The Fall Documentary on BBC4......

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...ah.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

when-ah?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 13:02 (twenty years ago)

The Fall: The Wonderful And Frightening World Of Mark E Smith
21st January 2005
9pm BBC FOUR
BBC FOUR focuses on one of England's truly unique and under-rated bands - The Fall in this special documentary. One of the most enigmatic, idiosyncratic and chaotic garage bands of the last 30 years, The Fall are lead by the belligerent and poetic Mark E Smith and grew out of the fringe of the Manchester punk scene and to date have released in excess of three dozen albums, toured relentlessly, inspired two successful stage plays, recorded 24 Peel Sessions, performed with contemporary ballet dancer Michael Clarke along with various spoken word events. All this has happened under the guidance of Smith with various line-ups currently totalling over 40 different members. They have never conformed to fashion or musical trends and when asked why they were his favourite band, John Peel replied â€œThey are always different, they are always the same.â€? This is the first time that Mark E Smith has agreed to the story being told on television and he along with many of the major players take us through this unique English rock 'n' roll story.

Their rollercoaster story is told alongside footage of their most recent and sadly now last Peel Session recorded in August at the legendary BBC Maida Vale studios, there is also film of John playing out the session at Peel Acres a week later. Contributors include past and present band members including Marc Riley, Una Baines, Steve Hanley, Ben Pritchard and Eleni Smith plus thoughts from key fans/critics including Paul Morley, Tony Wilson, Stewart Lee, promoter Alan Wise, original Buzzcocks manager Richard Boon and Franz Ferdinand.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

franz ferdinand.

― Hari Ashurst (Toaster), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

hanley but not scanlon? hmm.

and no brix? boo.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

I've seen it – it's good. MES ignoring the opinions of two lame Peel session engineers and telling the band to start again is a highlight. Ben Pritchard comes across well. Stewart Lee just gushes.

― wtin, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

i'll have digital telly by this date - yay!

― Frankenstein On Ice (blueski), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 13:29 (twenty years ago)

Truly awesome group. Wildly underrated. Still vital.

And that 25th? Peel Session is great stuff. "Blindness" and "What About Us" are great stuff.

Scanlon works as a caretaker for a school grounds I think. And Hanley as a janitor?

― Scott McFarland, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 14:14 (twenty years ago)

I bought the Fall "Hip Priest" book, a fiver. Entertaining/must dig out Extricate/buy Unutterable apparently...

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 14:56 (twenty years ago)

"Hip Priest" is a great read I think. Who can forget the story of his 1997 meltdown with Brix after she suggested they call the cops and find out what's in his blood.

Extricate I can live without, as I can without everything from "Frenz Experiment" through "Middle Class Revolt". "Unutterable" is truly interesting, their most real foray into electronic music. "Serum", "Way Round", "Ketamine Sun", those are great tracks. "Dr. Buck's Letter" is a great subtle exercise in rhythm. "Two Librans" is a great simple cruncher.

― Scott McFarland (Scott McFarland), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

Aw, I hope I can find a torrent file of this.

― Leon the Fratboy (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:38 (twenty years ago)

"In excess of three dozen albums"

I think there are twenty-one proper Fall studio albums. I consider the live albums valid up to a certain point: Totale's Turns, A Part of America Therein, In a Hole, Seminal Live, maybe 27 Points. After that, it was cash-in city.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:43 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, this better surface somewhere other than BBC4 at some point.

Franz Ferdinand are 'key fans', eh? Hmm. Stewart Lee sounds good though. I hope Eleni Smith gets a lot of screen time.

― Ferg, Ah (Ferg), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:51 (twenty years ago)

Totale's Turns is great if unusual
A Part of America Therein I can live without
In A Hole is worth hearing because "Backdrop" is otherwise unreleased - but "Live To Air In melbourne" is about as good
Seminal Live the live tracks blow chunks
27 Points I personally think is an awesome document

The "Fall Bootleg Box" of 5 gigs circa 2000-2001 is pretty cool. Garage rock as it should be played.

A box set of the Complete Peel Sessions is due out the first half of 2005. That will be fairly awesome.

― Scott McFarland (Scott McFarland), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:56 (twenty years ago)

Whatever you think of the individual albums, though, my point was that there seemed to be some integrity to the Fall doing live albums up to a certain point in time. Then, they just flooded the market with a million of them. And for what point? They're not the Grateful Dead.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 07:27 (twenty years ago)

Yeah at some point Smith started selling rights to issue Fall material to various small companies and umpteen compilations of live material and even more alternate mixes of studio material started flooding the racks. I never bought those. I don't know what motivated him to do that to his fan base - narctoics addiction?

More interestingly his/the band's "Cog Sinister" put out a handful of mostly pretty good live records from various eras. "I Am Pure As Oranj" was a great document of the band playing behind Michael Clarke's dancing, there was a release from Rejkavyk (sic) in 1983 that was nice ... the worst release was "Live 77" which was from an unlistenable, wildly distorted tape. Shenanigans like that are unfortunate and do distract from the straight line of brilliance that the band's "proper" albums maintain.

― Scott McFarland (Scott McFarland), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 12:14 (twenty years ago)

He's not doing anything to his fanbase, don't buy them if you don't WANT them

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 12:42 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it's not an issue of doing anything to his fanbase, it's an issue of having a sense of integrity about your body or released work.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)

he affects his fanbase because who knows how many potential fans bought one of those receiver comps when they were curious about the band, thinking they were new product, instead of the brilliant "Light User Syndrome" or "Levitate".

― Scott McFarland (Scott McFarland), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:01 (twenty years ago)

"your body OF released work" obv. (x-post)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

MES doing things that annoy and frustrate the Fall's fanbase is pretty much part and parcel of being a Fall fan. Contrary old fucker that he his. (x-post)

― Graeme (Graeme), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:59 (twenty years ago)

I don't know if I agree. What did he do to annoy the Fall's fanbase prior to the late '90s?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 22:02 (twenty years ago)

Is there any way to watch this from your computer somehow if you're not in the U.K.? I tried very hard to figure this out when the Peel show was coming up but I got absolutely nowhere.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 22:03 (twenty years ago)

What did he do to annoy the Fall's fanbase prior to the late '90s?

I Am Kurious Oranj? I was only just discovering the Fall at the time but I remember there being some wailing and gnashing of teeth about that...

What I was getting at was not active attempts by Smith to annoy Fall fans but his apparent lack of concern with anyone's opinion of the Fall being part of the appeal of the Fall.

― Graeme (Graeme), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

Nothing appealing about ruining the discography of one of the greatest bands ever with a tidal wave of cash-in live albums and pointless compilations, though (obviously).

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 6 January 2005 04:50 (twenty years ago)

"Interim"

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 6 January 2005 09:40 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

.. today.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 21 January 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

'Twas an effective sort of overview, really. Shame there was little mention of any specific albums; could have done with bits on "Grotesque" and "Hex Education Hour". Pretty good, insightful interviewees.

― Tom May (Tom May), Saturday, 22 January 2005 00:01 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, this was an excellent doc.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 09:13 (twenty years ago)

Anybody know of a torrent?

― Ferg, Ah (Ferg), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 12:50 (twenty years ago)

Check the UK torrent sites, I was able to snag it easily.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

Oh yeah, it's on UKNova. Smart.

― Ferg, Ah (Ferg), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 13:21 (twenty years ago)

I feel very pleased with myself for joining UKNova just before they closed subscriptions (temporarily, while they kick off the mega-leechers, I hope).

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 15:18 (twenty years ago)

Shit-ah!

― Suedey (John Cei Douglas), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 15:35 (twenty years ago)

There's one on easytree with a lot of seeders at the moment:

http://www.easytree.org/torrents-details.php?id=24115

Mine just came through after 3 days of downloading. I watched it this morning while eating eggs in bed with my girlfriend.

― Mermanky (Mermanky), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 03:51 (twenty years ago)

What did he do to annoy the Fall's fanbase prior to the late '90s?

Well, he let Brix E. Smith take over the band; then they started releasing 5 12" singles a year with stupid covers and uninspired music. These would be those Fall fans who didn't like the Smiths.

― Graeme Friedae, Wednesday, 26 January 2005 07:09 (twenty years ago)

Brix saved the band! Oh yes she did. My only prob was they tended to mix her vocals too high for what were backing vocals for the most part. And those 12" singles were all great!

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 09:15 (twenty years ago)

I thought this was good, I liked Stewart Lee saying he hated the Fall but began to find that fascinating in itself, and Tony Wilson saying he still wasn't even sure if he liked their music.

There seem to be remarkably few interviews with MES where he comes across as being intelligent, I always feel slightly nervous that people unfamiliar with the band are watching and assuming he's just like some elder Gallagher brother.

Gig footage from the end of Sparta FC and Big New Prinz were great.

― Ferg, Ah (Ferg), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

eleven months pass...

The Guardian today features an article about the various ex-members of The Fall:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1678307,00.html

(ilm search for the fall takes forever, so i just picked random fall thread to revive. apologies if there's a more relevant one)

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 5 January 2006 12:33 (nineteen years ago)

So, where be Karl Burns?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 5 January 2006 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

six months pass...

I downloaded and watched this last night, I thought it was very well done. Is this the only documentary on the Fall?

― Jena (JenaP), Sunday, 23 July 2006 16:24 (eighteen years ago)

i like to down load.

― Lmaoborghini (eman), Sunday, 23 July 2006 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

I found it here. It took me a couple of days to get though.

― Jena (JenaP), Sunday, 23 July 2006 16:34 (eighteen years ago)

Oh god please let this work, I never thought I'd get to see this in America. I shall start chanting now...

― Grabbing Thistle (Bimble...), Sunday, 23 July 2006 19:32 (eighteen years ago)

doesn't work for me :(

― Good Dog (Good Dog), Sunday, 23 July 2006 20:33 (eighteen years ago)

this says there's 7 seeders, so it should work.

― Jena (JenaP), Sunday, 23 July 2006 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

erm...

― Jena (JenaP), Sunday, 23 July 2006 21:21 (eighteen years ago)

seems to be working here ... bet it stops as soon as i go to bed.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 23 July 2006 21:47 (eighteen years ago)

ok, it works now. thx!

― Good Dog (Good Dog), Sunday, 23 July 2006 23:04 (eighteen years ago)

mine is working, i dont know how this works, but ill keep the program running in case any of you need to download off me.

thanks for the link, i've seen this thread revive on and off again with much jealousy.

― fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Sunday, 23 July 2006 23:47 (eighteen years ago)

Jena is right, I won't know if it works for another 24 Hours at least. Hey - 24 HOURS IS A JOY DIVISION SONG!

***JOY DIVISION REFERENCE***

― Grabbing Thistle (Bimble...), Monday, 24 July 2006 02:05 (eighteen years ago)

hurrah, it's worked. i'm still seeding (ooer) too.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 24 July 2006 07:29 (eighteen years ago)

thx jena

― Lmaoborghini (eman), Monday, 24 July 2006 11:48 (eighteen years ago)

one month passes...

BBC2 Tonight 23:35. we love repetition.

― Koogy Yonderboy (koogs), Friday, 22 September 2006 12:06 (eighteen years ago)

Shit, I actually did manage to d/l this, fantastic stuff. I cried when I saw Brix, and I didn't know why except that they were such a huge part of my teenage years. But you see I explained all this on another Fall thread entirely, about a month ago, but I don't know what Fall thread that was at all, now.

― Ficky Stingers (Bimble...), Saturday, 23 September 2006 01:57 (eighteen years ago)

Where can you download this?

― Period period period (Period period period), Saturday, 23 September 2006 04:33 (eighteen years ago)

Must know secret "Fall knock".

― Edward III (edward iii), Saturday, 23 September 2006 11:56 (eighteen years ago)

I found it through T0rrent5py, I think.

― Dedicated to Jaggers Who Do Drive-Bys (noodle vague), Saturday, 23 September 2006 12:04 (eighteen years ago)

Look upthread where Jena posted on July 23rd, 2006:

I found it here. It took me a couple of days to get though.

That's the link where I got it. It did take me three days to get though, but I have dial up. Also after I got it I had to download the BitTorrent program and then I still couldn't play it so I had to download this thing called XviD, then I could play it. Good luck!

― Delicious Carbonated Motor Oil (Bimble...), Saturday, 23 September 2006 20:55 (eighteen years ago)

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