I like the Witch Trials too (Various Times being my favorite); Bend Sinister, that I bought to listen to what John Leckie (who had done great for Magazine) had brought to the band - I've got to say that I was extremely surprised.
It all started from a double page in the NME in 1990 or 91 (Sonic Youth on the cover); Hex Enduction Hour was my first.
In 2003, French cartoonist Luz published an album called the Joke about his love of the band. The guy is a fan but he can't help making fun of the band (its several line ups, the booze) and his own addiction to it. Actually, it turned so much the band into a myth for a friend of mine that he got to listen to it (not Cerebral Caustic, which has some so-so reviews in the Peel Sessions box-set booklet, but Grotesque - another one that I like quite a lot).

yeah, i think the sound wasn't quite there yet, it's a good album and some really great tracks there (frightened is probably my fave) but the albums they did after that are even better. there's a remastered 2CD edition which has lot of the early singles included and that's well worth getting, but this is maybe not the best place to start.

yes, would not say it is a good place to start and i have to say it is not my favourite fall album (i guess if i had to pick a favourite it would be among 'hex enduction hour', 'perverted by language', 'grotesque'... or also 'slates', or another one i forgot), but i definitely like it a lot... and probably enjoy it more than 'dragnet', 'bend sinister', 'the wonderful and frightening of..." (which are also great of course, in particular dragnet)...

oh and i have a compilation of the early singles, and everything is amazing on it, it's true.

Yeah various times is my favourite as well, when you get the 2CD reissues theres great artwork too, you get a cool little essay talking about the album, cultural context, the state of the group, that sort of thing.

For those of who who regrettably miss the feast of intellectual entertainment served up by the Manchester TV Chennel, here's The Fall's Hit The North, as recently performed on TV by comedian Frank Sidebottom, David Soul (from 'Starsky and Hutch') and Mark Ryder (ex-Happy Mondays): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiduNJG-Ltk

Mark E Smith was interviewed on BBC Radio 6 tonight, to celebrate his 50th birthday.

If you care to, you can click here. Where it says 'Listen Again to this show', click on 'Monday' and then use the 5 and 15 minute things to bip along to 1 hour 10 minutes. You'll be at the start of the song 'Fall Sound', and the interview is straight after that.

Go go go.

So far, I think Live At The Witch Trials rules. Dragnet is not as good as Witch Trials, but I like it. Really love Psykick Dance Hall! Grotesque (After the Gramme) seems pretty good. I like it better then Dragnet but, not as much as Witch Trials.

Perverted by Language !!!

What's a computer?! Eat y'self fitter!
Up the stairs mister?! Eat y'self fitter!

Do I quote Perverted By Language more than Trout Mask?

"fortress/deer park"

best fall song.

Two hours!
With four left wing kids
I spent time in Nazi Fortress
Much discussion in room C-H-1-O-C-H-11
I did not understand why
I could not accept the fact
that I'd accepted the contract
Much discussion in this institution
Much discussion in boiled beef and carrots
Room C-H-1-O-C-H-2-O-11
It was clear in the window eye
The brick outlined the blue sky
And I had to go round the gay graduates in the toilets
And Good King Harry was there
Much discussion in room C-H-1-O-C-H-2-O-11
Much discussion in room C-H-1-O-C-H-2-O-11


I took a walk down West 11
I had to wade through 500 European punks
At an off-license I rubbed up with some oiks
Who threw some change on the Asian counter
And asked polite if they could have two lagers
A hospital discharge asked me where he could crash
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
It's a large type artist ranch
This is where C Wilson wrote Ritual in the Dark
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
Spare a thought for the sleeping promo dept.
They haven't had an idea in two years
Dollars and deutchmarks keep the company on its feet
Say have you ever have a chance to meet
Fat Captain Beefheart imitators with zits?
Who is the King Shag Corpse?
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
It's a large type minstrel ranch
This is where C Wilson wrote Ritual in the Dark
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
The young blackies get screwed up the worst
They've gone over to the Hampstead house suss
An English system they implicitly trust
See the A&R civil servants
They get a sex thrill out of a sixteenth of Moroccan
They get a sex thrill out of a sixteenth of Moroccan
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
It's a large type artist ranch
This is where C Wilson wrote Ritual in the Dark
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
Yes the traffic hasn't changed that much
There's still a subculture I feel adrift of
Yes the traffic hasn't changed that much
There's still a subculture I feel adrift of
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
It's a large type minstrel ranch
This is where C Wilson wrote Ritual in the Dark
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
It's a large type minstrel ranch
This is where loads of punks congregate in the dark
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
It's a large type minstrel ranch
This is where C Wilson wrote Ritual in the Dark
Have you been to the English Deer Park?
Hey tourist it wasn't quite like what you thought
Hey Manchester group what wasn't what you thought
Hey Scottish group that wasn't quite like what you thought
Hey Manchester group that wasn't what you thought
Hey Scottish group that wasn't quite like what you thought
Quite like what you thought
Hey Midlands, scooped yer, how d'you ever get the job?
Hey Manchester group from it wasn't quite like what you thought
Quite like what you thought
Guess what
Guess guess guess
Guess what



I also like how "english deer park" occassionally (intentionally?) sounds like "english death trap"...

the fall>your favorite band

I wish that people would shut up about The Fall. They're a great band and all that, yet they inspire people to write and talk a lot of boring shit about them.

plus, glice will back me up here, they've been getting worse and worse since marc riley left.

I don't know anyone in real life who talks about the fall, and I've never read their name in a magazine, never saw one of their videos on tv, etc. It's way different in England, of course... hell, a lot of their albums don't even have distribution over here.

I was specifically talking about the UK. It's not as bad as all the fucking talk about The Smiths. Everyone in England has an opinion about Morrisey, everyone. It's suffocating.

since john peel died mark e smith has suddenly become this saint, as far as the british media is concerned

my opinion on morrisey = i wish he'd never been born

Yeah... I only think a couple of people I know love the smiths.

Oh, and for the record I'm not one of them.

I love louder than bombs and uh... that's it.

What pisses me off about all the talk about John Peel is the way he is talked about by people in their 30's for all the wrong reasons. Oh, and please somebody shoot everyone who grew up in the 80's and still goes on about Cocteau Twins, The Smiths, The Fall, The Cure etc like there hasn't been any new music ever since. Those people are the worst.

hahaha. all those bands suck a lot except half of the fall's catalogue (though the other half i can do without)...

I think that he is responsable for the sorry state of british music. He singlehandedly managed to create an atmosphere of conservatism that ultimately killed off any curiosity for anything other than pale, white music made by whimps, at least in terms of guitar rock/pop music. And this coming from someone who likes the Smiths but can't bear listening to them anymore.

I was talking to this dude last week who is generally regarded by his mates as someone who knows a lot about music. He was saying that young people can't make music like The Fall (used to) make. He even has a tatoo with their name on his arm. The worst part is that doesn't even know who Sonic Youth are - to name a recurrent name that appears on the press fairly often - yet he dares trying to be superior about these things. I felt like hitting him with a broom on the mouth. Such a wanker, he is the sort of person who puts me from talking about bands in the real world.

I am curious how a band couldn't make the smae music today as the Fall used to make. In fact, I hear bands using REPETITION all the time!!

I actually think The Fall are so revered in the UK because of an underlying anti-American/nationalist undercurrent taking hold within Britain at the moment. People seem to like the sheer Englishness of The Fall, as a kind of cryptic antidote to what they see as the creeping saturation of American cultural forces onto its shores. I wouldn't say that The Fall, or more specifically MES, are themselves anti-American, but their emphasis on local slang and national eccentricities provide certain fans with a sense that the band somehow represent a kind of English contrarianism.

If anything their snowballing cult in the UK is a demonstration that the underlying anti-American rationale that inspired Brit-Pop continues on, albeit in a slightly less brash way.

good points. speaking of which, i've read two separate interviews with mark e smith where they asked if he liked america.. one response was "love it", one response was, "it's quite shite."

I totally disagree with that. It's not like that sort of reverence for them is something new, is it? I don't even think that the wank-talk about them is particularly based on current affairs related to their music, it's just this overwhelming need that certain people with a passing interest in music have to open their mouth about stuff that maybe sometimes it's best left alone, or thought out within the walls of your cranium, where it should remain safe.

The Fall inspire way too many Nick Hornbysms in people who talk to much and listen too little.

there's a guy like that at my work, people think he's someone who knows a lot about music, but that's only because he goes out of his way to create that impression of himself, but all he knows about is top 40, and the british indie bands who verge on that.

And the most irritating thing about this stale white males into guitar music is that they still read the NME and get depressed because they are reminded that they are old by bands and journalists that are shite anyway.

Kill them all!

I'm not saying that's the reason amongst fans on this board, for example, but I do see his adoption by more mainstream media as stemming from a kind of unspoken, but no less felt, national pride.

Britain is an extremely nationalistic country which often gets misinterpreted because of the self-critical way in which that nationalism often emerges.

To make this point more credibly would take more subtlety than posts on a messageboard allow, but I am convinced of this underlying anxiety about an ongoing decline in Britain's cultural significance as providing at least a part of the reason for MES's increased status within, for example, the BBC and the broadsheets.

Sure, it's just that all too often all of these theories seem to come from way too many people who at the core don't seem to really have that much of a passion for music, yet they persistently feel compelled to have at go at the wank-talk.

Sorry, no disrespct to your posts, it's just the impression that I generally get from a lot Fall fans and their ilk.

Another impression that I get from a lot of Fall fans is that they'd rather be writers, actors or comedians instead of musicians.

Well you made my point in a way. The Fall have become something more than a band in lots of people's eyes - just as football has become more than a sport. (you mention Nick Hornsby, whose success seems part of a similar trend). The BBC, the Guardian, et al, seem far less interested in The Fall as a band, and far more concerned with MES. He's become some kind of a beacon for what they perceive to be a sort of lost Englishness (eccentricity, ironic wit, the hobbyist over the professional, traditional working class values, etc.)

You can hardly go into a gastro-pub these days without overhearing a conversation about the the merits of the 4-4-2 system or the new Fall album.

I think this is a direct result of the more mainstream media's emphasis on MES over the band. He's become a kind of Kingley Amis or Tony Hancock for the black levis and converse wearing generation.

yeah yeah industrial estate

That isn't a good thing at all. Mark E Smith is famous for his lyrical skills within a musical contest, heavily influenced by his say over the musicians that he often recruits and help out making The Fall sound they they do. Even though I admire and appreciate his way with words, I sometimes suspect that he might not have been all that revered if his lyrics was all that he was famous for.

In fact sometimes I think that people don't even listen to his records anymore but still feel like going ''It's Mark E Smith, he's great!'', just like one of those things that you must say.

I absolutely agree with this. MES is a fine lyricist, but were he a poet rather than a songwriter I'm sure his status would be minimal. The Fall lyrics are better than those of most bands, but thats hardly surprising given the generally poor standard of lyric writing. I know a couple of English literature professors that take MES quite seriously, but not so seriously as to think of him in the same way that they do, say T.S. Elliot or Pound. I think the only lyricist in the Rock/pop idiom that has ever truly been taken seriously within high-brow literary circles is Bob Dylan.

i find it incredibly frustrating that almost nobody is prepared to admit the fall fell off 25 years ago