The Fall CD reissues

I believe there are now multiple CD editions of _Grotesque_ floating around too; one of them truncates a few songs slightly, and another one appends some singles from around that time. Go for the one with appendages.

1) Maybe my mind's playing trix on me, but I swear that _Palace of Swords Reversed_ is TWO CDs? And only 9 tracks? Am I making that up? If so, why two CDs?

2) VERY IMPORTANT - Is there any sort of definitive Fall Buying Guide (or whatnot) out there that cuts through the BS regarding all these reissues and compilations and tracks not reissued and such? I would be quite happy if this existed. The All Music Guide (bless their hearts) comes up woefully short in this regard.

For what it's worth, the Cog reissues of _Hex Enduction Hour_ and _Early Fall_ (to these semi-ringing ears) sound quite good. Of course, I'm of a mind to love _Hex_ if the CD were mastered from a copy of the vinyl record melted into a sphere and used as a pincushion. Yeah.

Hey, you punk, I'm doing what I can. ;-)

The full-on, non-compilation studio albums, in order, are: Live at the Witch Trials Dragnet Grotesque (After the Gramme) Hex Enduction Hour Room to Live Perverted by Language The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall This Nation's Saving Grace Bend Sinister The Frenz Experiment I Am Kurious Oranj Extricate Shift-work Code: Selfish The Infotainment Scan Middle Class Revolt Cerebral Caustic The Light Users Syndrome Levitate The Marshall Suite The Unutterable Are You Are Missing Winner

My favorites among those are Dragnet, the mighty Hex Enduction Hour (gotta agree with Daver there) and Levitate.

Beyond the studio albums, proceed with extreme caution (except snap up the _Slates/A Part of America Therein_ twofer CD, which is amazing). You owe it to yourself to hear, one way or another, the Rough Trade-era singles collected on _Palace of Swords Reversed_ (the current CD version is a double, despite being mastered from vinyl, because the second disc is four badly recorded live tracks from '83). Your mileage may vary on the zillion extant Fall live albums: _Fall in a Hole_ is super-hot (despite a CD mastered from SKIPPING vinyl), _Live 77_ is fascinating if ultra-low-fi, _The 27 Points_ is weirdly hilarious, and _Totale's Turns_ is the one everyone seems to like. (If provoked, I can recite the little monologue at the beginning of "Spectre Vs. Rector" from memory.)

'Frightened' on the 'Psykick Dance Hall' 3-cd budget compilation has the same dropouts you describe. I'm going to rescue my vinyl copy of 'Live at the Witch Trials' from my parents' house.

The Receiver Records releases from 1996/7 ("Oxymoron", "Fiend with a Violin" etc)are definitely ones to avoid. As for some of the earlier albums, whilst Cog Sinister IS Mark's label, it may be the case that he doesn't have access to the original master tapes anymore. In fact I seem to recall that he may have sold or lost access to the original Step Forward material sometime in the 90's.

Vinyl is the best way to go with The Fall. A dusty copy Dragnet at VERY high volume is the real Fall experience!

yeah, this thred:

1) Deluxe editions of "This Nation's Saving Grace" and "Wonderful and Frightening" to come!

2) They are playing the Theatre Royal, Windsor! And my sister doesn't work backstage there anymore !

also, this:

ALAN WISE FIRED BY MARK E SMITH.

At long last the impertinent "impressario" of the Fall , an obvious Fraud, has been seen through by his friend Mark Smith and for the good of the Fall fired for the last time. In no sense will he any more represent the Band, or promote them, or fix up deals for them. It seems Mark was most unhappy after the Manchester show, when the fat fiend aka "Dr" Alan Wise squirreled away 90% of the income.

Said Fall friend "Ed Blaney" I could tell all along he was a bad un . I dont think he ever listened to the Band play..

Said a crestfallen Alan. "I deserved it " I have often been rude to Mark and Mrs Smith who have shown me nothing but kindness for many years and supported me in my puerile efforts and pretence at helping to manage things. "I really have had Simon Taylor... tour manager... do all the work for years whilst I just eat the rider in the dressing room whilst the Band are on.! I cant help it.. its in my blood !"

Rumour has it that regretfully Mark has told him, not to attend a show again, but has been very generous in terms of a severance pay arrangement..

"I wont be with him but I wish them all well, especially Mark. Hes proved to be a Gent.. Now I can take that room in Blackley old peoples home for the confused, just near the crematorium.."

the fall had a manager?

(the funny thing is, it was the manager who issued that statement!)

Does anyone know why it's so difficult to find a copy of Hex Enduction Hour? I don't think I've ever seen it in a record store.

It's also neither on iTunes nor the Amazon mp3 store.

Yeah, I don't know, I just got a copy a month or two ago and it kind of was hard to find. I finally just bought it used through Amazon and it was fine and reasonably priced. Also, emusic appears to have it.

It must be hard to try and keep thirty albums in print when they're spread out between ten labels.

well, all the pre-Beggars stuff is in-print on Castle/Sanctuary, isn't it. Though I'm not sure of their status in the US, some of them seem like imports, others don't.

Yeah, that makes sense everyone.

A good argument for why everything should be available in digital format. :-)

. . . on more than just emusic. (Although I haven't tried emusic yet.)

Kind of wish all artists would just sell their records in a digital format from their own website. In addition to selling on Amazon, iTunes, etc.

There's loads on e-bay, the 2CD version down...

Oh wow, you're right. Thanks Mark.

ah, here's a good thread to put this:

The tapes have been transferred, licenses to issue radio session material applied for, no objections from Mark E. Smith, so we’re almost ready to announce a track listing. The releases won’t come out before the new Fall album on Domino but ‘Wonderful And Frightening’ will be a 4 CD set and ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’ expanded into a 3 disc set.

also:

Latest word from the Fall's press officer says Our Future - Your Clutter will be out on Domino at the end of April

Domino is incredibly proud to announce that it will be releasing the new
album from The Fall. Recorded at various studios in the north of England
over the past year, Your Future Our Clutter, is Mark E Smith and co’s
debut for Domino and will be released on 26th April.

Your Future Our Clutter is The Fall at their most rampant, most forward
moving, bone shaking best. With nine tracks that rock like raw fury, we
see The Fall heading into their next decade with the same intensity with
which they started.

Your Future Our Clutter will be available on double LP (WIGLP245), CD
(WIGCD245) & digital download (WIG245D) from 26th April. Full album
tracklisting is as follows:

1 – O.F.Y.C. Showcase
2 – Bury Pts. 1 + 3
3 – Mexico Wax Solvent
4 - Cowboy George
5 – Hot Cake
6 – Y.F.O.C. / Slippy Floor
7 - Chino
8 - Funnel Of Love
9 - Weather Report 2

The Fall will be playing live across the UK this spring with a show at London’s
Shepherds Bush Empire on May 7th. Full dates are as follows:

24 April - Studio 24, Edinburgh, UK
29 April - Tripod, Dublin, Ireland
May 2 - Ballroom, Keele Uni, UK
May 4 - Rock City, Nottingham, UK
May 7 - Shepherds Bush Empire, London, UK
May 8 - Palace, Aldershot, UK
May 9 - Concorde 2, Brighton, UK
May 16 - ATP, Minehead, UK
May 21 - Balne Lane Working Mens Club, Wakefield, UK

The Fall are:

Peter "PP" Greenway - Guitars
Dave "The Eagle" Spurr - Bass Guitar
Eleni Poulou - Keyboards, Bass, Backing vocals
Keiron Melling - Drums, PCSN
Mark E. Smith - Lead Vocals

‘Wonderful And Frightening’ will be a 4 CD set

wha???

we're at the point where there is just _too_ much fall material out there. actually that point was reached years ago. but even if we exclude the dodgy outtakes and live albums, there's still too much in the way of peel sessions, legit deluxxxe reissues, etc. four CDs of stuff from the early brix era?!

the trick is to only listen to The Fall for a year or two ... then you'll realize there isn't enough of it

my guess is that 2 of those CDs will be live shows

But which 2?!?!

http://www.visi.com/fall/gigography/gig84.html

I thought it was 4 CDs thusly: album / non-lp & b-sides / demos / live.

Think the excellent non-Peel sessions might be on there as well.

Yeah, they had a 'mainstream' phase where they recorded some BBC sessions for the like of JLong, AKershaw, etc., which need collecting.

To be honest, the other reissues with added PSessions haven't enticed, purely because of owning the Peel Box Set already.

The iTunes store shows Strychnine and Strychnine Vol. 2, which seem to be two releases from 2009 on Secret Records. Any idea what these are? 3 b-sides each, seem to be tracks from the 70s or 80s, but no indication if they're live or not. Secret Records also put out Rebellious Jukebox[i] volumes 2-3, and something called [i]Totally Wired: Another Fall Best Of. Any idea what this stuff is? Some sort of cheap cash-in?

totally wired is not a cheapo, it's good...

the others sound fishy but i don't know them

Yeah Totally Wired is great and not a cheapo at all, that actually served as my introduction to the band.

according the fall site, those are two download-only eps that accompany the rebellious jukebox vol 2 release (and contain tracks drawn from it).

This is a different Totally Wired apparently from the 2CD one that came out on Castle/Sanctuary a few years ago, with a different/shorter track selection. Based on the samples, most tracks sound like the original studio versions, but some ("Hey Luciani," "I Feel Voxish") are different, not sure of the source.... A cursory glance suggests that all the tracks on the Secret Totally Wired comp are also on Rebellious Jukebox Vol. 2.

HMV Tell me they just despatched my "W&F"

Right. Very keen to hear the clean session versions of material on that, I've only got stuff on distorted tape to cd transfer. Haf Found Bormann is incredible, as is Frenz, and Stephen Song. Oh God Box! as well. Oh, hell, all of it. Maybe I should get it as well. Hmm.

It's all good!

It's a bit odd in a way: I know the album from its cassette version (the tracklisting is included in MES' rough handwroter from back in the day) but CD1 is the pure LP tracks only, CD2 having the singles/extras.

CD3 has the Peel sessions and also the Janice Long and other BBC source sessions, and a live CD as well. not played it yet, but.

Paul Hanley wrote in with the following correction to the sleevenotes:

I'm quoted as saying that John Fogerty is the 'only publisher who never paid me' when in fact I said 'the only publisher who EVER paid me'. That one letter makes a fairly significant difference, as I'm sure you'd agree.

I'd like to apologise to John for the misunderstanding and take the opportunity to thank him for his help over the years.

We've received an email from Daryl Easlea who wants to apologise to everyone for the Paul Hanley "never/ever" misquote. He says it was a genuine glitch on his behalf that came through in transcription. It was most definitely "ever," and because set in such a positive context, one of those obvious things overlooked at proofing stage.

Latest word on the Omnibus edition of This Nation's Saving Grace is 24 January 2011. It'll be a 3xCD affair with no live disc.

As if this band didn't already have a confusing enough discography, all of these reissues are doing my head in. Is there any good place that will explain exactly what the "defnitive" reissues are?

This is the first time the Beggars Banquet albums have ever been reissued. All the earlier albums (originally on various labels) were last reissued fairly definitely by Sanctuary.

That was my understanding (re the Sanctuary albums), but living in the U.S. where a lot of this stuff can be difficult to track down, makes it pretty confusing.

definitively