Fall

Mark Smith and his group the Fall were among the most influential bands in the evolution of "independent" pop�that is, of those groups that reinterpreted popular music through the lens of a raw and unpolished rock, composed, played, and sung in a rough, approximate manner, yet without abandoning its essential quality: melody. Emerging from the ethos of punk rock, the Fall soon revealed more original qualities, ranging from primitivist tribalism to �industrial� experimentation.

In the beginning, the Fall were pub punks�closed-off and arrogant�representing both the ideological rage of 1977 and the myth of social autonomy. They emerged from the alternative circuits (of Manchester) only to unleash coarse harangues upon the audience. They were street artists, ragged clowns recounting stories of lived experience while drunkenly stumbling through back alleys, or rallying the crowds in the roughest neighborhood pubs; intellectual jesters whose suburban, raw, anti-aesthetic musical language placed them within the traditional anti-conformist current of British radicals.

They debuted in 1978 with the EP Bingo Master's Break Out and the single It�s The New Thing, but became famous with the 45-rpm anthems of the following year, Fiery Jack and Rowche Rumble. The structure of Fiery Jack is typical of their approach: a swaggering, arrogant, amateurish blues-a-billy in the vein of early Captain Beefheart, with shrill music-hall-like guitar inserts and a stentorian rhythmic pulse, while Smith relentlessly drives forward with his �talking blues.�

Live At Witch Trials (Step Forward, 1979 � Sanctuary, 2004) is divided between dark litanies dragging themselves through utter dreariness (the frantic insistence of No Xmas, the funereal black mass of Two Steps Back, the threatening and hypnotic spell of Frightened)�which, in at least one case, manage to amuse (the chant of Rebellious Jukebox)�culminating in the long cadaverous sabbath of Music Scene, worthy of Television, and a handful of raucous rock�n�roll tracks tormented by Marc Riley�s psychotic riffing (the �Beefheartian� blues Futures And Pasts, the minimalist rock of Crap Rap).
Its obsessive repetitiveness and declamatory delivery forged a form of progressive song that was not ignorant of the avant-garde, but drew mainly from the abrasive delirium of the Velvet Underground, thanks to Una Baines�s lysergic organ and Karl Burns�s tribal drumming.
However, guitarist Martin Bramah and Baines soon left the group to form the Blue Orchids.

After reshuffling the lineup�bringing in guitarist Craig Scanlon and bassist Stephen Hanley�Smith directed the band, starting with Dragnet (Step Forward, 1979 � Sanctuary, 2004), toward a sound less vehement and tempestuous but more creative (A Figure Walks), ritualistic (the Native American dance of Muzorewi�s Daughter), epic (the outrageous Cock-stock), and industrial (the disjointed delirium of Spectre Vs Rector). The album offers a cornucopia of styles but excels in none. What is clear is that the Fall were punk in spirit, yet their music had little to do with the punk rock of that era. It was rather the offspring of pub rock�and its eccentricity the offspring of Captain Beefheart, even though Smith used rock�n�roll rather than blues as the base for his sonic deliriums.

The most entertaining track of the period is the single Totally Wired (1980), a sabbath of Smith�s nasal chant and Craig Scanlon�s atonal guitar.

The Fall distanced themselves even further from punk rock with Grotesque (Rough Trade, 1981), which made their atonal sound seem almost austere, reduced the amateurish atmosphere to a lo-fi reinterpretation of roots rock, and channeled Smith�s stream of consciousness into a series of rockabilly-paced jams/rants reminiscent of David Peel (especially the street-folk nursery rhyme Elastic Man, but also the demented rockabilly of Pay Your Rates and the frantic New Face In Hell).

The offbeat country-vaudeville of Fit And Working Again (from the EP Slates, 1981, one of their easiest works) and the novelty single Lie Dream Of The Casino Soul (a contemporary 45) seemed to smooth their rough edges, but with the return of Burns (and thus two drummers), the incisiveness and randomness doubled.

The transition toward a more orderly sound, begun with Grotesque, was completed with Hex Enduction Hour (Kamera, 1982), which even included ballads (Classical) alongside their usual rock�n�roll pieces (Jawbone). But And This Day and Fortress/Deer Park dissolve into chaotic and cacophonic territories. The long declamations of Winter (in two parts) and Hip Priest demonstrate the ambitions of the faux-jester Smith. So ramshackle as to be moving, these Fall began to resemble the later Pere Ubu.

The brief Room To Live (1982) instead returns to a sluggish kind of rockabilly (Joker Hysterical Face, Detective Instinct) and triumphs in a ramshackle samba (Marquis Cha Cha), but the atmosphere is as half-hearted as on Grotesque.

Smith�s personal ritual continues with the disjointed tribalism of Man Whose Head Expanded (1983) and the demented �blues-a-billy� Kicker Conspiracy (1983), which bring him closer and closer (respectively) to psychedelia and to Beefheart; as confirmed by the dreadful chant of Smile, the �Zappa-esque� gag of Eat Yourself, the lyrical Hotel Bloedel, and the nine-minute Tempo House on Perverted By Language (Rough Trade, 1983), featuring his wife Brix on guitar. The album, full of dull moments, is another example of how Smith fails to properly calibrate his material.

The Fall�s saga nevertheless continued with two peaks of creativity, beginning with The Wonderful And Frightening World (Beggars Banquet, 1984), featuring the compelling industrial dance of No Bulbs, the frenzied voodoobilly of Lay Of The Land and 2 By 4, the melodic and danceable Creep, and the surreal piece Bug Day.

This Nation�s Saving Grace (Beggars Banquet, 1985), perhaps the culmination of this phase�accessible, progressive, polyrhythmic, marked by the more restrained guitar work of his wife�remains packed with guerrilla graffiti (Cruiser�s Creek), catastrophic voodoobilly (Bombast, Spoilt Victorian Child), Zappa-like kitsch (Mansion), and mystical psychedelia (the sinister dance-trance of L.A. and the hypnotic yodel of My New House).
In tracks like Gut Of The Quantifier, the kinship of their sound with the minimalist school�s experiments�particularly those of Sonic Youth�becomes evident; while in others, surreal tribalism (What You Need) or pastoral ballads (Paint Work) are manipulated through timbral techniques similar to those used by the Residents. The culmination of this experimental streak is I Am Damo Suzuki, which plays with polyrhythms and electronic dissonances (and also pays explicit homage to another of their masters, the Can).

Bend Sinister (Beggars Banquet, 1986), dominated by the arrangements of multi-instrumentalist Simon Roger, confirms the tendency toward a more pronounced melodicism (as in Shoulder Pads).

Between a theatrical work (Hey Luciani) and a ballet (I Am Kurious Oranj), Smith�s saga continued to drag on with the usual honesty and clarity of vision.

The art of The Fall thrived on a schizophrenic alternation between menacing ritualism (the voodoobilly tracks like Fiery Jack, Elastic Man, Kicker Conspiracy, Lay Of The Land, Bombast, and the dance-tracks like Muzorewi�s Daughter, Man Whose Head, Bulbs, L.A.) and more experimental ambitions. The latter were always somewhat confused and almost never made any substantial contribution.
The Fall were more effective as protagonists of a grassroots rock subculture that had no aesthetic pretensions, yet somehow, through the fabric of sarcastic songs, expressed the restlessness and alienation of urban working-class youth in the industrial metropolis.

Frenz Experiment (Big Time, 1988) marks their adoption of a more professional approach to making music. An unusual musicality (along with their usual sense of humor) distinguishes the driving blues of Get A Hotel and the folk ballads Frenz and The Steak Place, which ultimately just revisit familiar variations of their sound. The tribal element surfaces in the boogie of Carry Bag Man and the voodoobilly of Athlete Cured, with their customary references to the Velvet Underground and the Cramps. Drawing on their imagination and rhythmic richness, the band crowns the album with Hit The North and Bremen Nacht, two of their most paradoxical dance numbers.
Brix Smith (guitar), Simon Wolstencroft (drums), Steve Hanley (bass), Craig Scanlon (rhythm guitar�whose glorious dissonances are somewhat subdued here), and Marcia Schofield (keyboards) form one of the most cohesive and talented lineups of Mark Smith�s career. In the end, Frenz Experiment stands as one of their most professional albums, featuring high-quality material and arrangements that are (for them) almost luxurious. The contemporary single Popcorn Double Feature is no less impressive.

From the same period comes the ballet documented on the album I Am Kurious Oranj (Beggars Banquet, 1988). The Fall somewhat parody themselves here, and not everything shines, but what does shine is worthy of their best repertoire: more frenzied voodoo dances (Jerusalem), more solemn sarabands (Kurious Oranj), more martial proclamations (New Big Prinz), and even a syncopated blues-rock number in the Rolling Stones style (Wrong Place Right Time).

Due to the divorce (both personal and artistic) between Mark and Brix, Seminal Live marks the end of that phase�the phase that began with Perverted By Language.

On the other hand, Extricate (Cog Sinister, 1990) marks the return of guitarist Martin Bramah. It is another first-class effort, featuring a tribute to blues-jazz in Chicago Now, a nod to the psychedelia and soul-rock of the 1960s in I�m Frank, and witty songs like Sing Harpy and And Therein (with the characteristic bouncing guitar rhythms, here taken to manic extremes).
Smith does not miss an opportunity to update himself with modern sounds while remaining true to his clownish �poetics,� as demonstrated in the dance tracks, arguably the best part of the album: the B-52�s-style novelty of The Little Rebel (cheerful backing vocals, shrill organ), the surreal Black Month Theme (a stuttering blues/rap over gospel organ and mewling violin), the ramshackle voodoobilly (distorted by every type of trashy sample) of Extricate, and the funky-rap of Telephone Thing. These are tracks where his imagination runs wild in the most ingenious and hilarious ways.
Humor is naturally unstoppable: Smith takes the opportunity to insert sketches from his iconoclastic music hall, sometimes mimicking Lou Reed (Hilary), parodying synthpop (Popcorn Double Feature), or poking fun at his compatriots� habits with a driving rhythm and blues (British People In Hot Weather).
It is perhaps their most varied and composite album, as if the man had been reborn.

The EP Dredger (Cog Sinister, 1990) contains another standout track, Life Just Bounces.

Having lost Bramah again, along with Schofield, and acquiring Kenny Brady on violin, Smith recorded Shiftwork (Fontana, 1991), demonstrating, through the constant lineup changes, that the Fall are him: The Mixer, So What About It, and the Sinister Waltz repeat, once again, his musical poetics. Rose, Edinburgh Man, and The Book Of Lies continue the progression toward normality. At heart, his secret has always been a deviant form of infantilism: choruses that stick in your head and rhythms that make your legs move involuntarily. There is little originality, but the album sells more than any of its predecessors.

Free Range, on Code: Selfish (Cog Sinister, 1992), and the single Ed�s Babe anticipate the commercial turn achieved with The Infotainment Scan (Atlantic, 1993): a disco cover, a reggae cover, and a parody of techno (A Past Gone Mad) almost completely obscure Smith�s verve. Nevertheless, he still finds ways to express his eccentric genius in this format, from Paranoid Man In Cheap Shit Room, a bizarre mix of synthpop, psychedelic heavy metal, and �Madchester�-style rap, to Ladybird, a harmonic concoction straddling boogie and the Shocking Blues� Venus, through the electric jug of Glam-Racket (with echoes of Norman Greenbaum�s Spirit In The Sky) and the stumbling ska of Why Are People Grudgeful. However, the loud and overproduced sound of this album is the antithesis of the early Fall.

For ten years, essentially, Smith lived off his ability to compose ritual �dances� for personal use, far from any trend, crafted in a ragged variant of traditional British wit, yet nonetheless as contagious (and sellable) as anything fashionable.

The single Behind The Counter (Permanent) serves as a prelude to the album Middle Class Revolt (Matador, 1994), a politically engaged work that, however, raises the concern that Smith, in playing at being a DJ (City Dweller), may have forgotten how to make punk (15 Ways). The album seems to repudiate his recent turn toward the mainstream, yet at the same time it no longer manages to capture the punk fervor of his early years. In practice, it represents the worst of both worlds. Not surprisingly, the best tracks are the three covers.

Smith�s career is unusual because it is not marked by distinct creative peaks and troughs. He has the peculiar ability to produce a strong album roughly every three to four years (Witch Trials, This Nation's Saving Grace, Hex Enduction Hour, Extricate), alternating them with distracted, patchy, or banal works. However, the 1990s seem to yield mostly works of the latter type.

Cerebral Caustic (Permanent, 1995) is mediocre routine. The only tracks that go beyond the predictable are the surreal pieces Bonkers In Phoenix and North West Fashion Show, while The Aphid is the standout among the more traditional songs. One Day e` l'unico momento irruento.

The Twenty-Seven Points (Permanent, 1995) is a collection of live and unreleased (i.e., leftover) tracks. Sinister Waltz (Receiver, 1996), a collection of alternate takes, is an even bigger ripoff. The Fall swindle continued with Fiend With A Violin (Receiver, 1996), yet another collection of odds and ends.

The artistic crisis that started after Extricate is not over, but The Light Use Syndrome (Jet, 1996) is an improvement, possibly thanks to Brix Smith's return and the addition of keyboardist Julie Nagle (and Burns is still in the line-up). A few songs hark back to the spastic and frantic sound of early Fall (notably, DIY Meat and Spinetrack), and at least one perfects his approach to the dancefloor (The Coliseum), but Smith is still erratic and a little too eccentric, an unstable source of creativity that can waste talent in rhythm'n'blues oddities such as Last Chance To Turn Around and Secession Man and even in a progressive-rock suite, Interlude. Scanlon is sorely missed.

Levitate (Artful, 1997) marks another excursion in dance music, led by Nagle's keyboards. Ten Houses Of Eve is the standout track. Unfortunately, Masquerade, Hurricane Edward and Ol' Gang waste many good ideas. Smith's unrestrained ego delves in avantgarde music with Tragic Days and The Quartet Of Doc Shanley, that are as serious as Frank Zappa's most ridiculous gags. The instrumental Jap Kid reinforces the similarities between the two nutty professors.

What could be worse for Smith than twenty years of testing his listener's patience? String arrangements. That's what Smith came up with for The Marshall Suite (Artful, 1999). Except for the usual dose of cute covers, the songs are boring at best. Smith has lost his wit, besides his musical inspiration.

The Unutterable (Eagle, 2000) and Are You Are Missing Winner (COG Sinister, 2001) are even worse (despite Dr Buck's Letter on the former).

Smith's overcrowded canon is beginning to look like a natural disaster.

In the meantime, compilations and live albums keep coming out, inflating the market of low-to-poor quality Fall albums. Totally Wired (Castle, 2002) is a two-disc anthology of material from 1980-83.

A reinvigorated band finally came up with an album actually worth of being released, The Real New Fall LP (Action, 2003 - Narnack, 2004). It contains some gems in the jagged and anthemic folk-rock style that Smith has been perfecting (and often worsening) over the years: the atmospheric Green Eyed Loco Man, the schizoid Contraflow, the tribal Last Commands of Xyralothep via M.E.S., the gloomy Mike's Love Xexagon, Theme from Sparta F.C., the feverish Open the Boxoctosis #2, the serene Janet, Johnny + James. Their best album since Extricate.

Rebellious Jukebox (2003) is a terrible anthology. 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats (Beggars Banquet, 2004) is a much better two-cd career retrospective.

The Fall rarely made great albums: only, at best, funny or interesting ones, and, at worst, awkward or pedestrian ones. Fall Heads Roll (Narnack, 2005) is no excpetion. Mostly disposable, the collection does boast a handful of entertaining numbers of energetic garage-rock: the familiar Smith-esque wrath of What About Us, the unrelenting seven-minute rigmarole of Blindness, the lo-fi psychobilly of Clasp Hands, the punk-folk rant of Ride Away, the anti-synthpop of Pacifying Joint. The Fall rarely made great songs. Their songs are, at best, funny or interesting, and, at worst, awkward and pedestrian. The Fall have always been more attitude than music, more life than art. That's why their albums are always 20-30 minutes too long: it's not the music that matters, but the very fact of making music.

Few bands had so little to say and said it in so many albums. Reformation Post T.L.C. (2007), featuring yet another line-up, and relying yet again on electronic keyboards and rhythm, is another embarrassment for Mark Smith on his way to senile irrelevance, despite the Fall-anthemic Reformation and the lengthy dissonant jam Das Boot, two of Smith's best ideas of the last 20 years.

Von Sudenfed is a collaboration between the Fall's Mark Smith and Mouse On Mars that resulted in Tromatic Reflexxions (2007).

Imperial Wax Solvent (Castle, 2008) was boring if not utterly disposable, a collection of randomly composed and amateurishly performed songs, including an eleven-minute 50 Year Old Man that runs the gamut from terrible rockabilly to embarrassing blues.

Von Sudenfed is a collaboration between Mark Smith of the Fall and Mouse On Mars. They debuted with Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino, 2007), a dance album in the vein of LCD Soundsystem.

The Fall recovered from the nadir that Imperial Wax Solvent was with Your Future Our Clutter (2010), that contains at least three of their gems: O.F.Y.C. Showcase, Cowboy George, Y.F.O.C. Slippy Floor.

The Fall rarely missed the chance to follow a decent album with an awful one. Ersatz G.B. (2011) plunged again into the abyss of the trivial and the predictable, surrounding the mild raveup Cosmos 7 with half-baked routine ideas of no consequence and performing them with dubious technical skills.

The line-up remained stable on the mediocre Re-Mit (2013) and Sub-Lingual Tablet (2015), but Smith lost keyboardist (and partner) Eleni Poulou on New Facts Emerge (2017), remaining with guitarist Peter Greenway, bassist Dave Spurr, and drummer Keiron Melling.

Mark Smith died in 2018 at the age of 60.