Just Take my Word for It

 
Finishing up personal quotas and rounding numbers up.
Google your own shit.
As of this I have exactly 75 posts in the pipeline.

6/8 Lullaby (1992)

Swirl. Manchester UK

 

Travesty Befalls the Snow Queen (1996)

the Snow Queen. Los Angeles, CA
 

 

Mopping Up

Blah Blah Blah
Scritti Politti again

The Sweetest Girl (1981)

Ok, the politics is gone. We're making pop songs about girls now. 

Who cares when it's as lovely at this.

Especially one that has a contribution by Robert Wyatt in the recording.

This concludes the lesson on Scritti Politti as far as I will currently go.

You're welcome.

My Cherry is in Sherry (1980)

Ludus were from  Manchester and this 3rd single was released on the label that the Buzzcocks manager's label New Hormones.

I can never resist a good song about sex.

Just Because and Quick About It

I got nothing.
I wanted to get this on the docket before I did actual, you know, constructive things with my sad wasted life.

The Best Thing (1979)

I've previously posted at various times I don't have the energy to look up the two singles by Grow-Up that preceded and followed this Lp. Now here's that Lp. It's fucking great and don't let anybody tell you different. They are liars and terrible human beings who should be ashamed of themselves.

Short, crafted and eccentric and very, very English diy indie pop songs with horns. This is the shit.

I found my copy recently at a record store in the outer burbs that I hadn't been to previously. It was sealed and at a decent price. I also kind of horrified the record clerk when he found out that I fully intended to go home and open a record that had remained sealed for 40 years like some kind of sacred tomb. But what's the point of buying a record if you can't listen to it?

I'm certainly pleased to have opened it and hopefully you'll share my enthusiasm.
This is a great fucking record and I wish I'd had a copy years ago so I could so I could have had more time to enjoy it over the space of years.

Other things by Familiar Faces

I have other things I want to be doing.

I'll make this quick.

I have posted items by both of these acts previously, plus you're already on the internet.

Be your own best resource if you're curious.

I have other things I want to be doing.

Grow Up - Joanne (1980)

If you liked the previous one this is even better.

the Higsons - The Lost and the Lonely (1981)

If you liked the previous post, this is more of the same, but different.

Peter Pan can suck it.

I like being an adult.


I get to buy singles like this one by  Grow Up.

 Grow Up (1979)

UK DIY style. Just barely competent enough. Way too many words.  It's got a trombone without being ska. A clarinet too.  A clarinet, that's punk as fuck. There are six songs squeezed together on one seven inch slab of vinyl.

What's not to love?

Green Telescopes (1986)

For a long time into the 80's hellscape there existed bands who sought to recreate as accurately as possible the sound of the original 60's teenage garage bands pumping out the real punk rock.

One of those bands was the Green Telescope (who would later change their name to the Thanes of Cawdor) who threw this lively bit of garagadelia to the hungry masses in the middle of the decade that shall not be glorified because even those of us living through it wanted to be living in another time period.

Side one is an original in as much as something aping another time period can be considered an original. A farfisa flavored rocker that hits all the proper points such that it might otherwise fool a neophyte listener into believing it actually was recorded twenty years previous to its actual release date. It's got a beat and you can dance to it.

The other side is a cover of one of the classics of the Garage Punk genre "Thoughts of a Madman" by one of the several hundred bands calling themselves the Nomads.

You can decide for yourself if they best the original or not.

With Me When I Need a Friend

Yeah, It's August.

That's also a song from my personal favorite Love album.

Here's a link to it.

You're welcome.

Kim the Waitress (1986)


Speaking of things that are personal favorites...

(*Note clever segue)

Here's the first single by the Green Pajamas and one of the best non-beer related dollars I ever spent in the late 80's. Another awkward staple of mixed tapes for girls. Lovely stuff from Seattle in the gray rainy days before Grunge would come along and ruin everything.

Some of the older kids in the audience may be familiar with the song through a decidedly inferior and overwrought version by Material Issue in 1994 that entirely misses the earnestness of  the original to make it seem much more creepy. Much more. They sound less like shy artists with a crush on a pretty girl and more like stalkers with a knife, a shovel and a supply of duct tape in the trunk of their car. No wonder Kim quit her job and avoids the place.

But the Green Pajamas.

That's the fucking ticket, Jack.

Discipline (1982)

I think, If  I've made one thing apparent last Autumn (see there's actually a theme developing here that I didn't actually think of until just now. Damn, I'm good) it's that I really really love the Fall.

So here's God's Gift. This is there 3rd single as duly noted on the sleeve.

They too were from the war torn streets of Manchester England. They have some sonic similarities to the mighty Fall that extend beyond the Mancunian accent.

It's more of the good stuff. 

Seriously? How much of this shit is there?

So yeah, there's even more.

The Disparate Cogscienti (1988)

It's a compilation. It's on Cog Sinister, the label started by Mark E Smith in the latter portion of the 80's to ostensibly handle Fall releases both new and reissue. I would suppose a bit more flush with cash following some minor success this afforded him a bit more control over his own stuff. But he also took the time to work with and release a handful of items by other folks he deemed worthy of his attentions.

Amongst those was this compilation of various artists some whose association with the Fall date all the way back to the Manchester Musicians Collective and the earliest days of their existence like John the Postman (who was an actual mail carrier)

I can't really get into the musical genealogy of this stuff. I just know that Mark E. had pretty decent taste as far as this goes. Very little as far as chaff goes here and an interesting window into the local scene a couple of steps down from one orbiting the more well known Manchester area bands (ie. Buzzcocks or Joy Division)

But of some interest here is that there's an uncredited 18 second bit of what can only be the Fall that opens the second side of this Lp. It sounds essentially like a snippet of Mark E Smith doing a bit of spoken word over a short segment of "Tempo House". Also of note is that Philip Johnson's "One Forty Three" would appear to be a bit of extremely slowed down tape manipulation of "Repetition"

The End?

[Ed. 10/16/17 - Hey there Fall fans,

I see that the Fall Forums have finally found this little corner of the internet, (but for some reason it's taking forever to get validated by the mods to post anything there.) I want to point you all to a series of other posts from last autumn for more Fall stuff. It's all the singles, Eps and various rarities that I have. Not complete by any stretch, but fairly comprehensive.
The Fall of the Fall started 9/22/17 and ran to 12/21/17.
I'll also gladly take it all down if asked by MES or his representatives. There's just too much great stuff not to share with people who will enjoy it.

Otherwise, poke around at some of the other stuff on here. Quite a few things that one may find appealing or at least interesting.

Thanks for your patronage]

Entrances uncovered

Here is a street sign you never saw for the final nail in the coffin of Autumn courtesy Winter.

So I was digging around looking for a different thing and came across this little Fall promotional gem again to put the proverbial cap on this extended exercise in self indulgence and the excess of being a fanboy. It's pretty rare, I suppose, all things considered. But still only likely to set you back ten bucks on Discogs.

 Selections from 'The Infotainment Scan' plus Crash Course '84-'92 (1992)

It's a promo disc of various tracks by the Fall from releases going back some seven or so years and chosen in a seemingly dart board fashion. These were somebody's favorites and certainly not the obvious choices that anybody actually avidly familiar with the  Fall's output might choose, but there you  have it. Decisions were made. And somebody thought them appropriate to attempt to generate some measure of excitement for "Infotainment Scan" which was in itself and to my mind not a particularly exciting Fall long player to begin with.

What makes it worth the digging that I did to score this gem is that there's an otherwise unavailable live recording of ""Rowche Rumble" as performed by the 1984 version of the band.

Perhaps you were there.

I'm pretty sure that this is the only place that's ever been heard. This show didn't show up in the dodgy series of live Fall releases. God knows how deep that well goes. (I suspect that the true number of existent live Fall recordings could rival the Grateful Dead without being a quarter so tedious.)


Life changing? Probably not. But not everybody's heard it or ever will. So it's got that going for  it

It's the penultimate post of Autumn.

Backdrop (1994)

Originating as a bootleg in 1994 this was a fucking wet dream for me as it was a compilation of a lot of those previously uncollected and unknown to me appearances by the Fall on odd records scattered across many years. Some of these things I still have yet to find or purchase, but thanks to Discogs are only a few mouseclicks from my possession should the mood strike me rather than having to spend years combing record bins in a search for an ever elusive copy.

I like living in the 21st Century.

Some stuff on here I've already posted because I had it. Other stuff not so. It's worth your time and an excellent capper on this silly bullshit that I've been foisting upon the world for the last three months.

Prepare yourself for actual Winter as set forth in the calendar

And take your fleecy jumper you won't need it anymore

So here too is where a couple of missing items that haven't exactly been burning a hole in my brain to fill, but are added to  my Discogs wantlist now, should go but aren't.

Someday, maybe....

Theme from Sparta F.C. (2004)

 A Football anthem for the ages. Somebody needs to start an actual Sparta F.C. just to use this song.

From the best Fall album of the 21st Century, so far. (the US version of "The Real New Fall Album (Formally 'Country on the Click', which is a superior remix of the UK version which in itself was a rerecording of the original lp "Country on the Click" which was scrapped for sucking.)

This also had a video file on it. You can watch it on Youtube. I don't feel like doing anymore uploading shit tonight.

How many of you are stable?

Rude All the Time (2001)

Originally released as a very limited 7" in 2001. Around the time of "Are You Missing Winner?" which was a pretty passable Fall release. (though not nearly as good as 2003's "The Real New Fall LP Formerly 'Country On The Click'" which is a stone cold Fall classic

This is the also limited Cd rerelease with a couple of extra tracks.

According to Discogs they are thus:

1	Distilled Mug Art (Mix 15)
2	"I Wake Up In The City" (Mix 5)
3	Where's The Fuckin Taxi? Cunt (Mix 17)
4	My Ex Classmates Kids (Mix 4)

If you smile you are a creep

Yeah, I know. It's not a compilation. 0 fucks to be had.

Touch Sensitive (1999)

The throbbing single from "Marshall  Suite" that failed to crack the Top 100 on the UK Charts (104) (though the lp itself made it to 59) I don't know, it's a pretty cracking song. There's no accounting for taste, I suppose.

If you’re dead so am I

It's 1999 and the final Fall lp of the 20th Century, "Marshall Suite"

F'Oldin' Money - blue (1999)

F'Oldin' Money - red (1999)

With the 20th Century drawing to a weary close and the Fall limping along with a completely different band for pretty much every release since 1995, MES prepared for the release of "Marshall Suite" with a pair of Cdeps based around (wait for it...) a cover of a song originally recorded by Tommy Blake for Sun Records in 1959. 

The red one would also include a bonus cover of "This Perfect Day" originally by Australian band, the Saints.

Also included were different mixes of "Marshall Suite" tracks including a "New Mix" of "Tom Ragazzi", a track that otherwise was only included in the original double lp vinyl version of the album (which is why I got it.) and which for some reason I can't quite fathom sellers on Discogs seem to feel is worth $200 or so. This one even got the triple disc reissue treatment in 2011.

I'm going to have to go back and listen to this one again a few times now... 

Ok, whatever.

Levitate bonus disc (1997)

Here it is anyway. I feel beneficent today.

The fifty percent interest Ran out today In Bolton

So there's a big jump in years here.
But there really wasn't much in terms of singles or Eps that were worth the time.
There was a 10" of three songs that were all on "Middle Class Revolt"
(a case could be made for 1996 single "The Chiselers" which was mixed into the much longer "Interlude/Chilinism" on Light User Syndrome, but I'm going to hold that in reserve should I need an extra post.)

Oh and in 1995 Mark E. shitcanned long time guitar player Craig Scanlon and while onstage in NYC in 1998 got into an onstage fist fight with equally long suffering drummer Karl Burns causing him, long standing bassist Steve Hanley  and guitarist Tommy Crooks to simultaneously quit and go home to London leaving MES to spend the night in jail after he got into an altercation with keyboard player Julia Nagle post-show.

Thanks to the wonders of the interwebs you can witness the event in question for yourself Live at Brownies, NYC, April 7, 1998 on the Youtubes. (Good times start around the 24 minute mark if you want to get to the incident in question.) In what speaks to the professionalism of the band, the still manage to come back on stage and seethe their way through the rest of the set before running out of fucks and leaving. Good on them.

So that leads us all the way up a few years to the very ass end of the 20th Century and 1998 with the forthcoming "Levitate"lp.

Masquerade cd one (1998)

Masquerade cd two (1998)

Here's the extra songs that will eventually make their way onto the Deluxe double disc reissue of "Levitate" should there ever be one.

 There may be, for some reason somebody thought enough of "Marshall Suite" to do one. (which boggles my mind a bit as I find it a rather weak Fall record).

 "Levitate" is certainly one of the better late 90's- early 00's Fall records so there is that.

Initial copies of "Levitate" also came with a bonus disc with some really odd things like an older live recording of a previously unreleased song called "Pilsner Trails" (ca. 1982) and yet another fucking Christmas fucking song.

If somebody asks nice, maybe I'll post that too.

(But nobody does, so I won't lose any sleep over it).

Stop eating all that chocolate Eat salad instead

Why are People Grudgeful? (1993)

Very strange sentiment from Mark E. who is not exactly widely known to be the forgive and forget type when it comes to people who he has feuded with. 

For a while the Fall were known to perform a song "Hey Marc Riley" after the former guitar player with whom he had a long standing mutual dislike. Each wrote nasty songs about the other with subsequent bands.

In 2007 the Fall released an album titled "Reformation Post TLC" in which the TLC stood for "traitors, liars and cunts..." in reference to the previous year's Fall band which had had enough of Mark E Smith's antics and quit mid-tour.

Maybe he was feeling a twinge or two at the time he wrote that (or at least trying hard to get the Fall a gig or two at some Rave Festival with Happy Mondays.)

Anyway. This little Ep (containing 0 covers!?) was released around the time of "Infotainment Scan" which I can honestly say is one of my least favorite Fall albums.

But I'm city born and bred. Too many car-fumes in my head

 Behind the Counter vol 1 (1993)

Behind the Counter vol 2 (1993)

A pair of Eps in anticipation of the upcoming "Middle Class Revolt" with a very stripped down Fall.

Volume One initially came in a double cd jewel case already set up so you would be able to easily slide in the second Volume when it came out a few weeks later. 

It may surprise you but there was a cover on it.

 "War" originally recorded by the avant-rock political group Henry Cow 

Plus you get another pleasant Fall Holiday Classic in "Happy Holiday" in what was becoming an incongruous and strange habit for someone so decidedly curmudgeonly as MES, but perhaps he was hoping to simply cash in on the season and make a bit of F'Oldin' Money or maybe he just loved Christmas and wanted to show it.

I feel it shouting at him from the flotarium and the cauldron or lectern of its love, baby

Volume 4 (1992)

Volume was a brief foray into an attempt to meld a Cd and and a Magazine. It would last 12 issues in this mixed format before becoming more or less an outlet for techno. This is the only issue I ever purchased. I wonder if you can figure out why.
Go ahead. I'll wait.

You guessed it, there's an exclusive Fall track on it called "Arid Al's Dream"
(The otherwise unavailable Pavement tune was just fucking gravy at the time.)

Otherwise it's a neat 1992 time capsule of the sounds bubbling under the surface of the mainstream which had finally discovered punk rock.

I'm a dippy dippy dippy dippy dooby man

Free Range (1992)

Here's that "Free Range" song again. Well, at least it's not another cover.

In "Everything Hurtz" he says:

"I got the disease tinnitus 
I'm speakin' like I've got Tourrette's
And everything hurts "

I didn't understand it at the time being still a relatively young buck, but damn I fully relate to it now another almost quarter century later.

 Everything does hurt.

We are not adults. We are crusty mystics

Ed's Babe (1992)

Apparently things had cooled down on the singles front for the Fall as there were neither any singles nor Eps for 1991. Perhaps everyone took an extended vacation or simply dark times and no cash to record. Both are equal possibilities, but I'm going to lean towards the latter.

So after a long bit of silence in Fall terms this came out.

I mean, with almost any other band if they didn't release anything for a year, nobody would think a thing of it, but the Fall had almost always had a brand new slab of hot wax, be it a full length, ep or merely a single to slap on your turntable every few months for the previous fifteen years. The neighbors were starting to talk.

Four songs No chaff.
One an alt mix of a song on the new forthcoming "Code Selfish" lp.

It was a good day.