Live at the Witch Trials is the debut studio album by the English post-punk band the Fall. It was released on 16 March 1979 through record label Step-Forward. It is not, despite its title, a live album and was recorded in a studio in a single day and mixed by producer Bob Sargeant.

Production and content

The album was recorded at Camden Sound Suite on 15 December 1978 and mixed by producer Bob Sargeant on the 16th. The group had been booked into the studio for five days but Mark E. Smith had fallen ill and cancelled the first three days.

Some of the songs date from earlier incarnations of the group and feature writing credits from former members Tony Friel and Una Baines. Lyrical subject matter includes a tirade against the music industry ("Music Scene"), low-quality jobs ("Industrial Estate") and drugs ("No Xmas for John Quays", "Like to Blow", "Frightened", "Underground Medecin"). In 1997, Smith's own Cog Sinister label issued a CD edition that was poorly mastered from a below-standard vinyl copy. In conjunction with Voiceprint, Cog Sinister reissued the album in 2002 as Live at the Witch Trials +, which was claimed to have been remastered but was, in fact, simply a clone of the I.R.S. disc with the group's first two singles added, "Bingo-Master's Break-Out!" and "It's the New Thing". In 2004, Castle Music released a two-disc CD "Expanded Deluxe Edition" of the album, mastered from the original tapes and with a vastly expanded track listing. However, the Castle Music reissue used a vinyl source for the three "Bingo-Master's Break-Out!" EP tracks, as the original tapes have been lost.

The album was reissued on vinyl in 2016 on the Superior Viaduct label, Cherry Red also released a three-disc CD edition with the same bonus tracks as had appeared on the 2004 Castle Music edition.

Reception

Live at the Witch Trials was met with a very positive reception from critics upon its release. Record Mirrors Chris Westwood described the album as "a rugged, concerned, attuned, rebellious jukebox",

In a retrospective review, Tiny Mix Tapes praised Live at the Witch Trials as a "fully-formed, instant-classic debut album". Trouser Press said that it showed the band "at once leaning towards punk's directness and charging headlong into poetic pretension". Pitchforks Jason Heller stated that the album was "the liminal space between punk and post-punk" and that it established the Fall as a musically "far more wobbly and toxic" band than their post-punk contemporaries.

Track listing

2004 reissue

;Notes

  • Disc 1 tracks 20–21: live at the Electric Circus, Manchester, October 1977
  • Disc 2 tracks 1–4: John Peel Session, 15 June 1978
  • Disc 2 tracks 5–8: John Peel Session, 6 December 1978
  • Disc 2 tracks 9–20: live at Mr. Pickwick's, Liverpool, 22 August 1978; previously released as the 2001 album Liverpool 78.

2019 reissue

The first disc contains the eleven tracks from the original album. Disc 2 and 3 include the same bonus tracks, in the same order, as the 2004 reissue.

;Disc 2 – Singles/Rehearsals/Live/Sessions

  1. "Bingo-Master"
  2. "Psycho Mafia"
  3. "Repetition"
  4. "It's the New Thing"
  5. "Various Times"
  6. "Dresden Dolls" (Rehearsal)
  7. "Psycho Mafia" (Rehearsal)
  8. "Industrial Estate" (Rehearsal)
  9. "Stepping Out" (Live)
  10. "Last Orders" (Live)
  11. "Rebellious Jukebox" (BBC Session)
  12. "Mother-Sister!" (BBC Session)
  13. "Industrial Estate" (BBC Session)
  14. "Futures and Pasts" (BBC Session)
  15. "Put Away" (BBC Session)
  16. "Mess of My" (BBC Session)
  17. "No Xmas for John Key" (BBC Session)
  18. "Like to Blow" (BBC Session)

;Disc 3 – Mr. Pickwick's, Liverpool '78

  1. "Like to Blow" (Live)
  2. "Stepping Out" (Live)
  3. "Two Steps Back" (Live)
  4. "Mess of My" (Live)
  5. "It's the New Thing" (Live)
  6. "Various Times" (Live)
  7. "Bingo-Master" (Live)
  8. "Frightened" (Live)
  9. "Industrial Estate" (Live)
  10. "Psycho Mafia" (Live)
  11. "Music Scene" (Live)
  12. "Mother-Sister!" (Live)

Personnel

; The Fall

  • Mark E. Smith – vocals, guitar ("Live at the Witch Trials"), tapes ("Music Scene")
  • Martin Bramah – guitar, backing vocals, arrangements, production
  • Marc Riley – bass guitar, production
  • Karl Burns – drums, production
  • Yvonne Pawlett – keyboards, production

The voice calling the time on "Music Scene" ("six minutes!", "six forty!") is the group's driver, the son of the actor Peter Adamson, who had played Len Fairclough in Coronation Street.

; Technical

  • Bob Sargeant – production
  • Alvin Clark – engineer
  • John Wriothesley – front-cover artwork
  • Graham Rhodes – sleeve photography
  • Steve Lyons – sleeve photography

References

Sources

  • Pringle, Steve. You Must Get Them All: The Fall on Record. London: Route Publishing, 2022.