The Fallen blog

Excellent article on The Fall by Portuguese journalist Mario Lopes (translated through a prism of the Wonderful and Frightening World)! :-)

2012-01-25T10:19:00.001-08:00

This is the body of Mark E. Smith The Fall had been born in 1976 when Mark E. Smith saw the Sex Pistols and found that it could make that better. The Fall, that finishes to edit its 29º album, " Ersartz GB" , they are the trip alucinante of the history of rock" n" roll. Led for irascible, the uncontrollable and brilliant Mark and Smith, they fight has 36 years against the miseries of the standardisation that will become the world a dangerous small farm or, worse, annoying. Mário Lopes Partilhar To print To comment To send To diminish To increase Festival of Arcs of Valdevez, 8 of August of 2000. Two Portuguese journalists prepare themselves to lunch. They had fond in the previous night of the beginning of the festival and this pulls out in great. Day 7, Delta 72 had given a chaotic concert improvised in the hotel room. Stolen Pablo, with the Wray Gunn to give the first steps, was the three days to try to impress members of the organization and " staff" with a tresloucado number of sapateado on the balcony of the private area the artists, the press and guests. He had rock" very; n" roll in the festival of Arcs of Valdevez. Still thus, the employee of table of that restaurant that was also residential, found that the line of the good minim decency had been exceeded. One complained of the English that had armed a confusion of the devils in the previous night. " They had shot the bed clothes all for janela" , it lamented, infuriated. " E the colchões, the colchões had flied também". E would continue to relieve, until arriving at the point that, more than the rooms in disorder, more than the shot colchões window is outside leaves, it of itself. After that everything, the band arrives for the small lunch and it, although the sliding will everything to the collision, keeps the professional position. " Then what he goes to be? " , he asks. " Whiskey" , it answers one. " Cerveja" , it says another one. Whiskey? Beer? This is that not. Some decency, asks for the table employee. " Whiskey to the eight of the morning? " The band of whom the employee did not remember the name was the head of poster of the first day of festival. Mythical band: The Fall. We saw them in palco. Mark E. Smith to the return of the amplifiers to change volumes and equalizações. To disappear one knows there where, while we continued to hear its infuriated grunt. The band to touch that one rock" n" convulsive, angry, minimal roll: Can and the Monks and the Sonics and everything together, all sublimado for that man small but frightful call Mark E. Smith, born the 5 of March of 1957, that is, one year after the edition of " The Queda" , the workmanship of Albert Camus that would baptizaria the group that if confuses with he himself. Mark E. Smith: the man for who, since the end of the decade of 1970, only exists a band who valley the penalty to hear. Its. At the moment where they add to its discografia the album number 29, " Ersatz GB" , and where we have the possibility of looking at stops backwards with great reach of vision - in 2011 luxurious new editions of " had been launched; The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall" , of 1984, and " This Nation" s Saving Grace" , of 1985, two of its better albums -, Dave Simpson, journalist of " Guardian" e author of " The Fallen" , the book that tells its search for the four sets of ten of musicians who already had passed for the Fall since its formation, in 1976, say to the Ípsilon that the biggest surprise he wrote while it he was to discover " difficult quão is to be Mark E. Smith": " It has a price to pay to be that person to 24 hours per day, seven days for semana." The price to lead a group whose music, as it described the mythical broadcaster John Peel, fan number 1 - " they are the band before which all the others will have of being judged -, " it is always different and always mesma" e that, therefore, if it shows immune to the ticket of the time. The price, clearly, to have transformed its life into any indistinguishable thing of the band. " The Fall is each fiber of its being. Smith would be so impossible to imagine a Fall without Mark E. as a Mark E. Smith without the Fall" , he points Dave Simpson. The untied tips The Fall is contemporaries of punk and partilham its provocatório gesture and the will to agitate consciences, to return to rock" n" roll its primitive fire, intocado for the massificação that desvirtua any flash of cultivation. But they had been born, necessarily, because punk seemed Mark E. Smith a trick of small. It was back in the famous concert of the Sex Pistols in the Lesser Free Trade Hall of Manchester, in 1976, in whose assistance they were future musicians of the Joy Division, Buzzcocks or of the Smiths. E thought: " My staff is not worse that this. We are better. We only need one baterista." The Fall was the way. Son of the British laboring classroom, Mark E. Smith arrived late at music. Until the 14 years, it interested the soccer and books to it - it continues to follow the Manchester City intently and the books are what more preza (" profession: escritor" , it is read in its passport). When music arrived, however, it delivered it febrilmente. It remembered it in an interview to " Q" , in 1990: " Pink Floyd? Nastiness! T. Rex? Garbage! Paul McCartney? Aargh! Black Sabbath, " Paranoid"? Excellent. He was first single that comprei". It continued from there, looking the untied tips of history. Rock" n" blacker roll, of Bo Diddley to the Velvet; garage more threatening, of the Sonics to the Monks; the German experimental psicadelismo of the Can and the idiossincracia of Captain Beefheart. Above all this, its taste for scientific fiction, the literature of the fantastic one of HP Lovecraft, for cut-ups of William Burroughs, the journalism bearing of Hunter S. Thompson. The Fall, led for this man without patience for musicians - it summarized thus the constant changes of formation of the band: " they cam, they saw, they fucked off" -, for this vocalista that does not sing, before grunhe, vociferates, exalta and scares, is, catching in a phrase brother-in-law for the Wire, " the great sound that if agitates and reverberates in the interior of the brain of Mark Smith". Each album has been, continues to cite the Wire, " an attempt to carry this confused transmission ghost to our proper mundo". The voice of Smith, and the musical attitude of Smith, lead throughout the years to great cliché applied the band. That they edit, year after year, the same record, only with different headings. E is truth that the soul of this music if keeps unalterable, but of the minimalista tension of 1970 ends, I loom to it of melody, in the decade of 1980, on all that violent sonorous discharge, passing for flirts with the electrónica in the decade of 1990 e, already in this decade, to the return to rock" n" picked the flesh off roll more, nuances is many that 36 years of career pontuam its. A little as to be in the army To exacerber the myth, we have, clearly, Mark E. Smith and the legend of Mark E. Smith. The monumental drunknesses, the cruel treatment data to its musicians, the explosions to the living creature in the television, the concerts that finish with it to esmurrar and to be esmurrado by the friends. A tension that, as much how much a uncontrollable trend for the confrontation, is the essence of the Fall. For Smith, the comfort is enemy of the creation. In interview to the Quietus small farm, while it spoke of the digressões, it confessed to feel a constant tension necessary. This involves to abandon teclistas in a service station, to compel the band to hear Bob Dylan during 18 followed hours e, later, to demand that they do not touch nothing at least next to Dylan, or to fine bateristas to five pounds each time that these touch in the timbalão. E, also involves Mark E. Smith to be the he himself abandoned for all band - it happened in New Iorque, in 1998, after a session of it would pancadaria, and it was happened again in 2005 -, or to be arranged with a pair of murros for the baterista the hours to enter in palco e, after this, covering dressing-rooms in search of it can substitute that it - it happened in Reading, in 1999, and Nick Dewey, to manager of the Chemicals Brothers, was literally obliged to enter for the long list of musicians of the Fall.Para Dave Simpson, is symptomatic that, although this environment, the musicians who had coexisted Mark E. The Smiths keep intocada the admiration for " The Boss" , as they call to it. With the experience, they gain " it disciplines, clarividência and all a new form of looking at mundo": " It is a little as to be in the army, but they do not go off against you (it wants to say, not habitually) ". It develops: " The Fall subsistem in the fringes of " mainstream" , they are to evolve constantly and they do not sound or they function as none another group. Ouviz them and to belong they are not certainly easy, you reward but them are considerable, same that they do not know which in momento" exactamente;. Not belonging to the Fall, we know it. We come across ourselves with a band who, as few others, launches a look of (su) social realism on the world in return - that she is, in the case of the cosmopolita nothing Mark E. Smith, of it that she did not like to go to Brazil, that detesta New Iorque and that she passes the time to enjoy with London, its roundnesses of Prestwich, Manchester -, crossing it with extracted references to low and the high culture, in an amalgam that it functions as caleidoscópio of the mediocrities of the culture of masses. Music, powerful and repetiviva, empolgante, is the perfect scene Smith to travel, to ironizar, to attack. E therefore, album after album, the Fall remain a protecting institution of the oxidation and aburguesamento that the ticket of the time brings to as much. " Always different, always mesmos" , they are admired by Sonic Youth, Pavement, LCD Soundsystem, Of

"That shit who wrote The Fallen"

2011-11-13T08:29:00.001-08:00

More high praise from the Hip Priest

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/life-lessons-mark-e-smith-on-bullying-the-occult-and-why-stalin-had-the-right-idea-6260036.html

The Fall's first gig in Guardian history of music

2011-06-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

Nice pic of the early MES

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/14/mark-e-smith-entrance

Kraftwerk Braun Ale and the Mark E. Smith IPA (hic)

2011-04-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

First time I've written about the Fall - even if it is a beer, not the group - in some time, so I thought I'd post it here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2011/apr/10/beer-top-of-the-hops

"Funky" Si Wolstencroft plays again

2011-02-09T07:52:00.001-08:00

Jez Kerr

(Lead Singer/Bassist – A Certain Ratio)

Debut Solo Gig With Full Live Band feat.

Simon Wolstencroft (The Fall Ian Brown), DJ Tintin & Keo ( Latin Rascals)

Support by The Orch

Saturday 19^th February /8pm to 11pm

Gullivers, Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 6JG

Venue Tel : 0161 832 5899 / Tickets £6 on the door
Facebook Event Link – http://bitURL.net/a3zx

Future Live Dates – Sat 26^th Feb Zanibar, Liverpool

March 2011 – Heavenly Social, London

Jez Kerr’s debut single “Play Sumthing Fast”

Available Now on Higuera Records at www.higuera.co.uk

Physical CD Link - http://bitURL.net/a3z8

Gullivers attendees to receive a special remix of “Play Sumthing Fast” on MP3.

Play Sumthing Fast – Video / Audio Links

Original : Youtube - http://bitURL.net/a3z3 Spotify – http://bitURL.net/a3z5

Itunes – http://bitURL.net/a3z6 Soundcloud - http://bitURL.net/a3z7

Remix: Youtube - http://bitURL.net/a3z4

It's Burns Night!

2011-01-25T00:42:00.001-08:00

As you will all be aware, millions worldwide will tonight be celebrating Karl Burns Night. To kick things off, here are a couple of reminders of the great man in his prime - feel free to post other Burns Night tributes/comments/memories here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37LgjcfVJjA

http://bit.ly/frKrHG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PBHnEwciS8

The return of "Funky" Fall legend Simon Wolstencroft

2010-11-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

Fall fans often argue about who was the greatest drummer to ever play in the Fall. Was it Karl Burns, who manned the stool on numerous occasions? Mike Leigh, who played on Dragnet and Teddy Boy drapes. Or the erstwhile Paul Hanley. Or the almost mythical two drummer line-up featuring both Hanley and Karl Burns?

Some take a totally different line... arguing in favour of the one of the group’s longest serving but unheralded musicians: Simon Wolstencroft.

Simon served 11 years in the mighty Fall, a length of service which almost puts him in the unassailable category of Steve Hanley. The drummer nicknamed “Funky Si” for his distinctive, straightforwardly rhythmic style joined in 1986, playing on such mid-period Fall classic albums as Extricate, Bend Sinister and (ok, not quite a classic) Shift-Work. He was in many ways an archetypal Fall musician: from Altrincham, previously worked in a fish and chip shop, was recruited from a support band (the Weeds, after Karl Burns was sacked again for having a disagreeable girlfriend), and kept his head down. These strategies enabled him - when I spoke to him in 2005 - to remain proud that he lasted three years in the Fall before his first punch-up.

Funky Si was a dab hand at avoiding conflict. Before the Fall, he’d been in a band called Freak Party containing Morrissey, Andy Rourke and Johnny Marr - the basis of the Smiths. Then he was in the Patrol with future Stone Roses Ian Brown and John Squire. You could say that he side-stepped two of the most demanding taskmasters in rock only to land up with Mark E. Smith!

When we spoke, Si - like many an ex-member whose wounds have long since healed - remembered his time in the group extremely fondly. Yes, there’d been a lot of rumpuses, but even when Mark E. said “Cheer up, it happens to us all” when Si’s mum died it was all forgotten after a fist fight and the ruckus smashing up the drum kit. He actually missed Mark’s sense of humour, and pointed out that a lot of the more curious onstage behaviour - live mixing, elbowing guitarists and the like - was down to showbiz. “He wants to be an entertainer, like Elvis,” he told me. He described how Smith would remove microphones from drum kits because he preferred to have a single mic hanging above the kit, like in the 1950s, and insisted that his drummer “Keep it simple, cock” - although didn’t fine him for hitting the tom toms like he apparently had with Burns. Anyway, there’s lots of this in The Fallen, but to cut to the quick he only left (in 1997) because the wages weren’t there anymore, and he needed to support a growing family. After the Fall, Si had landed gainful drumming with Ian Brown, but when we spoke wasn’t really doing much beyond a bit of cabbing - and certainly hadn’t drummed in a while.

So it gives me great pleasure to announce that Funky Si is back behind a drum stool - playing in A Certain Ratio singer Jeremy Kerr’s new band. I’ve heard a track they’ve done together called Play Sumthing Fast (something a punter shouted at Kerr when ACR supported Joy Division once, which stuck in his brain for 31 years) and it’s terrific - a driving, metronomic piece of spiky pop - like Wire meet ACR, almost Kraut-punk. The drumming, I assure you, is very, very funky.

A Lifetime Achievement Award for Mark E. Smith?

2010-11-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

After many years in journalism I've finally been asked to join the voting panel that awards the Brits - for best album, best male singer and so on. I'm not sure they quite know what they're letting themselves in for (Steve Mason's hardly commercially blockbusting Boys Outside would be my choice for 2010's album of the year) but I've already had people suggesting I conspire to give Mark E. Smith a Lifetime Achievement award. Alas, I will be only one name on a voting panel of 1000, so it's probably a bit unlikely... but after 28 (or is it 29?) albums, some of the most unique - if not always intelligible - lyrics ever and a body of work as rich and varied as any band in rock history, why not? I will suggest it!

Myself, if I had absolute power, I'd probably award it to Karl Burns.... who played on many of the Fall classic albums, had his own unique drumming style, somehow managed to get sacked from John Lydon's PIL after mere hours and despite playing on some of the greatest Fall records and instigating the Brownies Rumpus has subsequently successfully avoided the public gaze entirely for some 13 years. A Brit Lifetime Award might be the only way we'll ever have of smoking the man out of hiding!

To those who still ask, yes I did track down Karl - kind of, anyway: getting an address where he at least visits in the Rossendale hillsides and, at one point, an actual email from the man himself. But after there was no more communication I respected his privacy. I know something of his current circumstances and believe he has carved a new, non-musical life for himself away from The Fall .... but don't think it's fair to stalk the man anymore.

I still adhere to the Myth Of Karl. Like God, or Kraftwerk, the more elusive he is, and the more bizarre the stories about him (especially the one involving the wardrobe), the more fascinating the legend. On the other hand it's a tragedy that he's no longer drumming, and have a nagging sense of unfinished business. Something unresolved... When I wrote The Fallen , I suppose I had a deranged wild fantasy of finding the great man in a remote Lancashire cave, where Iwould be the first human being to have encountered him in a decade, and handing him a pair of magical drumsticks, which had in turn been handed to be my a hand from a lake like King Arthur's sword. Upon this, Karl would muuter darkly about knowing what he must do and return to reclaim his drum throne in the Fall. But if you're reading this, Karl, here's the offer: one day, however long it takes, I would love simply to meet you, the last remaining mystery and Legend Of The Fall. Not for publication anywhere unless you so wish, any drinks on me. Or just show the world what they've been missing and, in whatever group or form, get back behind the drums.

Revealed after 34 years: the identity and full, sad story of "the unknown drummer"

2010-10-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

Readers of The Fallen will be aware that one of the Fall’s enduring legends is the mysterious fate of their first drummer. No, not Karl Burns, but the “unknown sticksman” who history has christened Dave - or sometimes Steve - and of whom little is known apart from the fact that he was an insurance salesman and once wrote a song called Landslide Victory, praising Margaret Thatcher. Duing the search for the 50-odd ex-members of the Fall, I shed one or two chinks of light on this mystery, but nothing more. Founding bassist Tony Friel - who remembered him as Steve - suggested that he’d he’d been “ a nice guy, but pretty naff” and “simply had to go” after expressing support for then then Opposition leader.

Another musician, mid-1990s keyboardist Dave Bush - also remembered the unknown drummer as Steve and said he’d known him on the Manchester party circuit in the early Nineties. Although one of the founding members of one of Britain’s most legendary groups, he’d apparently shrugged off enquiries about whether he’d been in the Fall by saying “Yeah, but so was everybody in Manchester.” Sadly, the only other details Bush could provide was that the reluctant drummer had been “a bit weird” - possibly schizophrenic - and had thrown himself underneath a train.

I was shocked and troubled by this. Not just by the unexpectedly dark news and awful nature of “Steve”’s demise.... but the fact that he’d died without recognition. Like the famous Unknown Soldier, he was a legend of the Fall, and posterity didn’t even know his surname.

Then, last week, I received an email out of the blue from Paul Heaton in Manchester. Not - as I thought at first - Paul Heaton of the Beautiful South who has actually been playing with Fallen bassist Steve Trafford until fairly recently. This Paul Heaton was also a musician living in Manchester - he told me he performs as Johnny Angelsnake. Most intriguingly, he claimed to have been a friend of Steve, the unknown drummer, and even provided his surname: Ormrod. Within hours, Paul sent more email, telling me the story, which he has kindly allowed me to reproduce here:-

“I've been reading Mark E. Smith's Renegade book and noticed that he mentioned that The Fall's original drummer was ‘a little bald-headed guy from Stockport’. Now my mate Steve Ormrod used to tell me that he'd been the drummer in The Fall but I never knew whether to believe him or not.

He was schizophrenic, you see, and off his head a lot.

Then I read your [original Guardian] article tracking down the missing members of the Fall, which identifies him as Steve and that he killed himself under a train... it obviously was true.

“He used to live in Heaton Moor with his parents but around 1990/1 he stabbed a guy with a penknife in Stockport Labour Club (he claimed the guy was stealing his baked potato)

and was subsequently sectioned. He spent about 18 months in the Edenfield Secure Unit at Prestwich Hospital.

I used to visit him there about once a month. When he came out he couldn't settle anywhere and ended up taking speed again which was a bad thing and hastened his demise. He got married early and his wife left him within a year so that probably contributed too.”

“Steve Ormrod lay on the train tracks in Longsight on Saturday August 20th 1994. It was a sunny morning and he lay his jacket neatly by the track before he did the deed. There was no trace of drink or drugs in his body. He was around 40 when he killed himself.”

Paul aka Johnny Angelsnake also sent a photo of his tragic friend (taken in the doorway of the Old Nag’s Head pub in Edale in the mid-Eighties) - and had another revelation: that he knew Ormrod as a singer-songwriter, not a drummer. Through it all, the writer of Landslide Victory had carried on writing songs and Paul has a tape of his recordings.

RIP Steve Ormrod, first Fall drummer, 1976. Unidentified and “Unknown” no more.

The Fallen named Number 4 in 'Top 10 books about music'

2010-10-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

Really delighted with this - and in good company. Thank you Neon Filler website http://www.neonfiller.com/wordpress/?p=335

Dave Simpson's The Fallen - The Fall fan and journalist Simpson's attempt to track down all 50 plus members and ex members of the band almost ends up destroying his life. It's a tough job, which he miraculously pretty much achieves. What emerges is a bizarre picture of life working for and with Fall frontman Mark E Smith, which at times, according to Simpson's book, is like working in a Victorian factory, with Smith as the mill-owner. Simpson even gets to interview the man himself, but it is the memories of the more recent members plus the infamous fight on stage in New York where Smith ended up sacking the entire band that are among the true highlights.

"A dirty book I keep underneath the stairs"

2010-04-12T06:59:00.001-07:00

MES bigs up The Fallen

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/mark-e-smith--a-renegades-revival-1933725.html

D.J. Taylor bigs up The Fallen

2010-04-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

(many thanks to Andy Johnson for alerting me to this)

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dj-taylor-pride-before-a-fall-1862969.html

RIP Malcolm McLaren

2010-04-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

My obituary

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/09/malcolm-mclaren-obituary

Shane MacGowan on Malcolm:

“I first met Malcolm in 1974 , him and Viv had a shop called 'Too Fast To Live' which later became Sex. I used to pop in, I was mainly interested in getting clothes, and I hung around with a load of Teds. You could get drapes and all the gear.

At the time MALcolm was in the papers a lot, he was famous and I wasn't.

I thought he looked good, he had a quiff. And I thought his shop was an exciting place. He definitely took a lot of risks, with the wild rock and roll clothing.

As the Pistols were starting up there was a joke going around that they had been formed by Malcolm just to advertise the clothes and they did wear the clothes and the clothes were fucking great. But I don't think anyone really believed that the Pistols existed just to advertise them, except some idiotic journalists.

When he was doing that [Channel 4] film the Ghosts of Oxford Street, I was Jack the Ripper. I was out of my brains and I cant remember much, except for him saying to me 'I don't think you need to know your fucking motivation Shane, just do what you usually do.'

He had a wild accent which Johnny took the piss out of to a ludicrous extent. Everyone started doing the accent. We all camped it up. It was ambi-sexual.

It feels weird that he has gone. I always felt I would outlive him, and I always knew Viv would, but I never expected him to die. I feel a weird kind of emptiness. Sometimes I used to hate him, maybe because it was hip to hate him, but before that it was hip to dig him. I think his greatest achievement was putting the Pistols together. And he put out some good records himself. He and Viv made a huge contribution to the fashion world by understanding what was happening what the kids wanted to wear and mass producing it, and predicting the way the wind was blowing. He did a better thing than Hitler, lets put it that way. A lot better.

I am really sad for his family and for their loss, of course. And funnily enough, I always felt like I had met him before in a previous life!”

Mike Leigh drumming again

2009-11-10T00:13:00.000-08:00

28 years after he left the Fall, Dragnet era sticksman and top roofing sales professional (!) Mike Leigh returned to the live scene last week with two gigs by his Pearl Divers band.

Here they are at Manchester Night & Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqk2KERCX6A

Mark E. Smith discusses The Fallen

2009-11-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

Every time Mark tells this story, it gets a new twist and a few embellishments. And it gets better every time. Booker Prize for fiction, surely!

http://www.visi.com/fall/news/2009-06-14_hudlitfest-transcript.pdf

There's only one Mike Leigh (well, there's actually two, but you know what I mean)

2009-10-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

Fabulous Fall(en) event at Litfest in Lancaster last night. Bookmunch/Perverted By Language(fiction inspired by The Fall) editor Peter Wild did the introductions, then author Michel Faber read his entertaining and darkly comic Deer Park tale, which contained various Fall tunes, a "loathsome" woman and a lot of dead deer. I read two excerpts from The Fallen - Nick Dewey and Ruth Daniel's respective "day in the Fall" stories amid more mirth, especially and curiously from the two elderly ladies at the back. Then came the main event for a lot of us - the legendary Dragnet drummer Mike Leigh making his first Fall-related public appearance since leaving the band almost 30 years ago. Mike - who'd driven up specially from Hadfield - was in fine form, regaling the audience with tales of life in the Fall, the origins of his notorious drapes and beetlecrushers and his pre-Fall life in Rockin' Ricky and the Velvet Collars. Mike, of course, was integral to the development of the Fall's fabled "northern rockabilly" sound, and gave an enlightening spot on how songs would come about in those far-off days. Mike has always regretted leaving the Fall, although has recently started drumming again and has a new band, the Pearl Divers, who play Manchester Night & Day on November 6. This will be the first time the "teddy boy" drummer has played in public since his last gigs with the Fall.

Maxine Peake plugs The Fallen

2009-10-05T00:59:00.000-07:00

Criminal Justice actor Maxine Peake is a fan of The Fallen.

Thank you, Maxine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/05/maxine-peake-my-media

Litfest, Lancaster October 17th

2009-09-04T23:49:00.000-07:00

Myself and Perverted By Language editor Peter Wild will be appearing at Litfest in Lancaster on October 17th. The idea is that we will be playing Fall tracks, reading from our books and interviewing each other. Then there will be a discussion.

I might try and coax a Fallen or two who lives in the area to come on down.

Other Fallen news: the paperback is being extremely well received. Scotland's big selling Sunday Herald called it "an amusing study of what is without exaggeration Britain's most uncompromising band.... Tours were conducted like malign psychological experiments."

Twitter interview!!

2009-07-30T04:06:00.001-07:00

Myself, Steve Hanley, Paul Hanley and Mike Leigh will be doing a live interview/Q & A (fielding your questions) next Weds on Twitter.

or @davesimps0n

(figure 0)

or @thefallenbook

The Fallen in Observer rock reads of the year

2008-12-15T01:38:00.000-08:00

Something of a triumvarite: following similar accolades in the Times and Sunday Times, The Fallen is now also an Observer book of the year courtesy of Caspar Llewellyn-Smith. This Mr Smith prefers The Fallen to the other Mr. Smith's Renegade, although naturally I couldn't possibly comment in case I found myself being blindfolded and turfed out of a Transit van. In Peru..

The Fallen in Sunday Times books of 2008

2008-12-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

After last weekend's honour in the daily paper, the Sunday Times has followed suit in including The Fallen among their Books Of 2008. Reviewer Robert Sandall describes the book as "a hoot."

Marvellous.

The Fallen in Times music books of 2008

2008-11-29T02:15:00.000-08:00

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5250866.ece

I'm really chuffed with this... one of the music books of 2008/recommendations for Christmas. The writer, Bob Stanley, is of course in the very wonderful Saint Etienne, a band I often retreat to after listening to too much Fall.

There's a really good review in Time Out this week as well - they're still coming in, two months after publication. And there's an absolutely incredible review by Everett True ("A brilliant book: better than two thirds of the Fall's output, pst-1983 at least") in this month's Plan B. Meanwhile, I'm preparing to see The Fall this evening. I fancied a change :)

Mark E. Smith enjoys The Fallen

2008-10-24T11:15:00.001-07:00

"I hate that f***ng twat! I've just burned the f***ing thing!" - MES to the Liverpool Daily Post.

This happily confirms the story - as told be me by Ed Blaney among others - that MES read The Fallen in his local hostelry, finishing each chapter by tearing it out and throwing it onto the fire. This act of destruction cheered him so much he apparently got up and sang Hendrix covers with the local blues band.

The Fallen author is glad to bring some mirth to the great man and - we trust - some warmth to the citizens of Salford on these cold autumnal nights.

Radio, readings, SNOTBALLS etc etc

2008-10-15T01:13:00.000-07:00

Last week's Radcliffe and Maconie appearance went as well as I could have possibly expected. Mark and Stuart had obviously totally "got" the spirit of the book and teed me up perfectly for some Fall(en) stories. I told the funny story behind the track Portugal, which sounded great on the radio and which is surely the only track in British pop history to include the word "snotballs", which Mark helpfully repeated on the radio. It was a fantastic and hugely enjoyable night and I'm very grateful to Mark, Stuart and all the production team for inviting me on, giving me so much airtime (nearly an hour!) and being so kind and friendly. Stuart said The Fallen was "a tremendous read, I warmly recommend it", which was a lovely touch (I in turn am very fond of his books Cider With Roadies and Pies And Prejudice). Since the programme aired sales of The Fallen have rocketed.

Last night I did another bit of promo at the Sheffield Showroom - a talk about the book, reading (I chose the Nick Dewey "Fall drummer for 45 minutes" story), book signing and a Q & A afterwards. There was a big turnout (including the rare species, Female Fall fans!!) and a lot of laughter. Thanks to Jo Wingate and Off The Shelf for making it a great success, and thanks to everybody who came down. We sold a lot of books and it was good to meet other Fall fans and hear their stories, one or two have been following the Fall longer than I have.... and some relative "newbies" who have only been going for the last 20 years :)

The Fallen on Radcliffe and Maconie

2008-10-07T03:46:00.000-07:00

I'll be on Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie's excellent Radio 2 programme this Thursday from 9pm, talking about The Fall and The Fallen.

[Update: you can listen to it at www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/radcliffemaconie]

This was a brilliant night. I'll blog more about it later.

The Fallen comment on The Fallen

2008-10-01T03:53:00.000-07:00

"That book will go down in history as one of the maddest of all time. It is so accurate as to be uncanny. That is how it was. People who read it will be stunned" - Tommy Crooks

"Absolutely loved it. You captured the essence of The Fall, particularly the Smith, which is no mean feat. It was so funny as as the book 'marched on' it got more psychotically humourous. John Godbert who has known the Smith for 30 years and did the Live At The Witch Trials cover says it's the best stuff he has ever read on The Fall" - Kay Carroll

"A real Jimmy Page turner" - Craig Scanlon

"Really enjoyed it. Brought back a lot of memories, mostly good. You captured what it was like really well. A great book" - Steve Hanley

"I loved the cover, and the crazy montage of words that conveyed general insanity. You definitely captured some indefinable thing" - Una Baines

"I feel a road movie of the book coming on.... The Search For Karl Burns' Disembodied Head!" - Simon Rogers

"You didn't stitch me up!" - Marc Riley

"Really enjoyed it. Thanks for not making me look/sound a twat" - Dingo

"I enjoyed the book... although am vexed that you didn't find Karl Burns! I've known him since I was 12 years old" - Martin Bramah

"Chancer author on the make" - Julia Nagle

Email hit by Fall Curse!

2008-09-25T00:57:00.000-07:00

Seems my email has been the latest victim of The Curse Of The Fall. If you emailed via my official site www.thefallenbook.co.uk and didn't get a reply, please write again. It's sorted now.

Review round-up

2008-09-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

I thought it was about time I collected some of the reviews so far, so here goes:-

"A great book. An amazingly great book.... a simple but excellent concept. Absolutely brilliant. It made me race back to all 554 Fall songs and put them on repeat" - Everett True, Guardian Unlimited

"Riveting stuff" - Dan Stubbs, Q [four stars, 'Q recommends']

"A Canterbury Tales for the MP3 generation" - Stewart Lee

"Hilarious... horror stories... the book we have waited all our adult lives to read?!?" - Bookmunch

"Tracks down The Fallen... not an easy task, given Mark E. Smith's tendency to assault, fire and abandon them" _ Mail On Sunday Live magazine "In Demand" book of the week

"Fascinating, amusing and moving... a British, provincial take on Apocalypse Now! where Kurtz [Smith] is encountered by Capt. Willard [Simpson] before the latter gets on the boat" - John Doran, The Quietus

"Writing about music is like dancing about architechture. I admire Simpson's industry.... sums up the compelling power of the band " - Tibor Fischer, The Guardian

"That book will go down in history as one of the maddest of all time. It is so accurate as to be uncanny. That is how it was. People who read it will be stunned" - Tommy Crooks, guitarist, Fall, 1997-8 [exited after New York punch-up]

Not as big as Sir Cliff!

2008-09-19T02:18:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of days The Fallen has been at Number 2 in Amazon's entertainment-related biographies chart, second only to Sir Cliff Richard. I'm not saying it isn't an honour to be beaten (not literally) by a legend celebrating his 50th year in showbiz, but what can I possibly do to topple him? Sing Living Doll? Accompanied by the Karl Burns Philharmonic?! That's not a bad idea... what do you reckon, Karl?

The Curse Of The Fall

2008-09-17T01:02:00.000-07:00

I've got a feature in today's Guardian which leans towards the human costs of my search - a car, my health, my girlfriend. I still shudder at the aesthetic costs - when I saw The Fall at Leeds Fforde Grene, I was sporting a hideous curly perm that had gone wrong. I blame the influence of Terry Hall's Fun Boy Three-era barnet for that one!

www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/17/popandrock.music

"The book we've been waiting all our adult lives to read?!?"

2008-09-15T02:34:00.001-07:00

There's a fantastic review of The Fallen on www.bookmunch.co.uk

Mercury 2008

2008-09-09T14:35:00.001-07:00

This blog would like to extend hearty congratulations to ELBOW. Just make sure that someone catches the statue every time you fall over tonight.

The Man Whose Website Expanded

2008-09-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

up and running... gallery! Reviews! Extract! Picture of a real Bingo-Master!! Email and abuse the author!

www.thefallenbook.co.uk

The Guardian review The Fallen

2008-09-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

There's a okay review in The Guardian - a good two weeks ahead of publication. It's by novelist Tibor Fischer.

www.theguardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/06/biography2

The Fallen reviewed in Q

2008-08-29T00:50:00.000-07:00

The Fallen gets a four star review and "Q recommends" tag in the October issue of Q magazine, which is apparently on sale in London but has yet to penetrate the North of England.

"Riveting stuff", they say of the book, the third time the word "riveting" has been used by a journalist to describe The Fallen. Which is great, although I'm starting to wonder about this obsession with rivets. Are they all working as steelworkers on the side?

THE FALLEN - reviewed

2008-08-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

30 days ahead of publication, The Quietus get there first....

www.thequietus.com/articles/fired-from-the-fall-john-doran-reviews-dave-simpson-s-i-the-fallen-i

THE NORTH WILL RISE AGAIN

2008-08-14T05:03:00.000-07:00

Today's Guardian have a special celebrating the north of England, following yesterday's Tory thinktank suggestion that we should all up sticks and move to the south east. I've contributed a section on northern arts which mentions the mighty Fall.

You can read it here www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/14/britishidentity.conservatives

The Fall versus The Beatles

2008-07-29T00:50:00.001-07:00

I went on Radio 5 last night to take part in a debate asking "Are the Beatles overrated?" Of course they are. Everyone knows this. But I couldn't resist using the opportunity to make a more controversial suggestion: "The Fall are better than the Beatles." I sat back and waited: waited for the texts and emails to pour in, waited for the expected volleys of abuse from people defending Maxwell's Silver Hammer against the forces of Satan, waited for Fall records to be ritually burned by people in the street reciting The Frog Chorus. But it didn't happen. Instead, the first text was read out. "I'd like to agree with the bloke who said the Fall were better than the Beatles. They are." Then another: "The Fall and the underground bands are much more important than the Beatles." And so on, ad infinitum. It was really weird. The only real opposition came from the presenters in the studio who challenged each other to name a Fall tune, to no avail - not unreasonably. "But no one's heard the Fall, Dave", said presenter Rachel Burden, reasonably. To which I explained that they were played in everybody's homes, most nights - Touch Sensitive on the Vauxhall Corsa ad. Which seemed to win the point. After that, I tried everything to derail the discussion in favour of Salford's finest over the Drab Four. I pointed out that the Fall body of work - 28 studio albums alone - is far more far-reaching and varied than Macca and Wacca's fabled handful of albums. I even managed to read aloud the lyrics to English Scheme - a radio first, I think. And in the middle of all this excitement - the Mighty Fall triumphing over the most revered pop group in musical history - I forgot to plug the bloody book! Thus, a heckle from a very old Fall album is currently replaying in my brain. "CALL YOURSELF A BLOODY PROFESSIONAL?"

Stewart Lee on The Fallen

2008-07-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

Stewart Lee - one of the few people thus far to have seen a pre-copy of The Fallen, has this to say about it:-

"Three decades of personal stories, of social change, shifting cultural landscapes and minimum wage slavery, seen through the eyes of a random collection of people whose only constant is that at some point, for some reason, they were members of The Fall. A Canterbury Tales for the mp3 generation."

Thank you very much, Stewart!

Before The Fall there was Punishment

2008-07-17T02:28:00.000-07:00

It wasn't always The Fall that I was obsessed with. A band called Punishment Of Luxury played the Futurama festival 1979 - the gig that changed my life - and were as good as any band I ever saw. They played a comeback gig last week at a tiny pub in Gateshead.... could they possibly have the same effect again?

http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,2291145,00.html

The Fallen - blogged

2008-07-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Simon Reynolds has blogged about The Fallen on his excellent bliss out blog. Thank you Simon.

http://blissout.blogspot.com/search?q=Fallen

Who is the greatest lyricist of them all?

2008-06-20T08:21:00.001-07:00

The Guardian are asking this very question today... chuck in your suggestions to http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music

Pre-order The Fallen

2008-06-08T01:27:00.000-07:00

There's still three months to publication, but you can pre-order The Fallen via a button on www.thefallenbook.co.uk which takes you directly to its page on Amazon.

Nearer publication time I'll be expanding www.thefallenbook.co.uk with excerpts from the book, videos of me reading snippets, a gallery of various Fallen and, not least, short filmed tours of the Fallen landmarks around Prestwich and, of course, the many hostelries associated with The Fall.

The Fallen on YouTube.

2008-06-03T01:39:00.000-07:00

I'd forgotten about this. Thanks Lee Henshaw for putting it on YouTube (although I'm worried about the resemblance to a singer from Erasure!)

(go to www.youtube.com and type in "dave simpson the fallen")

The Contents Of The Fallen

2008-05-15T07:11:00.000-07:00

will appear here reasonably soon. Honest.

Four months till publication

2008-05-15T06:54:00.000-07:00

This replaces an earlier post titled "152 days to publication" which I deleted because it was getting out of date, but then people said they liked it so I will go over some of the themes again here. It's weird, this pre-publication period. It feels like the close season in football. Transfers are being made, tactics laid out for the coming season. But nothing actually happens. Then again, maybe I've got a result? The oddest thing for me is watching the sales rankings of The Fallen on Amazon. When the book first appeared on their site it was a lowly 178,000 in the charts or something ridiculous. Then suddenly it shot up to around the 5,000 mark. It wasn't outselling Mark E. Smith's "autobiography" - which has been number one, is usually around 28 but had slipped to 50-odd the last time I looked. But it was absolutely trouncing Gwen Bailey's Choosing The Right Dog For You, which was way down in the 100,000s. Which worried me a bit.... does that mean there's hardly anybody out there with the correct dog?! JK Rowling will not have sleepless nights, but it's still nice to know that people are ordering a book that isn't out for months, has had zero publicity and no reviews, and which no one outside of the publishers and myself has seen, or knows what's in it. People are taking a shot in the dark or a leap of faith, but I'm very grateful. And I wonder who they are.

At time of writing, Smith's Renegade has slipped to 169. The Fallen is currently weighing in at a less heartening 55,134 which suggests that the splurge of pre-orders has quietened for now. But Gwen Bailey's Choosing The Right Dog is now back up to 19,000! So someone's buying it. Who knows? Perhaps the notoriously canine-phobic singer of Dog Is Life ("you don't get many rabbits being walked down the street, and you don't see on leads") has had a Road To Damascus revelation and lavished his sizable authorly takings on a fleet of golden retrievers.

The Fallen

2008-04-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

The Fallen - the search for the missing members of the Fall - by Dave Simpson will be published by Canongate Books in September 2008.