Hello Fall fans!

I am new to your ranks, but I have been wholly consumed by The Fall! I don't get it, but I have never been affected by a band this way.

I am 32, and grew up listening to all the great post-punk of the 80s/90s, however, I always thought (without hearing them) that the Fall were like the Cult or Depeche Mode. Not necessarily bad or anything, just not my cup of tea. So I never took the time to check them out (so many years lost!).

However, about 6 months ago, I was reading about Pavement, which were in my top 10 favorite bands, and I read the line about MES saying something along the lines of Pavement having "stolen" a lot of his ideas. Well, I had been looking for some new music, and thought that this was rather interesting, so I got "Grotesque".


All I could say was "...."

I couldn't believe how much Pavement had taken from them, and now, I even find it difficult to listen to them any more. And then the more Fall I listened to, the more I realized how much of the music I listened to had come from them.

When I would think about the music I listened to, I used to say it all stemmed from the Velvet Underground. And I still believe that, but I now see how much of the music had been VU filtered through the Fall!


And what else I find strange about the Fall is that I have had this very real feeling that to kind of "go over the edge" and just commit my heart to the Fall, is to somehow denounce all other music that I have loved before, the Fall make it all seem so trite and insignificant.

Does anyone else remember the way that they were exposed to the Fall? Does anyone else remember having such strong reactions? I assume very many of you. :D

Right now, I am working my way through the Fall Box Set, and am amazed by the amount of good music they created. I don't understand half of what they're doing, but I love it! They are everything that I have ever loved about music, and I look forward to devouring each of their albums.

Another lost soul coming down to join us!
You have a lot of wonderful stuff to discover- a little bit of not so wonderful stuff, but there is not much of that (an amazingly small proportion), and it's still worth hearing. Welcome :applaud: :applaud: :applaud:

With me it was Peel - the first session (I remember trying to thumb a lift to Deeply Vale in 78, carrying a radio cassette that was playing much of the programme in which the first session was broadcast: it included Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing). It was not so overwhelming for me, as there were no records at that time. I kind of envy people who come to The Fall after 30 years, and can george themselves (as I did with F Zappa), but I am also happy to have been able to hear the records - and the changes in the sound - as they came out.

I went to see the Fall play with Here and Now in 78 (still can't get why they were billed together). Was hooked by I don't know what, the group was just uncompromising. You got the feeling they could out-punk all the others but they had bigger fish to fry.
I think they still do. Whatever the prevailing trend they make it something completely other.

I think they met at Deeply Vale. It was a strange billing, but The Fall did get Grant out of it; he'd been mixing for Here and Now for a year or more by that time and I remember seeing him with them when they were called Planet Gong, and playing with Daevid Allen (it was Allen who called him Showbiz).

I had read about them in the music papers and heard a session on John Peel. I bought Bingo Master's Breakout when I heard Repetition in a mate's record shop. Saw them play first in 1981 at Leeds University, the one that was filmed, with the bloke playing the clarinet. Bought all the records and recorded all the radio things and collected live gigs, read the books, bought all the really crap compilations and live releases, T shirts etc etc. Had some tremendous times listening to Fall recordings, but the live experience for me has (usually) been very very disappointing. After 10 or 12 crap gigs (out of about twice that number) I have given up. Recently, I've not really enjoyed a Fall album since The Unutterable and I feel that they have turned into just an average rock band. Shame.

Heard Peel play Repetition in late ’78 I think. Started buying the records straight away. Didn’t get to see them live until ’82, but am still going to see them when I can. Will be at the Brook next week.

So for me, like some others here, it has been a gradual thing. Over the years there have been other acts that have been important (Joy Division, Smiths, Dylan, White Stripes), but as they have fallen by the roadside or petered out The (Mighty) Fall have kept going and have just risen in importance.

You are a lucky person, to have that great catalogue to discover, and usually I wouldn’t try and push anybody in any direction in particular, but you might find it worthwhile to search down a copy of the Peel Sessions boxset. It is rather special.

Many thanks for that A-T-Cat. I have always wondered. I think Gong are playing Leamington the night before the Fall later this month. Will they get together I wonder.

I was fortunate to discover The Fall quite early on.

Rowche Rumble was the first Fall song I ever heard on the radio sometime during the second half of 1979. At that time there was a lot of fantastic music around, however this song immediately seemed very special to me. Having already stopped buying singles then it took me some further months to finally get my first Fall record (Dragnet) in early 1980. Coincidentally I bought Unknown Pleasures and Entertainment! on the same day. All three purchases influenced by reading the NME which then was really useful as hard as this is to believe now.

Obviously once you get into The Fall there's absolutely no stopping. ^_^

Currently in Fopp for £12 if that's any use - and boy it's a piece of work all right.

Probably a Peel session - but my first clear Fall memory is of the video for 'Kicker Conspiracy' being shown on 'Whistle Test'.

Via the great JOHN PEEL in 1985,
"Paintwork" first, then "What You Need"...
so the story began,
continued till now...

Great first post, welcome to the forum.

I discovered the Fall by chance.

When I was 15 my sister bought a Style Council 7" box set and I liked the look of it (but not the music) so I went down to Our Price to buy myself a 7" box set, and bought the Wrong Place Right Time one because it was the cheapest. I was very surprised to find I loved the music within it and then went about buying everything Fall I could lay my hands on.

I discovered the Fall via a wesstmidlands magagazine [in 82]
that gave a free cassette.
I think it was called 'Copy' or maybe 'Replay'
Which had a free cassetteon it and it had Chriss Tarrant and Lenny Henry giving music reviews.
I vividly remember the diologe
-this is rubbish
says Lenny
-no it coming at you like alexi from all angles
says Chiss
-like shit
says Lenny

Which enspired to take my paper boys wages to the local indiependant shop and get a copy of Hex.
Made the mistake of playing it to my Dad.
His review
-Son where did we go wrong with you

My dad, Karl, played drums for them.

Heard/saw 'Hit The North' on The Chart Show one Friday in the late 80s and wondered 'why are those people singing about Hitler?'. A few months later, was taken with Smith's singing on Victoria. My friend then did me a tape comp of the 80s years, I heard 'Frenz' and 'Guest Informant' and that was that.

Thanks for all the cool/great stories! How cool is to have a dad that played in the Fall?!?!

I take it from the many mentions of Peel (RIP), that many of you are in Europe or England. Growing up in the States, John Peel was this mysterious but wise saint that somehow knew about the best music. However, at the time, I didn't know how to listen to his show (I.e. No Internet yet :) but I was religious in buying the singles bands would put out with songs from Peel Sessions.

I understand what you all are saying about getting to devour their library in hindsight, but I am worried that they may not tour the US so much anymore. I am hoping to catch them after the new album comes out next year.

I would love to hear more from you all about those moments where the Fall really stood out to you. Like on Rowche Rumble. Just the way MES does that "tsh tsh" part at the beginning blew me away. So simple, but so effective!

Take no notice of EC's claim, although it might explain Karl's dissappearance. :lol:


Mine was Peel related too, having heard session three (New Face, Puritan, Jawbone), being vaguely interested, then hearing the Festive 50 in '85 and loving Cruisers Creek, I jumped in and started buying.

Lost interest around Shiftwork, then rediscovered in '04 having seen them play Blindness on Jools Holland's show. Took a while and lots of bank balance to catch up, but it's all been worthwhile. :)

:)

Sorry mate, couldn't resist. :lol:

And nor could I.
Sorry Rdarwish...

Indeed.

And welcome. :beer:

Do you think he'll come back? :unsure:

Nah. ;)

:cry2:

In 1979 my cousin went to see The Buzzcocks. The Fall were one of the opening bands. He'd never heard of them before and he loved them. A year or two later, he came over to my house with the then-brand-new album Hex Enduction Hour and played me "Who Makes The Nazis?" I told him I had never heard a song like that before in my entire life and I loved it. I went out to many record stores seeking Hex Enduction Hour. It could not be found. I located instead the single "Look Know b/w I'm Into C.B." I loved it. I also bought an IRS records double album that featured "Rebellious Jukebox." I regarded it as one of the best cuts on the whole record, if not perhaps the best. And this was an album that included such acts as The Cramps, The Stranglers, The Damned, Alternative TV, Squeeze, The Buzzcocks, and Klark Kent. Then for my birthday my cousin bought for me the album EARLY FALL, '77-'79 on Step Forward Records. I played it to death. I realized there is no other band like them. None. I finally got to see them play in 1983 (or 4?) on the Perverted By Language Tour. (Although that LP hadn't actually been released yet.) It was amazing. After that I bought every record they released and saw every show I could get to. (Yes, I finally found a copy of Hex Enduction Hour.) I remember being in a record store and running into friends while buying a used copy of Live At The Witch Trials. I showed this LP to them and said "I'm so excited to find this. I love them. They're a very under-rated band." They looked at me as if I were some fool who did not know what the hell I was talking about. One of them ended up buying a Secret Affair album. I still do not own even one single Secert Affair record, but I own damn near every Fall record. To this day, when I tell people The Fall are my favorite band, many react as if this were a bizarre band to think of as your favorite. What do they know?

:sick: okay I'll say it. Yes they are! The Cult are terrible and no one needs monstrosities like Depeche Mode.

"People are people, so why should it be? You and I should get along so awfully?"

:mellow: Um. the answer is, because you suck. :finger:

Time really dims your memory more than you can say, but the first proper notice I took of The Fall was when Spoilt Victorian Child was on a Beggars compilation, and I heard it by chance.

Around that time, a local DJ Tony Michaelides was playing tracks from The Fall in 1985. LA, Cruisers Creek and SVC were definitely aired and as a result, buying This Nation's Saving Grace was a no brainer.

However, I don't think I could say that I truly discovered The Fall until I got hold of 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong in 2003/4.

Some local college radio station wagg slapped on 'Prole Art Threat' one day (in 1981) ... I thought "This is the most aggressively (as opposed to passively) weird thing evah! How Cool!" By the time I heard 'Totally Wired' and 'Fantastic Life' I was well hooked...



(reprinted from an identical thread we had before, I hate repeating myself) B)

We dig the three R's over here. :D

Well said. I should have said: I'll leave the repetition to those more qualified than I. :lol:

I was only on one leg, when a protruding brick chip said "You're too smart for here"

I said - 'Bald man, have mercy on me.'

I am tapped. :(

Phil Collins got me into the Fall.

After hearing the millionaire singing about how tough it must to be homeless, i thought that there must be more to music than that insepid shit.

Then Billy Big Bananas lent me Extricate and that was it, hooked, stronger than crack this addtiction.

I told my story about getting into The Fall twice or thrice before on different threads. At least this time I avoided describing the moment I put on my first Fall record and became overwhelmed immediately by the "Is there anybody there? Yeah!" intro.

Up to now, that is. :wacko:

That's the best bit! :)

I'm a late 80s convert, so it goes something like:

- My younger brother (then 12 y/o) seeing the Victoria video on tv (probably whatever music show Channel 4 had going at the time) and telling me he thought I'd like the band (me then 14 y/o)

- Me spending a Sunday evening taping stuff off Annie Nightingale's Radio 1 request show, and catching Victoria. Running the tape by my brother: "Yeah, that's the one!"

- I must've bought The Frenz Experiment that year (WHSmiths or Woolworths, Hastings) around my 15th birthday: By then I knew Victoria was a Kinks cover, but I still really wanted to try the LP and find out if all The Fall's songs were like that.

- Getting the LP home, and playing and getting totally side-swiped by Frenz (the song) and everything that followed - And playing it to my brother ASAP and him getting converted the same.

Only the Beggars stuff was readily available (1st & 2nd hand then), but Peel greatly helped when he re-broadcast the 1st 8 sessions of the 80s in his 'Fall in August' fortnight of pre-recorded shows (1990?) - I parted company with a massive £9 for a 2nd-hand copy of Slates that autumn as a result.

I read a book about fame by Cintra Wilson which had a chapter in it called "The Shipwrecks of Rock" which featured MES. One of things she mentioned was that they had about 20 albums and most of them were great.

A couple of days later I was at my local record store and noticed a copy of Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall on cassette, which is probably the best $1.99 I've ever spent. I bought 50,000 Fall fans about a week later and the rest is history.

It was when I heard Damo Suzuki - no band could possibly be better than that. Still think that way. Wish the new one gonna be "slightly" different from last two or three.

I remember seeing a lad on a BBC2 Yufe tv show (I think it was the cringable Oxford Road Show - a programme I always suspected was parodied in 'Solictor in Studio') wearing a t-shirt with The Fall written on it in felt tip. For some reason the name intriguid me. Fairly soon after I heard Peel play Rowche Rumble which I thought was one of the oddest and frightening records I had ever heard. Then Totales Turns came out for the bargain price of £2.50 and I was hooked. Finally I think that it was How I Wrote Elastic Man (which Peel played every night for what seemed like a month) which completely convinced me of their genius. The other thing was that at the tender age of seventeen I knew that those early gigs I attended(a classic run from 1980 to 81 at Manchester Polytechnic, Rafters and Jillys) were like getting gold for pennys. They were stunning those early 80s gigs - never the same set and usually even if you had all their records and had heard the most recent Peel session, there might only be 2 or 3 songs in the set that you had heard before.

I don't think another single creative product in my 46 years (and there's a lot of bands, artists, writers and film makers that I love with a passion) have given me quite the same pleasure as The Fall. Whatever their recent short comings may have been they pale beside the amazing body of work they have produced over the last 30 odd years. Thanks fellas.

:applaud: :applaud: :applaud:

Wasn't it great, seeing them back then? I know this leaves out the people who didn't see them then, but they were wonderful.
I didn't see them as often as you, Cobweb, but I did see them enough to know that no one else came close.

I remember being ill and seeing them at The Venue, sitting on the steps at the back of the dance floor because I didn't want to stand, and they did Words of Expectation as their dynamic entrance number, and it was great - even though I felt rough, I was glad to be there - and to walk home afterwards (I think it was Autumn, though I might be mixing concerts up).

There was a period back then when they seemed to have a different line-up and a drastically different sound every time you saw them.

I discovered The Fall through a combination of listening under the bedsheets to John Peel ( like most people my age ) and standing outside the Grand Hotel in Dawlish listening to The Fall playing inside as we were too young to get in. The bouncers remembered us from the previous week when Simple Minds played (same scenario except it was pissing down). First indoor Fall gig was Totnes in 1981 and we had to leave early because my mate's dad wouldn't hang about. Remember being blown away though.