Best track on "This Nation's Saving Grace

"I Am Damo Suzuki"

Gonna go for Paintwork, although, Gut of the Quantifier and I am Damo Suzuki run it close. Not as even an album as Hex but a gem nonetheless.

what you need

It's gotta be Paintwork.

my new house

gut of the quantifier, the best lipps inc. cover (besides justus cover...)

I Am Damo Suzuki

bahhhmey

feel the wrath of my bombast!

yeah, my new house. but bombast, OTOH... this may take time.

WHAT YOU NEED
A BIT OF IGGY STOOGE

Gut Of The Quantifier. The mightiest Fall song of them all.

barmy is the pick of this crop for mine

instinctively voted 'my new house'. am gonna have to revisit and see if my instincts still ring true

I bought this album in the mid-90s and it actually kind of turned me off The Fall for almost a decade. I've learned to like it a little more in recent years, but I'm still not sure I "get it."

The only song on it I ever really loved is "gut of the quantifier," so that gets my vote.

torn between Paintwork, feat. D. Attenborough, and Gut. "Here are your wedding pictures, they are black"
tough one.

I'll bet this gets way more votes than Hex.

MY NEW HOUSE!!

LA!!

The best Fall album BTW

Barmy I think, although Paintwork runs it very close.

My New House is a monstah jam.

Keep up, thread. Keep up.

For years I would have said Paintwork at the drop of a hat, but I've worn it out over the years. Now I don't know what to vote for. Might just go for My New House, but this is tough.

I Am Damo Suzuki

Ok this is like ten times harder than Hex for me.

Could be LA, Barmy, My New House...

You know you are .. a spoilt Victorian child

Barmy all the way

my new house

Glad to see all the Barmy love. Felt like I've been crazy for years with people not liking that track as much as me.

My New House, fairly easily

Child was spoilt Victorian...
My New House close. Also Paintwork, but I wore it out a bit too.

All those whose mind entitles themselves,

And whose main entitle is themselves,

Shall feel the wrath of my bombast!

...<sigh> they don't write 'em like that any more.

A great great record, followed by "Bend Sinister", then a fallow period. The band didn't really shine again until 1994 with Middle Class Revolt.

Anyway..."My New House."

When I bought this on cassette back in the 80's, it had "Cruisers Creek" instead of "Barmy."

my cd has both. "cruisers creek" would be a contender for me. cd also has "couldn't get ahead," which is pretty crucial. as tis, "spoilt victorian child" but just sort of randomly. love "my new house," "quantifier," "barmy," "bombast." if you ran together "mansion" and "yarbles," might vote for that.

every song here has at least 1 thing in it i love (eg "STICK IN THE MUD! STICK IN THE GUT!" or "what you need: a bit of iggy stooge" or brix quoting russ meyer or...)

so at random, i choose "paintwork"

lol womad: "we are the fall and we are from the first world."

Umm, probably Damo but all these are entitled for a vote more or less

"what you need: a bit of iggy stooge"

I was going to cite that very quote! So awesome, going with "Stooge" instead of "Pop". For that, and for that great bassline (stolen note-for-note from John McLaughlin's "Marbles", no shit! unless it's just an accidental coincidence) I've got no choice but to choose "What You Need". (It's what I need.)

Ack! Impossible, but "Damo Suzuki" for me. Kinda takes the album for a turn into some other territory near the end. Also, no "Cruisers Creek," which was included on the initial U.S. version, and maybe some since, who knows. Also also, this was sort of the "rawk" album, no? Also yet again, I love "L.A." It makes me imagine MES hanging out in the crazy LAX futuro building and smoking cigarettes in the hazy heat or something.

Everything single track on this is great, which can't be said for that many other Fall albums, though it perhaps doesn't have the real standout tracks that other albums have. "Paintwork".

Gut of the Quantifier!!!

O yeah forgot about "couldn't get ahead" on
the cd. This is a mother.

When I bought this on cassette back in the 80's, it had "Cruisers Creek" instead of "Barmy."

Yeah, the LP as I bought it when it came out (U.S. release I believe) didn't have "Barmy" on it.

I think the reason I didn't care for Damo as much at the time is I didn't know who the fuck Damo Suzuki/Can were! Now I appreciate that track so much more. In fact, I want to vote for that, but I'll have to do some side by side comparisons first I think.

The version of Damo Suzuki on 2G+2 is possibly even better than the original.

"what you need: a bit of iggy stooge"

I was going to cite that very quote! So awesome, going with "Stooge" instead of "Pop". For that, and for that great bassline (stolen note-for-note from John McLaughlin's "Marbles", no shit! unless it's just an accidental coincidence) I've got no choice but to choose "What You Need". (It's what I need.)

Hate to flip y'all out but it's "a VID of iggy stooge"

Also, he is called Iggy Stooge on the first Stooges album

i've always had a soft spot for "L.A."'s synth pop...but i don't know if it trumps on this album, which is pretty killer overall.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3495149/04%20Paintwork.mp3

^^^ cool cover

Just out of curiosity (I only own like 8 Fall albums and therefore know almost nothing), did the Fall ever do anymore tracks like "L.A."? That was always a favorite of mine but it's not really typical Fall and I haven't found another track like it yet.

Hit The North

I kinda feel like The Unutterable mines the Fall's synth-y side to good effect, though it's not quite as robo-Kraut-happy...

everyone should hear The Unutterable, also find the song Bonkers In Phoenix on Youtube and tell me yr reaction plz frogbs, do not hold back

Bonkers in Phoenix has more to do with Bug Day than L.A.; otoh I love Bug Day, which makes me wonder if I like TNSG or W&F more...

Free Range is another good one in the L.A. mode...

^Yeah, I like that song a lot.

I was just throwing that one in gratuitously coz it's one of the 10 best pieces of music ever made imho

seems like "4 1/2 Inch" & "Taurig" are drastic revisions on the whole "L.A." electronica/instrumental concept.

I know you like 4 1/2 inch a lot too LJ...

yeah, but that's only top 20 O.A.T.

see also The Crying Marshall <3

okey doke acoleuthic, I'll seek it out when I get back home.

I have heard "4 1/2 Inch" though...I do have Levitate and I like it quite a bit...kind of like "Paintwork" over a whole album? Anyway the song came up on random and I completely forgot it was even the Fall, I thought it was the Mouse on Mars/Mark E. Smith collab. It's way more aggro than "L.A." but I do like that sound.

"Taurig" is a MoM/MES collab; like 4 1/2, it also sounds nothing like LA but follows the basic format...

Can't remember where it was mentioned but I heard it suggested once that Mouse and Mark should just be the Fall for a while; would anyone really complain? What is Mouse up to these days anyway?

I do have Levitate and I like it quite a bit...kind of like "Paintwork" over a whole album?

Levitate is one of my favourite albums. It's just so loose, free, mysterious, grinding, kickass, unpredictable...

I know what most people think, but I'd be bummed if MES abandoned the rock band format and went all-electronic; I still think there's a lot of mileage to be had from his warped ideas about what garage-rock can do...

I'd love it though if, say, Clinic (suggested elsewhere) or Oneida took time off and became the Fall for a while, the same way Arthur Lee recruited Baby Lemonade to back him and become Love...

(but then again I think the current lineup seems pretty great as-is)

^^^completely agreed, Levitate was so good because it was still garage-rock, even if it was done mostly with (severely grimed-out) keyboards

xps

everyone should hear The Unutterable, also find the song Bonkers In Phoenix on Youtube and tell me yr reaction plz frogbs, do not hold back

Wow, is the whole album anything like this?? Can't say I really enjoyed it too much because my speakers were too loud and it scared the piss out of me. Its a little stuck in my head right now. I assume MES mixed this??

it's a complete and utter one-off in their whole career let alone that album! yes he did. ex-wife writes lovely song, MES vomits all over it, somehow finding the artistic sublime as a result

it's like a metaphor for divorce

...but there's still a spark...

yeah I never have any idea what to expect from any Fall album.."Dragnet" definitely gave me the feeling of "is the whole album like this?" "Bonkers" reminds me of something that the Boredoms would do.

I said this upthread but I think the closest analogue to BiP is "Bug Day" but I think there are other songs like "Midwatch 1953" and to a certain extent, "Hurricane Edward". All of these tracks seem to me to replicate the experiences of radio static, station interference, or the strangeness of when one station is intruding on another's wavelength, so that the frequency seems to oscillate between the two. It always sounds to me like an auditory metaphor for alternate dimensions trying to break through, or incommensurate realities that cannot coexist. I guess in that way I trace them all back to "Spectre vs. Rector".

I clearly need to hear Bug Day and Spectre vs Rector (properly) then! Midwatch 1953 and HE are two of my all-time Fall numbers. Actually, both WERE invoked on the Bonkers In Phoenix thread...

SvR isn't as chaotic as any of the others but it has multiple versions of the same track going at the same time in a clear parallel to the lyrical theme of interdimensional clusterfuckery...

The Fall's 'completely fucking out-there' stuff would make the greatest mixtape

Peel version of Antidotes included, of course

Need to give that a good listen m'self

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hIUhSWN5hE

it's not as blown out as BiP; the malevolence threatens to overwhelm but never quite manages it. I'd still say it sets a clear precedent.

Prolley the dopey-pop version of this approach is prolley "Paintwork" which is awes...

also "Ibis-Afro Man" which is pretty much an Iggy Pop cover rendered as an updated version of Spectre versus Rector

frogbs, I'm thinking "Quartet of Doc Shanley" might cure your "L.A." Blues

Got the reissue through the post the other day. Not really sure it's as worthwhile a reissue as the Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall - don't think the rough mixes add an awful lot and I've got most of the other stuff scattered around. Still, it's been great revisiting the album.

Really been digging Bombast - thru the lych gate of Mansion, Smith's opening minatory threat and right into the sound of the album, Hanley's bass, warping reality like an iron man bending bars, the obstructive and propulsive drums and the crackling scurf of electric guitars, Smith’s get-up-yer-nose yelping and nasal droning.

There’s so much force - creative force - to the album. I remember something woof said elsewhere about how in Against the Day it felt like Pynchon was ‘trying to call this universe into being’. That’s pretty much what I’ve been feeling here. In earlier albums like Dragnet it felt like invocation, but on this one it feels like they’re forging it into place like blacksmiths with instruments. A group of snotty demiurges and a ray of Californian sunshine creating new universes.

A couple of other things have really been getting under my skin as well - the way the main riff of What You Need feels like an Escher painting; when you think you’ve reached the top you’re already at the beginning again, so that the effect is of aural perpetual motion (something they do so well). The force of incantation is so strong on this song as well. It’s an age of Smith’s slightly whispy background vox, and mob chanting WHAT YOU NEED before Smith finally comes up front with his crisp and commanding instructions - lenten but incontrovertable. Non-hopped northern bitter. The way subsequently the chanting mob and Smith interleave, while bits of bass and drums are added builds up such force that I find it impossible not to be bobbing around like a right prannock by the end, no matter how many times I hear it. Just to reiterate the point about the obstructive/propulsive drums - it’s such controlled energy, real dance music.

God knows they’re not a comedy band. I always bridle slightly when I see them described as ‘funny’. But I guess I understand it - I find it frequently impossible not to listen to them without a rucking great grin on my face (tho that said To NK Roachment: Yarbles once bought tears to my eyes) - but I think that’s more a response to the mischief and invention, the fun on show. The glee in how things are said, in terms of both sound and phrase (those koans of the everyday in which Smith specialises - ‘swine tax’, ‘cheap, rotting scout belt’, ‘what you need: financed luck’.)

I guess there’s a few other things that have occurred to me over the past few days - the way, as usual, it’s full of the everyday strange and the phantasmagoric strange, and full of the wisdom of the suspicious peasant, the moral but not moralistic wit of the jester: morals as holding things up against the backdrop of death.

There’s all the usual stuff, time-travel, science fiction, weird stuff that happens up your street.

Another thing I think a lot of critics and indeed fans get wrong is locating them so firmly in Manchester, or perhaps I should say Salford. Smith clearly has a strong background, but he was brought up right by the docks, worked in them for a bit, and The Fall have always had a strong international flavour - Holland, Saxony, LA, Italy, Cologne, Istanbul, Japan (by implication), all crop up on this album, amongst others.

He also stamps on all ages, again as usual - thru the benefit of time travel (‘down the aqueduct of five years’ - always loved that phrase) rather than any historical novel stuff. Some great poetry in Spoilt Victorian Child, in fact, thinking about that aqueduct line, - sugar and cakes appear mean, sitting at the table’, and the way he delivers the line ‘threadbare stained grey blanket’ is superb, just one example of his extraordinary, well, ‘flow’ I guess it would be called nowadays - the way he works against, within and onto the music is always amazing.

Again there’s the usual brilliant characterisation - particularly the misanthropic show off of My New House - it’s great the interchanging of ‘You should SEEE my new house’ w’ ‘KEEP AWAY from my new house’ and the childish ‘Razor blades eject when I press eject’ - you can practically see him pressing the button on and off.

(Smith’s so good at this stuff - the lines from I Feel Voxish on Perverted by Language:

‘I’ve been
Sharpening
A knife in
The bathroom
With a brick I found in the garden
NO ONE WILL FUCK WITH ME AGAIN’)

And of course the fact that despite having listened to it so, so many times I STILL don’t know an awful lot of what’s there, either lyrically and musically, or indeed what some songs are about at all - Barmy for instance. I mean, I’m guessing science-fiction (New Turkey) story about a ludicrous dictator (I’ve got everything. I’ve got everything I want, except for Hungary) suffering from Nabokovian-style delusion (I’ve the best rounds set aside for parties, they’ll have one when I’m gone, in fact they said so, big one - has an almost Pnin feeling to it). But you know, that’s as far as I’ve got. The rest is just this gloriously proliferating concoction of history, place, hook words, catcalls (‘Just Commie fuss!’/‘call me first’ whatever it is - probably both), and madness.

It’s such generous art - provocative of so much energy, thought and feeling.

I remember listening to Cerebral Caustic and feeling that a new Fall album was like getting a really fucking good newspaper - with psychic journalists going round the country (plus international news!) just finding all this stuff which got the barometry of the times perfectly.

Also when the lych gate is closed behind you, there’s a strong sense, for me anyway, of this generosity being a form of compassion, in what can appear at face value such uncongenial music, there is a compassion for the listener, which is perhaps an invisible part of their appeal, what gets many listeners past the thorny exterior, only apparent here because of the final, really quite moving lines -

Every day you have to die some,
Every day you have to cry some,
All the good times are past and gone,
Wipe the tears from your eyes, son.

Then of course there’s a voice in the background that just starts ‘FOUND....’ just after the foreground vox say ‘past and gone’ - I’ve only just really noticed this, there’s just so much fucking poetic attention to detail, god I fucking love them, what a fucking album.

Sorry about all the ‘fucking’, I got really excited while writing this/listening to the album at the same time. Fuck, way, way tl;dr as well.

If memory serves, "Swine Tax" = "Swinburne Taxi"

Swinton

xxp really great post btw

SWINTAX
54 Swinton Hall Road, Swinton, Salford M27. Tel: 0161-793 5151.

If you're looking for another track like "L.A.", their cover of "Lost in Music" on Infotainment Scan gets into similar territory. Or "Hit the North" as mentioned above.

totally great post Gamaliel

Once again, I have to post this, for all those "nkroachment yarbles" fans, specifically GamalielRatsey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0qUyPEU53k

Cheers, Mark. My mum used to listen to a bit of Dusty Springfield, and I remember making the link as a teenager, but I'd forgotten about it until now.

It appeared on some repeats of "The best of Ready Steady Go" about a year before TNSG was released, doubtless MES saw the same show I did.

Would have voted for all of 'em. This is one of the best albums ever made, IMO.

It's a great one, for sure. I only know it from it's original expanded CD release:
1 Mansion
2 Bombast
3 Barmy
4 What You Need
5 Spoilt Victorian Child
6 L.A
*7 Vixen
*8 Couldn't Get Ahead
9 Gut Of The Quantifier
10 My New House
11 Paint Work
12 I Am Damo Suzuki
13 To Nkroachment : Yarbles
*14 Petty Thief Lout
*15 Rollin' Dany
*16 Cruisers Creek

It's one of those cases (like some of the XTC albums on CD) where the bonus tracks come in the middle and improve the listening experience.

I bought all the Beggars albums on cassette, as they had all those extra tracks, seemingly, in with the proper album tracks. 'Wonderful & Frightening World" also was rich in the same way.

https://youtu.be/l0wnc-eBRbg?t=91

I just think it's a great document of what is, to me, one of the very best Fall line-ups. I think that this period was a strong period for them.

I had the US cassette, which omits barmy but includes cruisers creek, but none of the other asterixed tracks.

The big beggars box for this album is very VERY worth it, I like the rough mixes just as much as the final ones