers (again better live). Winter is severly tedious and why it stretches over two tracks is beyond me. Sideways and Nazi's were better elsewhere. Iceland is the real standout - recorded in Iceland and largely improvised  it demonstrates that the band could really play. We won't talk about the studio And This Day.

A one-off(?) live thing - "Town Called Scrappy"; "I don't like Maggie", and then into Detective Instinct. I love this tune so much, that even a shitty audience recording of it does it for me. I'll declare my love more openly for it next week. And a live version of Wings with radically up beat music - glad that they put the work into improving this.

Look Know is all Marc Riley: bass and droning. I'm into CB is a little gem, Mark once again capturing the weirdness of English subcultures and making them out to be what we know them to be: slightly dangerous. I've never had a job; never been near a lorry.

Some other live stuff: Tempo House a little early which is a great live track and a functional verison of CB.

And then one of the weirdestly compelling live albums they did: Part of America 1981 - I adore the cover picture of the band in Philly. The US is split into the North and the South with SF being in the South. The two Chicago recordings are some of the best they've ever been. From the massively american intro - into the NWRA and the band are blazing. Hip Priest is equally as good, and Totally Wired is always a solid live song. Lie Dream is okay, and then Cash n Carry starts to drag. And then Older Lover, missing the mark of the Slates version, Deer Park's sounded better. And Winter - why do this live?

And more Live stuff keeps coming:Jazzed Up Punk Shit which is a little like Detective Instinct. AND THIS DAY AGAIN. And then Fall live in Germany, tin recording, great performance. A 12 minute NWRA is a killer, and tinny Your Heart Out really works. They do City Hobgoblins which is great and they close with Fantastic Life. Five Hours is a long time in the life of the Fall

Week 06: 10/01/81 - 01/10/81

And now onto week 6: The Fall project has a serious problem. Which is simply that thanks to an influx of low quality audience recorded live shows, the playlists are getting longer and longer. So this week was a manageable 3 hours 4 minutes, week 7 has stepped up to a 5 hour behemoth. Ah well, I've made my bed. This week I caught up with three tracks: Brand New Cadillac, My Condition and Pop Stickers (78-79). The first two are typical for the time, the latter is a weird one, a throwaway bunch of words that would become choc stock.

And then straight into the 80s and more live stuff. Cary Grants wedding (trad), Totally Wired (always sounds the same to me) and then a cracking version of the NWRA with a super buzzy synth. For a 9/10 minute song it really shines live. Then a version of Totally Wired recorded up the road in Berkley.

And then into a full show - 1981 Glasgow. They open with a weirdo version of Blob 59 (maybe). The show is okay quality wise - a bit thick in the mix but there's a piercing version of Jawbone and they even do Printhead which is cracking. And Middle Mass, which should not work live but totally does - it's all about Marc Riley according to the bible. I think it's one of my favourite Fall songs, the lyrics are rich and the music is rough.

Peel Sessions of Mass, Lie Dream, Hip Priest (first time round) and the wondrous CnC Hassle Schmuck. The latter is the standout Fall peel session for me (so far) - they start of doing CnC mithering, and then up the tempo when they learn that Arthur Askey has just been shot. Then it's straight up rockabilly - a great tune.

Then Slates, a weirdo little 10" which they recorded to avoid the charts. I had the US version, with it's "Five Dollars Only - U Skinny Rats". I love the cover, and the way that Prole Art Threat is written as a play. The image on the cover bemused me for years - I only had the small version on the Slates/America CD - it always looked like a weird goat character. Only when I got the 10" did I realise it was the band but the image was rotated.

Slates is The Fall of course - 6 tracks capturing the essence of the band. From the aforementioned Riley bashing Middle Mass, the mysterious Older Lover - right to the punk blast of Prole Art Threat. Slates, Slags really works when it shouldn't and then Leave the Capitol, signalling the end of their relationship with Rough Trade.

Then some scrabbly live tracks - Session Musician, and a great Middle Mass version called Middle Mass Explanation with Mark rambling on about nothing in particular. They do Container Drivers, Session Musician and then another blast from the past: Your Heart Out which sounds great.

A second peel session - they were clearly on a roll at this point. And it's all gone a bit HEX. Deer Park, my second favourite track from that LP: "In an off-licence I rubbed up with some oiks, who threw some change on the Asian counter and asked politely if I could covet two lagers" surely one of the best lines. Look, Know I don't like so much and Winter I always found a little pointless. Then a super tinny version of Who Makes the Nazi's. All the pieces were in place for Hex.

And to close it all off there's a live version of Deer Park, as good as the session version, and then a medley of a bunch of random things named: I'm into CB (stars on 45). There's another version of this lurking over the hill.

So The Fall continues - it's difficult to realise that this was one of their most productive and expansive periods, and so the volume of output has increased dramatically. Slates remains one of their best releases but it feels too small to be considered an album and too long to be a single. I guess they succeeded then.

Week 5: 21/04/1980 - 10/01/81

And so to the fifth week, and the Fall really hitting their stride. And what is probably one of their most productive periods. 3 Hours and 6 Minutes of the Fall. Overlong for my commute but I worked around it.

And the first live album: Totale's Turns (It's now or never). The dazzling array of northern towns exclaimed on the cover. Tracks taken from all over and they're on good form. From the Intro "We are northern white crap that talks back" through a blazing Rowche Rumble into a repetitious version of Spector vs. Rector (the second half). The sound quality is a blessed relief after those multiple audience recordings that I've been putting up with. Two "studio" tracks: New Puritan in a kind of demo form and the very pop like "That Man". I once made a present for my good friend Rob Talbot which featured the lyrics to That Man, alongside some random bits of crap stuck to a malteasers box. Simpler times. The closing No Xmas for John Quays is relentless and catches Mark at the height of his "complaining about everything" phase: "Will you fucking get it together instead of showing off" being my favourite turns of phrase. Then a couple of singles: Elastic Man being straight up rockabilly, City Hobgoblins on the flipside bringing weirdness. And Totally Wired which was their first smash. I don't really like it, I find it a little simplistic - needs more obliqueness. The other side is weird - all bits of live records interspersed with a genuine song.

And then the most joyous of rarities - I heard this first as a secret track on the Backdrop CD, but the Castle Grotesque found the full tape. A 1981 Mark Smith talking about the music press, it's as weird and confusing as I always imagined it would be. "Why don't you go into your local record dealer and ask him why he's such a dick". It's largely comprehensible until the end where he says "I'm changing into R Totale 17 and then goes on about nonsense". Truly one in a million.

A swift superb Peel session of Container Drivers / Jawbone / New Puritan and New Face in Hell. Jawbone and the Air Rifle is one of the first songs where I really started to realise that the Fall were pretty special: A song about some guy roaming the moors and then getting cursed by a jawbone cacked in muck. It's comprehensible and magical with Mark painting the scene beautifully. New Puritan is more poppy than the version on Totale's Turns.

And then Grotesque - the canonical Fall album, from start to finish no filler, all angular and grotesque. This, above any other record, I've probably listened to more times than I can care to remember. It's still wondrous: visceral and necessary, not a note out of place, that terrifying cover painted by Mark's sister. Like all great records it's really short and over before you realise it's begun. So much to say but it's worth just listening to it: "The lower class, want brass, bad chests, scrounge fags, The clever ones tend to emigrate" in English Scheme, The meandering C 'n' C Mithering: "Like Faust with beards, hydrochloric shaved, weirds". In The Park all about rude things, and the closing pair of Gramme Friday and The NWRA. The NWRA is The Fall - a 10 minute riff, with Mark going on about how the North could take over the UK. There's a real urgency to it: The DJ's had worsened since the rising, Elaborating on Nothing and praising the track with words they could hardly pronounce, in telephone voices. This was the sound of my youth, I held onto my copy of this CD, despite getting the record and the newer CD. There's a perfection to the record like no other from the picture of the band, presumably sitting in a WMC, on the back all yellow and nasty. Whilst it's not my favourite Fall record (that's still to come), it will always be a part of me: This is what a bunch of unlikely's from Salford can do when they put their minds to it.

And to round it off, a true rarity: The Fall Live. Apparently the 1980 gig at Acklam Hall was "legendary", though in context it's probably better described as "adequate". Not to say it's not bad - a good mix of tracks from the time. They open with a slow Middle Mass, which is a great song. They do a bunch of stuff from Grotesque and the sound quality is good. More enjoyable is to read the original track listing, which is a bunch of half heard titles and made up nonsense. They play Prole Art Threat and it sounds like it's the first time they played it: Mark screams "PINK PRESS THREAT!" and then they stutter into the slowest version of it you've ever heard. Jawbone is as good as ever. And a curveball: In the Park?. They close with Impression of J Temperance - always go out on a winner Mark.

Week 04: 01/08/79 - 21/04/80

And to week 04, or Dragnet week. I never really had Dragnet at the time, I think I borrowed it from a friend in sixth form who I thought was the coolest because he had a beautiful vinyl copy of said record. I'm not sure I really got it at the time but now I think it's a masterpiece.

From the tinny high end of Witch Trials, to the dank dark sewer of Dragnet. Dragnet seeps with damp, the recording sound like it's in a cave and Mark mumbles his way through the record. And the songs are really good, the set as a whole is super coherent and, unlike Witch Trials, a bit of thought's gone into it and the order actually makes sense. The lyrics are blossoming and the music is coming together, dropping off the bits that were superfluous. Printhead chugs along in the punk/rockabilly style that was to become the Fall in later years. Your Heart Out is almost pop like, and bounces along. "Here's a joke, to cheer you up...,They have no anaesthetic, that joke's pathetic". The stand out for me is Flat of Angles - cheap tinny recording that spits and starts: Now you're trapped in Flat Of Angles! The Streets are full of mercenary eyes! It's stunning.

Then a couple of live shows from the Hip Priest series - both are audience recordings and the quality is not super great. The set list is pretty much dragnet and the quality of the band is not far off the upcoming Totale's Turns live record. Retford gets a treat in the form of a blazing version of No Xmas for John Quays, much tougher than the Totale's version, but with less band put downs (maybe Mark played it up for the record). There's also a bizarre version of Psycho Mafia with the words from different songs being shouted over the instrumental.

Then to the West Coast (or as it now is: Down South) to LA. Lots of audience talking on this one. The track listing is not much different. They do a decent Stepping Out, an 11 minute version of Spectre Vs Rector, and a bass heavy take on Muzerowi's Daughter. The audience asks "What do you think of this band?" to no reply.

And then, I think the first Fall 45 I bought - Fiery Jack. Mine came in the non-yellow sleeve straight from the heartland of Bristol Indie: Revolver Records. I don't really like the single but sentimentality rules. The lead track is kind of boring and for me doesn't really go anywhere. 2nd Dark Age is great - with the annoying organ back but not being annoying. Marc Riley singing "2nd Dark Age" over and over, in the only way he can. And then finally, a version of Psykick Dance Hall which I think is a little better recorded than the album version.

Week 3: 10/11/78 - 01/08/79

And closing in on the eighties. So we start with the 2nd Peel session: Put Away, Mess of My, No Xmas for John Quays and Like To Blow. This time produced by Bob Sargeant, who would go on to produce the debut LP. The sound is urgent but still all high end. They're still punks - especially on Like To Blow, but that annoying organ sound ruins it all for me. I love the line: "I live on snacks, potatoes in packs". Because crisps y'know.

And then a weirdly untracable one: ESP Disco on Oxymoron - an early psykick dancehall. It sounds a little live but it's too well recorded for that - it's a great track.

Then the debut album. I think I found this one in Bath Replay when that still existed - the InLine CD issue. I never really like the record - they apparently focused on recording it quickly rather than the sound. Produced by Bob of above, it's super super tinny. And it's weird - there are two tracks (Crap Rap 2 or Live at The Witch Trials) which would have made great opening tracks, but they're not - they open with Frightened. It's a weird listen - a lot of the tracks they were playing live. A fantastic opening to Mother-Sister: "What's this song about?","Errr, nothing". The Live At The Witch Trials/Futures and Pasts pairing is brilliant - something odd into something frentic: "I was in a drunken dream, the pubs were closed it was three o'clock". And then they end with "Music Scene", an 8 minute meander - which announces the time at around 6 minutes and then someone (Bob?) chips in a bit later "Okay Steve-o, that's plenty" and they keep going for a couple of minutes. This was center to my teenage theory that the best Fall songs were always the longest one on the album. Soon to be quashed by And This Day.

And then by the magic of Dragnet the last entry in this time period is the Rowche Rumble. I bought my copy at that Northern Soul shop that used to be off Division Street in Sheffield. Tattered cover but one of my favourite Fall Songs. "The Doctors need prescriptions, The Wives need the pills: Rowche Rumble!". And on the flip: In My Area, which is typical of the stretched out songs they were doing at the time, very considered. But that bloody organ again. The Dragnet CD finishes everything off with 4 outtakes of Rowche Rumble and 2 of In My Area. Outtakes are a very 90s affair - i.e. we've put the album on the CD, we've remastered it, what else can we do? Let's put on the stuff which should have been left on the cutting room floor. Interesting when you hear real progression to an eventual sound. But not interesting when it's 3 slightly different versions - 2 of which stop before they get going, because the band aren't together enough. Bloody puritans....

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.

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.