Music Banter - View Single Post - An Infinite Number Of Things That Pisses Me Off About Music

Urban Hat€monger ? · 10-12-2008, 09:32 AM

7 : The Fall

Bet you weren't expecting to see them here.

As a fan of The Fall I am in a constant turmoil. You see there are times when I listen to the band and I really wish they were more like a conventional band. I would love nothing more to see Mark E Smith go out and do a tour where he plays a greatest hits set , records it properly and releases it as a double live album instead of having a constant stream of badly recorded live stuff that only covers about 2 or 3 albums. I wondered why it was that I should have so few Fall bootlegs considering I love the band so much. And then I realised it was because Smith has pretty much released them all officially.
Smith doesn't do looking back into the past. The Fall's live shows are dominated by whatever 2 albums they just recorded plus a load of stuff you won't here till the next album comes out. But he'll tease you by throwing in one classic from the past. Recently it was 'Wings' off Perverted By Language , before that it was 'The Man Who's Head Expanded' and he's been known to throw in 'New Big Prinz' off the Kurious Oranj album as well. It's like teasing you with scraps , he knows people really want to hear this stuff but to him it's what he's doing now thats important , and so it should be. I'd also love to see him do some collaborations , some of the stuff he's done with other people has been brilliant , but he's never done it with The Fall. The whole beauty of the Fall is him finding these musicians off the street , throwing them into the band without even bothering with auditions or practice and just see what happens. It might sound amateurish or ramshackle but it makes them still one of the most spontaneous & compelling bands around still even after 30 years.

But the biggest irony in all this is if they were ever to become a more conventional band it would destroy everything that is special about the band. It would stop them being most uncompromising & unique band around and it would stop them being everything that they go against.
And that is the most frustrating thing at all.

10-12-2008, 09:32 AM	#1249 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	7 : The Fall Bet you weren't expecting to see them here. As a fan of The Fall I am in a constant turmoil. You see there are times when I listen to the band and I really wish they were more like a conventional band. I would love nothing more to see Mark E Smith go out and do a tour where he plays a greatest hits set , records it properly and releases it as a double live album instead of having a constant stream of badly recorded live stuff that only covers about 2 or 3 albums. I wondered why it was that I should have so few Fall bootlegs considering I love the band so much. And then I realised it was because Smith has pretty much released them all officially. Smith doesn't do looking back into the past. The Fall's live shows are dominated by whatever 2 albums they just recorded plus a load of stuff you won't here till the next album comes out. But he'll tease you by throwing in one classic from the past. Recently it was 'Wings' off Perverted By Language , before that it was 'The Man Who's Head Expanded' and he's been known to throw in 'New Big Prinz' off the Kurious Oranj album as well. It's like teasing you with scraps , he knows people really want to hear this stuff but to him it's what he's doing now thats important , and so it should be. I'd also love to see him do some collaborations , some of the stuff he's done with other people has been brilliant , but he's never done it with The Fall. The whole beauty of the Fall is him finding these musicians off the street , throwing them into the band without even bothering with auditions or practice and just see what happens. It might sound amateurish or ramshackle but it makes them still one of the most spontaneous & compelling bands around still even after 30 years. But the biggest irony in all this is if they were ever to become a more conventional band it would destroy everything that is special about the band. It would stop them being most uncompromising & unique band around and it would stop them being everything that they go against. And that is the most frustrating thing at all. __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.