The Album Review Club - Week #191 (page 1286) - Harlequin Dream - Boy & Bear

journolud said:
It’s not every band that gets their own dedicated thread on Bluemoon but there are a select few. Rush probably. Radiohead have several. And then there’s the Manchester bands. Not Simply Red, they are from Salford, or Trafford or somewhere. But Doves, Oasis, The Smiths. And of course the Fall. You don’t get much more Manchester than the Fall.

forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk

The Fall - BM's best of thread

Noticed on the tunes thread there is quite a big fanbase on here. I've been exploring them for weeks now and find a new gem most days but there is just so much to get through so thought I'd ask BM to contribute their best and/or little gems. I'll kick us off with a couple.....
forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk

To be fair my engagement with that thread sort of mirrored my real life engagement with the band itself. An avid early fan but it became hard to keep up.

Mark E Smith, the irascible and dictatorial leader of the Fall is one of the many reported to be at the Sex Pistols infamous Free Trade Hall gig. This is probably true unlike many of the claims and assertions made in his highly entertaining but largely scurrilous autobiography Renegade.

I wasn’t at the Sex Pistols gig. I was around 13 so a reasonable excuse. It’s by chance that I first got to see the Fall at all, living as I was a fairly sheltered life in foster care but becoming gradually reacquainted with my father who lived shall we say an alternative type of life. So it was on one of our weekends I found myself taking in an afternoon at the Deeply Vale free festival and catching the Fall, as yet with no releases and Durutti Column. If my piecing together of the history is correct they were introduced on the day by Tony Wilson.

en.wikipedia.org

Deeply Vale Festivals - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

The Fall thrilled me with their primal sound. In spirit I’d have liked to have been a punk but I didn’t really have the chops for that and anyway history seems to tell us it was over almost as soon as it started. And double anyway the Pistols and the Clash and all the rest were already “owned”. (a slight disclaimer here in that the timings of any bands mentioned and their contemporaries can probably be taken with the same pinch of salt as the aforementioned Renegade- I’m not paying attention to detail). The Fall, barely discovered felt in some strange way to be mine. At a time I was trying to “find myself” and anything that I could identify with I felt like I was part of a pretty exclusive club.

So it was that I saw them live when I could at such glamorous venues as Bowdon Club near Altrincham, a suburb more synonymous with Premier League footballers but at the time I was at school in hale Barns so it was an easy one to get to. And needless to say I was an avid buyer of their records on the day of release probably up to and including the seminal Hex Induction Hour and possibly beyond, I can’t really remember.

It's those early release that stay with me most though, the Bingo Masters Break Out EP, It’s The New Thing, both their brilliant b-sides and then the debut album Live at The Witch Trials. I don’t think this early incarnation could make any claims about the mastery of their instruments but they knew how to make an appropriate noise to accompany Mark E Smiths barbed, witty and cynical observations.

The LP had the following track listing

Frightened

Crap Rap 2/Like to Blow

Rebellious Jukebox

No Xmas for John Quays

Mother-Sister

Industrial Estate

Underground Medicin

Two Steps Back

Live at the Witch Trials

Futures and Pasts

Music Scene

(The vinyl version I have is an American copy that has Various Times instead of Industrial Estate)

For many of you I suspect that will be more than enough but the expanded version on Spotify also includes those early singles (and a host of live and BBC session versions of various songs) should your appetite not be sated.

I didn’t remain an avid follower of the Fall, I don’t know why particularly and when the best of thread was posted I made a bit of a commitment to catch up with all their sub sequent releases. I still haven’t done that but I’ll get round to it I’m sure.

For a while I had a correspondence with original member Marc Riley who indulged this fan boy and then recently through the course of work I had reason to call another from that first line up and business out of the way I asked if they were who I thought they were. Having confirmed that we had a nice nostalgic conversation.

The Fall are no more, Mark E Smith died in 2018 with the Fall having released around 30 albums and numerous live ones through multiple line up changes. No doubt there are some classics among them, probably some even better than Witch Trials but I doubt whether I would hold any of them in the same affection.

It’s not deliberate but following the Housemartins and the Strokes it feels like we are making some slightly logical steps backwards through time. You thought the Strokes were lo fi though….
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I know very little about The Fall, so well done linking the thread. I'll go through that before listening to the Album. revert back in a week.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
I didn't find either of those torpedoes especially well-aimed :). But I also didn't expect nor intend to broach the top 20. Ergo, my next pick will need to be something more . . . controversial.
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Surely you made sense of the Strokes being compared to Enya dinner party music because it was deemed cool to do so.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Re this week's pick of The Fall, I've always admired them for trying more than liked the end result, but a few bits of their noise-making (I hesitate to call them songs, but that is not an insult in the least) have struck chords with me over the years so this will be a fun exploration.
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If only they'd actually strike a chord on record, they might get an extra point,

Coatigan said:
What's the technicality?
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They don't attempt a faux rap.
 
Apologies to @journolud for the negativity - it's part of my new policy of trying to get the gut reaction in, like I did last week, before a more considered review follows. But in this case, I'd be amazed if my opinion shifts at all.

On the plus side, somebody has already waded in with a 10 :)
 
bennyboy said:
Sorry found it 2 pages before this one.


I only got into the fall in the Brix years.
If i remember correctly i struggled with them before that.
The only version on Spotify i can find is a double version with extras.
Have you the listings of the original songs on the lp.
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Per @journolud 's write up, the original songs on the LP end at "Music Scene".

That's a lot of tracks otherwise... and I don't anticipate anyone asking "is this it" this week.
 
RobMCFC said:
What? Another Fall album? You couldn't pay me enough.

It's better than The Streets AGDCFF on a mere technicality.
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I was being serious in that it's probably closer to music as you prefer it (admittedly maybe not close enough) whilst still giving a sense of why people like The Fall.
 
Coatigan said:
I thought of it more like reading of prose. Like David Attenborough, to a beat.
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Right, you can all own up now. You're all having a laugh at my expense, aren't you?
These nominations, these bits of "genius" in the music that only I can't hear.

It wouldn't surprise me if mrbelfry is lining up a Mancunian/Detroit mash-up featuring a Leonard Cohen tribute act who raps over 10 hours of two-chord CASIO keyboards.
 
RobMCFC said:
Right, you can all own up now. You're all having a laugh at my expense, aren't you?
These nominations, these bits of "genius" in the music that only I can't hear.

It wouldn't surprise me if mrbelfry is lining up a Mancunian/Detroit mash-up featuring a Leonard Cohen tribute act who raps over 10 hours of two-chord CASIO keyboards.
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Ha now That I would want to hear!
 
threespires said:
Lol, this could be an interesting week. Surprised it's taken this long really.

I've always thought The Fall were a bit like skiing (a bourgeois comparison I'd like to think would really annoy MES) in that people either love it or just can't take to it. People who going skiing for the first time either then can't get enough or don't bother going again.

However I'm one of the minority in that i'd never organise a skiing holiday but if someone suggested one and it wasn't too dear and I liked them I'd be up for it despite having never had any real interest in getting better at skiing. Once I got there I'd remember it was actually quite good fun if you don't get yourself too out of your depth, avoid all the knobheads, and get yourself back indoors for something to drink whilst leaving the dedicated to remain out there till the lifts close.
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If you start on skiing early enough, it can safely last you through your life, perhaps even after 2 hip replacement surgeries. We shall see on that, hopefully by next season...

As an avid skier, I remember my son over a trip wanting to try a snowboard out after years of being a solid intermediate skier with me on black diamonds. I warned him it would be different, but he insisted on trying it out the first day, which was probably due to a bit of Winter Olympics fever too. After struggling to keep up with his dad on the slopes and THE expected FALLing down, by lunch he had had enough and switched back to trusty skis at the rental shop. He then proceeded to go much faster than me down the slopes the rest of the day while I struggled a bit with the arthritis pain I hope to not feel again when the time comes. I still smiled at his finally going faster than dad and gaining the top spot of the family skiing pecking order. It didn't come easy. And yes, he insisted on and we did the night skiing too.

It remains to be seen if The Fall will be on my list of enjoyable alternative punk rock familiar ski trails, or this will seem like a bad snowboard experiment that I will end up struggling with. I'm certainly willing to try in the meantime...
 
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RobMCFC said:
Right, you can all own up now. You're all having a laugh at my expense, aren't you?
These nominations, these bits of "genius" in the music that only I can't hear.

It wouldn't surprise me if mrbelfry is lining up a Mancunian/Detroit mash-up featuring a Leonard Cohen tribute act who raps over 10 hours of two-chord CASIO keyboards.
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He's from Baltimore.

Original pick was closer to home - I think you may have liked it but the timing is now wrong. I like the new album as a palette cleanser so hopefully it'll serve the same purpose on the thread. There isn't a guitar on it!

Are we just reviewing the tracks on the original post or doing the whole double album on Spotify?
 
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mrbelfry said:
He's from Baltimore.

Original pick was closer to home - I think you may have liked it but the timing is now wrong. I like the new album as a palette cleanser so hopefully it'll serve the same purpose on the thread. There isn't a guitar on it!

Are we just reviewing the tracks on the original post or doing the whole double album on Spotify?
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Ha ha that's spooky - I originally wrote "Mancunian/Maryland" and then changed the Maryland to Detroit at the last minute.

I'm just reviewing up to the original album end. Any excuse to get out early.
 
mrbelfry said:
He's from Baltimore.
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Given 80% of the musicians in Baltimore are jazzers and you're not fussed on jazz and it's also got no guitars there can't be that many musicians left !

If you've gone for Abu the Flutemaker you'll be getting a 10.
 
Never heard of them or this.

However I'm rather liking this (two tracks in) for reasons I'll have to ponder during the week.

I get the impression it's quite influential or heavily influenced or both. I'm picking up all sorts of de ja vu from it.

A interesting turn from last weeks dross....
 
mrbelfry said:
Are we just reviewing the tracks on the original post or doing the whole double album on Spotify?
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For the purposes of the thread the album finishes with Music Scene. If you like it that far you might enjoy the next five tracks at least but no need to listen or review them unless you particularly want to.

@RobMCFC you have my sympathy. You might love it by the third listen though ;-)
 
journolud said:
@RobMCFC you have my sympathy. You might love it by the third listen though ;-)
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A listen on here is never wasted. Although it may seem like that from my comments, it’s good to listen to things that you normally wouldn’t. It helps you work out why you like the things you do and what it is about certain music you don’t like.
 
Mr Grumpy said:
Never heard of them or this.

However I'm rather liking this (two tracks in) for reasons I'll have to ponder during the week.

I get the impression it's quite influential or heavily influenced or both. I'm picking up all sorts of de ja vu from it.

A interesting turn from last weeks dross....
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What a turn around
 
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