Music Banter - View Single Post - MB Classics: The Fall

rostasi · 01-12-2018, 01:54 PM

My life-long love affair with The Fall began, somewhat, after hearing DJ Bobby Skafish playing “Bingo-Master’s Break-Out!” and, later “How I Wrote ‘Elastic Man’” on his radio show on WXRT in Chicago, but it didn’t become full-fledged until “Grotesque (After the Gramme)” and the 10” “Slates” EP came into the tiny record distributor HQ I was working at beginning in 1980.

In ’81, the radio station I had a show at recorded them during their US tour; with it later being released on the album “A Part of America Therein, 1981.” This turned out to be my first time seeing them live (July, 1981). Well over a dozen more live shows would follow with my devotion to the greatest rock band ever, not waning as I amassed over 200 items related to The Fall - audio, video, books, t-shirts - since those days.

Yes, my admiration sometimes decreases when it comes to the alcoholic ramblings, mischief and the recent old-man-drunkard “whaaaa?” of MES, but the musicians he chooses nearly always come thru in amazing ways. Even the Brix era, of which this album is a part of [therein], had many a joyful moments that really, genuinely, seemed to bring MES into a state of mind where he appeared happier with life. [An aside: meeting Laura (“Brix”) during this time did not make me think she was some bubble-headed blond that many of the ego-bruised male fans said she was]. Yeah, the album starts off with her “variation” on a Deviants tune, but this was the era of the homage thru catchy melodies and choruses, slight gothicisms and less-soiled productions that could produce loyalty and adoration beholden to, for instance, Can’s “Oh Yeah” and “Don’t Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone” and “Vitamin C” all in one song. There has always been room for seemingly throwaway chance elements on Fall albums and here we have the accidental tape erasure in a hotel room as a break-brake in self-ruminations during "Paint Work.”

So many beautiful conceptual layers in the, often, brilliant lyrics - even in the lesser Fall albums - make them such a joy and wonderment each time they’re heard. MES’ Northern musings as Finnegans Wake from a Salford typewriter. Rhyming couplets are often just plain forced, unnatural and lazy-minded. Maybe there is something to living too late?

01-12-2018, 01:54 PM	#14 (permalink)
rostasi . Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 4,007	My life-long love affair with The Fall began, somewhat, after hearing DJ Bobby Skafish playing “Bingo-Master’s Break-Out!” and, later “How I Wrote ‘Elastic Man’” on his radio show on WXRT in Chicago, but it didn’t become full-fledged until “Grotesque (After the Gramme)” and the 10” “Slates” EP came into the tiny record distributor HQ I was working at beginning in 1980. In ’81, the radio station I had a show at recorded them during their US tour; with it later being released on the album “A Part of America Therein, 1981.” This turned out to be my first time seeing them live (July, 1981). Well over a dozen more live shows would follow with my devotion to the greatest rock band ever, not waning as I amassed over 200 items related to The Fall - audio, video, books, t-shirts - since those days. Yes, my admiration sometimes decreases when it comes to the alcoholic ramblings, mischief and the recent old-man-drunkard “whaaaa?” of MES, but the musicians he chooses nearly always come thru in amazing ways. Even the Brix era, of which this album is a part of [therein], had many a joyful moments that really, genuinely, seemed to bring MES into a state of mind where he appeared happier with life. [An aside: meeting Laura (“Brix”) during this time did not make me think she was some bubble-headed blond that many of the ego-bruised male fans said she was]. Yeah, the album starts off with her “variation” on a Deviants tune, but this was the era of the homage thru catchy melodies and choruses, slight gothicisms and less-soiled productions that could produce loyalty and adoration beholden to, for instance, Can’s “Oh Yeah” and “Don’t Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone” and “Vitamin C” all in one song. There has always been room for seemingly throwaway chance elements on Fall albums and here we have the accidental tape erasure in a hotel room as a break-brake in self-ruminations during "Paint Work.” So many beautiful conceptual layers in the, often, brilliant lyrics - even in the lesser Fall albums - make them such a joy and wonderment each time they’re heard. MES’ Northern musings as Finnegans Wake from a Salford typewriter. Rhyming couplets are often just plain forced, unnatural and lazy-minded. Maybe there is something to living too late?