1. Sing! Harpy
'Sing! Harpy' should have been a single, but 'I’m Frank' wouldn’t
have been a bad choice either. Said to be Craig’s Scanlon’s tribute to Frank
Zappa (I’m unqualified to comment) it’s a better song than is often given
credit for. After that there’s 'Bill is Dead', which is more than likely
autobiographical: an account of renewal in the wake of the trauma of death (of
Smith’s father) and divorce (from Brix). Again, Smith denied all of this, which
doesn’t mean it isn’t so. 'Black Monk Theme, Part 1' follows – more
violins – and then 'Popcorn, Double Feature', which was released as a
single but shouldn’t have been. Both are covers, of The Monks and The Searchers
respectively. Side 2 is a little more hit and miss; 'Hilary' and 'The
Littlest Rebel' are the highlights.
As with previous Fall albums, the cassette and CD included a number of
tunes that didn’t feature on the record. The one that really should have is 'Arms
Control Poseur', which originally appeared on the B-side of 'Popcorn, Double Feature'. The album version is superior, but you get both on the 2007
re-issue. Credited to Scanlon, Smith and Wolstencroft, according to Marcia
Schofield it was one of the songs Bramah brought with him, as was 'Hilary'
which is attributed solely to Smith.
After the dismissal of Bramah and Schofield, The Fall were operating as
an unprecedented four-piece, comprising Smith, Scanlon, Hanley and Wolstencroft
(with Dave Bush drafted in on auxiliary ‘electronics’). The album that followed
– Shift-Work – is more upbeat than its predecessor, but not
necessarily better for it. Again, the first side is the stronger. 'Idiot
Joy Showland' is good, 'Pittsville Direkt' is good, 'Book of Lies'
is very good, but best of all is 'Edinburgh Man', a song that may or may
not recall fondly the milieu described in 'Bill is Dead'. The most
interesting tracks, though, are found on the second side – the dance-tinged 'You
Haven’t Found it Yet' and 'The Mixer' – and give a clearer indication
of where The Fall was headed.
For Code: Selfish, Bush found himself promoted from electronics to keyboards & machines. The result is a harsher, noisier record and an
underrated one. Indeed, its first side, on vinyl and cassette, might be one of
The Fall’s very best. The opening tracks, 'Birmingham School of Business School'
and 'Free Range', kick the doors down in very much the same way that 'Lay
of the Land' and '2 x 4' do on The Wonderful and Frightening World
Of... . 'Return' does a similar job to 'I'm Frank', but with more
vigour. For 'Time Enough at Last', Scanlon digs out the guitar sound he
employed on 'Wings', while Hanley’s bass borders on the sublime. 'Everything
Hurtz' has swagger, and the sequencing on 'Immortality' rounds things
off nicely.
The second side isn’t nearly as good. At just over six minutes, 'Two-Face!'
outstays its welcome. 'Gentlemen’s Agreement', on the other hand, ranks alongside 'Bill is Dead', 'Edinburgh Man' and 'Disney’s Dream Debased' as
one of The Fall’s most poignant moments. The less said about 'Crew Filth'
the better.
The Infotainment
Scan, released earlier that year, was and still is The Fall’s highest
charting album. Yet of the five albums from this period, this is the one that has
dated the most. The first four tracks are exempt: 'Ladybird (Green Grass)'
and 'Glam Racket' must rank among the best tunes The Fall have produced; 'Lost
in Music' and 'I’m Going to Spain' are covers, so sound quite unlike
anything else. Thereafter, Dave Bush is let loose to do pretty much what he
likes, creating a strange sort of alternative rock-techno hybrid in the
process. It actually works quite well, if you don’t mind a bit of Italian-house
mixed in with your Fall.
By the time I went to see The Fall again in January 1994, at the Brixton
Fridge, I’d caught up. Here’s the set-list:
Happy Holiday / Return / M5 / I’m
Going to Spain / 15 Ways / Free Range / Big New Prinz / The Mixer / The Reckoning
/ I’m Frank / Paranoia Man in Cheap Shit Room / Glam Racket / Hey! Student / A
Past Gone Mad / Strychnine / Behind the Counter / Ladybird (Green Grass).
They were on excellent form that night. I distinctly recall hearing 'The Reckoning' and
being blown away by it, even though it was completely new to me. It would
materialise on the next album, Middle Class Revolt, which in many ways
carried on where The Infotainment Scan left off. So too would 'Happy
Holiday' and 'M5', yet these tunes were familiar because they’d
already appeared on the Behind the Counter EP released in December ’93.
And this is the problem with Middle Class Revolt. By the time it was
released in May 1994, no less than six of its tracks – '15 Ways', 'Behind the
Counter', 'War', 'M5', 'Hey! Student' and 'The $500 Bottle of Wine' – had surfaced
in one form or another on the singles that preceded it. Not that this
diminished the quality of the album in itself, but it did lessen its impact. 'You’re
Not up too Much', which sounds a little out of place here, softened the
blow.
And then came Cerebral
Caustic, which I didn’t like very much, and instead of moving forward I
continued to look back. I don’t rule out ever compiling a fourth chapter in
this series, but it is unlikely that I will. It’s not so much that The
Fall ceased to produce good music from around 1995 onwards, but rather that Smith’s schtick became repetitive and chaotic – stumbling over his words, sometimes
growling, his voice shot.
It does not do to equate the genius of The Fall with the genius of Mark E
Smith. They would have been nothing more than a curious, if compelling,
phenomenon without a select group of musicians capable of realising the vision:
Steve Hanley, Craig Scanlon, Marc Riley, Brix Smith-Start, Karl Burns, Paul
Hanley, Martin Bramah, Simon Wolstencroft, maybe ‘he of classical training’
Simon Rogers. That’s half of it, and Smith’s idiomatic way with words is the
other. That they coalesced in one band is almost unheard of.
What I think did it for me was the realisation that there would never
be another 'Wings', 'Leave the Capitol', 'Athlete Cured', 'Dktr. Faustus'; tunes with a clear narrative and enunciated diction. Whether
Smith chose to abandon these methods or just no longer possessed the vocal
dexterity is moot. He – no, they – left quite enough to be getting on with, and we can be grateful for that.
[Listen to here.]
