The Fall were an English post-punk band, formed in 1976 in Prestwich, Greater Manchester. They had many line-up changes, with vocalist and founder member Mark E. Smith being the only constant member. The Fall's long-term musicians included drummers Paul Hanley, Simon Wolstencroft and Karl Burns; guitarists Craig Scanlon, Marc Riley, and Brix Smith; and bassist Steve Hanley, whose melodic, circular bass lines are widely credited with shaping the band's sound from early 1980s albums such as Hex Enduction Hour to the late 1990s.

Originally emerging out of the late 1970s punk movement, the Fall's music underwent numerous stylistic changes often concurrently with changes in the group's lineup. Their music was generally characterised by Smith's caustic lyrics, an abrasive, repetitive guitar-driven sound, and tense bass and drum rhythms. Although never achieving widespread mainstream success beyond minor hit singles in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they maintained a strong cult following throughout the years.

The Fall have been called "the most prolific band of the British post-punk movement". The group disbanded after Smith's death in 2018.

History

Late 1970s: early years

The Fall were formed in Prestwich, England in 1976 by Mark E. Smith, Martin Bramah, Una Baines, and Tony Friel. The four friends met to read their writings to each other and take drugs. Their musical influences included Can (which the band would later pay tribute to on the track "I Am Damo Suzuki"), the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart and garage rock bands like the Monks and the Stooges. The members were devoted readers, with Smith citing H. P. Lovecraft, Raymond Chandler and Malcolm Lowry among his favourite writers. After seeing the Sex Pistols play their second gig at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in July 1976, they decided to start a group. Smith wanted to name the group "the Outsiders", but Friel came up with the name "the Fall" after a 1956 novel by Albert Camus. Smith became the singer, Bramah the guitarist, Friel played bass guitar and Baines bashed biscuit tins instead of drums; unable to afford to buy a drum kit, she then switched to keyboards. Their music was intentionally raw and repetitive. The song "Repetition", declaring that "We dig repetition in the music And we're never going to lose it", served as a manifesto for the Fall's musical philosophy.

The group played their first concert on 23 May 1977, at the North West Arts basement. until music writer Dave Simpson discovered that he had almost certainly been a man named Steve Ormrod. Ormrod lasted just one show, at least in part due to political differences with the other members of the group. Friel, unhappy with Carroll's management, left in December 1977 (he went on to form the Passage with Dick Witts). He was briefly replaced by Jonnie Brown, and later by Eric McGann (also known as Eric the Ferrett). which was released in March 1979. Burns quit the group shortly after the album was recorded, and was replaced by Mike Leigh from Rockin' Ricky, a cabaret band. In April 1979, Burns was followed by Martin Bramah, co-writer of most of the songs on Live at the Witch Trials Marc Riley switched from bass guitar to guitar, and Craig Scanlon (guitar) and Steve Hanley (bass guitar), former bandmates of Riley and members of Fall support act Staff 9, joined the group. Smith praised his playing in Melody Maker: "The most original aspect of the Fall is Steve ... I've never heard a bass player like him ... I don't have to tell him what to play, he just knows. He is the Fall sound." Yvonne Pawlett left in July 1979 to look after her dog. She later appeared in a band called Shy Tots.

1983–1989: Brix Smith years

In 1983, Rough Trade Records released the Fall's ninth single, "The Man Whose Head Expanded", and on 19 September issued the band's tenth single and double pack "Kicker Conspiracy". Bizarrely, in November Kamera Records released around two- to three-thousand copies of the planned 1982 single "Marquis Cha Cha", the release date having been put back due to Kamera's financial troubles in late 1982, making it the Fall's eleventh single issue.

thumb|left|[[Steve Hanley (musician)|Steve Hanley and Brix Smith during the Perverted By Language tour in Hamburg, Germany, April 1984]]

That year Smith's American girlfriend and later wife, Brix Smith joined the band on guitar. Born Laura Elise Salenger, she was nicknamed after the track "The Guns of Brixton" by the Clash, a favourite song of hers. Brix's tenure in the group marked a shift towards the relatively conventional, with the songs she co-wrote often having strong pop hooks and more orthodox verse-chorus-verse structures. Additionally, Brix's keen sense of fashion gradually influenced the group's members to give more attention to their clothing and styling, though her platinum blonde hair and glamorous style were somewhat at odds to the otherwise working class appearance of the Fall. Brix's first live appearance with the Fall was on 21 September 1983 at the Hellfire Club, Wakefield.

Perverted by Language, released 5 December, was the Fall's final album for Rough Trade Records, but the first to feature Brix. Also released in December was the live album In a Hole, recorded during the Fall's tour of New Zealand in 1982, on Flying Nun Records.

This era, a favourite period amongst many critics and fans, was marked by Brix's effort to find a wider audience for the Fall. They achieved a few modest UK hits with singles, including their versions of R. Dean Taylor's "There's a Ghost in My House" (no. 30, 1987) and the Kinks' "Victoria" (no. 35, 1988) and their own songs "Hey! Luciani" (no. 59, 1986) and "Hit the North" (no. 57, 1987), and enjoyed a string of critically acclaimed albums: The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall (1984), This Nation's Saving Grace (1985), Bend Sinister (1986), and The Frenz Experiment (1988). I Am Kurious, Oranj is notable as the fruit of a ballet project between Smith and dancer Michael Clark. Simon Rogers and later Marcia Schofield played keyboards. Paul Hanley quit during the tour supporting The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall, and Simon Wolstencroft replaced other drummer Burns after This Nation's Saving Grace. Wolstencroft becoming sole drummer shifted the group's sound; his drumming was described as "nimble" and "funky" when compared to Burns.

1990–2000

With Brix's departure in 1989 – both from the band and her marriage to Smith – Bramah returned briefly for 1990's Extricate, the first of the Fall's three albums for Phonogram Records. In the early 1990s the band continued to have modest success on the UK chart with singles including "Telephone Thing" (no. 58, 1990), "White Lightning" (no. 56, 1990), "Free Range" (no. 40, 1992) and "Why Are People Grudgeful" (no. 43, 1993). This led to the departure of Hanley (bassist of nineteen years), Burns, and guitarist Tommy Crooks. The following day, Smith was arrested and charged with assaulting Nagle in their hotel; he would later claim this was 'a heated argument... about sharing a room.' Despite this, Nagle remained with the band. The Smith and Nagle line-up would release two albums: The Marshall Suite (1999) and The Unutterable (2000).

2001–2017: later years

Further rifts within the band followed in 2001, which led to a new line-up of Smith, Ben Pritchard (guitar), Ed Blaney (guitar), Jim Watts (bass), and Spencer Birtwistle (drums) releasing Are You Are Missing Winner that year to mixed reviews. Spencer Birtwistle was replaced by Dave Milner on drums in November 2001. September 2002 saw Elena Poulou–Smith's third wife–fill the vacant position of keyboards player, and that year Q magazine named the Fall one of "50 Bands to See Before You Die". The Real New Fall LP (renamed from Country on the Click after an earlier mix of the album appeared on Internet file sharing networks) followed in 2003, with a slightly different mix and some extra tracks for the US version, after which Jim Watts was sacked (replaced by Steve Trafford) and Milner was replaced by a returning Spencer Birtwistle. In 2004 the band released its first career-spanning compilation to positive reviews in June, and a new album, Interim, in November.

left|thumb|200px|Edinburgh, 2011

In January 2005, the Fall were the subject of a BBC Four TV documentary, The Fall: The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith. Their twenty-fifth studio album, entitled Fall Heads Roll, was issued on 3 October 2005. The guitarist, bassist, and drummer all left the group acrimoniously during the US summer 2006 tour after just four dates. In a US radio interview, Smith described their departures as "the best thing that ever happened" to the Fall, although it was some months before he confirmed that they would not be returning.

Early in 2007 the Fall released the Reformation Post TLC album, recorded with the same lineup that salvaged the 2006 US tour. Yet another lineup released Imperial Wax Solvent, in 2008; this lineup would hold for the following three albums, and the core of Peter Greenway (guitar), David Spurr (bass), and Keiron Melling (drums) for the remainder of the band's existence. In April 2009, the Fall signed with UK-based independent record label Domino Records. A new studio album, titled Your Future Our Clutter, was released on 26 April 2010 and followed in November 2011 by the album Ersatz GB. In March 2012, the band were chosen by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival he curated in Minehead, England. The Fall released their twenty-ninth studio album, Re-Mit, in 2013.

In 2014, former members Brix Smith Start, Steve Hanley and Paul Hanley formed a new group called Brix & the Extricated. In addition to new original material, the group also performs songs that the members had written or co-written during their tenure with the Fall. Smith Start and Steve Hanley also both released autobiographies covering their tenures with the Fall around this time frame; 2016's The Rise, the Fall & the Rise and 2014's The Big Midweek: Life Inside the Fall, respectively.

The Fall's thirtieth album, Sub-Lingual Tablet, was released in 2015. This would be Elena Poulou's last album with the band: in a 2016 interview with Mojo Magazine, Smith announced that she had resigned; they would divorce that year. The Fall's 31st and final studio album, New Facts Emerge, was recorded as a four-piece and released in July 2017. Michael Clapham joined in May 2017 on keyboards, but never recorded with the band. Following Smith's death, Greenway, Spurr and Melling recruited singer and guitarist Sam Curran to form a new band, Imperial Wax.

Death of Mark E. Smith

Early in 2017, there were reports that Smith was ill, and over the year numerous live dates were cancelled or postponed for reasons of health, including a week's dates in New York. Having become weak due to a change in medicine, he performed some shows in a wheelchair. His final performance and last appearance in public took place at the Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow, on 4 November 2017. Another show was scheduled for the Fiddlers, Bristol, on 29 November; Smith travelled to Bristol but was then too unwell to leave his hotel room. The other members of the group made a brief appearance on stage and apologised to the people who had come to see the Fall.

On 24 January 2018, Smith died at his home in Prestwich, Greater Manchester after a long illness. He was 60 years old. Smith had been diagnosed with terminal lung and kidney cancer, which his family confirmed had contributed to his death. The announcement of Smith's death was made by his partner and Fall manager Pamela Vander. Smith had been an alcoholic and periodic drug user for much of his adult life, and had undergone treatment several times. His condition led to him falling and suffering bone fragmentation several times from the mid 2000s, leading to his performing several dates in a wheelchair and cast. A heavy smoker, Smith had long suffered from throat and respiratory problems; yet his work ethic or output never declined and he continued to release a new album close to once a year.

Posthumous projects

In August 2018, Cherry Red Records, the Fall's final label, announced they had purchased the rights to 40 Fall albums from Smith before his death and plan to release a reissue series and box set sometime in the future.

Smith's vocal style and lyrics

thumb|300px|right|Mark E. Smith performing live in August 2006

Smith's vocal delivery was known for his tendency to end each phrase terminating in a consonant with an added schwa vocalisation ("ah"). He often spoke-sang or sing-slurred his lyrics, especially from the mid-1990s. His delivery, particularly when playing live, could be described as "rambling", and he often interjected improvised rants.

His lyrics, delivered in a heavy Mancunian accent, are often cryptic, absurdist and inscrutable, and were described by critic Simon Reynolds as "a kind of Northern English magic realism that mixed industrial grime with the unearthly and uncanny, voiced through a unique, one-note delivery somewhere between amphetamine-spiked rant and alcohol-addled yarn." Smith described his approach as wanting to combine "primitive music with intelligent lyrics". Thematically, his frequently densely layered lyrics often centre around descriptions of urban grotesques, gloomy landscapes, "crackpot history", and are infused with regional slang. A newspaper obituary encapsulated his artistic character: "Part-Anthony Burgess, part-punk-Andy Capp, Mark E Smith was a fierce art intelligence and a hero of polar opposition."

Fragments of Smith's lyrics often appeared handwritten on early Fall album and single covers, along with collages he had put together. In a 1983 interview with Sounds, Smith said that he liked artwork to reflect the album content and that his graphic choices reflected his attitude to music. He mentioned how he was drawn to cheap and misspelled posters, amateur layouts of local papers and printed cash and carry signs with "inverted commas where you don't need them". Mark E. Smith was an astute cultural critic, possibly one of the most intelligent lyricists to have emerged since the early days of punk: almost all his songs lambasted the hyping found in music, the absurd habits that working people took on to appear respectful or to feel less invisible, the buffoons who ran the country, and fame itself, including his own, in which he often felt trapped.

Influence

On the group's influence, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that "the Fall, like many cult bands, inspired a new generation of underground bands, ranging from waves of sound-alike indie rockers in the UK to acts in America and New Zealand, which is only one indication of the size and dedication of their small, devoted fan base."

The Fall influenced groups and artists such as Pavement, Franz Ferdinand, Black Country, New Road, Yung Lean, Happy Mondays, Sonic Youth, These New Puritans, LCD Soundsystem, as well as the Russian group Grazhdanskaya Oborona. Sonic Youth covered three Fall songs (and "Victoria" by the Kinks, also covered by the Fall) in a 1988 Peel session, which was released in 1990 as an EP, "4 Tunna Brix", on Sonic Youth's own Goofin' label. The Pixies covered "Big New Prinz" during their 2013 world tour. The 1990s indie acts Pavement (who recorded a version of "The Classical") and Elastica (Smith contributed vocals to their final EP and album) showed an influence of the Fall, while Suede parodied the band with "Implement Yeah!", a song found on the cassette edition of their 1999 single "Electricity". Mark E. Smith's talk-singing style was later credited with inspiring the 2010s post-punk revival or "Post-Brexit New Wave".

Members

Since the Fall formed in 1976, Mark E. Smith was the only constant member. All of the other founding members had left by the end of 1979, although Martin Bramah returned to the band from 1989 to 1990. Of the 66 musicians who came and went over the band's 40-year existence, about one third played in the band for less than a year. The final line-up consisted of Smith, Pete Greenway, Dave Spurr, Keiron Melling and Michael Clapham. Melling, Spurr and Greenway joined the band in 2006.

Smith once remarked, in an oft-quoted quip about the band's frequent lineup changes, "If it's me and your granny on bongos, it's The Fall."

Discography

; Studio albums

{| style="width:100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"

|- valign="top"

| style="width:50%"|

  • Live at the Witch Trials (1979)
  • Dragnet (1979)
  • Grotesque (After the Gramme) (1980)
  • Hex Enduction Hour (1982)
  • Room to Live (1982)
  • Perverted by Language (1983)
  • The Wonderful and Frightening World Of... (1984)
  • This Nation's Saving Grace (1985)
  • Bend Sinister (1986)
  • The Frenz Experiment (1988)
  • I Am Kurious Oranj (1988)
  • Extricate (1990)
  • Shift-Work (1991)
  • Code: Selfish (1992)
  • The Infotainment Scan (1993)
  • Middle Class Revolt (1994)

| style="width:50%"|

  • Cerebral Caustic (1995)
  • The Light User Syndrome (1996)
  • Levitate (1997)
  • The Marshall Suite (1999)
  • The Unutterable (2000)
  • Are You Are Missing Winner (2001)
  • The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click) (2003)
  • Fall Heads Roll (2005)
  • Reformation Post TLC (2007)
  • Imperial Wax Solvent (2008)
  • Your Future Our Clutter (2010)
  • Ersatz GB (2011)
  • Re-Mit (2013)
  • Sub-Lingual Tablet (2015)
  • New Facts Emerge (2017)

|}

References

; Sources

Bibliography

Source:

  • Hanley, Steve. "The Big Midweek: Life Inside The Fall". London: Route, 2014.
  • (released in paperback format as The Fallen: Life in and Out of Britain's Most Insane Group, )
  • The Fall online (formerly The Official Fall Website)
  • The Annotated Fall Lyrics to The Fall's songs, annotated
  • The Fall in Fives Detailed analysis of each Fall album or EP
  • Life in The Fall Interview with Steve Hanley, Brix Smith and Mark Riley