The unsettling world of Mark E Smith
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With sinking hearts, we note the threat of two more Receiver releases:
Oxymoron: Contains "previously unreleased material", a mixture
of live and studio tracks, including Powder Keg, White Lines,
Pearl City, Hostile, Glam Racket, He Pep. Release Date: 27-Oct-97
Cheetham Hill: incl. Time Enough At Last, Free Range, Chiselers,
Spinetrak, Oleano. Release Date: 24-Nov-97
From an interview in The Times:
The Fall play live at Dublin Mean Fiddler, Nov 6; Belfast Empire Music
Hall, Nov 7; London Forum, Dec 5. Mark E. Smith plays 333, London EC1,
Oct 10 (DJ-ing?).
The Forum, Kentish Town, London on Friday 5 December: tickets 12 quid
from 0171 344 0044 (credit card, probably booking fee). A band member told
someone after the Dingwalls gig that they would be playing dates in Manchester,
Edinburgh, Glasgow "after we get back from the States". Make of that what
you will.
Here's a recent MES interview from The Guardian. Another one from The Times of 4 Oct.
Band at Dingwalls: Smith, Hanley, Burns, Nagle, Crooks (additional arsehole played by Michael Clark)
Line-up on Levitate:
MES: vocals, keyboard
S. Hanley: bass
J. Nagle: keyboards, guitar, programming, arranging
S. Wolstencroft: Drums
K. Burns: Drums
Andy Hackett: Guitar (ex-Rockingbirds?)
Tommy Crooks: Guitar
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indie Dingwalls review 26 Sep 1997
The unsettling world of Mark E Smith
The Fall
Dingwalls, London
It's widely accepted that if you marshalled all the musicians who
have ever been influenced by The Fall into a field and dropped a
bomb on them, the industry would be left with only Celine Dion
and a session guitarist from Pinner called Kevin. If only
originality and daring translated into sales: then the band's
mastermind Mark E Smith would have been indulging in acts of
bacchanalian excess on the shores of his own Caribbean Island
this week. Instead, The Fall were playing the matchbox-sized
Dingwalls, where they frightened the bejeesus out of an audience
who had quite reasonably expected that two decades of this
nasty, absurd and audacious band would have diminished the
element of surprise. No chance.
It remains one of the strangest and most unsettling gigs I have
ever seen, and I speak as someone who has sat through the
encores at a Roxette concert. The Fall are a cryptogram, a
90mph collision between order and chaos. They may appear to
be drunken brickies having a stab at performance art but their
ramshackle stage manner cannot conceal a muscular musical
prowess tight as a drum skin. The songs come at you at full pelt;
the brutal thump of the rhythm section could crack ribs. The
temptation to wheel out a greatest hits set is resisted, though
favourites such as "Idiot Joy Showland" and "Lie Dream of a
Casino Soul" are greeted like death-row reprieves. Mostly, we
get songs from the new album Levitate, like "Ten Houses of
Eve", the world's first jungle ballad. Throughout, Smith rents
and gurgles into the microphone, his Alsatian tongue slurping
over a Rumpelstiltskin face that's as gnarled as an old oak.
The first thing he does when he walks on stage is slam his hand
on the keyboard which Julia Nagle is valiantly attempting to
play. Then he interferes with the guitarist's fretwork. During
the
final encore, "New Big Prinz", which is more of a bulldozer than
a song, he carefully positions an electric fan on the snare drum,
while the drummer carries on playing is though this is the most
natural thing in the world. Not bizarre enough? Then here is
the
ballet dancer Michael Clark with a nappy pin in one ear, laying
on and under a chair that he will later hurl into the audience.
Although it is the occasion of'The Fall's 20th anniversary. there
will be no limited edition CD-Rom to celebrate. Wednesday's
show was heartening because the band did not pause to reflect on
the past; they utilised every second to prove why they still exist.
Why they have to exist. They are our Modern Lovers, our Frank
Zappa. We should continue to give them our time and money as
long as they keep throwing things at us: chairs, insane ideas, our
own preconceptions.
Ryan Gilbey
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/97/10/04/timmetmms02001.html?1026402
He hates The Verve, likes 2 Unlimited, and thinks we're
heading for a
police state. Mark E. Smith shares a few conspiracy theories
with
Charlie Porter
E BY GLUM: Mark E. Smith's chaos theory "The song
words are wrong,
but they are right in spirit"David Pearson
Photograph: DAVID PEARSON
The Fall guy
It would suit Mark E. Smith to have his image as an old
misery
perpetuated. There is a story of the singer's tetchy behaviour
for
almost every week in the 18-year recording history of
his band, The
Fall. Only a fortnight ago, he was alleged to have stubbed
a cigarette
out in the face of a Loaded journalist who did not meet
with his
favour.
However, sitting in a pub in west London, he is a gentleman,
getting
to his feet and bowing his head as he shakes your hand,
his body small
and compact. He has a smile which is not a grin or a gesture,
but
denotes a continuing fascination with what is going on
around him.
"Ideas matter," he says, his voice level, "opinions matter
to me. I'm
very anti-musician. Musicians go into the studio and say
'oh, that
should have been like that'. I don't, I go and do the
washing-up."
Smith has been opposed to musicians ever since he formed
The Fall in
1977 as a teenage Mancunian bored of his desk job in the
docks. The
ramshackle sound they made heralded the tail end of punk,
and came to
be known as "garage". But while the other amateur garage
bands stopped
making noise, Smith has never tired of creating original,
chaotic
music over and again. By sticking to his unique vision,
he steered
post-punk music into Eighties indie, influencing everyone
from The
Smiths to The Wedding Present.
He also cast a spell over independent American spirits
such as Sonic
Youth, Pavement and Hole. He says he is 59, though a more
accurate
estimate puts his age at around 40.
"If bands split up it makes me laugh," he says. "When
we started all
the groups were 22, like they are now. We were 16. All
these so-called
outrageous groups go to college, then they start their
bands, and by
the time they're 35 they are accountants." This is not
meant as an
insult, just a fact of life. Anyway, one of Smith's three
sisters is
an accountant.
Smith's unconcealed distaste for music industry ethics
has led him to
remain living in Manchester, where he has created 29 albums
in under
two decades. This is an average of one every seven months,
the last
being the widely ignored Light Users Syndrome. The 30th,
Levitate, has
just been released 14 songs of what at first sounds
like spontaneous
lunacy, but then reveals itself to be considered and controlled.
To
his ear, chaos is the best noise you can get.
"Three quarters of the songs on Levitate have been worked
out over two
years," he says. "They've been driving me mad, actually.
Two years in
the back of my brain. But when it comes to recording,
a lot of the
vocals only take me ten minutes. Half the time the words
are wrong,
but they are right in spirit." This is why his songs are
like everyday
talk. If they don't come out perfectly, which they rarely
do, then
that is how it happened, and that is how it has to be.
Along the way as ambassador for The Fall, Smith, with
original members
Karl Burns and Steven Harley plus relative newcomer Julie
Nagle, has
embraced new technologies and forms of music. He is not
pretending he
is young again, but realises that synthesisers and drum
machines have
a lot of scope for making his beloved noise. Indeed, he
has no respect
for what is supposed to be cool.
"The Verve? It's Genesis, isn't it?" He laughs, and snaps
his head
back so hard he looks close to dislocating his spine.
"You're not
meant to say that, are you? People will think you are
jealous of them.
I put 2 Unlimited on. F***ing much more rebellious. You'd
think The
Verve were a school youth project for Open University,
wouldn't you.
Well wouldn't you?"
He is deadly serious, as he is about most things. The
uninitiated may
think the topics of his songs are random and wayward.
But barely
concealed is a continuing batch of depressing reports
on the decline
of Britain. "Some East German friends of mine were round
my house last
week," he says. "They can't believe it. They think we're
the last Iron
Curtain country in the world."
Smith is clearly no admirer of Tony Blair. "I think it's
horrific. Get
a computer on every desk, you are the same as your Prime
Minister, he
is the same as you. It reminds East Germans of when they
were ten. In
the old Czechoslovakia, there was a time when all the
decent Czech
groups and artists were in concentration camps, while
the guys who did
sub-AC/DC records went and met the President." And look
which two
mouthy boys have helped Blair ensnare the youth vote .
. .
This may seem far-fetched, but Mark E. Smith is not a
dumb conspiracy
theorist. He has had many bull's-eyes with the truth,
most memorably
on his 1992 album Code: Selfish, where he accurately predicted
the
current curious mix of paranoia and apathy that surrounds
the brave
new world of the European Economic Union.
"We've got security guards going down the street and you
don't know
who they work for. You think, 'but I'm an Englishman'.
There was this
poll of 19-year-olds recently, and they didn't know who
John Prescott
was. They all voted Labour.
"They knew Margaret Thatcher was 'a dead evil person',
but even in the
Czech Republic they still have pictures in schoolbooks
of Hitler
saying 'bad man' and of Stalin saying 'good man'. Of course,
if you
say anything, you're a nutcase like me. A drunken nutcase.
"I do get my paranoia. 'They're gonna come for me, knocking
at the
door' and all that. We ought to start making a new resistance
from the
Blairite SS squad." I ask if he believes in violence,
and he smiles.
Remembering the Loaded journalist rumour, I realise this
is a stupid
question. "You know what I was going to call the album?
Recipe For
Fascism. But then I'm a bumbling old fool, me." His eyes
pierce, and
you can only hope that this time he has got it terribly
wrong.
Levitate (Artful) is out now. The album is
reviewed on page 14. The
Fall play live at Dublin Mean Fiddler, Nov 6; Belfast
Empire Music
Hall, Nov 7; London Forum, Dec 5. Mark E. Smith plays
333, London EC1,
Oct 10.
And, kindly sent in by Paul Wilson:
By gum, it's Mr Grumpy (The Guardian 22 September 1997)
He's getting old and his teeth are falling out, but The Fall's Mark
E.
Smith is as fresh as ever, says Caroline Sullivan
Mark E Smith could grump for England, but he has his lighter moments.
Take
the time two weeks ago, when he was visiting the Notting Hill office
of his
publicist. He was in customarily dour spirits until he spotted a crane
parked next to the building, its operator at the top repairing its
scaffolding He entered the empty cab and spent the next few minutes
gleefully raising and lowering the hapless operator. Mark E Smith is
39.
Last week, he recalled the incident with the faintest shadow of a smile.
"I
don't like this new breed of modern workman. Always strutting around
with
their cranes, going up and down like that," he propounds, slumped in
a
Manchester pub.
Since forming The Fall - the band that arguably launched indie music
-
Smith has been pop's voice of Northern bile. This year the group celebrate
their 20th anniversary; and he's more cantankerous than even He is
not
appeased by the fact that the Fall are DJ John Peel's all-time favourite
band, or that they are passionately admired by anyone who was at university
in the eighties. He's still Disgusted of Salford, much keener to rail
at
his bugbears than discuss the band's new album.
Levitate is their 27th release, and falls into the same stylistic
parameters as its many predecessors. The one constant has been Smith's
aggrieved shouting, as he vents his spleen about love, injustice and
the
price of cauliflower. The music has veered from classic indie-guitar
in the
early days, to a light industrial, middle period, and, in recently,
to the
dance-inspired. The versatility reflects not only the number of people
who've passed through the band - well into double figures - but also
Smith's febrile creativity.
"Levitate is a good one for devotees to pick over,' says Peel. "It's
full
of weird gurglings, and some songs are just him repeating the title
over
and over.' It also contains the band's first stab at surf music in
the
track I Am A Mummy and, as ever, Smith's sly wit and considerable
intelligence.
Congratulate him on it, though, and he mumbles, "We want to break away
from
the typical perception of The Fall. I want a cleaner, sparser sound
with no
guitars, but the people who book you want the classic Fall- with-guitars.
That was the problem when Brix left." Brix, his guitarist ex-wife,
left him
and the group for Nigel Kennedy years ago, but Smith is referring to
their
most recent tour; having rejoined the Fall temporarily, Brix left midway
through, enraging Smith.
Out-stare the blankness that accompanies this fact and Smith finally,
almost, breaks into a smile. He reveals grey-brown teeth studded with
gaps.
Then you find he carries in his pocket a false tooth - which he can
slip in
to one of the holes. It doesn't make an appreciable difference. Both
teeth
and face are worn for a man not yet 40, but then, Mark E (it stands
for
Edward) is a champion drinker, smoker and carnivore.
"I don't eat vegetables," he proudly claims. "Vegetarians are why music
is
so wimpy today. And I have a lot of problems with them. You can smell
vegetarians." (A few hours later he puts his money where his mouth
is,
bolting down spare ribs and sweet and sour chicken with utter disregard
for
cutlery. He stops only to breathe and curse record firms that release
substandard Fall compilations.)
Smith's features embody his personality, every Jack Duckworthesque crevice
conjuring up a North thathardly exists today even on Coronation Street.
He
looks like Morrissey and the Gallaghers would have if they'd stayed
in
Manchester rather than gone to Spain and London. It can only be a matter
of
time before the city council - which, mysteriously; he loathes - gives
him
landmark status.
Nonetheless, he hates ingratiation. When an NME writer recently tried
to
compliment him, he responded by throwing the hack's notebook in a lake.
With Peel, though, there's mutual respect. "The few times our paths
have
crossed, we've said hello and punched each other in a manly fashion,"
says
Peel.
So, given their unremarkable record sales (their biggest hit, a cover
version of R Dean Taylor's There's A Ghost In My House, reached 30),
to
what does Smith ascribe The Fall's longevity? "We can play anywhere,
any
time," he says. "We can lock in to the prevailing feeling anywhere,
and we
don't do all our hits, either; which is why we don't get to do festivals."
We've now moved on - Smith, keyboardist Julia Nagle, the press officer;
me
- to a sleek theme pub near Chinatown. Smith strikes a light and a
waitress
cruises up. "This is a no-smoking area, but you can smoke over there,"
she
says politely. His face curdles. "Its all right, we're leaving."
Later he says: "You should be able to do anything you like onstage.
Gorilla
noises...its no one's business."
Th BBC recently roused his ire by asking him to do a retrospective
documentary. "I hate all that retro shit, especially when you reach
our
age. We got asked to do this three-day punk festival in Blackpool."
You can
probably imagine his face as he speaks. "Those nostalgia bands, those
X-Ray
Spex bands, they're putting people out of work." Well, that's a unique
perspective. "It's cheaper to hire old people for 50 quid a time than
young
bands,' he emphasises.
The Fall were never really punk anyway, sharing with that movement only
a
desire to release records without going through traditional channels.
He'd
have little to say to fellow Mancunians The Buzzocks, who now make
a
living on the revival circuit. That said, he'd have even less to say
to his
former keyboardist Marc "Lard" Riley, who's become far more famous
in a few
months on Radio 1 than Smith has done in his entire life. Is he amused
by
Riley's renowned northern wit? "He only made me laugh when he played.
I
used to hope he'd become successful so he'd go away."
We're interrupted as an elderly drunk slides into the spare chair "Is
this
Manchester?" he pleads. Smith's reply is just as compassionate as you'd
expect. "Of course it's fooking Manchester. Are you daft?" Godlike.
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