best track on Hex Enduction Hour

HE IS NOT APPRECIATED

AIR RIFLE LETS OUT A MISPLACED SHOT

I've never felt better in my life

Splitting "Winter" up was a stupid idea.

"Mere Pseud Mag.Ed" one of the all-time Fall titles but you people better get voting for "Hip Priest" with a quickness, that shit is like the national anthem only for the entire known universe plus all the dark matter

I have to choose "The Classical". Side 1 of this album is brilliant, never cared much for Side 2.

the gravekeeper sez "you're out of luck"

I voted for Fortress/Deer Park. Would've voted for Hip Priest, but the live version that I think is from A Part of America Therein is so so much better that it kind of makes the album version seem not as good

I agree! Also, IMO, Peel session versions of Jawbone and the Air-Rifle, Deer Park, Winter, Who Makes the Nazis are all better than the album versions

ehh, in regards to "Jawbone"...not really, as the Hex version is much louder & punchier...

best version of "Nazis?" is on disc 2 of the expanded In a Hole reissue..that 2nd disc is chock full of killer cuts of good songs (Fantastic Life, English Scheme) sounding great!

The Classical v Who makes the Nazis? v Hip Priest

I think The Classical shades it.

gotta give it to "The Classical". that song was like a Rosetta stone that opened up The Fall for me -- they may have other songs where the satire is more biting, MES is more caustic, or the music is more abrasive, but on "The Classical", all of those elements come together perfectly and create something that feels like a manifesto. or a mission statement, or a vision. yeah, vision is the right word; I would definitely call it visionary. if you were to draw a Venn diagram of Fall tracks, most of the others would be wholly contained within its circle. I dunno, I'm a little drunk right now.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel like "The Classical" is the song Mark E. Smith listens to while he's writing other songs

or at least, what he has constantly playing in the back of his head, whether he realizes it or not

it's a really good song, is the point

xpost i actually like side 2 more than side 1...

2nd Winter > 1st side of Winter
Just Step S'Ways is like evil B-52's
Who Makes the Nazis? is a hazy classic
Iceland is prolley the second best song on the album (and if it doesn't get any votes then by God I am starting a I HATE Pulp thread...)

of course I'm always scrambling to shut the stereo off before And This Day comes on, but you know, still...it's a great side.

(tho side 1 has prolley one of the greatest 1-2-3 punches ever, even if my enthusiasm for Hip Priest and The Classical has waned a bit...so I guess I'll say they're equal...)

wow "xpost"...that whole side 1 > side 2 post I was responding to was like 10 posts ago

Spare a thought for the sleeping promo dept.
They haven't had an idea in two years

...with dept pronounced phonetically!

he national anthem only for the entire known universe plus all the dark matter

otm.

...with dept pronounced phonetically!

Yeah! He does that in Lie Dream of A Casino Soul, too, doesn't he? "I was in the supervision dept..."

I dunno, there's a lot to choose from here, but I think "Hip Priest" is pretty goddamn integral to The Fall and I think it's fascinating that some folks only know them from that song. I agree almost any live version is better, though. I remember watching Silence of The Lambs and when that song came on during the most suspenseful scene in the film, I blurted out "Oh my god! It's the Fall!" in the theater and my friends were like "SHUT UP!" LOL

About as good as music has ever got. Though all the tracks on the second side are available in better versions, either on the Peel Box set or live bootlegs etc.

Advertisements become carnivores
And roadworkers turn into jawbones
And he has visions of islands, heavily covered in slime
The villagers dance round pre-fabs
And laugh through twisted mouths
Don't eat
It's disallowed
Suck on marrowbones and energy from the mainland

Jawbone and the Air Rifle.

HEY THERE FUCKFACE

HEY THERE FUCKFACE!

Seriously, no contest for me here.

i had never felt better in my life

not a big HEH fan, but instinctively I'd reach for "hip priest" which is a revelation in any version. maybe I should listen again to see if anything changes my mind.

Hip Priest, even though I like the Dustdevils' version better.

EVERYWHERE NO FUCKING RESPITE
EVERYWHERE NO FUCKING RESPITE FOR YOU, JIM KIDDER

never for the life of me have i understood people's dislike for and this day.

hip priest, conversely, i have never quite seen the amazing definitive fallness of: it seems deliberately v. slight, people seem to conflate the character with MES in some way i've never understood ... drums ++ tho

I dunno, there's a lot to choose from here, but I think "Hip Priest" is pretty goddamn integral to The Fall and I think it's fascinating that some folks only know them from that song. I agree almost any live version is better, though.

Case in point, the one on 'Fall in a Hole'.

Too bad that 'I'm Into C.B.' is only on the expanded Castle reissue, because I'd vote for that. 'HEH' proper is too unbelievably dense for me to single anything out.

I've never understood all the "And This Day" hatred either! It sounds just like all the other noisy tracks, only a little longer and murkier.

"Fortress/Deer Park" for me, please. (And I might've been tempted to vote for "I'm Into CB" if the expanded HEH was the one under consideration.)

she reads Smash Hits while eating her tea

the drumming on this album fuking destroys imo

Just Steps S'ways maybe winner

anybody know what m.e.s. has against "look, know"?? I guess it's been left off the h.e.h. reissue, even the peel version...

marc riley's voice?

The "dept" thing may be my favourite MES mannerism (and I'm sure it's done with total forethought & premeditation, ie proper mannerism). He does with this several other abbrevs as well I am certain -- "etc"? "Esq."? Can't remember right now.

"The Classical" from here.

(Somehow, it's not always the unexpected lines that stick -- I think of "Good coffee, black as well" all the time. And "All entrances uncovered!" when I see big garage doors open, etc.)

"with this" = "this with"

i'm really in the mood for "jawbone and the air rifle" right now. one of the best mes stories imo.

otm r1o

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Godefroi_4.jpg/180px-Godefroi_4.jpg
Godfrey of Bouillon holds a short Poleaxe

poleaxe: i always thought MES said it was 'parallax.'

Tbh I dunno!

I forgot how great this album is all the way through. I voted for Fortress / Deer Park, though. It just seems to be in the perfect place on the album, as do a lot of the songs.

Some of the stuff on "Jawbone" is seriously wtf-poetical: "Gravekeeper tending wreath roots" -- sounds totally mundane-spooky-right until, urm, wreath roots!? Mighty, and even more so for the deflation coming in the next line. For how it sounds tossed-off, this must be so thoroughly worked through -- ie MES = master of ars est celare artem.

srsly guys? no love for Iceland?

K-K-K-Ketamine Sun. Err...Who Makes the Nazis?

Splitting "Winter" up was a stupid idea.

― Ich Ber ein Binliner (Tom D.), Thursday, 4 December 2008 18:13 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It made for a more balanced poll though...

It's great in the way it encapsulates the work you have to do to listen to the album.

Who Makes the Nazis, Just Step Sideways and And This Day are all better on Hip Priests & Kamerads.

lol

I got my Wonderful and Frightening World Omnibus in the mail yesterday.
Got a bite to eat and stopped in the crappy used cd shop downtown and picked up I am Kurious Oranj.
Both will appear in my radio programming tonight.
I probably voted for The Classical in this poll. I usually can't help but smile when I hear it.

Post a link to your show, my good man!

The 21st century Peel version of "Mere Pseud Mag" rips it up something fierce.

I don't love "Hip Priest" as much as everyone else, is that so wrong?

You're not alone there.

Okay! In twelve hours, I will.
xpost I have to be in the mood for Hip Priest.
Kinda preferring the re-imaging of Hip Priest as Big New Prinz from I am Kurious right now.

Go JP session version of Hip Priest. Primal. Non-musical. Great.

"Hip Priest" is way down the interesting or fun stakes on here, for me. Soz. Think I voted "Iceland"

and here today on the vitamin b glandular show

Go JP session version of Hip Priest. Primal. Non-musical. Great.

YES

great as the album version is, this might be better. Winter is better still.

and by 'might be' I mean 'is' - it's like a sprawling atonal matrix of whatever oh just see my liveblog

Hip Priest - OK, now this I am stoked for, because the album version is one of the great documents of recorded sound. Drums are as mystical as they ought to be. MES' falsetto sounds sly and jokey in isolation, as if he's holding something behind his back. Lots of space in this recording and a nice hint of feedback. Feels a little more improvisational. It's going to erupt, I know. Drums are huge, and they're still lying in wait. Two guitar chords into the first explosion are perfect...then a BASS RUMBLE. Mostly unaccompanied. This band knows what it's fucking doing. This is so loose and experimental and gripping. It feels like the knight and Death playing chess in The Seventh Seal except with the knight as the guitar and Death as MES. And Bergman as the rhythm section. This is the moment I realise...that it is not going to erupt. It is erupting, constantly. It doesn't appear to be moving even until it's smothered you. Until the weird distorted mesh-on-mesh effect late in the sixth minute. By which point you are bound in the spider's web and being slowly poisoned. High-pitched screams which are plinks from the strangler. This is the antimatter to New Puritan's charging train. The charging void. The charging anti-train. No survivors.

this was my best-written one I think - would swap the roles of the knight and Death though

Just like I promised. If you want, you can listen to me live at http://kopn.org in just about fifteen minutes. I am not playing anything from Hex, though.

Superior Viaduct’s campaign to reissue The Fall’s early catalog continues with what many consider to be the English post-punkers’ best LP, 1982’s Hex Enduction Hour, on December 2, along with its same-year follow-up, Room to Live ($20 apiece).

https://www.superiorviaduct.com/collections/featured/products/the-fall-hex-enduction-hour-lp

'Jawbone and the Air-Rifle'!

(I think I listen to Grotesque (After The Gramme) more, though)

Yes, this album has always been pretty overrated imo. "And This Day" is a complete dog.

The guy who produced this has had an interesting career since, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mazda.

i'm into c.b. > hex

http://www.richardmazda.com/RichardMazdaHeadshots/RIII-40.jpg

brix aging better than mes there ^

I see he still likes a game of darts down the local.

Surely I'm not the only one who, upon seeing the title "Hip Priest," immediately thinks of "New Big Prinz," which I think is a better song, instead

Not sure if I voted here or not but, err, probably would have gone "Iceland," dunno

not my favorite Fall album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygQmJ59E4Q

It seems to have become the go-to/token Fall album that appears on all the lists, the one that one must simply must own if they only must own one. The one found in the record collections of the curious who haven't yet branched out further into the discography. The one that is supposedly the finest example of Fall music on wax. Thing is, I'm not convinced it is the finest example of what The Fall do. It's a great record, though.

I align with much of what was just said:
- I prefer "Grotesque" as an album.
- "And This Day" is entertaining once or twice and that's about it.
- "Jawbone And The Air Rifle" is a fave.
- "I'm Into CB" over most of this album.

The live versions on "Hip Priests And Kamerads" are better than the studio takes.

The Peel version of "Winter" is stunning, this one isn't. Peel version of "Who Makes the Nazis?" is much better too.

peel winter >>>>>> more or less all other music tbf

What's the source for this new superior viaduct master? When sanctuary did it, I believe the best they could work from was the Line CD as the tapes are nowhere. Did sv find tapes?

haha pvmic but I want to know as well

Mannidk what youre all on about, I take Hex over Grotesque ten times out of ten

I'd say Perverted over Hex, but for someone who doesn't know the band, Hex over Perverted. We ignore this, but Fall=tuff group to get into at first. Hip Priest is their most heard track, and that has to count for something. On white vinyl, via Line, it's exactly as wonderful/disorienting/confusing as the band needed to be, so probably still my first choice.

Jazz records like Ascension aside, are there any other examples of a song like "Winter" which ends the first side of the album and then starts again on the second?

"Willie the Pimp" on the Mothers' "Live at the Fillmore East"."Refried Boogie" on Canned Heat' "Livin' the Blues".To name but two hairy examples.

The live versions on "Hip Priests And Kamerads" are better than the studio takes.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Tuesday, December 20, 2016 6:38 PM

that was the first fall i had, still prefer those versions. also prefer dragnet over grotesque.

Hmmm. Those two are difficult to separate in my mind, as I got them on the same day and because they're so close in the Fall chronology.

For years, the Slates EP was my favorite Fall, but I bought the recent Superior Viaduct reissue and was disappointed to find it hasn't aged so well. "Stop Mithering" goes on forever.

I don't believe I've ever heard Hip Priests and Kamerads. How does it compare to, say, Totales Turns and A Part Of America Therein?

I love (and still regularly listen to) mid-period Fall: Perverted by Language, This Nation's Saving Grace (I think "My New House" was the first Fall song I ever heard), Extricate...

I remember buying Palace Of Swords Reversed on CD because it was (at the time) the only place you could get "Wings," surely one of the great unheralded Fall masterpieces

Has anyone read this?
www.amazon.com/dp/1901927652/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3TFSJS28B182H&coliid=I3BLB96HN6EHAY

Hip Priests and Kamerads is a compilation of Hex / Room to Live era tracks, with only a few of them being live versions.

ie. it's not a live album like the two you mentioned.

Oh, and Hanley's book is great.

fwiw there are more period-era live tracks on the CD version of HP&K

for a while in the 80's that comp was the easiest way to get the "Look, Know/I'm Into C.B" and "Lie Dream/Fantastic Life" singles

this band had such awesome album titles

^first otm post in this revive*

*(though I like Dragnet better* than Grotesque)

*(like, so much better)

Also I think HP&K is still the best way to hear the studio version of "Look, Know". It was left off the deluxe reissue of Hex from a while back, because of undue amounts of Riley

the original lp of HP&K had just one live track... the cd/cassette added something like four more.

yeah, as well as those singles it was my intro to the hex stuff before i eventually found that album.

that look know omission is weird... because the track has been on various compilations.

I feel no compunction about saying HEH is one of my favourite albums ever, even if I've never made it even *once* through "And This Day".

"Willie the Pimp" on the Mothers' "Live at the Fillmore East"."Refried Boogie" on Canned Heat' "Livin' the Blues".To name but two hairy examples.

― The Doug Walters of Crime (Tom D.)

...though Willie the Pimp comes back as a different recording from the one ending side A....

One thing I kind of treasure is that I had to grapple with this album (and Slates) with no internet to help, in the middle of New Jersey, having stumbled across them and been struck by the cover art (or by the fact that I'd never seen a 10" record before). I've read about people in like Japan getting ahold of Beatles albums in the 60s and feeling like they'd come from outer space, and yeah.

i've never thought of this as the be all and end all of Fall albums, that would be This Nation's Saving Grace. It's fine though.

I mean, I'd go with Perverted as the be all and end all, though I certainly see the argument for TNSG, which was my first favorite. There is something about the 1st side of HEH that's pretty special. It has the steamroller opener, one of their best story-songs, one of their best epic songs (and that's all in a row). I'm not sure if they have another three-song run that's up to that standard. And then it ends on a literally half-formed note, with one of the more ambiguous tracks in their catalog, not in the least because it doesn't end on side one.

are there any other examples of a song like "Winter" which ends the first side of the album and then starts again on the second?

Happens on "Kill City".