Just to satisfy my own curiosity as a new board member as to how many fans each Fall era picked up.

Obviously this board doesn't represent all Fall fans (I have been an obsessive for over 10 years but only joined the board yesterday) and I apologise if this has been done before.

Feel free to comment on which album turned you onto them for the first time and any interesting stories about how you found out about them.

Mine is not a particularly interesting story but I'll tell it anyway. At the tender age of 16 I picked up a copy of Code Selfish at Walthamstow Central Library (thats in East London folks) after reading something in a music magazine (think it was Vox) which mentioned they were Peelies favourite band. After listening to it a few times, I went out and bought Shift Work the next day and so the habit began...

1990 or 1989 I think...around the time of Extricate and the B-Sides release...

Mine's a stupid story: I was played a track called 'The Taser' by a (not very close) friend - he said it was by The Fall. I loved the track, and started buying Fall stuff soon after. Never did find that track though. Of course, there's a good reason for that...

Around '86 or '87. First record was Grotesque followed by Bend Sinister & Frenz, Hex and Kurious Oranj.

Interest fell with Extricate which I never bought (I still have my sisters' copy of the lp :whistle: .

Great return during a six-month stay in Tanzania in 1993, where my mate and I had brought Frenz and TNSG on cassettes. That, the Residents and Civilisation (the pc game) kept us sane during months of extreme boredom.

Between 1994 and 2000 i didn't listen to Fall, hardly knew they still existed or had released any records.

By chance listened to Peel playing something off of the Unutterable + a rare visit by Fall here in Copenhagen in 2001 got me back.

Picked up This Nation's Saving Grace for a fiver in January/February 2002, half on a whim, half on a recommendation from a friend who'd bought a live CD on a whim. I had this vague idea that they were these legendary arty avant-garde punks, which I suppose was half true. I've been buying Fall records ever since.

I liked the Bingo Master EP, but when John Peel started playing It's The New Thing and Various Times I was hooked.

Bought Live At the Witch Trials more or less on spec and for the cover...I was getting into punk at the time. This was even better, though...fascinating stuff, like nothing before or since. Half the time this forum tries to classify and define the group, but in the end I don't think it's possible.

Heard Totally Wired and How I Wrote "Elastic Man" - instantly hooked.. I'd never heard anything like it and still haven't.. I can still remember the goosepimples,..

... 1989 i returned from an exchange year in the u.s.a.! On the way back home some friend was playing "wrong place - right time". This got me and i bought kurious oranj. Thereafter i started buying the back catalogue and anything new i could get. Never realy lost track of what they were doing. I miss S. Hanley by the way. His bass is [was] ...

Prost:
~>g.

Repetition and the rest of the Bingo Masters EP, and the first couple of John Peel sessions. Never looked back. I've got pretty much everything apart from those last DVD releases. Our last house was named Dragnet, it was great having it on your letters.

Here's my story. I hope it doesn't bore you.

I first got into the Fall around the time of Kurious Oranj, and I bought that, Extricate, Seminal Live and Shiftwork.

But then a terrible thing happened.

I got into dance music.

Thing is, I'm kind of an all-or-nothing sort of person, and for, well, years I thought dance music and clubbing and E was where it was at. I literally listened to nothing else apart from techno (still listen to loads of techno but not quite so rabidly).

This wore off, but by then the Fall had an intimidating back catalogue and being a an all-or-nothing sort of person I knew that catching up was going to be a bit of a full-time job.

Things changed with (and I'm so embarrassed to admit this) the car advert. I heard the tune and just knew it was the Fall. On the back of that I bought A Past Gone Mad and was amazed at how much brilliant stuff I had missed.

And being an all-or-nothing sort of person I've spent the last, what, two, three years relentlessly catching up.

And now I'm here.

1991. my first serious girlfriends brother repeatedly played i am a kurious oranj for two weeks while their parents were away and we were using their house for parties. it didn't really impact on me until one night we went to some one elses house in the middle of nowhere and had a session but there was no tape decks and only a little old record player. her brother had somehow had the foresight to bring popcorn double feature 7" along but he only really liked arms control poseur so we listened to that about 30/40 times that night (no joke) along with american pie by d.mclean. went out and bought tapes of kurious, tnsg and seminallive pretty soon after that. amazingly at present i have no copy of extricate or arms control poseur (still one of my favs)!

Friday, September 4 1981 around 9pm Sheffield Polytechnic, free concert courtesy Sheffield City Council, still recall MES telling a female punk stood next to me "Hey Siouxsis Banshee brush yer hair before you see us".
Returned home and tried to find something in my record collection that could approximate what I'd just heard, made to with a John Cale track, really nothing like, but several hours later money was getting spent on all the Fall vinyl I could get my hands on.
Still spending... :D

2003 the end of college freshmen year, my ex's friend from england introduced them to me, and i have been obsessed with the fall since

Fallen since 1984.

Well, heavily from 1984-1990, reinstated as of release of TRNFLP.

I have all the standard releases (aside from Interim...) and a few boots and rarities. Now getting into DVDs and the spoken word albums if I can find 'em.

'79 - Rowche Rumble. Bought the back catalogue (then only LATWT and Dragnet) and the contrast between the 2 fascinated me, as both were still obviously Fall records.

Interest and enthusiasm for all things Fall has never slackened since. Always looking forward to the next gig/record.

i would like to thank seeing the fall live and TNSG for really getting myself hooked on the fall

You were right.. it is!

Most bands and gigs other than the Fall bore me.. raving knocks it into a cocked hat..

I think before the bum fell out of it it may have been. Not no more.

And my problem was doing it to the exclusion of everything else.

Hey, what am I saying, Problem? Only a problem as far as neglecting the Fall goes... :P

i have had a habit for this message board since may of 04.

Same as me! Just when I started to listen to Peel.

Here's an old discussion, somewhat related... I think there are other threads like this, too.


WHAT SONG GOT YOU INTO THE FALL?

Some interesting comments here, but where are all the mid 90's converts?

It seems there was a heavy drying out period of interest before The Unutterable (and I must admit that Marshall Suite and Levitate did kind of pass me by) but I cannot believe the likes of Code Selfish, Infotainment, MCR and Cerebral didn't get a better conversion rate. Maybe I look at these albums through the tinted lenses of my teenage years, but for me they are classics every bit as worthy of attention as the stuff from the so called 'golden era'.

The only explanation I can think of is that Britpop overshadowed everything that the Fall did in the mid-90's. Certainly it seemed to be the standard policy of most of the music press to declare MES past it whilst heralding the future of British music as the likes of the Roses, Oasis, Blur, Elastica blah di blah. I'd love to fish out some of the rubbish that was written about the Fall in that era, make papier mache arses out of it and send them to the editors of Vox, NME and Q ...

A guy in a shady mack handed me a copy of "The Container Drivers" outside my school.

October 1985, bought Cruisers Creek 12" after hearing it on Peel followed by This Nation's Saving Grace LP for Christmas

1997, a mate played me The 27 Points and Levitate. That was the best thing I'd ever heard apart from late Beethoven.

round about wonderful & frightening world..... of course, like many others i heard the fall on peel..... :cry2:

Afraid to speak up?

Here's one.

i never thought these two albums would win someone over with the fall, ok maybe not 27 points, but can understand about levitate

Hear hear. I am currently working on a lengthy diatribe for the forum which will hopefully make the sceptical majority look anew at these '90s albums. (And it contains no revisionism -- I disliked Code Selfish at the time, but rate it highly now.) I especially think Shiftwork's poor status has nothing to do with the LP itself, and more to do with the ages/lives/times/experiences of the FFs who dismiss it.

I liked Code: Selfish at the time, and like it now. Shiftwork I found okay, but I don't think it's aged well. But am looking forward to your essay.

A friend played me a badly recorded cassette of Hex whilst in the flat of the legendary Fred Twosheds around 1983. Funny how The Fall sounded just as good on a shitty cassette as on a top hi-fi.

Anyway, the line "I've never felt better in my life" made an impression, as did Fortress/Deer Park. So when I was given some money for my birthday shortly afterwards, I thought I would treat myself. By this time, I had already heard Grotesque on tape as well.

So I found myself in a local record shop looking at Grotesque and Hex, but not knowing which album was which, and which had Fortress/deer Park on (I did not know any track names, just how they sounded). I got Grotesque - my first Fall album - which was the wrong one, so I had to go straight back and buy Hex as well. Instant collection!

Bought the previous albums, and kept abreast of developments until I lost interest with Frenz and Kurious Orange. I'd not even heard these, but there were pictures of women on the sleeves, so I just couldn't believe that the music could have the appeal of the earlier stuff.

I was fortunate to start a new job where a couple of younger people were into the Fall, and they rekindled my interest. They played me the albums I had missed, while I lent them earlier stuff.

I now think that Frenz and Kurious Oranj are fine albums.

:zzzz:

TSNG 1985 was my first album bought.
I had heard The Fall on John Peel but I'm ashamed to say I'm not sure which song it was.Possibly Cruisers Creek.
Anyway TNSG blew me away so I bought the earlier albums over a short period of time and have followed the band ever since.

Interesting to note that when The Fall were most commercially backed (Fontana), and regular, if fleeting, visitors to the higher regions of the album charts.

It was either Frenz or Kurious Oranj, which puts me in the 87-89 bracket.

I think it's sad that there are apparently only 9 people on this board who have become fans since I did. It's sad because it says something about the band's ability to attract new fans.

So much for the theory that the Real New Fall LP brought people in. It only brought people *back*.

So Rex when was it since you got into the Fall then?

Read the other thread; I posted about it in some detail there.

(And I posted the link above.)

Quick answer: Middle Class Revolt, having seen the "15 Ways" video on MTV after years of disparaging the Fall because I thought they were silly.

Well make me the tenth then on people who became a fan after you, as I only became a fan early last year.

Also Gaz has only been a fan for about 2 years, I'd guess.

The 90s albums aren't as good. No length of diatribe will change that.

Anyway, it's not the length of your diatribe that's important, but what you do with it.