Von Südenfed ‎– "Tromatic Reflexxions" (Domino ‎– WIGCD190) 2007

Who's that on the right, adorning the cover of this electronic underground disco Band? None other than Mark E. Smith, he of The Fall.The other two are in Mouse On Mars apparently? 
Most of the young alt-clubbers who dance to this probably have no clue who the singer is,but thats all part of the fun innit?
Smith always had an interest in cheesy electronic disco,especially like Italian house stuff. I went to see the new, post-Brownies, Fall line up in 1998, and between the groups and before The Fall came on, Mark and his roadies all came out onstage to dance wildly to some cheesy Italo-disco,and seemed to have a wonderful time,as did we. 
He seemed to keep his sense of humour in most situations did our Mark,and i'm sure there's a small element of tongue firmly in cheek with this album too.It's rather good, and one thinks that it would have been better for Mark to have ditched the Guitars rather more often methinks.All those 21st century Fall albums blurred into an over-produced morass of sameness.Ooops,its october, time for another Fall album and tour......although how I wish there was another one coming out in 2020.Would love to hear Marks take on the Coronavirus crisis.
It reminds me of a more drunk and unsexy northern English working mens Gay club version of DAF.....which gives me an opportunity to segue into a Tribute to Gabi Delgado of DAF who died yesterday specifically to join Mark's new EBM band in music Valhalla.To be listened to with a pint of Newcastle Brown ale,or some of paradise brewed local Bitter.

Tracklist:

1 Fledermaus Can't Get It 3:56
2 The Rhinohead 4:16
3 Flooded 4:46
4 Family Feud 4:28
5 Serious Brainskin 3:51
6 Speech Contamination / German Fear Of Österreich 3:59
7 The Young The Faceless And The Codes 4:32
8 Duckrog 2:47
9 Chicken Yiamas 2:36
10 That Sound Wiped 6:05
11 Jbak Lois Lane 2:56
12 Dearest Friends 4:44

DOWNLOAD some flatcap and black pudding gay disco HERE!

Mark E. Smith ‎– "Pander! Panda! Panzer!" (Action Records ‎– TAKE19CD) 2002

A spoken word album of self-penned,like who else is gonna write stuff like this(?) short stories, lyrics, poetry, keyboard and sound effects, and some fragments of Fall songs,mixed as one continuous track......that's the bleeding obvious stuff out of the way.
Our Mark E. Mark only made two solo albums of using,primarily, the power of the spoken word. This forty minute collage is the last one he was to make.I kinds prefer this to virtually any Fall thing from 1991 onwards.
He does in fact mention the great Jimmy Bloomfield,manager of the 1970's version of Leicester City FC, which is a rare thing indeed.
He's a unique combination of comedian and poet,and its a joy to hear him relaxed and enunciating his words almost like it was 1982 again,rather than the slurring pisshead he sadly became.Here he sounds like the kind of popular dinner guest and raconteur that can make your cheese and charcuterie soirée swing.

Tracklist:

1 Pander! Panda! Panzer! 42:55

notes:

includes the following sections: Mount Street Sermon / PPP-The End / Enigramatic Dream [sic] / Life Just Bounces / Copenhagen "Set-Up" / Dissolute Singer / Lucifer Over Lancashire / Lakeland Opus 1 / Sport Duet / Idiot Joy Showland / "plus 5 previously unreleased sentences".

DOWNLOAD Hair! Hear! HERE! 

Mark E. Smith ‎– "The Post Nearly Man" (Artful Records ‎– ARTFULCD14) 1998

Staying in Manchester on the theme of mancunian Poetry....cut to pseudo intellectual skin'ed blogger from near future to explain......
If the kids of the future are still able to read,write and go to school, the works of Mark E. Smith should clearly be on the syllabus. A unique wordsmith was Mark Edward,criminally underepresented in the exclusive spheres of the spoken and written word.
Around the time that seemed to be the end of the Fall around 1998,with the infamous drunken brawl in New York,when the long serving/suffering members of the classic Fall line up walked out on a seriously alcoholic,and abusive Smith. Mark Edward 'S',recruited a new band and created his first solo album,"The Post Nearly Man"; which was a kind of an experimental spoken word collage,primarily featuring Mark's unique style of language and some unaccompanied readings of Fall lyrics.
"Get ahead with your purile slurred word rigmarole and 'purritout('put it out' in English)'", says Mark on "I'm Bobby(part 1)"......And 'Purritout' he did.
"The Post Nearly Man",ironically starts off not with the words of Mark E. himself, but those of fellow initials user, H.P.Lovecraft,and this unnervingly accurate insight into the oncoming New Dark age:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

.....well,I couldn't have put it more bleakly,or accurately myself? Let there be No Light!

After the Lovecraft quote,this CD is a fine work that examines the joy of language,and delivery of therein, which almost becomes an avant-garde tape collage.....(oooooh He'd have hated that pigeon hole!).Frequently used,is that technique that fellow poet,and obvious influence,Don Van Vliet, used on Trout Mask Replica,stopping and starting a cassette recorder or dictophone,to live edit ones parole in real time.
But unlike most 'proper' artists and poets, our Mark, wouldn't waste his and our time explaining himself, its just something he did,and here's the product and the proof.
Question:....Poet, or just drunk bloke doing drunk bloke stuff that we all read too much into, viewed from our pretentious disneylands...ahhhhh!
Personally,in the last ten years or so of the Fall it did sound just like that.A middle of the road post-punk tribute band fronted by a Drunk pub philosopher.......but,indeed,a much missed, Drunk Pub Philosopher......irreplaceable.
From here in The safety of this 'New Intellectual Skin'ed Morass'....RIP MES. 
(read my honest obituary of the great man/drunk HERE!)

Tracklist:

1 The Horror In Clay
2 Shad Segment
3 The Caterer
4 I'm Bobby Part 1
5 The CD In Your Hand
6 Enigrammatic Dream
7 Visit Of An American Poet V 1
8 Segment
9 Visitation Of An American Poet
10 Visit Of An American Poet V 2
11 I'm Bobby Part 2
12 Typewriter
13 Dissolute Singer
14 A Lot In A Name

DOWNLOAD in a post mark e. smith era HERE!

The Fall ‎– "Live 1977" (Cog Sinister ‎– COGVP114CD) 2000

This almost unlistenable cassette,found at the back of a cupboard in the Cog Sinister Office,was recorded live at the Stretford Civic Centre on 23 December 1977, and features John The Postman on vocals for an encore of 'Louie Louie'; his signature tune.
It's also the earliest known recordings of The Fall, in the classic original line-up. For me this IS The Fall, and not the Mark E. Smith Band, which it was to become.
Notably, this was Tony Friel's last performance with the band,er.... sorry mark...Group. Whose departure was the beginning of the end of The Fall, and the start of Mark E. Smith and backing group.
Friel was the one who came up with the name after all.
The recording is pretty ropey, and noisy,with the vocals being somewhat over saturated,but its interesting to hear the early Fall being rather more 'Punky' than they had latterly intended.

Tracklisting:

1 Psycho Mafia 2:40
2 Last Orders 2:14
3 Repetition 4:42
4 Dresden Dolls 3:45
5 Hey Fascist 2:50
6 Frightened 5:22
7 Industrial Estate 2:23
8 Stepping Out 3:32
9 Bingo Master's Breakout 2:40
10 Oh Brother 4:10
11 Cop It 3:04
12 Futures And Pasts 2:50
13 Louie Louie (With John The Postman) 6:36

DOWNLOAD the spirit(s) of '77 HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "The Disparate Cogscienti" (Cog Sinister ‎– COG 2) 1988

A compilation of Mark E. Smiths mates on his label Cog Sinister,including three John The Postman tracks that are surprisingly, rather good!? John had just returned from living in San Francisco by this time, so it must have had an inspiring effect on him.
Marks old DIY 'legend' mates ,The Hamsters, have a couple of tunez too, but you can get their entire unreleased back catalogue on Bandcamp HERE!
Industrial cassette making enigma, Phillip Johnson also crops up, with a musique concrete version of the Fall's infamous B-side manifesto, "Repetition".
The rest is a mixture of standard Indie (Beatrice),Felt-a-alikes (The Lowthers),a no-budget Gun Club (Obi Men),and tongue in cheek working mens club muzak (Mr A. Valler).
Wasn't 'God' that industrial metal group with Justin Broadwick and Kevin Martin of Godflesh fame within the ranks?...if so, they were once really good, or really God?
MES himself makes a brief, uncredited appearance, between sides, doing a reading over a bit of "Tempo House".

Tracklisting:

A1 –The Obi Men - Her Address
A2 –The Hamsters - Ole Spain
A3 –The Hamsters - Stupid Songs
A4 –The Lowthers - Sylvia
A5 –John The Postman's Peurile - Kowalski
A6 –John The Postman & The Legendary Lost - Come To The Sabbat

Interlude - The Fall

B1 –Beatrice - A Girl Like Me
B2 –God - Sounds Like Thunder
B3 –Mr. A. Valler - Mr. A. Valler
B4 –Andrew Berry - Unsatisfied
B5 –The Next Step - Pseudo Drama Time
B6 –Philip Johnson - One Forthy Three
B7 –John The Postman & The Legendary Lost - Work

DOWNLOAD a mark edward smith sanctioned compilation HERE!

The Fall ‎– "The Complete Peel Sessions 1978 - 2004" (Castle Music ‎– CMXBX982) 2005

Mark E. Smith : "A Tribute?"

Those of you who are sick of the recent barrage of Italian Post-Industrial Noise have been rescued,momentarily by the untimely death of the Bard of Prestwich, Mark Edward Smith.Yea,he of The Fall.
I once thought that 'The Fall' was a good name for a group,until I realised it was American for 'Autumn'!?.....very proto-gothic I thought.
This Band.....oh sorry.....'Group', as Mark E. always insisted they were, fitted very nicely into the exclusive ,canon of 'groups' such as Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, as 'groups' one could NOT get into on the first encounter. As with Beefheart, the first time I heard 'The Fall' I was immediately enamored and wanted more, like Oliver Twist approaching the Mr Bumble of accepted Rock'n'Roll myths for more Gruel. If there was a food equivalent for The Fall, it could only be a grubby bowl of tepid Gruel. Marks corresponding Dickensian character would have had to have been Fagin, and the endless supply of Group members would have been his gang of child pick-pockets,but with worse clothes. 
I first heard The Fall (mark 1),aged 14, predictably on the John Peel show back in '78. "Stepping Out" from the 'Live at the Electric Circus' blue ten incher on ,incredibly, Virgin Records, was the track. I found this short discordant tune was to this date the weirdest thing i'd ever heard, even alongside the moment my record player needle hit the grooves of "Frownland", the opener to 'Trout Mask replica'.
That saturday I asked my Mother to pop into the record shop to get me a copy.
'Twas a thing of great beauty in its opaque electric blue vinyl, made even better as it introduced me to Joy Division as well. But it was the two tracks by The Fall that were by far the most intriguing.Both tracks ('Stepping Out, and Last Orders') would have been very relevant for Mark's funeral service in my opinion, predictably followed by 'Bill Is Dead' and ' New face In Hell' from the post-Bramah period.
Then i was privileged to hear the first Peel session from 1978, which included the best ever Fall song in my opinion, "Industrial estate".....I Know Mark will be spinning in his Urn, but its a fact.
Then I spotted "Bingo-Masters Breakout" stuck on the wall of Revolver Records in Leicester, opposite Gary Linekers' family vegatable stall in the market.
Wow!..."Psycho Mafia" , and "Repetition",which set out The Fall's musical manifesto in three letters, The three 'R's....Repetition, Repetition, Repetition!...Perfect.
All the tunes on the first singles and "Live at the Witch Trials" were indeed......Perfect in their imperfection........then, as happens with everything 'good', the human ego takes hold and  ruins everything. Mark wanted the 'Group' to be his backing 'Band', and he was to be the poet in the spotlight. So Martin Bramah, the musicial brains behind the early Fall, left (returning for the last great ,despite the inclusion of a DJ(?) in the line-up?,Fall Album, "Extricate" in 1990).
I again sent my long suffering Mother downtown to Revolver to get "Dragnet", the second album, and the first Mark E. Smith and backing band record. The magic had gone for me, and it was only 1979! If it wasn't for the Vocals and lyrical content,it would have been not much different to any Spherical Objects album from the same town and era. It had the lo-fi clautrophobic atmosphere, and a greyness about it,but it just sounded like a 'Band' of also-rans, following orders to these ears. Some good singles followed and a few more decent albums, but it never again recreated the spark the early records achieved for me.
But......as a Poet and  Word E. Smith , he was probably second to none. Of course he had to have a backing 'Band', or no-one would have had the pleasure of his written script. No matter how slurred his delivery became in the last twenty years of the 'Groups' existence, the lyrical content was always interesting and worthy of study in English Literature classes of the near-future.
Then during the eighties, in the period when Mark E. was seen dancing in video's, wearing eye-liner and Armani suits, a bizarre mental illness reared its ugly head....."The Fall Fan" became common place.
Mostly post-teenage male professionals with thinning male pattern baldness, they delighted in telling anyone who would listen who their Favourite Group was, with an 'Ain't I weird' smirk. Willing the person on the receiving end of this announcement to have an aptly confused expression on their face.
Bank managers were regularly seen replacing the Jazz cd's on their coffee table with a copy of "Hex Enduction Hour".As much as Mark hated being accidentally,but on purpose, 'Cool', his 'Group' were now inevitably accessories for the Yuppie classes and trainspotters everywhere to appear 'Cool'.
Yes, a Fall Gig was a depressing experience.
But we still have the records, and The Complete Peel Sessions is arguably the best one, even if it goes downhill musically from the third session onwards....."Australians In Europe" excepted.
The words however will live on in infamy ,....infamy,infamy they all had it infa-him!
He should be interred in Poets Corner in Westminster abbey, but the great man,contrary as always would have viewed that as a failure. So an unmarked grave in hallowed ground in Prestwich will have to suffice methinks? He was, remarkably, a Christian after-all!?

Mark E. Smith as the man at C&A!?

PS...Oh, and by the way, yes he sacked a lot of group members and was permanently Drunk for at least 20 years, but he was one of the grand dukes of DIY philosophy,so he' earned this mealy mouthed tribute well.Hopefully he won't just be remembered only for being the drunk megalomaniac he's so often portrayed as? RIP MES.

Tracklist:

One
1-1 Futures And Pasts 2:35
1-2 Mother-Sister! 3:07
1-3 Rebellious Jukebox 2:59
1-4 Industrial Estate 1:44
Two
1-5 Put Away 3:33
1-6 Mess Of My 3:13
1-7 No Xmas For John Quays 4:12
1-8 Like To Blow 1:46
Three
1-9 Container Drivers 3:38
1-10 Jawbone And The Air-Rifle 3:22
1-11 New Puritan 7:13
1-12 New Face In Hell 5:02
Four
1-13 Middlemass 3:53
1-14 Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul 2:41
1-15 Hip Priest 9:23
1-16 C'n'C / Hassle Schmuck 4:13
Five
2-1 Deer Park 4:26
2-2 Look, Know 5:05
2-3 Winter 8:03
2-4 Who Makes The Nazis? 2:54
Six
2-5 Smile 5:10
2-6 Garden 10:00
2-7 Hexen Definitive / Strife Knot 9:07
2-8 Eat Y'self Fitter 7:01
Seven
2-9 Pat Trip Dispenser 4:08
2-10 2x4 4:15
2-11 Words Of Expectation 9:14
2-12 C.R.E.E.P. 2:36
Eight
3-1 Cruiser's Creek 5:49
3-2 Couldn't Get Ahead 2:33
3-3 Spoilt Victorian Child 4:55
3-4 Gut Of The Quantifier 4:42
Nine
3-5 L.A. 4:34
3-6 The Man Whose Head Expanded 5:13
3-7 What You Need 5:52
3-8 Faust Banana 5:06
Ten
3-9 Hot Aftershave Bop 3:10
3-10 R.O.D. 4:26
3-11 Gross Chapel / GB Grenadiers 6:21
3-12 US 80's-90's 4:53
Eleven
3-13 Athlete Cured 4:45
3-14 Australians In Europe 5:42
3-15 Twister 4:16
3-16 Guest Informant 4:09
Twelve
4-1 Deadbeat Descendant 2:17
4-2 Cab It Up 4:40
4-3 Squid Lord 3:48
4-4 Kurious Oranj 5:57
Thirteen
4-5 Chicago Now 5:33
4-6 Black Monk Theme 4:05
4-7 Hilary 2:22
4-8 Whizz Bang 2:59
Fourteen
4-9 The War Against Intelligence 3:02
4-10 Idiot Joy Showland 3:46
4-11 A Lot Of Wind 5:25
4-12 The Mixer 4:32
Fifteen
4-13 Free Range 4:05
4-14 Kimble 3:53
4-15 Immortality 4:27
4-16 Return 4:11
Sixteen
5-1 Ladybird (Green Grass) 4:04
5-2 Strychnine 2:54
5-3 Service 3:35
5-4 Paranoia Man In Cheap Sh*t Room 4:17
Seventeen
5-5 M5 3:08
5-6 Behind The Counter 4:03
5-7 Reckoning 3:40
5-8 Hey! Student 4:09
Eighteen
5-9 Glam Racket / Star 3:20
5-10 Jingle Bell Rock 1:08
5-11 Hark The Herald Angels Sing 3:09
5-12 Numb At The Lodge 3:00
Nineteen
5-13 He Pep! 4:15
5-14 Oleano 3:08
5-15 Chilinist 5:20
5-16 The City Never Sleeps 2:55
Twenty
5-17 D.I.Y. Meat 2:32
5-18 Spinetrak 2:39
5-19 Spencer 3:34
5-20 Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones 3:40
Twenty One
6-1 Calendar 3:00
6-2 Touch Sensitive 3:35
6-3 Masquerade 6:33
6-4 Jungle Rock6:21
Twenty Two
6-5 Bound Soul One 3:50
6-6 Antidotes 4:57
6-7 Shake-Off 1:43
6-8 This Perfect Day 2:15
Twenty Three
6-9 Theme From Sparta F.C. 3:53
6-10 Contraflow 4:05
6-11 Groovin' With Mr. Bloe 6:06
6-12 Mere Pseud Mag. Ed. 3:17
Twenty Four
6-13 Clasp Hands 4:41
6-14 Blindness 6:28
6-15 What About Us? 5:52
6-16 Wrong Place, Right Time 7:00
Bonus Track
6-17 Job Search 4:20
DOWNLOAD the downfall of MES RIP HERE!