música esquisita: The Fall - Entrevista no fanzine Grim Humour #4, de "June / July" de 1984

7.6.21

The Fall - Entrevista no fanzine Grim Humour #4, de "June / July" de 1984

The Fall interview

Background informations: The late John Peel’s favorites, The Fall, were one of several groups (alongside The Residents, Wire and Whitehouse) that newcomer to the magazine Andy Pearson (or, simply, Andy P. as he soon became known) forever got excited about to the point of often inflicting their countless records on me as a birthday and Xmas presents. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, he was doing me a huge favor, but I can’t claim to have been to fond of The Fall at the time. All the same, never wishing to appear completely ungrateful for anything, the very least I could do in return was succumb to Andy’s offer of an interview with Mark E. Smith and his then wife Brix for Grim Humour, thus heralding his triumphant debut into the publishing world. Of course, anybody still retaining an ear glued to such matters will be fully aware of the fact The Fall continued to remain a going concern for Smith until his untimely death in late January 2018. Until this sad news interrupted proceedings it was quite probable that the group would have kept going until he finally alumped over his doubtlessly battered typewriter with his chemical-drenched muse gasping as it witnessed the last word spewing across a sheet of A4, such was the determination afoot. And, think whatever you like about The Fall, their place in the music history has been long secured and seized upon as a huge source of inspiration for countless others, particularly former runners in the US and NZ underground such as Sonic Youth, Pavement, The Dead C. and various others prone to pontificating over slovenly instrumentation and all manner of musical imperfections most would do their utmost to iron out in their inevitable quest to sound more ‘professional’ as time goes on. UK duo Sleaford Mods have often been compared to The Fall, too, and whilst there are certain similarities in their approach, at least on a surface level, they’re far more coincidental than anything else. All the same, this once again illustrates just how great a stamp The Fall made on the public consciousness.

Original interview:

Since forming in Manchester in 1977, The Fall have continued to produce a succession of progressive and highly individual records which, although usually totally ignored by trendy ‘experimentalists’, have produced a sound as far from Culture Club, and Duran Duran drivel as is possible without losing the factor of ‘entertainment’. The following interview took place just before their December gig at the Electric Ballroom, which coincided with the release of their latest LP, Perverted by Language. Group members present were Mark E. Smith and his wife Brix, who plays guitar and adds backing vocals.

GH You’ve been playing material from your new album live for some time now. Do you prefer playing unrecorded material?

MARK We’ve been doing it for about nine months… we just wrote the songs. It’s a natural process to play ‘em. It’s not out of any sort of principle. Especially with record companies being as they are, you have to wait so long if you only want to do stuff you’ve recorded.

GH You tend not to do old songs, though…

MARK Sometimes we do… you’d be surprised. Brix helps me a lot with the set, ‘cos what I was finding I was doing was sort of a quest for the perfect set, so I was spending all me bleeding time, sort of two hours before we went on, scribbling on bits of paper, trying to get a proper order. It’s good to have another viewpoint sometimes.

GH Your live shows are much more effective than your recorded work. Do you see this as a drawback?

MARK Well, they are two different worlds altogether. We have come to terms with recording. A lot of the time, we don’t like recording, but we’re going to spend a lot more time on it in the future… we throw a lot of studio time away, in fact, by doing new songs, y’know. By the time we get into the studio, we’re usually fed up with what we were going to do, so we’ll do something different, which will take longer.

GH A recent review of one of your gigs criticized people dancing. Do you prefer people to dance or just to listen?

BRIX I would say dance…

MARK It doesn’t do any harm… as long as they think the music’s good enough…

GH Your stage show has often been criticized, but at your recent Brixton Ace gig a lavishly costumed character came on stage during ‘Tempo House’ to read out press reports. What was he doing?

MARK That was Allan Pellay, who just, like, hangs around when we come to London. The song finishes with no guitar or vocals. I thought it would be a good idea to have a report journal of how we’re supposed to be getting on.

GH What happened to the single version of ‘Marquis Cha-Cha’?

MARK Err, well, we were in Australia and the record company we were on (Kamara) did, like, a dirty on us and pressed ‘em up wrong. As we were away, the record company, which was only two blokes anyway, handed it over to some bloke from The Face (NB: The Face was another monthly magazine devoted to music and culture, albeit the more stylized end of it, generally, with fashion playing as prominent a role within its pages as everything else. Very occasionally, it featured somebody interesting, but its core interest appeared to be in priming its readers to be ‘hip’ and possess whatever ‘street credibility’ may have been necessary in order to get along in the art colleges, boutiques, clothes shops and hip bars they all doubtlessly hung around at. On the, ho hum, ‘face’ of it, it wasn’t an especially great magazine but, rather, a generally pathetic ‘style bible’ – Ed.) or summat, and he did the cover too, which he fucked up… It’s out again now, ‘cos the company went bankrupt and sold, like, 500 copies to pay the bills. If you look at it, it’s got ‘Papal Visit’ as the B-side, and it’s really “Room to Live’, which is, like, a complete fuck up… it wasn’t that funny at the time, but he didn’t press that many up as we (weren’t) into the idea. So it was out, then we went away, and when we got back it justn’t wasn’t mentioned.

GH Kamara didn’t do the Room to Live LP right as well, did they?

MARK Yeah, it wasn’t mean to be an LP, in fact. There are only seven songs on it, and two of them are short. It’s only, like, ten minutes a side. It was meant to be a big single and sell for £2.00 odd.

GH Going on to your more recent stuff, one of the verses in ‘Ludd Gang’ goes on about Shakin’ Stevens. What’s the song about, cheap nostalgia?

BRIX It’s anti-Shakin’ Stevens! We hate him!

MARK Yeah, all that sort of stuff… like, where I live in Manchester, the houses and all that crap. The Luddites were from where I’m from; they used to smash machines and stuff. I don’t know whether it’s nostalgia. I just thought that would be good ‘cos, like, ‘Blue Christmas’ by Elvis Presley was a really beautiful record, and to hear that bastard (Shakin’ Stevens) do it really pissed me off. In fact, the cover to that was also fucked up, ‘cos the cover I did for ‘Ludd Ganf’ was really good, weren’t it?

BRIX Oh, err, yeah – sorry, I’ve forgotten the tape recorder can’t see me nod my head!

GH Why was the cover of ‘The Man Whose Head Expanded” so different to any of your previous artwork?

MARK Well, I wrote the song on a home computer, hahaha! That’s why the computer lines are all across it. That’s just a joke! But, seriously, the way they do covers now has changed. You seem to be able to get more colours. They’re no so bothered with expense.

GH Why did you choose to sell ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ as a double pack, including the older tracks?

MARK Well, it was part of Rough Trade’s smart ideas, which usually fall flat on their faces, but it appealed to me in the way that it was a bit disorientated; it sorta fits in with ‘Wings’, which is about time and stuff. It was something no-one would expect us to do. I was surprised to find out how different those tracks were as well… people did actually want ‘em.

GH ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ is about football hooliganism. Do you enjoy writing about controversial subjects?

MARK Yeah, well, if you’re going to do a single it’s got to be either a dance tune or very interesting, and the idea of, like, writing a song about football hooliganism appealed to me… like, inn a rock song, it made me laugh. The idea behind it was to question whether it’s so bad anyway, y’know… question why everyone gets so worked up about it. I don’t see the point. If you send English people abroad, it’s obvious they’re going to fight. It’s talking about England, in a way. I think it’s good to put stuff like that in a song, y’know… it’s not like people like ABC, who think that getting serious is talking about fucking egg on toast and stuff. That sort of thing really makes me sick.

GH Do you get annoyed that a a lot of people don’t recognize the humour in your lyrics?

MARK I think that’s a lot of fun. I mean, anyone who says they’re not funny, the jokes on them. I think it’s good that people can share in it, like, without it having to be fucking shoved forward in an advertisement, like, “WE ARE FUNNY”, ‘cos then there’s not much point in it.

GH Do you enjoy doing narratives, such as ‘Wings’, ‘Spectre vs. Rector’ and ‘New Face in Hell’?

MARK I’ve gotta admit I like doing ‘em, but a lot of people won’t get ‘em, especially in one night… but the challenge of them interests me, and I think the weirdness of ‘em is good.

GH What’s the ‘Haxan’ thing that crops up a lot in your lyrics?

MARK Haxan is a German word for a group of witches around a cauldron. There’s no such word as ‘enduction, though I could have sworn I’d seen it after I wrote ir down…

GH Why don’t you ever include lyric sheets with your records?

MARK Err, we just thought we’d take the fun out of it, really. It’s a boring job saying, like, “I’m very important, look at me. I’m writing lyrics on the back of records.”

GH Then why do you include vague notes on the covers?

MARK That is just to confuse a lot of the time, hahaha, but also to give an insight to the songs.

GH How did you get on The Tube, and why did you do two unreleased tracks?

BRIX Well, one is on the album (Smile), and it was on a Peel session…

MARK It didn’t strike me to do any of our old stuff.

BRIX They’d expect you to do something like ‘Kicker’ so, y’know, why do it?

MARK It was good actually as they didn’t want us on, like John Peel wanted us on. We were shoved on really early. It was great. I thought ‘cos we had a load of shit to put up with. It was funny. They wanted to put dry ice on the stage, drum elevations, stuff like that.

GH I read recently that you were going to be on a Cherry Red compilation cassette along with groups such as Virgin Prunes and Throbbing Gristle. What happened to this?

MARK I’ve no idea. I believe the bloke who was getting it together has left now. All it was was a live version of ‘Slates’ from Berlin or somewhere. It was some sorts double cassette with so many acts on it. It would have been good.

GH You’re releasing a video soon. Could you give some details about this?

MARK Err, we thought we’d do it ‘cos Factory Records have now got, like, a video part called Ikon, run by a good mate of mine, the video DJ at The Hacienda, and he said there would be a lot of interest. It’s like a hotchpotch of stuff… there’s some live stuff, ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ filmed at a football ground… I don’t really like watching rock videos, so I was trying to make a laugh out of it. It’s pretty funny when we mime and stuff. It’s come out really good. It should cost about £12.00.

GH Now that you are married, are we ever likely to hear you singing love songs?

MARK I don’t know… hahaha… I was thinking about it in the other day. Surely, if you’ve been married, you’ve been in love, so that’s it, you don’t need to write about it. Hahaha! It’s not as you if you’re homosexual like Marc Almond and you, like, want to put it into a song… hahaha!

BRIX We don’t do love songs, but we sing duets on things like ‘Creep’…

MARK Yeah, but… I’ve never wanted to write one. I’ve never seen the appeal in ‘em… I like some (though).

BRIX They’re sloppy and embarrassing. It’s like showing your underpants in public. I’d feel embarrassed if he wrotes one. I wouldn’t want him to sing it. I’d feel, like, “Oh god, everyone knows it’s about me, fucking hell…”

GH What do you think of bands like The Birthday Party, The Nightingales and The Smiths, who claimed to have been ‘inspired’ by your musical style?

MARK Enough said… hahaha. No, The Birthday Party have always been alright by me…

BRIX Shall I say… The Nightingales, never heard of ‘em… The Smiths, no comment, NO FUCKING COMMENT!

MARK I do like several of The Nightingales’ singles, I must admit. They used to play with us a lot. I was a big fan of The Perfects…

GH To end with, do you ever think The Fall will ever become superstars and appear on Top Of The Pops?

MARK I think there’s an outside chance… hahaha… I don’t see why not… when the others catch up with us!

The Fall: Selected Discography

NB: The Fall possibly rank as the most prolific group to have emerged from post-punk. As all the other discographies noted, we are just focusing on several releases especially liked or lauded here. Most of The Fall’s official output is worth getting, anyway. Of course, you can find the complete discography online, but here’s a selection from some of the records personally owned, at least. Nearly all the early albums have been released on either CD or vinyl via different labels.

‘It’s the New Thing’ 7” (Step-Forward, 1978)

‘Bingo-Master’s Break Out’ 7” (Step-Forward, 1978)

Live at the Witch Trials LP (Step-Forward, 1979)

Dragnet LP (Step-Forward, 1979)

‘How I Wrote Elastic Man’ 7” (Rough Trade, 1980)

Hex Enduction Hour LP (Camera, 1982)

Perverted By Language LP (Rough Trade, 1983)

The Wonderful and Frightening World Of… (Beggars Banquet, 1984)

This Nation’s Saving Grace LP (Beggars Banquet, 1985)

The Frenz Experiment LP + 7” (Beggars Banquet, 1988)

Extricate LP (Cog Sinister, 1990)

Code: Selfish LP (Cog Sinister, 1992)