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TThere has never been a group like the Fall here. I use the word “group” advisedly, as I have made the mistake of calling them “group” before Mark E Smith. The fiery singer immediately warned me that a band is something you can only find in Blackpool.
The irreplaceable Smith died in 2018 at the age of 60, ending the team he had led for the rest of his old life. The legend of the Fall still lives on, though. Arguably they have never been bigger, with interest maintained by a slew of reissues, several spinoff groups, various podcasts and a steady stream of books; The nine-track Post Script, which has been called the band’s “final album” by former manager Ed Blaney, was announced last week and is expected to be released in September. So it’s a good time for The Fall: Futures and Pasts, a three-day Fall-Fall festival held at Manchester’s Band on the Wall venue last weekend, celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary and attracting fans from as far away as Australia and the US.
On an average day in Manchester you’re never more than 12 feet from an ex-Fall member, and this distance is greatly reduced in a packed bar where fans rub shoulders with the band’s various artists throughout the years, some musicians meeting for the first time. At least 10 of Smith’s previous songs were joined on stage for recording.
Entertainment is provided with a mix of interviews, discussions, tours, film, plays, quizzes, and even a DJ from award-winning poet Simon Armitage. The latest album begins with the legendary band Lost in Music, produced by Fall royalty and fronted by indie singer-songwriter BC Camplight. By his own admission he is a “six-foot-two 110kg American” and therefore does not try to imitate Smith’s style, instead he brings his own music with songs that Fall has covered (it is one of the disadvantages of the group that although they made original songs, most of their best songs were originals, including three top 40 songs).
Regarding the fact that there has never been a reliable Fall tribute group, Smith told me “I’m very proud of that”. This is not the case, although the Look Back Bores don’t like to be called tributes, instead preferring the phrase, “Fall fans playing Fall music for Fall fans”, especially considering what many consider to be a pre-season classic.
Closing on Friday night, the precision playing of Fall Sounds is almost surreal, the lines interrupted by several guest appearances from Simon “Funky Si” Wolstencroft (drums 1986-97). Close your eyes and you could be listening to the Fall in the 80s. People are really disgusted; “Even the wrong notes don’t sound right,” says Paul Hanley (drums 1980-85), one of the festival’s organizers. Although the statement is given by two musicians with khaki-clad changes and a handsome young man in a new Adidas box: Mark Edward Smith is not wearing training shoes.
Many of the Fall’s fans in Britain have probably met the band including John Peel and NME, so it’s great to hear first-hand stories from overseas fans. Spare a thought for Marcel from Switzerland who commissioned a recording by a London band called The Wall and accidentally shipped Fall’s first album, thus starting a lifelong obsession that brought him to Band on the Wall at the end of the rain.
Kevin of San Francisco remembers driving a pickup truck around San Diego while listening to Fall’s 51-song set list: “It sparked something in my brain.” He now runs a thrift store and is known to offer Fall albums to interested customers. Ray from LA came to the festival with his wife and has the record of seeing the band in Manchester 30 years ago when Brix Smith Start (guitar 1983-89 and 1994-96) was in the band: “Three quarters of the way through the show he reaches into her shirt, pulls more candy from right under one of her breasts than I’ve ever thrown to a lot of people. And I still have it.”
Lars and Jesper from Denmark made the Fall notes and remember Mark having kippers in the kitchen; Kitty from Alabama walked into a museum where the Hex Enduction Hour was playing, but she didn’t see the band. Closer to home, Amy from Port Talbot has come to pay tribute to her late friend, a huge Fall fan.
Frank Skinner is one of the few actors who are affected by the Fall: “He added a bigger cord to my life that wasn’t there before.” New to hosting Fall-based quizzes, she tells me she regrets not getting involved sooner.
“I did a gig with The Fall at the Glasgow University Christmas party: it was me, The Fall, Orange Juice and Bad Manners, but The Fall and Bad Manners had a problem with the sound check and one of the Bad Manners, according to Mark, pulled a knife on him so he had to go.
Skinner eventually got it and played regular London gigs until the end. “I was just talking to the guy who put together (including the best songs of 2004) 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the album changed my life. There are things – books, movies, everything – that you hear so much and love so much that you feel like there’s no one else who is more used to the fall than I am. comedy game.”
Skinner found something interesting “watching someone who has been playing music for 30, 40 years not knowing how to put the microphone back on the holder above the microphone, being a guest on the tape, taking the microphone out of the bass drum … sometimes alone, in a small club at 10 o’clock at night I might have driven to Brighton or Oxford I thought I was part of a magical world I cried the night he died, it just means so much.
The elephant in the room of the festival is that the song appeared on the Internet a few hours before the start of the festival, part of the last album of Post Script, written at an unknown time with an unconfirmed line. It will be released with the full approval of the Smith estate, especially Mark’s sisters. One of them, Caroline, is at the party and tells me to leave her table for a pizza before saying “I’m just kidding!” and Smith’s sign flashing.
News of the album receives mixed responses from fans, and former members remain tight-lipped, many of whom are unaware. There is a catch phrase that is misused in the Fall community where Smith says, “if it’s me and your Grandpa on the bongo, it’s the Fall”. By Post Script metric this is a Fall album, although the identity of the singer, or anyone else, remains a mystery.
There is another place restaging on Smith’s play Hey! Luciani: The Life and Codex of John Paul I, and comedian Adam Buxton contributes a short film including an unseen interview with Black Francis in which the Pixies leader sings the envy of Totally Wired: it’s more Dick Van Dyke than Mark E Smith. The latter would probably not appreciate this. When I asked him in 2015, I told him that the Pixies opened the gigs with a cover of his song New Big Prinz, and instead of being happy, he replied: “I hate the stupid Pixies, I can’t stand them.”
Against the odds, it’s hard to imagine what Smith would have done for all the festivities. According to Marc Riley (guitar 78-83), who played his first Fall single at Band on the Wall, “Mark was a controversial figure, so if he did he’d say he didn’t and if he didn’t like it he’d say he did.”
The weekend concludes with a Fall Women’s karaoke show, where audience volunteers sing Fall songs to an all-female support group. One idiot signed up for Eat Y’Self Fitter, spending the week with knots in his stomach. My knees shake as my name is read and I walk up to the stage. Going full throttle, I get into a plastic bag of vocals and walk around screaming into the mic and dying inside. I once pretended to play with an amp and received a proper kick in the back from bass player Heidi Heelz. Six minutes feels like a week but it’s finally over, much to the relief of all involved. Mark E Smith certainly remains consistent.
