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Two more Receiver releases:
Oxymoron: Oxymoron, PowderKeg, White Lines, Pearl City, Birmingham
School of Business School, Hostile, Glam Racket, Italiano, He Pep, Rainmaster,
Behind The Counter, Bill is Dead, ESP Disco, Interlude/Chilinism, Life
Just Bounces. Release Date: 27-Oct-97
(From: Joe - Kard2000
White Lines is a an approximate three minute instrumental by smith/wosltencroft;
Italiano is another synth driven instrumental by MES three minutes
or so;
ESP Disco is a live version of Psychick Dancehall)
Cheetham Hill: incl. Time Enough At Last, Free Range, Chiselers, Spinetrak, Oleano. Release Date: 24-Nov-97
And. from Steve Beeho:
this week's NME features a piece on big
piece on John Peel and how the NME wanted to commemorate his 30th
anniversary by giving him a unique present - and how finally, after
getting MES's blessing, they ended up giving Peel a
limited-edition-of-one vinyl copy of Inch. Couple of MES "quotes"
embedded in the text of the article as well. Also, it turns out
that
that "press release" about Inch never being released was sent out
by
DOSE for a laugh - I just KNEW that wasn't MES's prose..... Ha!
Putative US tour has seemingly evaporated.
Dublin Mean Fiddler: 6705011 (0035316705011 from UK) or cheque by post
(Mean Fiddler, 26 Wexford Street, Dublin 2)
Belfast gig: the phone number for credit card bookings at the Belfast
Empire Music Hall is: 01232 249276
Glasgow Garage, tickets from Cathouse, Ripping Records or the QM,
phone 0870 601 0002
The Forum, Kentish Town, London: tickets 12 quid from 0171 344 0044
(credit card, probably booking fee).
Cambridge Junction 01223 511511
Bristol Bierkeller 926 8514
The Fall played Camden Dingwalls on Wed 24 September. Have a look at
some pics on Gez' site at http://www.btinternet.com/~hmhb/dingwalls/ding1.htm.
Mark E. Smith played 333 Club, London EC1, Oct 10. Interview
below from Scotland on Sunday, kindly supplied by Graham Wilson.
Band at Dingwalls: Smith, Hanley, Burns, Nagle, Crooks
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "G Wilson" <g.wilson@scet.org.uk>
Subject: MES Interview, 12/10/97, Scotland on Sunday
The Rising Fall
Mark E Smith, the prolific, moody Mancunian music legend was once paid
not
to record. But, as Tom Lappin finds, The Fall are as busy as ever
Some groups are brief comets that zip across the musical sky, before
burning
out into bargain-bin oblivion. Others are glowering presences, outstaying
their welcome. The Fall are unique. They are pop culture historians,
their
prolific output providing an acute insight into the state of the nation
at
any point.
Listen to those early records, despatches from the late 70s Victorian
Gothic
wastelands of Mancheter, tales of depressed bingo callers, city hobgobins
and CB radio loners, and Mark E Smith's lyrics resemble a surreal Bleasdale.
What's astonishing is that they're still at it. The group's new album
Levitate (maybe their 30th, it's impossible to accurately number them)
features the ragged drum and bass soundtrack of Manchester pirate radio
stations, topped by Smith's trademark oblique observations.
Mark E Smith is the stuff of a thousand legends. Give credence to stories
about him and you'd get the impression he's an embittered, lunatic
tyrant,
ploughing a lone furrow, an antagonistic curmdugoen who has missed
the boat.
In truth, he never bought a ticket. Sitting in a plush Mancunian pub,
he
talks amiably about a group that has always been on the fringes,
occasionally way beyond the far boundaries. Every now and then he bursts
into unbitter laughter about the way his group have been treated. After
20
years, he is not over-burdened by a sense of history. As far back as
1981 he
wrote "ours is not to look back, ours is to continue the crack". Nothing
has
changed. "I don't really stop and think about it" he says. "It's important
to keep producing."
Levitate oozes contemporaneity, while remaining true to The Fall's company
charter bottom-line, the clash between primitive music and intelligent,
literary lyrics. As usual, it confounds expectations. "We went round
trying
to flog Levitate and they'd say, 'There's no vocals on this track for
three
minutes, were you drunk?' You have to tell them no, that's what kids
listen
to now."
They mixed the album in Pete Waterman's PWL studios in Manchester (home
of
the hits) where the engineers were 19-year-olds, unburdened by a knowledge
of rock history, who figured that Mark must have been one of The Smiths.
He
loved that.
Listening to Levitate, he admits that parts of it reminds him of 1979.
The
country is in a state of political transition, the changes have been
cosmetic, but a lot of conditions remain the same. "I find everything
very
cyclical," says Smith. "A lot of sentiments on the 1979 LP, from what
I can
remember of it, are similar to the ones on Levitate. If anything there's
actually more wasteland in north Manchester than there was back then.
If
it's not a wasteland it's a casino development."
Smith looks around at the political climate, and finds an air of ambivalence
about the end of the Tory era. He's been accused of being a fascist,
simply
because he has never mouthed the liberal left platitudes deemed obligatory
for the aspiring pop star. Now he finds kids come up to him whining
'Mark,
they're going to cut benefits, it's horrible'. "I say, 'Yeah, of course
they
are, they always pick on the working classes.'"
The group has been his life, and still takes up "20 hours a day". He's
been
married twice, both relationships succumbing to the lure of his first
love,
the group. "It gets on people's nerves eventually," he says. "I don't
even
have any friends in the music business, they're all builders and pub
landlords."
Sure, he bullies his musicians, but he says he gives them more freedom
than
they'll find anywhere else. "Somebody said look under the railway arches
in
London and you'll see the cardboard boxes full of ex-Fall musicians.
Maybe I
corrupt them. But I think I nurture them."
And the Smith image? The misanthropic git, railing against the world?
It's
inaccurate, although he can sound like a throwback, moaning that kids
today
know nothing, they can't even recognise a picture of a trade unionist.
Friends tell him that he's always been like this, that he was acting
like a
60-year-old when he was only 12.
"Believe it or not I'm quite shy really," he says. "You'll laugh at
this but
I think it's more important to be a nice feller than an artist."
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