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I came top in English for two years. They never thought it was me. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
All the other Smiths got congratulated, except me. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
I like that. It's good being a Smith sometimes. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
You get away with murder, you know? | 0:00:11 | 0:00:14 | |
This programme contains strong language. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
# We are the Fall We were spinning, we were stepping | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
# Cop out, cop out As if from heaven | 0:00:21 | 0:00:26 | |
# The difference between you and us Is that we have brains | 0:00:26 | 0:00:30 | |
# Cos we're Northern white crap But we talk back. # | 0:00:30 | 0:00:35 | |
How you doing? All right? | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
# Bang fucking bang The mighty Fall. # | 0:00:39 | 0:00:44 | |
RADIO: ..Radio 1 now with John Peel. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:50 | |
Time for me to warn you that it is possible that in the next hour and 55 minutes or so, | 0:00:53 | 0:00:57 | |
you may hear rough language or be introduced to concepts you find unwholesome. | 0:00:57 | 0:01:01 | |
If this is a possibility, listen to something else. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
As regular listeners know, there are few words finer than, "Tonight, a new session from The Fall." | 0:01:08 | 0:01:13 | |
We think it's the 24th, but we're not absolutely certain about it. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:17 | |
Before I play the first track, an email from Chris Goodhead - | 0:01:17 | 0:01:20 | |
"A quick message to say I've had a bloody awful week. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:24 | |
"Nevertheless, I'm excited about another mighty Fall session. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:28 | |
"Been to some recent shows - there's a great song about Harold Shipman. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:31 | |
"They played Walk Like A Man. The bass player is now the guitarist. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:35 | |
"All business as usual! Chaos, but good chaos." | 0:01:35 | 0:01:38 | |
-What you doing now? -Just trying to tune... | 0:01:38 | 0:01:42 | |
They don't need tuning up. You just...fucking play 'em, innit? | 0:01:42 | 0:01:46 | |
# Shout! # | 0:01:46 | 0:01:48 | |
When they start saying they like The Fall, it's usually they've run out of ideas. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:55 | |
I remember Wet Wet Wet saying that - | 0:01:55 | 0:01:58 | |
"We're doing our own stuff, a bit like The Fall." | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
It's like, "Shut the fuck up!" | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
# I'm totally wired. # | 0:02:03 | 0:02:04 | |
No-one exemplifies attitude more than Mark E Smith. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:08 | |
He is attitude personified. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
# Yeah, yeah, industrial estate. # | 0:02:12 | 0:02:15 | |
# I hear you Telephone Thing. # | 0:02:15 | 0:02:16 | |
Mark's an inspirational character and also an awkward get, y'know? | 0:02:16 | 0:02:22 | |
# A green eyed loco-man # | 0:02:22 | 0:02:26 | |
His behaviour's become more mystifying and erratic since I left. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:32 | |
People do use the word "genius" a lot, but I do think he's a genius. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:36 | |
I think he's got talent, charisma, like it or not. He's not a nice guy. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:41 | |
# He reads books... # | 0:02:41 | 0:02:42 | |
We don't know anything about him, as fans. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:45 | |
All we know is this absolutely distinct stage persona and voice. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:50 | |
You can't compare other bands - nobody really sounds like The Fall. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:56 | |
When bands do sound like the Fall, you go, "You're trying to rip off The Fall. Fuck off!" | 0:02:56 | 0:03:02 | |
With The Fall you can never be absolutely certain what you're gonna get. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:12 | |
Sometimes it may not be what you want, but it's still... | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
They're The Fall, that's all you need. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
# I know, I know, I know I know, I know # | 0:03:19 | 0:03:25 | |
..hopefully this will brighten up your evening for you a bit, from The Fall - Clasp Hands. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:36 | |
Needs summat at the end, so just go da, da, da, da. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
Then sad, y'know. Just be yourselves. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:43 | |
# All here Clasp your hands. # | 0:03:58 | 0:04:04 | |
My dad's sort of attitude was, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:15 | |
"You follow me into the business y'know, or go into the army, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:20 | |
"otherwise you're a waste of bloody time", innit? | 0:04:20 | 0:04:24 | |
I used to work for my dad in the school holidays...summer holidays. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
For about ten years, from when I was six till I was about 15, | 0:04:30 | 0:04:34 | |
I worked for my Dad every bloody school holiday. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
I used to think he was a right bastard, but in a way it's good, y'know? | 0:04:37 | 0:04:41 | |
He did virtually chuck me out the house, which...I liked that. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:48 | |
Cos nowadays they can't get rid of the lads, can they? | 0:04:48 | 0:04:53 | |
They stay at home till about 35, don't they? Must be awful, that. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
Must be hard - I couldn't do that. I couldn't bring up any kids. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
It's hard with the bloody group. That's enough for me! | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
I formed me group, cos I wanted to write music and... | 0:05:09 | 0:05:15 | |
I was laid off the docks and all this shit, y'know? | 0:05:15 | 0:05:20 | |
So it was a way of earning money at the start. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:23 | |
First group started just as three people. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:29 | |
Friel, | 0:05:29 | 0:05:31 | |
Bramah, | 0:05:31 | 0:05:33 | |
Baines. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
They realised their true mission was to be in The Fall. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:42 | |
ELECTRIC GUITAR RIFF | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
We wasn't taken seriously in them days. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
It's a bit like now, you think you've gotta have a million quid | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
before you start a group. It was a bit like that then. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
Talking '76. | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
I was writing a lot, so it started as like a sort of poetry reading, | 0:06:02 | 0:06:06 | |
pissing around, y'know what I mean? | 0:06:06 | 0:06:10 | |
We used to meet up and hang out at my flat on Kingswood in Prestwich, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:16 | |
and listen to music. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:17 | |
We were into punk before punk. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
We were into the garage groups, like the early '60s groups, y'know. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:28 | |
In 1974-75, you could like music like Iggy Pop, avant-garde jazz | 0:06:30 | 0:06:35 | |
and electronic German music, all sorts of strange things. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
And that was in the air, anyway. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
People were putting bands together that had those weird influences. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
It just didn't have a focus, a name. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
It didn't have a sense it could be anything other than local. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
# I am an Anti-Christ... # | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
The Sex Pistols coming up those two times completely shattered all that | 0:06:53 | 0:06:57 | |
and made everything intimate and close and do-able. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:01 | |
Those gigs galvanised Manchester musicians or wannabe musicians. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:07 | |
# Anarchy! # | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
People came out of the woodwork. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
Closet Stooges fans, rabid Captain Beefheart fans | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
began to touch base with one another, | 0:07:18 | 0:07:20 | |
and start making their own groups. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:23 | |
In hindsight, they turned out to be Joy Division, | 0:07:23 | 0:07:28 | |
The Fall, Morrissey. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:30 | |
They turned out to be all sorts of interesting Manchester groups | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
that didn't think they had it in them to be musicians, to be a group. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
# Anarchy! # | 0:07:38 | 0:07:42 | |
Everybody went to the gig. But I mean, I did, so fucking what? | 0:07:42 | 0:07:48 | |
# Psycho, psycho. # | 0:07:48 | 0:07:49 | |
Well, we got involved in this North West Arts thing. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:53 | |
It was like a musician's collective. It was like brass bands and... | 0:07:53 | 0:08:00 | |
bird noises - there was a feller, did symphonies out of bird noises. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:04 | |
Anybody could get up and do a performance. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
So, it really suited what The Fall were about at that time. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
We thought we'd just do what we were doing in the bedroom, | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
like reading out poetry over a bass and a guitar. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:17 | |
We got a drummer and it kicked off, y'know? | 0:08:17 | 0:08:19 | |
After The Sex Pistols' gig, lots of strange things happened in the basement clubs in Manchester. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:28 | |
Obviously, The Buzzcocks had started up | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
and if you went to see Buzzcocks, there would be interesting support groups. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:35 | |
# Spitting on the streets Numb heads and feet... # | 0:08:35 | 0:08:41 | |
That was the big break, Richard Boon offering us support to The Buzzcocks. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:47 | |
That's when we started doing regular gigs. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:49 | |
# ..And the Psycho Mafia I'm talking about love... # | 0:08:49 | 0:08:55 | |
They were startling. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
They had the thrift-store styling, totally anti-fashion, | 0:08:57 | 0:09:03 | |
with the threadbare sweaters and the awful shirts. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
They were totally a garage band and they obviously had it. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
GUITAR STRUMMING | 0:09:10 | 0:09:14 | |
Incredibly exciting if you knew Iggy Pop, Can and Captain Beefheart, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
cos it seemed to have the same thing going on - | 0:09:18 | 0:09:20 | |
this crunching together of strange rhythms and odd shafts of sound, | 0:09:20 | 0:09:26 | |
sort of cutting against it like bits of glass and a really peculiar guy at the front, ranting away. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:32 | |
# ..I used to believe everything I read | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
# But that's all changed and now I'm stepping out... # | 0:09:35 | 0:09:38 | |
Once Spiral Scratch had been released | 0:09:38 | 0:09:40 | |
and we'd been working with The Fall on a live, occasional basis, | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
I thought it was important that their work was recorded too. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:50 | |
Well, actually, you gotta say this, The Buzzcocks paid for our first recording. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:55 | |
God bless 'em. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:57 | |
I would have loved to have put it out myself, | 0:09:57 | 0:10:00 | |
but things around Buzzcocks got commercially chaotic | 0:10:00 | 0:10:04 | |
and I was distracted, so I gave them the tapes. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:08 | |
Good evening! Welcome to What's On for World Cup Plus. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
I think Richard must have mentioned the band, | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
and I certainly remember getting a copy of Bingo Master's Breakout, | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
thinking this sounds bloody weird, like part of the explosion | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
and I remember taking a film crew up to a basement in a house in North Manchester, in Prestwich. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:34 | |
# Numb heads and feet | 0:10:34 | 0:10:36 | |
# Got nowhere to go | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
# Won't let us in the shows | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
# We talk about love | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
# And the Psycho-Mafia | 0:10:44 | 0:10:46 | |
# I'm talking 'bout love... # | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
Our music is offensive to a lot of people and coming from the North, | 0:10:51 | 0:10:55 | |
you've got this inoffensive cap-touching attitude, | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
which we're trying to break out of. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
I always think it was more attitude than music. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
I think that's what The Fall brought to Manchester. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:09 | |
Again they brought this great oppositional thing, which is... | 0:11:09 | 0:11:14 | |
They loathed wankers like me from South Manchester, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
and Mark E epitomised that. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
-Is it more than just the songs you're playing? -It is more than the songs, | 0:11:22 | 0:11:26 | |
cos the music is secondary really. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:27 | |
The music scene does not communicate to people. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
We try to, that's where we fall down. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:33 | |
# Well you started here to earn your pay | 0:11:33 | 0:11:37 | |
# Yah, yah Industrial estate | 0:11:37 | 0:11:39 | |
# Clean neck and ears on your first day | 0:11:39 | 0:11:42 | |
# Yah, yah Industrial estate... # | 0:11:42 | 0:11:45 | |
To this day, I'm not quite sure whether I like The Fall's music. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:48 | |
But I like The Fall. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:50 | |
I mean, just a song called Yah Yah Industrial Estate - fantastic! | 0:11:50 | 0:11:56 | |
Originally, I thought...and I think everybody else would agree with this, | 0:11:56 | 0:12:03 | |
we were just all equal members of a band. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
-Do you not get tired of being poor, though, lads? -Dead tired. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
To not make a living out of it is... | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
-And you don't make a living out of it, do you? -No. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:16 | |
ALL LAUGH | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
Please give us some money(!) | 0:12:19 | 0:12:20 | |
I think as The Fall evolved, it emerged as Mark, as very definitely, the voice of The Fall. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:29 | |
It was a solo act, but it needed everybody around him. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
So it had a weird dynamic - that he couldn't have done it on his own. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:37 | |
# Round, round Tapping feet to formless sound. # | 0:12:37 | 0:12:45 | |
Give me your name, then. Well, give me your name, then. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
I met Kay through a friend. She worked at Prestwich hospital, | 0:12:48 | 0:12:54 | |
the same time that I did and when she split up with her partner, | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
she came to live with me. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
At that time, me and Mark were drifting apart - | 0:13:00 | 0:13:02 | |
we were splitting up, really. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
And...they got together and she became The Fall's manager. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
What do you mean you want money? You're pirating my bloody stuff, Tony. What you talking about? | 0:13:11 | 0:13:18 | |
I've paid for your equipment! | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
Kay was the tough, abrasive one. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
She was the boss then. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
"Kay Carroll. Hello, love. Hello, lovey." | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
Kay would get very drunk, and was even tougher than Mark | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
and would jump on you, attack you and go on about the money, | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
or generally act in a ridiculous way and one could be quite fond of her, | 0:13:33 | 0:13:38 | |
but I was quite scared of Kay Carroll, | 0:13:38 | 0:13:40 | |
in a way I've never been scared of Mark. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
He's being an arsehole and he's calling me, y'know what I mean? | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
The idea of a manager seemed to be against the original ethos of The Fall, so that was a bit problematic. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:51 | |
And Tony left. I left. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:55 | |
And then a whole new Fall emerged. | 0:13:57 | 0:13:59 | |
# Right Noise | 0:13:59 | 0:14:04 | |
# We're gonna get really speedy. # | 0:14:04 | 0:14:06 | |
Finally, Bingo Master's Break-Out was released, | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
much later than anybody had intended. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:13 | |
But there was a certain amount of redemption involved. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:17 | |
Some critics got where The Fall were coming from. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:21 | |
Well, it was my producer, John Walters, who first heard them | 0:14:21 | 0:14:28 | |
and I think they were a support band at a gig in Croydon, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:33 | |
and Walters heard them at that. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
And wrote a letter. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:38 | |
John Walters wrote me a letter and said, "You are the worst group I've ever seen... | 0:14:38 | 0:14:44 | |
"in the history of mankind." | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
He was good like that, John Walters. Did you ever meet him? | 0:14:46 | 0:14:50 | |
He was fucking fantastic. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:52 | |
He said "You were the worst, tuneless rubbish I've ever heard. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
"Even worse than Siouxsie and the Banshees." | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
This is what he wrote, "You're even worse than Siouxsie and the Banshees." | 0:14:59 | 0:15:04 | |
I didn't believe it was possible, y'know what I mean? | 0:15:04 | 0:15:07 | |
Ha ha ha! He's a gem. What a gem! | 0:15:07 | 0:15:13 | |
He said, "Please do a session." Ha ha! | 0:15:13 | 0:15:17 | |
Can you get 'em to start again, Geoff? | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
-Pardon? -Can you get 'em to start again? | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
-Start over? -Eh? | 0:15:24 | 0:15:26 | |
I thought it was really good, this. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:28 | |
-They get going... -They're really having a really good groove. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
-Nah! Do it again, I say. -Yeah? -Let me have a word. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:45 | |
Can we do it again, kids, with a bit of...? Hit it a bit harder. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:50 | |
Rhythm section and the keyboards. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
Steve, you've gotta play a bit harder. You gotta be in tune and you gotta do it on the changes. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:59 | |
You heard a taster of this earlier on. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
It'll be slightly louder now, I think. The Fall and Blindness. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
# I am losing my feet | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
# Everywhere I look I see a blind man | 0:16:16 | 0:16:20 | |
# I see a blind man. # | 0:16:20 | 0:16:23 | |
To be realistic, you barely need anything else, do you? | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
The 24th session for the programme as far as we know. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:30 | |
The very first of them was recorded at Maida Vale on 30th of whichever the fifth month is, | 0:16:30 | 0:16:34 | |
in 1978 and broadcast... | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
The Fall were on their way to do a John Peel session | 0:16:36 | 0:16:39 | |
and the bass player at the time, he'd had a few ups and downs, a guy called Eric Ferret | 0:16:39 | 0:16:45 | |
and I think the point at which Eric was thrown out of the band | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
was he decided he didn't want to come along to a Peel session. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
I was going along to help 'em with the gear and when we got back, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:55 | |
I got a phone call from Mark asking me if I wanted to join. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
Now, bearing in mind, it was my favourite band, I was happy to be a roadie, | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
and I was asked by Mark Smith to join The Fall and I was still 16 years old, | 0:17:02 | 0:17:07 | |
and I didn't have to think long and hard before saying yes. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:10 | |
Like, my granddad used to stand outside prisons and that, | 0:17:10 | 0:17:14 | |
and then when they were released, say, "You work for me!" Ha ha! | 0:17:14 | 0:17:18 | |
He's a bit like me. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:20 | |
You know what I mean? "Oh, you play bass? Right, you're in." | 0:17:22 | 0:17:27 | |
Don't have auditions or anything. Usually comes off right, actually, touch wood. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:31 | |
I remember once we went to record Live At The Witch Trials - we ended up recording the album in a day. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:42 | |
So, we were wandering around London, particularly Martin, Karl and I, | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
and I remember them saying to me, "You're Mark's puppet, aren't you?" | 0:17:46 | 0:17:49 | |
And I'm like, "What?" | 0:17:49 | 0:17:50 | |
They're saying, "You'll do anything that he tells you, that's why he got you in." | 0:17:50 | 0:17:54 | |
"We wanted our mate in." I'm going, "Oh, I'm sorry, but what can I do?" | 0:17:54 | 0:17:59 | |
I think they were the seeds of the split in the band and it becoming | 0:17:59 | 0:18:04 | |
not a load of mates, all pulling together and working together, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
but Mark wanting to foist his own intentions on everybody else. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:12 | |
There's a matter of control, of direction, where they were going, | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
and Mark had a fixed idea of how he wanted it to be portrayed. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:20 | |
A year after I joined, Steve and Craig joined. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:22 | |
And again, we were all in the same situation. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
We were there and happy to be Mark's foils and his backing band, really. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:30 | |
Whereas Martin had already got disaffected with the whole thing - | 0:18:30 | 0:18:35 | |
him and Mark being the core and the real creative force behind it. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:39 | |
Martin had realised he was being sidelined, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
so he just had enough and went. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:44 | |
It was a drastic old fucking time. I shit my pants. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:48 | |
Not literally, when... I was scared to death. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:54 | |
# Frightened... # | 0:18:54 | 0:18:58 | |
The guys who I'd seen carrying the equipment on to the stage were suddenly playing. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
Cos Steve suddenly went onto bass and Craig Scanlon became a guitarist and Marc moved on to guitar. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:08 | |
So there was this ever-changing movement of The Fall. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
I don't know how we ended up with them, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
just these really strange people from the other side of Manchester, | 0:19:14 | 0:19:18 | |
who seemed to be really into the music. | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
-Is there anybody there? -AUDIENCE: Yeah! | 0:19:21 | 0:19:25 | |
Dragnet was like... | 0:19:25 | 0:19:28 | |
It was three nineteen-year-olds, y'know? | 0:19:28 | 0:19:32 | |
Not even that, it was like fucking... | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
Half the group wasn't even allowed to work, apparently. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:39 | |
In them days. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:41 | |
They were too young. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:43 | |
At the time, we didn't know how young they were, because he would add years to the ages of the group. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:48 | |
Cos they couldn't play in the pubs they were playing in, cos they were so young. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:53 | |
I like to get 'em and tutor 'em, as if they were, I suppose, your own son. | 0:19:53 | 0:20:01 | |
# Is quester psykick dancehall. # | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
It's amazing what you can get out of them. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
It is incredible. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:11 | |
To be honest, it wasn't till about the second or third record, | 0:20:15 | 0:20:22 | |
or perhaps even the second or third session, | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
that I started to think, "Actually, this is really something fairly astonishing." | 0:20:25 | 0:20:30 | |
# Uh - containers And their drivers | 0:20:30 | 0:20:34 | |
# Uh - containers And their drivers | 0:20:34 | 0:20:38 | |
# Containers and their drivers. # | 0:20:39 | 0:20:43 | |
It fitted in to the John Peel show, because it was made out of the John Peel show. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:50 | |
It was a soundtrack that was based on listening to the John Peel show - | 0:20:50 | 0:20:54 | |
the strange sense in the early '70s of listening to a show at night | 0:20:54 | 0:20:57 | |
that would play things from around the world that were so exotic and strange. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:02 | |
I first heard The Fall in about 1981 on John Peel. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
You listened to it in bed in the middle of the night, | 0:21:15 | 0:21:18 | |
and I remember not really liking it. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:20 | |
I just thought it was annoying and incomprehensible, | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
but that itself became fascinating as you get exposed to it. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
It's fascinating - this superficially ugly music and these incredibly well-thought-out words. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:46 | |
Mark uses language extraordinarily well and in such a way | 0:21:55 | 0:22:01 | |
that you're perhaps made to think more deeply about something that you may have taken for granted, | 0:22:01 | 0:22:09 | |
as a poet or a painter would - he just makes you think, "Actually, I never thought of it like that." | 0:22:09 | 0:22:16 | |
He has an amazing eye for the mundane, | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
and at the same time for the complete strangeness and otherworldliness of things. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:41 | |
They were all caught up together, and seemed to come from some other place. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:55 | |
Politically, he's neither left nor right. | 0:22:55 | 0:22:57 | |
He sometimes espouses views you might think were right wing, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
but then he'll come out with something that's extremely radical. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:04 | |
He's neither one or another. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:06 | |
He's critical, essentially, of everything and perhaps suspicious of everything as well. | 0:23:06 | 0:23:11 | |
I don't understand it - | 0:23:11 | 0:23:13 | |
which I think is the best way to write. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:18 | |
I'm still like that. I don't know what I'm writing about... | 0:23:18 | 0:23:22 | |
half the time. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:23 | |
I don't want to give my secrets away to these fucking idiots on the BBC. You understand that? | 0:23:25 | 0:23:30 | |
# We are all living leg-ends | 0:23:36 | 0:23:41 | |
# So close, my brain is imploding | 0:23:41 | 0:23:46 | |
# But everything is all right | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
# I am a rabbit from Germany | 0:23:49 | 0:23:53 | |
# I was very happy | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
# I could frolic around all night | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
# By the Leipzig station. # | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
Tonight of course, is a night for The Fall and this is What About Us? | 0:24:03 | 0:24:08 | |
# What about us? Shipman! | 0:24:08 | 0:24:12 | |
# What about us? Shipman! | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
# What about us? # | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
I am tempted to say this is possibly the best Fall session we've ever had, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:23 | |
but I probably say that about all of them. That was called What About Us? | 0:24:23 | 0:24:27 | |
Well, this is the lecturing part of the concert. | 0:24:27 | 0:24:31 | |
He likes to have a dominating influence, like a paternalistic influence over you, | 0:24:37 | 0:24:44 | |
very much like an old Victorian paternalistic boss. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:48 | |
Most of the time we just got on with it and pretty much did as we were told, didn't we? | 0:24:51 | 0:24:55 | |
-Yeah. At the beginning, yeah. -At the beginning. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
Gonna fucking put the monitors up for Christ's sake? | 0:24:58 | 0:25:02 | |
-It were like a matter of death, a Fall gig, wasn't it? -Oh, yeah. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:06 | |
-It was... -You couldn't be seen to enjoy yourself, could you? | 0:25:06 | 0:25:11 | |
I've never been in a room that so crackled with malevolence, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:16 | |
I mean we had our backs to the wall at the far end of the room, | 0:25:16 | 0:25:20 | |
extraordinarily grateful to have done so. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:22 | |
There was so much hostility and rancour. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
I remember we did one gig, only a little club, but it was that low, | 0:25:27 | 0:25:31 | |
we couldn't hear what was going on the other side of the stage. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:34 | |
I couldn't hear Steve and Craig. They couldn't hear me, so me and Craig swapped sides. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:39 | |
# Up in a room, There's a cloud of smoke. # | 0:25:39 | 0:25:42 | |
Will you fucking get it together, instead of showing off. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
We got a right bollocking when we got off. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:49 | |
"What you doing? Who do you think you are? You're not in a big rock combo. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:52 | |
"You're not in U2, swapping sides and messing about." | 0:25:52 | 0:25:56 | |
Mark's got a different idea. I don't think the guys grasp it. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:59 | |
Marc Riley's from a different background, his culture's different. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
He thinks in terms of a conventional group, writing nice songs. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
I don't think Mark Smith wants to be a pop artist or a rock star. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:11 | |
My relationship with Mark Smith started off brilliantly | 0:26:11 | 0:26:15 | |
and ended... not so brilliantly, really. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:18 | |
You could kind of see it coming, I think. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:21 | |
There'd been various arguments and fallings out, | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
and there seemed to be a lot of difference of opinion on how things should be done. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:30 | |
I was probably a bit more vocal about it, still not very vocal, | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
certainly not fist-flailing and fingers-pointing, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
it'd be just like, "Excuse me, but we're not quite happy about that." | 0:26:37 | 0:26:41 | |
Mark Smith was quite critical of Marc Riley's playing and his attitude. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:46 | |
Marc Riley, he wanted to do stuff his way and I think that clashed. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:55 | |
He wanted to do the hits every night and that's not the group. | 0:26:55 | 0:27:00 | |
It was like, there's only one leader in The Fall - Mark, and I suppose Marc was a bit of a challenge. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:05 | |
He said we're going to Europe in a month. I went "All right, OK" and he says, "I don't want you to come." | 0:27:05 | 0:27:11 | |
I was like, "What?!" and he said "We're gonna do it without you." | 0:27:11 | 0:27:15 | |
I said, "Oh, right. OK." | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
He said, "If it don't go very well, we'll call you when we get back and you can rejoin the band." | 0:27:18 | 0:27:23 | |
And I'm like, "Right, OK" - in a daze, y'know? | 0:27:23 | 0:27:28 | |
The next thing I knew, it was about a month later, they were going to Europe. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:33 | |
I've still not had the phone call. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
We just carried on, really. Kay was still the manager and she'd set this American tour up, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:44 | |
so we went and did that and Kay - I don't really want to say that, do I? | 0:27:44 | 0:27:50 | |
That Kay left Mark and then he met Brix, all on the same tour, | 0:27:50 | 0:27:55 | |
but that's how it happened! | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
# The man whose head expanded. # | 0:27:58 | 0:28:04 | |
She came up to me and said, "I don't like your records much, | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
"but what are your lyrics about?" We just got on. We got married. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
-That's not what I said. I said... -It's not exactly what you said. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:18 | |
Well, I thought you guys were brilliant, | 0:28:18 | 0:28:20 | |
but I can't understand your lyrics and they irritate me | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
because I can't understand them - is what I meant to say. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
The story of The Fall and Mark E Smith over the last 25 years | 0:28:26 | 0:28:29 | |
has so much it's got to have a soap element, | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
it's got to have the Elizabeth Taylor and Burton element, | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
the Paul and Linda McCartney element. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
It's gotta have that weird, odd sexual thing going on. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:40 | |
Again, it was the last thing you would have expected Mark E Smith to get involved in, | 0:28:40 | 0:28:45 | |
having his wife in the band. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:47 | |
# Kicker, kicker conspiracy | 0:28:47 | 0:28:49 | |
# Kicker, kicker conspiracy | 0:28:49 | 0:28:51 | |
# J Hill's satanic reign | 0:28:51 | 0:28:53 | |
# Ass-lickers King O'Team. # | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 | |
It was like Fall's one of them things - always on the verge of splitting up, really. | 0:28:56 | 0:29:00 | |
So, Brix sort of brought a bit of new life back into it, I think. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:05 | |
Different ideas and y'know, it wasn't just miserable blokes from Manchester involved. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:11 | |
-# What's a computer? -Eat y'self fitter | 0:29:11 | 0:29:14 | |
-# What's a computer? -Eat y'self fitter. # | 0:29:14 | 0:29:18 | |
She brought a particularly different, American work ethic into the equation, | 0:29:19 | 0:29:25 | |
which is, "Get some money!" | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
"Try for a hit!" | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
I actually sacrificed my principles in order to get The Fall on television. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:41 | |
I wanted to pick somebody, a favourite of mine for years, | 0:29:41 | 0:29:44 | |
and funnily enough, they've never done national TV in this country before. | 0:29:44 | 0:29:49 | |
They've done local things, but never national TV, | 0:29:49 | 0:29:51 | |
which seemed to me to be shocking. | 0:29:51 | 0:29:53 | |
I quite wanted to go down in history as the man who put them on TV. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:57 | |
When they said, "How much do you want for coming on?" | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
I said, "Nothing, if I can pick a band to be on the programme." | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
It's The Fall. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:05 | |
I think Brix's impact on the band was one, sartorial - you can see they suddenly smartened up | 0:30:15 | 0:30:21 | |
and they look like a proposition that could get in the charts. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
# There's a new fiend on the loose On the back of the exhaust clip... # | 0:30:24 | 0:30:31 | |
Secondly, I think she brought a more overt American rock'n'roll sensibility to it, | 0:30:31 | 0:30:38 | |
which softened up a lot of the rough edges of the sound. | 0:30:38 | 0:30:43 | |
# There's a party on down around here Cruiser's Creek yeah | 0:30:49 | 0:30:54 | |
# See the people walking down the street | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
# Sidewalk running... # | 0:30:58 | 0:31:01 | |
That was great, that whole thing, when they were suddenly on TV | 0:31:01 | 0:31:05 | |
and they would have champagne in the dressing room. | 0:31:05 | 0:31:09 | |
It was great! And Mark would wear those cool suits. | 0:31:09 | 0:31:12 | |
The best thing was meeting Bo Diddley. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:20 | |
He was on this all rock'n'roll tour, and he said it was the biggest load of crap he'd ever experienced, | 0:31:22 | 0:31:28 | |
and he said, "But I did see you on that Tube show. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:32 | |
"I was watching that in the hotel... | 0:31:32 | 0:31:37 | |
"I saw Elton John and Paula Yates. What the hell's going on there? | 0:31:37 | 0:31:43 | |
"There was only one good rock'n'roll group and it was you!" | 0:31:43 | 0:31:46 | |
He goes, "And it was you!" | 0:31:46 | 0:31:48 | |
I'm like, "It's Bo Diddley!" cos I love Bo Diddley. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:53 | |
# Cruiser's Creek, yeah Cruiser's Creek. # | 0:31:53 | 0:31:59 | |
Just for a little bit of time, they were like Mr and Mrs Rock'n'Roll. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:03 | |
Or Mr and Mrs Strange-Deranged- Rock'n'Roll. It was great! | 0:32:03 | 0:32:08 | |
-How long can you carry on, though, because...? -What do you mean? Would you like us to break up now? | 0:32:08 | 0:32:13 | |
-Yes, Muriel. -If you're in a business mode, it's all in pursuit of novelty and that's fair enough, that's cool. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:21 | |
But, we're not, you know? | 0:32:21 | 0:32:23 | |
He doesn't want to be in a rock band and I don't think he sees The Fall as a rock band in any sense. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:28 | |
So, I suppose, he's always been wanting to take it into other artistic dimensions. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:33 | |
When I was working in Edinburgh during the summer, | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
lots of arts lovers were dribbling the claret down their cravats | 0:32:36 | 0:32:39 | |
and getting very excited over a young dancer, Michael Clark. | 0:32:39 | 0:32:42 | |
When it comes to dancing, I'm a bit of a philistine. | 0:32:42 | 0:32:45 | |
Although I did have to sit up and take notice | 0:32:45 | 0:32:47 | |
when I heard this lad was dancing to music by The Fall. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
He has a genuine desire for an artistic expression. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:57 | |
That's not false. | 0:32:57 | 0:32:59 | |
It may be naive or primitive, in the sense of the artists which he likes, who are primitive artists, | 0:32:59 | 0:33:07 | |
but it's a genuine desire. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:09 | |
# Kerb-crawlers of the worst order. # | 0:33:09 | 0:33:14 | |
All the group stayed up to watch The Old Grey Whistle Test, not that I would, personally. | 0:33:18 | 0:33:24 | |
But you couldn't see the group. That was the funniest bit. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:28 | |
They stayed up to watch it with all their parents! | 0:33:33 | 0:33:38 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
And all you can see was like, Michael Clark baring his arse on the fucking screen, y'know? | 0:33:42 | 0:33:49 | |
Fucking great! It was dead funny! | 0:33:49 | 0:33:52 | |
When a group keeps going as long as The Fall have done, | 0:34:02 | 0:34:06 | |
and they have a sound that, fundamentally, is actually a commercial sound... | 0:34:06 | 0:34:10 | |
At it's most fluent, for all its experimental and avant-garde edges, | 0:34:10 | 0:34:15 | |
it's a commercial sound, because it's about the attack of pop and the attack of rock, | 0:34:15 | 0:34:20 | |
and the way that a good lyric has a catchy chorus. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:24 | |
# Hit them all 95 per cent. # | 0:34:24 | 0:34:28 | |
Mark E Smith has never really, even at his most peculiar, obstinate and strange veered away from that notion | 0:34:30 | 0:34:36 | |
that he wants to reach the masses, and I think that they kept going for so long, that... | 0:34:36 | 0:34:42 | |
Fashion does weird dips, and definitely at the end of the 80s, it hit that time. People noticed them. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:48 | |
# It was bad Called obscene | 0:34:48 | 0:34:51 | |
# And the rich Were so mean. # | 0:34:51 | 0:34:53 | |
They'd become fashionable and they started to have bigger audiences. | 0:34:53 | 0:34:57 | |
He'd never been fashionable. He'd been anti-fashion. | 0:34:57 | 0:35:00 | |
For a short period, he was fashionable. | 0:35:00 | 0:35:02 | |
# ..was my queen Victoria! Victoria! # | 0:35:02 | 0:35:08 | |
I was so glad when we got very popular. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:10 | |
I remember the time that my mother told me | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
that Elton John was on The Tube and said he liked The Fall, | 0:35:15 | 0:35:19 | |
because it was rock'n'roll. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:21 | |
# Victoria! # | 0:35:21 | 0:35:26 | |
I thought we were doing something wrong, actually. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
# Victoria! Victoria! Victoria! # | 0:35:30 | 0:35:35 | |
An email from Sean Cordell, "My youth can be tracked through the development of The Fall." | 0:35:37 | 0:35:42 | |
A good way to have spent your life, I think, Sean. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
-# Wrong place... # -Sorry. | 0:35:54 | 0:35:57 | |
Because you have to walk through the vegetarian, organic shop in Maida Vale. | 0:35:57 | 0:36:03 | |
Ha! One. One. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:07 | |
-There's the first take. -C'mon. The first take, you can that? | 0:36:07 | 0:36:10 | |
One, two, three, four. | 0:36:10 | 0:36:12 | |
# Wrong place, right time | 0:36:12 | 0:36:16 | |
# I used to think I could do what I wanted to | 0:36:16 | 0:36:19 | |
# Right time for me alone | 0:36:19 | 0:36:22 | |
# I walk the streets of complete full homes | 0:36:22 | 0:36:26 | |
# I can't dance I can't sing # | 0:36:26 | 0:36:29 | |
WORDS DROWNED OUT | 0:36:29 | 0:36:33 | |
# Mike Clark Said I'm a bastard | 0:36:33 | 0:36:39 | |
# He is deranged I am William of Orange | 0:36:39 | 0:36:43 | |
# Go insane in Holland | 0:36:43 | 0:36:46 | |
# I can't wait to taste anthrax turf again. # | 0:36:46 | 0:36:50 | |
Well, nobody could believe it with Curious Orange that we would dare to put it on in Edinburgh. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:57 | |
What was interesting about the idea of being associated with a ballet | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
was that it seemed one of the few moments of utter logic in the history of The Fall, in a way. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:09 | |
A series of clashing illogicalities, constantly, here was something that was quite logical, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:16 | |
as if there was a narrative development of The Fall. | 0:37:16 | 0:37:19 | |
This is the moment where they're deemed to be quite artistic, really. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:23 | |
# From a can a Shepherd's Bush man | 0:37:23 | 0:37:26 | |
# You're cabbing it uptown, uptown. # | 0:37:26 | 0:37:28 | |
I remember going up and just overseeing | 0:37:29 | 0:37:32 | |
the recording of it in Edinburgh, | 0:37:32 | 0:37:35 | |
and seeing the play and it was great. It was really good! | 0:37:35 | 0:37:38 | |
Mad! Brix on the hamburger! And it just was... She smiled all the way through it. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:44 | |
You have The Fall fans at the back in the cheap seats | 0:37:47 | 0:37:49 | |
and the ballet fans at the front with their fingers in their ears. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:53 | |
# I drink the long draught band Drink the long, drink the long... # | 0:37:53 | 0:37:57 | |
I thought it was hysterical. It was wild. It was free. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:01 | |
The group played really well. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:03 | |
Some of the dancing was fantastic. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:06 | |
Michael runs a mean troupe... | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
in a similar way to Mark running a mean band. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:13 | |
It was good doing ballet... | 0:38:13 | 0:38:15 | |
..because there's a discipline there, y'know? | 0:38:17 | 0:38:20 | |
You know, you have to be there at 7pm for half an hour, | 0:38:22 | 0:38:27 | |
then you've gotta get on stage at 9 o'clock | 0:38:27 | 0:38:31 | |
and you've gotta get fucking off at 10.30, and that's fucking it. | 0:38:31 | 0:38:35 | |
And if you don't get it right, you're fucked. It's different. | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
# They were curious, orange... # | 0:38:40 | 0:38:43 | |
It took Mark to a new level of audience. It made him a favourite. | 0:38:43 | 0:38:47 | |
He suddenly became of interest to the chattering classes - | 0:38:47 | 0:38:51 | |
the very middle class and bourgeois crowd | 0:38:51 | 0:38:53 | |
that he doesn't like, if the truth be told. | 0:38:53 | 0:38:56 | |
Just as it was going really well, I think Mark just said, "Y'know, I'm not really what you're saying I am. | 0:38:56 | 0:39:03 | |
"I am not this thing. I'm Mark E Smith. I am not your pet." | 0:39:03 | 0:39:07 | |
And just veered off in another direction. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:09 | |
It was a difficult time for Mark. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:15 | |
# Goodbye, my dear! # | 0:39:15 | 0:39:19 | |
I think she was looking for fame and Mark, I'm sure he doesn't mind fame, | 0:39:19 | 0:39:24 | |
but he's not looking for it in the same way. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:27 | |
He doesn't value fame and he doesn't really value the opinion | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
of a load of famous people, who don't particularly care for him. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
Mark's personal life was always entangled with The Fall. | 0:39:38 | 0:39:42 | |
# Last week, after Dynasty | 0:39:42 | 0:39:48 | |
# I had crow's feet under my eyes | 0:39:48 | 0:39:55 | |
# Paid two days for getting high. # | 0:39:55 | 0:40:00 | |
People felt dead sorry for me, y'know, blokes on the dole in the pub going, "There's a pint, Mark." | 0:40:00 | 0:40:06 | |
"It happens to us all, lad", and all that. "It's all right!" | 0:40:06 | 0:40:12 | |
# These are the finest times of my life | 0:40:15 | 0:40:20 | |
# This is the greatest time of my life. # | 0:40:20 | 0:40:26 | |
Mark just seemed to keep working through things, | 0:40:26 | 0:40:29 | |
whenever things happened like that in his life, | 0:40:29 | 0:40:32 | |
he just seemed to keep working through it, you know? | 0:40:32 | 0:40:35 | |
There was never like, "I'm gonna take a break for six months" or anything like that. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:40 | |
This is Craig's tribute to Frank Zappa. | 0:40:40 | 0:40:42 | |
Now, we can all laugh about this, but this is his tribute to Frank, | 0:40:42 | 0:40:47 | |
and so it's called I'm Frank. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:50 | |
Just about to do our first album for Phonogram and Brix left, | 0:40:50 | 0:40:55 | |
and Martin Bramah came back for Extricate. | 0:40:55 | 0:40:59 | |
I mean, we all liked Martin anyway, cos he was the original guitarist. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:03 | |
We were quite chuffed to have him back in the band, I think. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:07 | |
# Gimme gimme gimme it slowly baby. # | 0:41:07 | 0:41:11 | |
Even with Mark, the strangest things you take for granted. | 0:41:11 | 0:41:14 | |
You'd just think, he needed some kind of replacement for Brix. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:17 | |
Maybe best to go back to the very beginning. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:20 | |
Maybe some strange notion that he could get a bit of a formula back. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
# How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you? | 0:41:23 | 0:41:28 | |
# Sorry to be so short with you... # | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
It didn't really work out, him rejoining, I don't think. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
Cos when they formed, it was probably equal, you know? | 0:41:35 | 0:41:39 | |
It was probably as much his band as Mark's, | 0:41:39 | 0:41:42 | |
but when he rejoined he had to take a back seat. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
# I hear you telephone thing... # | 0:41:46 | 0:41:48 | |
.the 24th session for the programme as far as we know. | 0:41:48 | 0:41:50 | |
The band have recorded sessions, pretty much every year, | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
the exceptions being '82, '89, '97 - not sure how that happened, | 0:41:53 | 0:41:57 | |
and then for some reason, there were no more sessions after '98 until 2003. | 0:41:57 | 0:42:01 | |
"John, can you tell us why this was?" it says here. | 0:42:01 | 0:42:04 | |
Breakdown in communications - the best reason I can give you. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:07 | |
I wrote this script, which... You're like I come in and start shouting at you cos you haven't done the tracks. | 0:42:07 | 0:42:13 | |
So why have you done the fucking tracks, then? | 0:42:13 | 0:42:16 | |
Well, we just thought, because you'd gone to the pub, we'd better... | 0:42:16 | 0:42:20 | |
Don't say that to me! | 0:42:20 | 0:42:21 | |
Don't you say that to me! | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
He's been working hard. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:25 | |
-Yeah. -Sorry, boss. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:27 | |
"Sorry, boss." What kind of word's that? | 0:42:27 | 0:42:29 | |
You are only a drummer. I am Mark Smith - big shot. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:33 | |
When we think of The Fall as a group, this is one of his more brilliant illusions. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:37 | |
He's kept that idea that The Fall has been going for 25, 30 years, | 0:42:37 | 0:42:42 | |
but in a funny sort of way, there's been about 30 or 40 groups that Mark E Smith has had. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:47 | |
There've been so many of them, I mean... Go out and do a straw poll. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:51 | |
You could go outside now and probably bump into someone who's been in The Fall. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:56 | |
# Don't call me darling. # | 0:42:56 | 0:42:58 | |
I've got this thing, a reputation as like a sack master, | 0:42:58 | 0:43:02 | |
keep firing people and all that. It's like common knowledge, now. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:07 | |
Anywhere I go now, people on the street go, "You're the one, who's had all them group members." | 0:43:07 | 0:43:13 | |
I don't see what the problem is. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:15 | |
Obviously, it's become almost a kind of joke, except for the people concerned. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:19 | |
You know, the passage through The Fall, and then, by and large, | 0:43:19 | 0:43:23 | |
people then disappear without a trace after they've gone, | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
which seems... I don't know whether he's killing them. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
You have to be a fairly strong person, I think. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:32 | |
There was quite a few musicians and people around the band who didn't last very long. | 0:43:32 | 0:43:37 | |
It's not like an ordinary group. | 0:43:37 | 0:43:41 | |
People do it cos they love it. | 0:43:41 | 0:43:44 | |
They do it for nothing, or they do it for money, | 0:43:44 | 0:43:47 | |
but they will fucking do it, y'know? | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
I noticed in the '90s what was happening with Mark E Smith was | 0:43:54 | 0:43:57 | |
what had once been sympathetically registered in a certain area as the old curmudgeon or whatever, | 0:43:57 | 0:44:03 | |
or the old fart, but you know, what a genius... | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
He suddenly became...a fucking asshole, I guess, is the phrase. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:10 | |
He's suddenly become... You realised there were large parts of Mark E Smith that were not very nice. | 0:44:10 | 0:44:15 | |
I don't think he's made his behaviour any better by his use... | 0:44:15 | 0:44:19 | |
tremendous use of drugs and speedy drugs, | 0:44:19 | 0:44:23 | |
speed and various things that would make his nerves worse, | 0:44:23 | 0:44:26 | |
but he's a tough, tough character. | 0:44:26 | 0:44:28 | |
It shows on his face, that he's a hard-line drinker. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:33 | |
It shows on his face that he's a tough guy. | 0:44:33 | 0:44:35 | |
There came a moment when it turned, | 0:44:35 | 0:44:37 | |
and that abuse that we'd put down to him just living on the edge, | 0:44:37 | 0:44:41 | |
and the speed and the booze, it started to be something | 0:44:41 | 0:44:46 | |
that was clearly affecting him as an individual. | 0:44:46 | 0:44:50 | |
That was the moment, when you kind of thought, "Oh, my God!", | 0:44:50 | 0:44:54 | |
"What if he wasn't a genius, he was just an old drunken tramp that when he got really drunk, | 0:44:54 | 0:44:59 | |
"spouted phrases that made a kind of sense and we read too much into it?" | 0:44:59 | 0:45:03 | |
Just a little bit of that started to come into it, you know? | 0:45:03 | 0:45:06 | |
# Feeling numb, now | 0:45:06 | 0:45:08 | |
# The grist that curtails will make us strong | 0:45:08 | 0:45:11 | |
# And you'll be dead before I'm born. Pah! # | 0:45:11 | 0:45:16 | |
I don't think an award like Godlike Genius or Lifetime Service Award is relevant to them, | 0:45:16 | 0:45:21 | |
cos it suggests that it's stopped and it doesn't look like it ever is gonna stop. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:25 | |
The point where everybody thought it would end was the mid '90s, | 0:45:25 | 0:45:29 | |
when he didn't seem to be able to hold a line-up together, | 0:45:29 | 0:45:32 | |
he looked terribly ill and you really felt you were living in the last days. | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
He was turning into a bit of a shambles by this time, I think everybody would admit that. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:44 | |
There was a lot of financial trouble the band were in, which was affecting everything. | 0:45:44 | 0:45:49 | |
Gigs got cancelled. We'd row in the sound check | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
and we wouldn't get to the gig. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:53 | |
The writing was on the wall, really, by then. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:58 | |
But I don't know why we went to America. It seemed like a good idea at the time. | 0:45:58 | 0:46:03 | |
My last gig was at Brownies, which is pretty well known as a disaster. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:13 | |
A lot of aggression on stage, and I think the odd microphone being thrown about and kicked over. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:21 | |
Well, they started on me, and I started on them. Fair, isn't it? | 0:46:23 | 0:46:29 | |
By this time, I'd had enough, I think, you know, | 0:46:29 | 0:46:33 | |
and I maybe should have got out of it a couple of years before. | 0:46:33 | 0:46:36 | |
That band had just run out of steam, and yet because it was Steve, | 0:46:36 | 0:46:42 | |
because it was Karl, I think he had a loyalty to those people. | 0:46:42 | 0:46:48 | |
All the equipment was pushed over and Mark was fighting with Karl and trashed the drum kit. | 0:46:48 | 0:46:54 | |
So he attacked me as well. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
I ended up in jail, but at the end of the day, I think it was probably the best thing that ever happened, | 0:47:01 | 0:47:08 | |
that scrap on the...stage. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:12 | |
I felt like I was carrying these old fellers around all the time. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:19 | |
They're all about my age and they're shit. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:26 | |
There's no two ways about it, y'know. They're crap. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:30 | |
..a fucking animal on drugs - a fucking idiot! | 0:47:30 | 0:47:34 | |
WHISTLING No fucking singer, man! | 0:47:34 | 0:47:37 | |
Where's the fucking singer? You cock. | 0:47:37 | 0:47:40 | |
-I've been assaulted in public... -Yeah, right(!) -..by two people. | 0:47:40 | 0:47:45 | |
Or three people. You've been witness to this. Bear witness, laddies. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:50 | |
He'd let it go too far. He'd fallen out with his group. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:53 | |
He was drinking too much and he was gradually losing contact. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:57 | |
They had no management and no friends were working with them. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:01 | |
I couldn't get any work. I couldn't get any jobs in Europe... | 0:48:01 | 0:48:05 | |
Or America or anything. Zip! Britain even. | 0:48:08 | 0:48:13 | |
The point about him is you've gotta play the game a little bit and he knows that. | 0:48:13 | 0:48:17 | |
You can't completely ditch everything and expect your fame to carry you through. | 0:48:17 | 0:48:21 | |
# You dissolute singer. # RADIO: At Brownie's tonight... | 0:48:21 | 0:48:27 | |
I think it was after that low point, he realised that you have to have a band, that he was known. | 0:48:27 | 0:48:33 | |
He went back to the basics of his success. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:35 | |
When you think, "He's too drunk, he hasn't got a band, he's forgotten his lyrics, who the hell is he?" | 0:48:35 | 0:48:42 | |
He'll end up putting together a set that's mesmerising and you realise what a great artist he is. | 0:48:42 | 0:48:47 | |
What he produced was rather good. He came up with one or two incarnations of The Fall that were very talented. | 0:48:51 | 0:48:58 | |
There were so many people that would love to be in that band, great musicians that could join it. | 0:48:58 | 0:49:04 | |
And often you think, "Just get someone in, and sort it out!" | 0:49:04 | 0:49:07 | |
People would contribute to this that are brilliant. But that'd be the wrong thing to do. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:11 | |
Don't want Fall fans, y'know? Cos you get...I've had fill-ins, blokes who like The Fall, | 0:49:11 | 0:49:19 | |
filled in on bass or guitar and they play like they think The Fall is and it's rubbish. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:27 | |
First time I met Mark I was about 15 years old. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:30 | |
Cos he came drinking in the same building that used to be my youth club. | 0:49:30 | 0:49:34 | |
And I kinda saw him on and off for about four years, | 0:49:34 | 0:49:40 | |
and then I got a phone call from a friend of Mark's, | 0:49:40 | 0:49:42 | |
asking if I wanted to do a day's work for The Fall in Manchester. | 0:49:42 | 0:49:46 | |
We went down, recorded some tunes off The Unutterable album. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:52 | |
And I think on the strength of that performance I did on that day, he kind of offered me the job. | 0:49:52 | 0:49:59 | |
Everybody who works for The Fall is um... They're very regular people, | 0:49:59 | 0:50:06 | |
and I wouldn't pick 'em otherwise. | 0:50:06 | 0:50:08 | |
He's got Elena now in the band and that has really focused down. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:14 | |
Another very strong woman, knows exactly what she wants to do. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:18 | |
# Pumpkin soup and mashed potatoes. # | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
I didn't want to join for obvious reasons, being the wife and so. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:26 | |
But I found it quite easy to play with them. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
And, you know, I just stuck with it. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
I treat Elena completely different, when she's in the group. It's not like... | 0:50:33 | 0:50:39 | |
I treat her like everybody else. A bit hard sometimes, y'know. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
I don't think it's important to Mark. | 0:50:43 | 0:50:46 | |
He doesn't differentiate between women and men - as humans, as people | 0:50:46 | 0:50:50 | |
and certainly not as musicians, so it makes no difference. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:54 | |
No, women are a lot better actually, at a lot of things. | 0:50:54 | 0:50:57 | |
Musically, they just take it up. You can just give them an idea... | 0:50:57 | 0:51:03 | |
A lot of fellers want to know the mechanics of it all the time, which I can't explain to them, | 0:51:03 | 0:51:09 | |
because, believe it or not, I still don't know a D from an E or an F from an A. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:13 | |
I know an A and an E, sort of. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:15 | |
And this email says, "Play a Fall track for Mike in Frome and Ben in London, arsehole saddos, | 0:51:17 | 0:51:24 | |
and to all the young Fall fans - big up and Spencer is a top Fall drummer. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:28 | |
GUITAR AND DRUMS | 0:51:28 | 0:51:33 | |
-See what I mean? -He's playing! Shut it! | 0:51:37 | 0:51:40 | |
All I'm saying is, we could improve on that. It could be a lot tighter. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:44 | |
We don't have to do Wrong Place again? | 0:51:44 | 0:51:46 | |
Creatively, it's the best band to be in, it really is, cos the songs are written that... | 0:51:46 | 0:51:52 | |
Some are written by individuals and some are written by the entire band. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:57 | |
He gives you a lot of leeway. | 0:51:57 | 0:51:59 | |
Can you pick my guitar up for me? | 0:51:59 | 0:52:01 | |
I just give them the freedom, which they don't get in... | 0:52:01 | 0:52:08 | |
Y'know, like rock bands and all that. | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
At the end of the day, you know, once you hand that song over and he's sung over it, it's his song. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:17 | |
It's his tune, you know. And he'll put his nice little... | 0:52:17 | 0:52:22 | |
He'll do his thing to it, that makes it that little bit special. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:27 | |
I love the way he reduces the basic idea of The Fall to being raw sound with weird singing over the top. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:32 | |
He's not a singer, but he's one of the greatest rock singer's there's ever been | 0:52:32 | 0:52:36 | |
and his whole way of turning the drunken karaoke singing, | 0:52:36 | 0:52:40 | |
with 'uh' at the end of everything has become unbelievably powerful. | 0:52:40 | 0:52:44 | |
My singing's getting very good, actually. It's all about... | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
HE MOUTHS | 0:52:47 | 0:52:50 | |
I'm getting really good at singing, after twenty-fucking-five years. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:55 | |
No, I really am. | 0:52:56 | 0:52:59 | |
# See the people all in line What's making them look at me? | 0:53:01 | 0:53:08 | |
# Can't imagine that their minds Thinking the same as me | 0:53:08 | 0:53:14 | |
# Cos I can hear the grass grow I can hear the grass cry | 0:53:14 | 0:53:22 | |
# I see rainbows in the evening | 0:53:22 | 0:53:26 | |
# And I can hear the grass grow I can hear the grass grow | 0:53:26 | 0:53:34 | |
# I see rainbows in the evening. # | 0:53:34 | 0:53:38 | |
This has been just magnificent, I think and thanks Mark and the others for making an old man very happy. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:48 | |
Two tunes from The Fall - | 0:53:48 | 0:53:50 | |
Wrong Place and The Move's I Can Hear The Grass Grow. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:53 | |
C'mon, one two two. | 0:53:53 | 0:53:56 | |
The latest band now is just fantastic. | 0:53:56 | 0:53:59 | |
Ra, ra, ra, ra! | 0:53:59 | 0:54:01 | |
Who can say that - 27 years and he's got a stunning band. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:07 | |
I saw them a week ago and there were like five new songs in the set | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
and they were the best five songs. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:12 | |
# We live on blood... # | 0:54:16 | 0:54:18 | |
One of the classic moves in the last five years on stage has been in turning up people's amps, | 0:54:20 | 0:54:26 | |
switching bits of kit off. | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
Mark does a lot of live mixing on stage, like he moves microphones, puts it in the bass drum or so, | 0:54:29 | 0:54:35 | |
and I think there's no other band that does this, like a live mix by the singer. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:41 | |
"What's he doing now?" He's messing with your amp - "I don't know what he's doing", | 0:54:41 | 0:54:45 | |
but in his head, he's "Right, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this." | 0:54:45 | 0:54:50 | |
It's to wake 'em up a bit, y'know, the group - not the crowd. | 0:54:54 | 0:54:58 | |
I'm not bothered about the crowd. I never have been, y'know? | 0:55:00 | 0:55:03 | |
They don't interest me. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:05 | |
# ..Cheap English man In the paper shop | 0:55:05 | 0:55:10 | |
# You mug old women... # | 0:55:10 | 0:55:13 | |
The experience of being in The Fall will give you the most fantastic time of your life, | 0:55:13 | 0:55:20 | |
that you would never have had in any other band, | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
but at the same time, you also get some of the most frightening experiences. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
I mean, it's kinda like that. It's kinda like that. | 0:55:27 | 0:55:31 | |
# ..We have to pay for everything But some things are for free... # | 0:55:31 | 0:55:34 | |
It's easy to assume when you go to a gig and all these people have turned up, | 0:55:34 | 0:55:37 | |
that you're partly responsible for this. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:40 | |
That's when you start your slippery slope downhill, because once you start thinking that... | 0:55:40 | 0:55:46 | |
You've gotta come into this band and you've gotta know your role. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
# ..English Chelsea fan This is your last game | 0:55:49 | 0:55:52 | |
# We're not Galatasaray We're Sparta FC | 0:55:52 | 0:55:55 | |
# I will tell you how it will change. # | 0:55:55 | 0:56:00 | |
AUDIENCE CHEER | 0:56:00 | 0:56:02 | |
There was a song on Hex Enduction Hour, Hip Priest, that they re-did on A Kurious Oranj soundtrack, | 0:56:02 | 0:56:07 | |
which has got this line, "He is not appreciated" and every encore for time immemorial now, | 0:56:07 | 0:56:13 | |
has involved him handing the mike out to a member of the audience, | 0:56:13 | 0:56:17 | |
who can then shout "He is not appreciated." | 0:56:17 | 0:56:20 | |
And I think that there's a kind of feedback loop, there, | 0:56:20 | 0:56:23 | |
of the audience flattering Mark E Smith, saying, "We know how good you are, | 0:56:23 | 0:56:27 | |
"but you're playing to these crowds at this level." | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
But there's also a bit of flattery, going the other way | 0:56:30 | 0:56:34 | |
It's one of those rare moments, where he is approving of the audience, | 0:56:34 | 0:56:38 | |
saying, "But you know. You know I'm really good." | 0:56:38 | 0:56:42 | |
# Because he's, he's fucking not... # | 0:56:42 | 0:56:47 | |
There's part of him that is so fucking furious with his obscurity and his poverty, | 0:56:47 | 0:56:53 | |
considering how brilliant he is and part of him that really, really wouldn't want it any other way. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:59 | |
I think there's a lot of deception going on, sometimes, with Mark. | 0:56:59 | 0:57:06 | |
He wants an audience... he wants to be appreciated. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:10 | |
He deserves to be appreciated, or feels he does... and some of it's just showbiz. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:16 | |
"I'm an anti-star, but I shine brightly." | 0:57:16 | 0:57:20 | |
He lives in his own weird little world and it's not a world I particularly want to be part of, | 0:57:26 | 0:57:31 | |
but it's Mark Smith - what he does is brilliant and you can never write him off. | 0:57:31 | 0:57:36 | |
# Check the record Check the record | 0:57:36 | 0:57:38 | |
# Check the guy's track record | 0:57:38 | 0:57:40 | |
# Check the record Check the guy's track record... # | 0:57:40 | 0:57:44 | |
It is to Manchester's glory, that, yes, we have Ian Curtis and Shaun Ryder and Ian Brown and... | 0:57:44 | 0:57:51 | |
Let's forget the Gallagher brothers, but without Mark E, that heritage would be a much, much poorer place. | 0:57:51 | 0:57:59 | |
And the fact that I'm calling him heritage he'll fucking hate, so I'm glad I said it. | 0:57:59 | 0:58:04 | |
# He is not... # | 0:58:04 | 0:58:08 | |
I respect Mark for continuing to beat his own path through the jungle that is life. | 0:58:08 | 0:58:16 | |
Even if there's a well-worn path, three or four feet to the left or right of him, | 0:58:16 | 0:58:21 | |
he's still gonna go down the middle and that's got to be good. | 0:58:21 | 0:58:24 | |
# ..He is fucking not Drink a long, drink a long draught | 0:58:24 | 0:58:33 | |
# Drink a long draught... # | 0:58:33 | 0:58:34 | |
I've got plenty to say, you know? I'm gonna carry on saying it. | 0:58:34 | 0:58:39 | |
Okey doke? | 0:58:42 | 0:58:44 | |
# Check the record Check the record | 0:58:44 | 0:58:46 | |
# Check the guy's track record. | 0:58:46 | 0:58:48 | |
# Check the record Check the guy's track record. # | 0:58:48 | 0:58:51 |