Bastards

Well, it turned out to be a good gig last night, a good time was had by all, a few beers were enjoyed afterwards, and then I went home to find some bastard had broken in and nicked my laptop. I'm now sitting twiddling my thumbs waiting for the police to arrive. There wasn't anything crucial or irretrievable on it, and they didn't take anything else as far as I can see, so it could have been worse, but still: bastards.

Come to my concert!

so much excitement to talk about, so little time... so for now you'll have to make do with this (apologies to those not in London):

+++PIMP ALERT+++PIMP ALERT+++

Kensington Symphony Orchestra plays film music of the 80s and 90s
Queen Elizabeth Hall, 15th January, 7.30
And if you fancy a drink afterwards, come to the Mulberry Bush. If you see a speccy bloke with a cello, say hello, 'cause it's probably me.

Daniel Johnston

Last night I watched The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a documentary tracing the career of this singer-songwriter, who's become something of a cult figure, namechecked by many prominent figures in the American indie/alternative scene (you can read about him here). I found it fascinating, but also unsettling. There is one very important fact about Johnston that colours any discussion of him - the fact that he has for many years suffered from Bi-polar disorder, and has had to be hospitalised periodically due to psychotic episodes.

As I watched people queue up to testify to his talent I found myself thinking of two other mentally ill musicians who have been brought to public attention: Wild Man Fischer, who was championed by Frank Zappa, among others, and the Australian pianist David Helfgott, whose story was dramatised/romanticised in the film Shine.

Fall marathon 8: Cerebral Caustic

Cerebral Caustic got some decidedly iffy reviews when it came out, as I recall, although I also remember that no two reviewers seemed to agree which tracks were good and which weren't, which may say something. At the time it seemed like an unusually retrograde step, away from the electro influences that pervaded the early '90s albums and back towards the krautabilly sound of early-mid 80s Fall. This may not be unconnected with the entirely unexpected reappearance of Brix.

As it happens, there is a clear return to the pop riffs of Smith(L.E.)'s first stint with the group, but there's a lot more noise and distortion layered over the top, which gives a combative feel to proceedings. I can't help but think that there must have been some unresolved issues between the former Mr & Mrs Smith, as there seems to be a recurring theme of sparring between the two through most of this record, most extremely in "Bonkers at Phoenix", where an out-and-out bubblegum song sung by Brix is overlayed with extreme electronic dissonance and M.E.S.'s barbed comments on the festival scene.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing, and the sense of retreading old ground that made this a slightly disappointing outing first time round has receded with time, so much that I feel inclined to declare this record a Neglected Gem. Not to mention that it has a damn fine title, and an excellent picture on the cover. And how can you not like an album which includes the line "On TV today somebody claimed their dog had been molested by a textile chemist"?

Jesus Christ!

Mark E. Smith is to play Jesus on telly!

Fall marathon 7: The Frenz Experiment/ I Am Kurious, Oranj/ Extricate/ Shift-Work/ Code: Selfish/ The Infotainment Scan/ Middle Class Revolt

Frenz=Friendly? The Frenz Experiment seems on the surface to take the Fall sound into a more mainstream, even chart-friendly place (it's even got a hit single on it!). It's not that simple, of course.

Slightly un-nerving that "Athlete Cured" shares a riff with Spinal Tap's "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock you tonight".

This isn't one of my favourite Fall albums, really. Not that it's bad, it just seems a bit too polished for my taste. It's got a vibe that could almost be described as amiable (almost!).

I Am Kurious, Oranj, on the other hand, crackles with malevolance. I guess the ballet theme got M.E.S. worked up good and proper, not least in his corruscating take on "Jerusalem". Add in such delights as the title track's warped reggae, and the reworking of "Hip Priest"'s line "He is not appreciated" into a battle cry, and you've got a splendid album, perhaps smaller in scope than a typical Fall record, but none the worse for that.

I'm trying (somewhat perversely) to avoid talking about lyrics in these posts, but there's no escaping the fact that Extricate was recorded in the aftermath of M.E.S.'s split from Brix, and there's a bilious quality that comes from that. I see the Amazon review reckons tht the Brix/pop influence disappears here, but I don't think I'd agree with that - it's certainly more abrasive than "The Frenz Experiment", but there are plenty of hooks there. Once again the Fall are ahead of the pack in their collaboration with Coldcut. And there's some wonderful humour amongst the bile, not least Smith's explanation of the origin of the title "I'm Frank". I've always loved this record, and it's still a corker.

Falling as it does btween two of my favourite albums, Shift-Work has always slightly fallen between the gaps in my perception too, as it were. So it's good to return to it and be reminded just how much good stuff there is on it, ranging from the angry (Idiot Joy Showland), the funny (A Lot of Wind) to the tender and moving (Edinburgh Man, Rose). Anyone who thinks the Fall are just about beligerence and bloody-mindedness should listen to these last two in particular. This album came out in the middle of the "Madchester" scene, and effortlessly appropriates those beats while surpassing the young upstarts. Overall, though, I can't shake the feeling tht this sounds like a transitional record.

I make no excuse for loving Code:Selfish purely for the reason that it has a song that namechecks Birmingham (albeit not in a flattering manner - though what else wopuld you expect?!). The electronic sound that has ben developing through the previous two albums blosoms here, and what you have is a dance-rock album, but about a million times better than such a thing has any right to be. Bizarrely, I found myself thinking of Bob Dylan when listening to "Just Waiting", not a connection I've made before. This album's obligatory field recording, "Crew Filth", appears at the end, which seems unusual in that I'd expect such a "difficult" track to be put in the middle where it's harder to skip. "Free Range" is as fine a single as The Fall have ever released, and retains its relevance in our world of continuing misadventures in Iraq, sad to say.

The last three albums were released by Fontana, but the label then sacked the band, who responded by scoring a top 10 hit with the first single from their next, The Infotainment Scan. This is where the dance/rave experiments blossom fully, industrial-strength production giving the whole album a meaty feel. It also features possibly their most unlikely cover version, Sister Sledge's "Lost In Music". Probably the nearest the Fall ever came to a party album.





Middle Class Revolt seems to take a step back from the dance influence, there are several songs here (e.g. "Hey! Student") that mark a big swing back to the rockabilly influenced side of the Fall. I remember being slighty disappointed with this at the time, partly due to the version of "M5", which I thought wasn't really a patch on the version they'd done for a Peel session the previous year. It sounds better thanI remember (although I still think the Peel version was better!), but there are moments on the album that feel slightly like Fall by numbers.

Cet homme charmant

Morrissey is apparently in talks to represent the U.K. at the next Eurovision Song Contest. This news fills me with a strange delight, even though I've never much cared for his post-Smiths career. Still, any source of a smile is good after this debacle.

Exciting news! My new viola piece will be performed very soon, details to follow soon.

Sound vs. Noise (2)

Today's experiment: Is it possible to filter out the inane twittering surrounding one, or at least abstract it so it becomes an ignorable background noise? It's got to be worth a try, anyway. I suspect this will require either an heroic effort or an heroic passivity.

In other news, I see that new science minister Malcolm Wicks has been busy demonstrating what an ignorant fucking cock he is. I hope all you teachers are brushing up on the real-life science of sonic screwdrivers.

Sound vs. Noise

So, one day of the new scene completed and I'm still sane, just about. I feel bad moaning about these people - it's not that I don't like them or anything. I just wish they'd shut up for 5 minutes. Maybe in time I'll settle down, feel less disorientated and get used to it. Or maybe this is a hint that it's time to find another job. Come lunchtime, I rushed out of the office and tried to find somewhere quiet to eat my lunch, not an easy task. I find myself longing increasingly for quiet, and increasingly aware of how difficult it is to find it. There's something uniquely irritating about unwanted noise, I think it's because you can avert your eyes from something you don't want to look at, but you can't avert your ears. I was looking at one of those mp3 players with noise cancelling headphones on some website or other the other day. Trouble with that is that it's still using music just as a blanket to smother the rest of the world, something I heartily disapprove of on the whole, and also it just cancels out everything. When I'm on the tube, I don't mind the noise of the train and the like, I rather enjoy listening to ambient noise like that (yeah, I know, weirdo). What really grates with me is the tinny hiss leaking from earphones. I suppose it's because it's something imposed upon the situation rather than arising from it. What I need is something that can selectively cancel out the noise I don't want to hear, and leave the sounds I want to listen to.

Id like to be tremendously Buddha-like and decide to choose to accept and listen to whatever sounds happen to reach my ears as simply part of the world. it's not easy to achieve that level of enlightenment on the Central Line at 8.30 in the morning, though.

Fall marathon 6: This Nation's Saving Grace / Bend Sinister

I've always thought of This Nation's Saving Grace as being in a continuum with Wonderful & Frightening World, with TNSG being maybe the less poppy side of TWAFW's sound world. However, listening to them now, they sound almost the opposite. WAF has more obvious "pop" elements in its makeup, but the way they're put together, caked on top of one another, drenched in dischord, makes it seem much more abrasive than I remember, wheras TNSG, while it doesn't trade quite so obviously on pop riffs and the like, has a sparser, more warmly recorded sound, that would remind you of Can even if there wasn't a song on it called "I am Damo Suzuki".




Bend Sinister occupies a place somewhere between the two, more pop hooks again, but with the sparser sound of "Nation". And unlikely electro influences in "U.S. 80's-90's". Although I should know by now that nothing's unlikely with The Fall. With the benefit of hindsight, "Terry Waite Sez" seems an unfortunately mis-timed gag, but bollocks to hindsight, it was funny at the time.

This period is probably the most stable the Fall ever had in terms of line-up. It's difficult to know how much this contributes to the consistency of these albums. I suspect there may be a connection between this and the way Smith's working methods changed later, but I'll come back to that on another occasion.

Post festivities

Well, that's that for another year. I find as I get older that I've less and less time for the forced jollity of Christmas, and find myself in the ironic position of really just doing it for the parents, as I guess they once did it just for my sake. It's a week off work, true, but so much time is spent on an endless round of social/family visits that you get no time for yourself, and end up feeling exhausted and enervated from too much crap food, booze and small talk. I also find myself getting more and more annoyed by the whole present thing, the spending of money on things no-one really wants. I used to think getting something that someone had asked for/ had put on a wish list represented a failure of imagination, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that unless you really have a brilliant idea of your own, you shouldn't bother with anything else. I got two books this year that I know I'm never going to read. Not because they're not perfectly decent books, but they're just too damn big, certainly not the kind of thing to be carried on public transport, which is almost the only place I have time to read these days. When I was a student I might have been interested enough to dig my way through Prokofiev's student diaries, but now I can't persuade myself that it matters enough to bother. There seem to be many more important things to occupy my time. Not least actually listening to his music. And while a zipperobe in the shape of the Tardis seemed funny for about 5 minutes, I rapidly found myself reflecting that a) it was going to be a pain in the arse to get home, b) I don't have room for it and c) I don't need it, as I have a proper wardrobe. And at a time when I'm pretty desperately short of money, I can't help but think that the no doubt considerable amount that was spent on what is essentially a joke present could have been more profitably used to get me stuff that I would have got for myself, and kept me a little less in debt.

Anyway, back to work today. We rotate specific duties once a year in my office, and due to the differing space needed by different roles this means I will also have to move desk, where I will be surrounded by the 2 most talkative people in the office. I am now wondering if there's any way I can politely say "Actually, while you find everything your children do fascinating, I don't. I especially don't find them interesting first thing in the morning, when my foremost desire is to drink my coffee and talk as little as possible. I also don't consider the fact that we both own bicycles to be an adequate basis for extended conversation. And I'm not that interested in pictures of rabbits, either. Please shut up."
I think this year I will be mostly wearing headphones. With very loud music coming through them.

Still, mustn't grumble, eh? Happy New Year!

Fall marathon 5: Perverted By Language/ The Wonderful & Frightening World of The Fall

I've always had a problematic relationship with Perverted By Language. It's highly regarded by many, and, hey, it has "Eat Y'self Fitter" on it, which is marvellous, of course. But there's something about it that doesn't quite gel for me. I guess it feels like a transitional album, the stabbing atonal sound of "Hex Enduction Hour" and "Room To Live" is being left behind - rightly, I think, one of the Fall's best aspects has always been their ability to avoid becoming routine - but the poppier sound that emerged once they signed to Beggar's Banquet hasn't really emerged (albeit there are traces, not entirely unconnected to the fact that this marks Brix's appearance in the line-up) and it feels slightly unfocused to me. There's a lot to enjoy, but somehow it comes out less than the sum of its parts. As far as I know I'm the only person who thinks this, mind.

The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall, on the other hand, marks a real paradigm shift for the band, with its gloriously skewed take on transatlantic guitar pop. It's all great stuff, though I have a particular fondness for "Bug Day", which is pure bubblegum laced with something definitely mind-altering. "Elves" is clearly a rip-off of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by the Stooges, but it doesn't matter at all. I love that. Plus the CD has a load of singles bunged on too, including the mighty 7'51" version of "No Bulbs", a song I could happily play over and over again, and occasionally have, much to the consternation of neighbours.

Happy Christmas!

I'm sitting in the office drinking wine, which is how things should be. I'll be off to Birmingham for a few days in a bit, where I shall divide my time between paying respect to the aged parents, listening to the Fall, putting up Christmas decorations and over-indulging. And sleeping. Plenty of sleeping. Back in a week or so. Happy Christmas to all my loyal readers (both of you)!

The perils of Christmas parties.

So, we met up in the pub, then went on to the restaurant, I took my place, took off my coat, removed my jumper, and one of the lenses fell out of my glasses because a screw had fallen out. I scrabbled around on the floor, but had to accept that it was gone and I'd be spending the rest of the evening squinting. Now I must wear my old specs that make me look like Harry Potter. On the other hand, I get to spend my lunch hour tomorrow trying to find an optician who's prepared to give me a screw. Innuendo always makes things seem better.

Booze and work - the fatal combination

I have had the definite feeling lately that there is one week too many before Christmas. Surely work should have stopped last week?

The season of too many nights out on the sauce is upon us. I shall be a physical wreck by next week, even more than usual. Tonight is the Work Meal. I fear for my liver.

Fall marathon 4: Room To Live

"Room To Live - Undilutable Slang Truth!" is an album I only heard for the first time a year or so ago. My mate Jason, who got me into The Fall, didn't have the album (the only one he didn't have) and it was long out of print, so until it was finally re-released last year it remained a mythical, reputedly un-listenably obscuritan beast. Which of course is a red rag to a bull as far as I'm concerned.

Now, the line-up for this album is essentially the same as "Hex Enduction Hour" (quite unusual for the Fall) and it was recorded hot on the heels of that album, so it's no surprise to find a lot of the same dense, angular feel of that album. And Smith's lyrical concerns are certainly obtuse, even for him. What's more surprising listening to it now is that it seems to be an idiosyncratic take on easy-listening music. joker Hysterical Face and Marquis Cha-Cha in particular coming across like Lounge-core from Hell. Hard Life In Country starts off as another mantra-drone minimalist Fall track, but is embellished by a guitar line which wouldn't be altogether out of place on a Spandau Ballet song. The effect of this funky disco strumming set against the oppressive repetitiveness of the rest of the song is extraordinarily disorientating, and coupled to Smith's paranoid lyrics the overall effect is one of claustrophobia. "Room To Live" is in classic Fall-rockabilly vein, but with the sort of john Barry-esque cimbalom flourishes that would later become familiar from Portishead. "Detective Instinct" is just terrifying! Solicitor in Studio comes across like an evil Madness. "Papal Visit" is not really like anything else you'd be likely to hear on a pop album, and almost seems like "anti-music"; Smith has suggested that at the time this record was meant as a two-fingered salute to the record industry (and possibly a farewell), which explains that, I guess.

Probably not the Fall's finest hour, but a neglected and underrated gem, I think.

A mild surprise

Torchwood wasn't shit last night. Is this because it was better or because my expectations have dropped that much further? This conundrum can be expressed by the equation a=e(r/e), where a represents appreciation, e represents expectation, and r represents reality. Thus, a high expectation combined with a disappointing reality will lead to a lower satisfaction than something you expect to be a steaming pile of dog shit, which turns out not to be as bad as you thought it'd be. This equation explains why it's possible to gain more enjoyment from an above-par episode of a crap sitcom than a quality period drama adaptation that's as good as, but no better, than you expected.

Unrelated: There's a post by Shane MacGowan on the Guardian blogs today noting the anniversary of the death of Kirsty MacColl. I was listening to some of her songs with Cheerful One on Saturday night. Life's full of little coincidences, not always happy.

Fall marathon 3: Hex Enduction Hour

There's a moment during Hex Enduction Hour that seems like an encapsulation of everything that's great about this record. we're at the end of the near 8 minute lanquid spinning of "Hip Priest", which fades away, to be replaced by... a bontempi organ beat. This is wildly incongruous, and very funny. That is then swamped by a fierec guitar attack reminiscent of the Magic Band or Zappa, which then seques into a driving garage beat, before ending up in the same territory as the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray", wailing organ and all. And this all happens in the space of about 2 minutes. But without ever sounding like anyone other than the Fall.

This is the sound of a band on the verge of combustion, the savagery and violence of the invective on opener "The Classical" palpable. There's a story that, incredibly, The Fall almost signed for Motown during this period. It never happened, and you have to wonder what they made of the tape they were sent of this, Mark E. Smith spitting out such user-friendly lines as "Where are the obligatory niggers? Hey there, Fuck Face! Hey there Fuck Face!" As he spews out bile in the general direction of British pop culture. "Jawbone and the Air-Rifle" adopts a wryer tone... "Who'd have thought they would do harm?" asks Smith in a mild tone that belies the subject matter of war and violence. "Hip Priest" was memorably used in "The Silence of the Lambs", and it's easy to see why, its languid spinning paranoia and mantra-like delivery providing a chilling contrast to what's gone before. That's what this record's about, really - long quiet, bleak expanses punctuated by sudden violent, frenzied activity, often laced with black humour. It's like a cut-up presentation of the Apocalypse.

By the time we get to "Iceland" it feels we're on the other side of the universe from "The Classical", floating in a sparse and pallid landscape.

Then we're abruptly dragged into "And This Day", a relentless march that takes us further beyond. it makes me think of those characters of lovecraft, abandoned in the antarctic wastes, attempting to articulate the undescribable majestical horrors they have witnessed. Ai Cthuhlu! An appropriate reaction, I think, considering thast at the time the band thought this might be their final album. If it had all imploded, this would have been one hell of an exit. There's so much depth to this record, compared to the vapid posturing that makes up so many bands' output. It's a record that needs to exist.

Fall marathon 2: Grotesque/Slates

One thing that keeps coming to mind as I go through these early albums, which isn't something generally associated with The Fall, is how much they groove. Everyone knows about the more angular influences - 60s garage rock, Beefheart, Can, etc. - but it's too easily forgotten that they come as much from a background of Northern Soul (and attendant amphetamine culture), and those kind of influences can be discerned in tracks like "C'n'C-s Mithering" from their third album, "Grotesque (after the Gramme)". Smith's caustic sense of humour seems to come more to the fore on this album, through such songs as "The Container Drivers" and "English Scheme", where barbed comments on the UK music scene reveal another of his perennial bugbears. All the elements from the first two albums seem to click into a greater whole on this album,

and the result is their most satisfying long-playing outing so far.

"Slates" is, strictly speaking, an E.P. rather than an album, but it's one of my favourite Fall records, so I certainly wasn't going to skip it. I remember an interview with Steve Albini In one of the inky music papers where he named it as a favourite album, describing it as "a weird band at their weirdest", and that certainly holds true, not just for the angular, atonal guitar stabs in opener "Middle Mass", but the surprisingly emotional "An Older Lover etc", as well as the heartfelt "Leave the Capitol". it's only 6 songs long, but this is as substantial a record as any they've made, and I'm tempted to say it's the first truly essential Fall record, one that belongs in everybody's collection, whether they're interested in the Fall or not. And it prepares the way for an absolutely blinding record, which is next on my pile...

The Fall marathon, part 1

The Fall, who are just about my favourite band in the world, have a new album out in February. In celebration, I have decide to listen to every Fall studio album between now and then in chronological order. Today I listened to their first album, "Live At The Witch Trials", and the follow up, "Dragnet".

What's remarkable about these two albums is how complete the Fall were right from the start. There's no sense of finding feet, the sound's pretty much right there from the off. "Witch Trials" has some superficial similarity with the nascent post-punk scene (e.g. P.i.L.), but the soul of it is entirely Fall-ish, Mark E. Smith's idiosyncratic vision apparently emerging fully formed. One thing that does startle after so many years not hearing this early stuff is how clear Smith's enunciation is compared to the bilious drawl he's latterly adopted - not that that makes understanding his oblique lyrics much easier.

It's worth noting that by the time they recorded their debut album, the Fall had already been through several of the line-up changes that would become a recurring feature of their career.

Some people think all the fall's records sound the same, but then again some people think all Haydn's music sounds the same, and they're wrong too. "Dragnet", made within a year, sees the band determined to push forward and avoid repeating themselves - an admirable attitude that many bands now would do well to note. So the sound here is denser and more intense, with a harder, rockabilly-inspired edge coming to the fore. There's even an oblique nod of the hat to the disco craze of the time, evident in "Psykick Dancehall". If the core influences of '60s garage bands aren't quite as deeply ingrained as they were to become, there's always Smith's voice to lend the distinctive tone. And the grinding paranoia of "Before the Moon Falls" and "Spectre vs. Rector" needles its way into the skull in a way that many more recent bands would love to be able to do.

When I first decided to dig out these old records, I wondered how well they'd come up after all these years. I'm happy to report that they sound wonderful, incredibly fresh, and with a grating lo-fi sound that sounds positively subversive in these super-smooth digital times.

As Smith says in the intro of the excellent live album "Totales' Turns" from this era, "The difference between you and us is that we have brains!"