ILX Artist Ballot no #33 : Fron Witch Trials to Ersatz it's THE FALL (Albums, Tracks, heck why not Members also?)

http://www.venturemag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/thefallpromo2005.jpg

"Northern white crap that talks back..."

So again identical set-up to the last thirty two and I'm also copying the header rules verbatim (cheers):

Right, here we break in for an importatn message:

Some helpful words, hopefully. It's a large and wide ranging set of tracks, most of them well known to your granny from back in her bongo playing days. Some (if not all) of you will be tired to the point of overfamiliarity with a large number of their 'nailed into fundamental history' tracks, so this is about nominating your favourite songs at this moment in time. You want to be obscure? Go do it. You want to praise the canon? Be my guest.

There are very few remixes in here. (don't larf, read on...) The only ones I can think of regard two songs: Love Me Do (exists in two different recordings), and Revolution (three, sort of..). With LMD, safe to say, it's a vote for either version. Revolution exists in "single b-side" (noisy), Album track "Revolution 1" and 'collage' Revolution 9. For this one, even though 9 has been proved to be the 'second part' of a long recording of 1, we shall deal with it as a separate track.

OK, quit cheating/copying the header from the Beatles poll/ballot. Here we go:

The remixes? It's basically "Hit the North", isn't it? A few "extended versions" I believe, but as before, if you want to nom a specific version then that's fine but they will all go towards the one song's total and variations will be notified as before.

In summary: Votes are for the 'song', and specific versions will be given an addendum where necessary, sort of like this:

60. TWO STATES (1995) [115 points, 6 votes, 1 Number1, Specific versions:2="Slanted and Enchanted"

Right, here we note the polls we are running:

1. Tracks - Top 20 tracks please. 1 for best, 20 for 20th best. None of this "Can't choose" nonsense, man up yeah?
2. Albums - Top 10 albums, yeah? Same deal..
3. Fall members: Your top three. All members past and present are eligible.

Choose your top twenty tracks and they'll score as follows:
1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12.
All tracks eligible, covers, one-offs, if it's "The Fall" then it's OK. (So, no solo or 'other' projects / guest spots / AdultNet et al.)

Please send your ballot to: beatlespoll (at) hotmail.co.uk by midnight gmt April 14th (that's a long time)

In the meantime, use this thread for bigging up tracks you want people to vote for and asking any questions..

And remember: I heard the news today, oh boyaaaaaarrgggghhhhh!!!

Can't vote in this poll as I only know their albums up to 1991

... or thereabouts

http://www.visi.com/fall/discog/singlesalbums.html

Just thought I'd add this brilliantly formatted discog.

If you only know a limited amount of Fall, that's fine...

Yes! Been looking forward to this one. Narrowing this down to 20 tracks might be impossible, though.

Unfortunately I can't do Youtubes from here, but I have to rep for the following off the top of my head:

"New Puritan" Peel Session
"Weather Report 2" (and actually the entire Our Future Your Clutter album, but really, this fucking song.

Another one I really love that probably doesn't stand a chance: "Spinetrak"!

No, 'cos it's not properly representative (xp)

Yes, because I say so!

srsly, if you loved the Beggars days only, vote away: It might be tough to get a lot of ballots otherwise..

.. and "up to 1991" that's still a lot of albums, yeah?

A five week voting period? That's, uh, that's a real long time.

If it's not super clear what I'm getting at, it's that these artist polls have had voting periods of approx. 2 weeks each as a politeness to the line of folks waiting to do theirs. Five weeks seems too long, tbh.

hey! it's happening!

three members is not enough *whinge*

do live albums count on the the albums part of the ballot?

Agree with WilliamC - I've been excited for this for a long time, but I wouldn't want to torture those who've been waiting for the other 200 polls and couldn't GAF about MES.

While I'm opinionating, the results thread has got to be called Fall Heads POLL. (Or at very least POLL Art Threat.)

PS someone get Jagger out of retirement to rep for "Bonkers in Phoenix."

he shd be around here soon, but I def voted for BiP

cwkii, weather report 2 will be in my top 5, probably. it's astounding.

remember to googleproof, bentelec

think I'm going to have a ballot that's two-thirds post-1995

tragically I only had three from the 90s, and nothing from the 00s, though I repped for those two decades in the albums part

If it's not super clear what I'm getting at, it's that these artist polls have had voting periods of approx. 2 weeks each as a politeness to the line of folks waiting to do theirs. Five weeks seems too long, tbh.

Hmm, you have a point,

The reasons were:

1) It seems a quiet part of the 'season', I wonder how many ballots might miss out
2) There's no reason why #34 can't run whenever they want it to (#32 is rolling out the results about now..)

If the gencon is that it should end sooner, that's fine. April 14th? Mods? Any?

MG

The best thing about these polls is that they go bang! bang! bang! right after each other. Springsteen took longer than usual because Jamie was busy, but I agree with WilliamC that the whole process from first thread to final result should be about two weeks.

xpost lol Gen Con has a quite diff meaning to this old D&D nerd.

Anyway. The poll I was born to vote in! But are we really to submit our ballots to

beatlespoll (at) hotmail.co.uk

Just checking...

Yes, I am reusing that address, for practical reasons not just "conceptual" ones..

awes thx

also

STATE COG
BAZDAD
ANALYST

3. Fall members: Your top three. All members past and present are eligible.

Have a feeling Your Granny (bongos) is going to sweep this.

I was gonna say

and I had an inkling

this is gonna be toooooough

He asked Scanlon to come back to The Fall and "after three hours in the pub with him I realised I was better out of it".

Yeah, I don't know if I should go for the better known tracks or for the obscure ones I like (he says listening to 'C n C'- Mithering').

if I'm going to rep hard for one 'classic' track, it will surely be the peel session 'winter'

Winter as a whole got my vote, I couldnt split it up

That's an important ruling, actually. Can we please vote for 'Winter' as one track?

just vote for the peel session! it's better for a start

it's better vocally; the band is better on the LP vers

well I guess you can vote for the LP composite then

I've been sitting these polls out for a while, but I foresee some time-sucking ahead for this one.

does "fall members" exclude mes?

He'd be pissed off if he was eligible and came fourth. <--let's do this

Is twenty tracks enough to get sufficient overlap between ballots? Just thinking they have about 450 songs to choose from. Be quite easy to do a ballot where no-one else has voted for any of the songs on it.

Yeah I def expect 2/3 of my ballot to not make it

Thirty days for the poll would give everyone time to listen to one album a day...which everyone should do at some point anyway.

remember to googleproof, bentelec

Apologies, I will donate a high vote for "Weather Report 2" to the G00gl3pr00f Memorial Fund! It is so evidently The Last Fall Song that it was kind of a bummer when Ersatz GB came out; MES getting ground up in his own misanthropy.

It is so evidently The Last Fall Song

NEVER

Off the top of my head, the only semi-obscure track of theirs that's likely to crack my top 20 is "Mark'll Sink Us," partly because it's both great *and* a little unusual for the band. There used to be a youtube of it (studio version), but that seems to be gone, though it is on Spotify.

Apologies, I will donate a high vote for "Weather Report 2" to the G00gl3pr00f Memorial Fund! It is so evidently The Last Fall Song that it was kind of a bummer when Ersatz GB came out; MES getting ground up in his own misanthropy.

― bentelec

The last album was really awful in every way. Even Mark agrees http://entertainment.ca.msn.com/celebs/mark-e-smith-hates-the-falls-last-album-1

I get the Last Fall Song vibe from "Weather Report 2"; it feels like it was written from his deathbed.

Re Ersatz GB: I liked it when it first came out but I really never feel like going back to it. "Greenway" was fun, I guess.

I did get a vote in for Hurricane Edward which is one of my favorite of the 'reality rupture' Fall tracks

^^^will be in my top 10

Ersatz GB wasn't that bad! Taking Off, Greenway and Monocard were the standouts for me

Oh lord. After cramming hard for the Miles poll, I just don't have the energy for the Fall. As a longtime casual fan, I'll just look forward to the results.

POLL Art Threat

^^^

While I'm opinionating, the results thread has got to be called Fall Heads POLL. (Or at very least POLL Art Threat.)

― bentelec, Monday, 25 March 2013 16:44 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

I'm good with either :)

POLL Art Threat

this must win

otm

Pink POLL Threat

I got a heck of a lot of ballots over the final weekend.

This'll take time, but.

Anyways, I shall attempt not to be swayed by your poll guess result titles, either way.

^ escaped the pink POLL effect

I'm really curious about how many people will vote in this - hoping for at least 25.

expecting quite a few more

While we're waiting, I wanted to write some about the arc of lyrical themes using lines from the albums in rough chronological order.

first, of course, we have Repetition. call to arms, musical template.

the first phase is drenched with alternate identities, hallucination, time travel

the Bingo Master
all of "Various Times"
I have seen the madness in my area
they're putting me away, but it'll be back someday
this hideous replica

all of this reaching what I see as kind of an apex in "Wings", but just as key is the negativity, scorn, contempt, refusal to engage

no soul in the discos, no rock in the clubs
it's a second dark age
i don't dig their dead end options
we are frigid stars
we spit in their plate and wait for the ice to melt
US dirge, rock n pop filth
leave the capitol, exit this Roman shell

and, crucially:

hate's not your enemy, love's your enemy

when we get to PBL, Smith begins a guarded engagement with what I can only describe as "nicer" music, just as oblique/dense lyrically, but easier on the ears, possibly influenced by Brix's arrival but who knows.

hidden fragments, surface now

1st song with explicit un-ironic sentiment? I would argue Disney's Dream Debased. from then on, the negativity becomes even more defiant and absolute:

no never no never no more will I trust the elves of Dunsimore. feel the wrath of my bombast. try to wash the black off my face, but it's ingrained. my frenz don't add up to one hand. see you, in wrong place. i am the one who stamps on all ages. you make me hate you, baby. no no no pittsville direkt. got a big fat no no in my checkbook. it's a curse, it's a burden. shut up. don't call me darling.

one can easily imagine Smith as a crusty old wraith who seems to live on alcohol, cigarettes, and pure vitriol. heck, this is probably still true.

something changes with The Light User Syndrome, though. damn, I love that record, and not having Scanlon really changes the band (in hindsight). It seems like the lyrical themes retreat, become even more inscrutable, if I have the time, I'll try and trawl through the 1998-2012 years and look for some common themes. also worth noting that 1997 was the first year without a Fall studio LP since 1979, and everything changed after the band quit. this might have some crossover with Fizzles' theory about "what went wrong in the 00's", but I'lll have to wait for him to post that.

all of this reaching what I see as kind of an apex in "Wings", but just as key is the negativity, scorn, contempt, refusal to engage

Like the legend of the phoenix
All ends with beginnings
What keeps the planet spinning?
The force from the beginning

We've come too far
To give up who we are
So let's raise the bar
And our cups to the stars

Not 97, 97 is Levitate, one of the best albums of 97

87 was the first year they didn't release an album.

>25

OK, so much for that analogy, but I think it's clear that '96-'98 saw some big changes. Could have SWORN Frenz was from 87 but that's memory for ya - it's from February 88, Kurious Oranj is October. They released a lot of singles in '87 though, and I think the Domesday US comp was from then as well.

was there some deadline extension

Could have SWORN Frenz was from 87 but that's memory for ya - it's from February 88, Kurious Oranj is October. They released a lot of singles in '87 though, and I think the Domesday US comp was from then as well.

man i do so dearly LOVE the US domesday. was my intro to the fall, along with the wonderful (and frightening) palace of swords reversed comp. such a splendid and tragic, utterly misbegotten thing. you lose bournemouth runner, dktr faustus and living too late (!), but you get ghost in my house, hey luciani and haf found bormann. why? i had the cassette version. why not just put it ALL on there? bigtime, j'accuse.

Man, I can't wait to see the results of this.

Had to put "Slates, Slags, Etc..." on top, but wondering if poll love will find its way to "Chiselers" (Pink Floyd are short!), "Can Can Summer" (my fave off the last few - showed that they could do something I thought they'd forgotten how to do) and "Bremen Nacht..." (however long it is isn't long enough) too.

SO many valid choices here. Really, it'll just be a fantastic excuse to listen to a buncha Fall for a bit. Bueno!

this might have some crossover with Fizzles' theory about "what went wrong in the 00's", but I'lll have to wait for him to post that.

enjoyed that post, sleeve, and it definitely fits in with some of the things I was thinking about. I was also going to suggest Disney's Dream Debased as the track that marks the beginning of a different type of lyric - more 'human' to use tim's phrase, or perhaps 'more sympathetic to human sentiment'. Some care needed though - transcendental notions of 'naturalism' don't really fit in here. The heart is still treated with suspicion as being insufficiently articulate about the contextual details of each individual's emotional state. 'Love' is still never mentioned with approval even in songs that describe it, I think? Wonderful songs though!

Freezing, wheezing, got pasted in a bar

is a relatively innocuous line that is also one of my favourites.

or the bit in Ten Houses of Eve (i'll do the live version I heard once):

If only...
Identity arts...
If only the shards would relocate
back in place (despite the face)
In your blue green and grey heart (Fall)
Bedecked in lace
If only thoust could,
In a Snoop-Doggy-Dog sorta style
Understand
Will those shards relocate
If only...

He's really good at loss of love too - the great death/ghost/love song Birthday, which develops that rather conventional notion in homiletic bereavement counsel, of the dead only being in the next room:

And though, my darling,
There is another side you never see,
Another side.
And know, darling,
You know it’s there, on the right
I’m pointing to it now.
While you, your fragrance drags
It conveys me to the country

As if by flight, behold -
I am sat in a leafy winding spiral blaze
[...]
Trying to, like you, navigate without pains
And in dreams I stumble towards you,
Knees knock, as you evaporate
Though I am tee'd up
I am in the next room with you always.

Fall songs can be consolatory as well. I remember, in a period of despair, listening to To NKRoachment: Yarbles

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

And it was wonderful. They do not shirk the pain of solitariness or unhappiness, but rather include it as part of understanding of and comprising the concrete world. Edinburgh Man is obviously the great example of this, with its seasons and landscapes +:

I'm ok just by myself
Our miserable kinks won't protect us from ourselves

or

Don't give a toss about private wealth
And history just repeats itself

But On My Own is another great example, conveying well the lightness that loss bestows, as well as the sadness (with those wheezy synth stabs driving emphasising each syallable, as he walks the streets of Manchester):

I am on my own,
I am spoken for now,
Cos I'm on my own
Ag-g-gain

Love that he's 'spoken for' by himself.

(Also has that great sarcastic line at the end

DJ Voice: Say hey! It's a great day today...
Withering, dying scorn of MES voice: In the City of Equality...)

(also completely agree about LUS, sleeve, and would use it as my kicking-off point for late Fall difficulties, but am just having a quick chat with a friend, trying to recall the conversation we had about LUS a few years ago in a pub, before I post).

in the meantime i'll post same friend's observations he sent me a few years ago about Levitate - sure he won't mind - because I kept on promising to respond/comment, but never bloody well did, and feel I should use this thread as a place to do so:

Just a few ideas about "Levitate" I thought I should get down while they were in my head, having suddenly occurred to me for no evident reason this morning. No intention to flesh these notes out - don't have the time, and I doubt the album would really withstand a close analysis looking to tie everything in. Though I've used the word "theme" below, that's probably a bit strong - I'm not claiming that any of this was necessarily conscious on Smith's part, nor that it's a means to "understanding" the album - just that the recurrence and reflections of these motifs are one of the factors that contributes to the uniquely atmospheric and poetic quality of this fucking great album.

Theme of album: the strange feelings of unreality/detachment/ungraspability often characterising the apprehension (at the time or in memory) of great calamity and disaster or crisis. Hence the title: floating separated from the situation, regarding it from above. Disasters include natural ("Hurricane Edward", force 10 gale & house falling in of "4 1/2 Inch"), war (Hiroshima in "I come and stand..."), financial crisis ("Masquerade"). Always perceived/evoked with this sense of detachment, possibly even hallucination, separating one from the actuality of events: 2 of the covers concern dead spirits trapped in the world of the living unable to communicate ("I come and stand...", "I'm a Mummy"). "Ol' Gang": the frozen unreal moment before the reality of violence/injury kicks in, sudden confrontation with unfamiliar/threatening landscape after you've turned onto the wrong street. "10 Houses of Eve": inability to reconstitute fragmented memory into a real image ("if only the shards would relocate"), theatricality of past events/emotions when recalled ("in a rep sort of style"). Even "Jungle Rock" could be seen as a hallucinatory/fantasy perception of a situation which in any realistic terms would likely be fatal - imagination separating/protecting one from the dangerous reality of events. Music/production adds to/is informed by the strange atmosphere generated by these motifs (one very literal example - the fake Smiths/audience members at start of "Everybody But Myself").

First things first - p certain it's 'rap sort of style' (hence the Snoop Doggy Dog live crack), but I think I'd go along with this quite a long way.

In some ways I think Levitate can be seen as the first of the solo albums (Post Nearly Man is GREAT btw for anyone who hasn't listened to it). The band had completely disintegrated under the increasingly erratic, violent, drunken, pathetic Smith. Live performances were often a mess, with Smith not appearing or only appearing briefly. (Tho I should add this period had one of my favourite ever Fall gigs - at the Oxford Zodiac, in fact it had the Snoop Doggy Dog line in it - but also the venue shut off the power in the middle of the second encore, but they carried on regardless, and did a version of I'm a Mummy, with just Karl Burns hammering the drums, and Smith shouting 'Look what happens, when they pull the power on me - I'm a mummy!'. It was AMAZING.)

But yes, generally this was a period of catastrophe. Levitate itself was, as I understand it, almost entirely constructed by Smith from bits of what the rest of the group had done (as friend said on one occasion, 'The most significant bit in the liner notes is 'Produced by MES'' - he's right: it accounts for much of the album's strangeness I think).

The two bits from friend's analysis feel significant to me right now:

Though I've used the word "theme" below, that's probably a bit strong - I'm not claiming that any of this was necessarily conscious on Smith's part, nor that it's a means to "understanding" the album

This crux, or problem - intentionality of Smith, projected meaning of listener - is always present in the Fall but it comes under increasing pressure when you start talking about later Fall, I guess I'm just flagging it as a thing around which carefully chosen words are needed, and apodictic expression is to be avoided.

Music/production adds to/is informed by the strange atmosphere generated by these motifs

This is obvious on Levitate, but I think it also plays a very big part in that super-problematic album Reformation: Post TLC, but that's all probably for a different post, as I need to listen to the album again first.

Just wd reiterate that Levitate is an incredible album, an album of falling apart, of strange fragments in interference at a far higher level than any other Fall album, and Hurricane: Edward made my ballot cos it's damn great.

^^^another brilliant post, encapsulating why Levitate isn't just my favourite Fall album but comfortably one of my favourite albums of all time

Post Nearly Man is indeed an essential part of the Nagle-era jigsaw and a fine companion piece to Levitate

Birthday Song always struck me as MES' straightest love-song, but I may be wrong.

'Love' is still never mentioned with approval even in songs that describe it, I think?

There's that line "Our hero, deeply loved" in "Stephen Song."

ah fuck, meant to vote for Stephen Song. Great 'things' in it: the vendetta parchment, the adult net, the palace of conscience, and the way the whole song tumbles/impels you to the moment of release at the end where he says LIBERATION.

yeah that just missed my ballot, great song.

xpost*2 there's "Bill is Dead" of course

When is this rolling out?

Probably next Monday, there's a lot of ballots

xpost*2 there's "Bill is Dead" of course

yep, and it's a great love song - but not sure "love" is ever mentioned. in fact one of the distinctive features of that song is the way it uses the material/carnal images of happiness-in-grief, almost as a reassertion of v basic simplicity (getting pasted, that oddly trite sounding line - "your legs are so cool", came twice, you thrice) as relief from death.

"I hope I've got the number" always struck me as a very poignant line.

Bear in mind that "Bill is Dead" was the working title of the tune when it was a Smiths pisstake, until Mark decided the tune was too good to waste, and wrote different/better lyrics for it.

God, he does that all the time. Still, titles give the direction I guess, and the contrast between the title and the subject matter gives the song its slant (for me, anyway).

I remember someone once pointed out that the opening notes are like the PA announcement at some stations. I felt it was a bit of a long stretch, but whenever I hear that bong-bing-bing anywhere, have immediately got Bill is Dead in my head.

in other news, Sir William Wray = a better What About Us, but nothing special on first listens.
Hittite Man and Jetplane = good actually!

We warned the corpse of William Wray
Not to cuss and drink all day

i've never bought the "smiths pisstake" story. the track isn't particularly like the smiths, and since when do the fall make parody records? seems mark felt the need to excuse creating what is a touching song.

and, iirc, bill is dead refers to smith's father who had recently died.

have been listening a lot to William Wray 7" and ok, it's a *much* better version of What About Us. "this means nothing" but there's so much more exuberance these days than a few albums ago. Hittite Man also excellent - "the gibbous morons you unloaded on this earth".

Yeah, never bought "Smiths pisstake" song, tho Bill was not the name of his father either.

:)

http://youtube/yE-6xoh1khg

burns is the hero of this btw.

http://youtu.be/yE-6xoh1khg

awesome vid btw. my favorite line-up.

yeah, they just all look *amazing*. the intensity in their body shapes, The Fall physiology, bristling with electricity and power, with this still angle in the middle, all cornucopia-minded and with a voice so unnourished it seems to come through Auden's crack in the teacup.

holy clanking call to arms

I know thread is over but... Off top ofmy head:
New Puritan
Muzorewi's Daughter
No Xmas For John Quays
Mere Pseud Mag Ed
Copped It
Chicago Now
Idiot Joy Showland
Birmingham School Of Business
Why Are People Grudgeful?
You're Up To Much
The Joke
Feeling Numb
Cheetham Hill
Crying Marshall
Shake Off
Two Librans
Way Round
Jim's The Fall
Green Eyed Loco Man
Portugal
Blindness
Fall Sound
I've Been Duped
Bury
Taking Off
Nate Will Not Return
Noise
Dedicatiin Not Medication
Auto Chip
Second House
Gibus Gibson

did this ever happen? the search is failing me.

FALL RESULTS ROLL Post Tender Loving Care - PART ONE The Albums (Pre-mit)

"People get ready, strip down your houses because it's the FALL TRACKS BALLOT ROLL- OUT!" - PART TWO The Tracks (Pre-wray)

ta!

Kinda look back bore