5. The FallThe Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall
John, my older brother, was the catalyst for a number of paradigm shifts in my early musical life. One summer he arrived at the house bearing a copy of Remain In Light by Talking Heads, an art book of David Hockney’s work and stories of about a group he had recently seen in a pub in Northampton called The Fall. Overnight I shed my beads, bought a long mac, cut my hair, and declared myself an existentialist.
The Fall became my obsession and were apart from educational considerations, the main reason I moved to Manchester in 1986. They were smart without being pretentious, tight but loose musically with the just the right collision of influences to render them peerless and beyond imitation. But I think it was the addition of Brix Smith that really iced the cake. From Perverted By Language to I Am Kurious Oranj, I bought their records and followed them like a penitent follows a reliquary. It’s too trite to say she gave them a pop sheen; it was much more than that. I think she gave them confidence to break out of the grumbling, obtuse enclave and make some of the boldest records of their career.
My Mark E. Smith footnote – where space rock past collides with post punk hero. I studiously avoided M.E.S all the years I lived in Manchester, being conscious of the fact it might not go well. The one time we did meet was in the foyer of a hotel by Piccadilly station. He was in the bar forming an unlikely triumvirate with DJ legends Jon Da Silva and Marshall Jefferson. He was smoking. I fell into conversation with him. Initially it went quite well. He complimented me on my glasses. Then one of his mates asked me what music I intended to play at the club later. ‘Oh, I don’t know? I might just play some Hawkwind’. ‘Fucking Hawkwind,’ said M.E.S in a nasal snarl. The end.
