Words by Neill Dougan
Illustration by Neil Gillespie

The Fall are truly a singular band. Revered, hugely influential and much imitated, yet without obtaining anything like any sustained degree of commercial success, they are 27 albums in (not counting compilations and live albums, of which there are many) and remain as unpredictable, erratic and as brilliant as ever.

For the initiated, The Fall has been, since 1976, essentially a vehicle for the bizarre, hilarious and downright poetic outpourings of one Mark Edward Smith. Born in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, in 1957, Smith was, like many others, electrified by the explosion of punk rock, wasting no time in forming his own outfit with a group of scruffy like-minded youngsters. From the very start, The Fall were different, marked out from their peers by Smith’s otherworldly lyrics, his seemingly ceaseless ire and his, ahem, ‘unusual’ vocal stylings. Over the course of many breathtaking albums, they have established themselves as one of the best of all British bands. So what is it that has made The Fall so unique and enduring?

THE MEMBERS

Making Rafa Benitez look positively shy when it comes to shuffling his pack, Mark E Smith has gone through an astonishing array of bandmates – an estimated 40 full-time members in fact, from redoubtable bassist Steve Hanley, who served with distinction from 1979 to 1998, to unfortunate guitarist Arthur Cadman, who lasted a whole 17 seconds of a recording session for 1982’s Room To Live. Co-founder Tony Friel left even before the recording of debut EP Bingo-Master’s Break-Out!, and since then there’s basically been a revolving door of musicians.

Other notable Fallsmen include fan-turned-band member Mark Riley, who later found fame as Radio 1 DJ Lard, and long-serving guitarist Craig Scanlon. Smith has also defied the unwritten rule of rock which states ‘Thou shalt not have thy wife or girlfriend in the band, or it will be shit’, by repeatedly including his partners in the line-up with successful results. Glamorous American ex-wife Brix was on board for a run of classic mid-Eighties albums, while current spouse Elena Poulou has played keys on the last four albums.

Most band members leave The Fall acrimoniously, and Smith rarely admits to regret at their departure, the exception being Scanlon and Hanley. Scanlon was fired in 1995 for alleged “failure to maintain amps properly and slovenly appearance” (seriously), while Hanley quit after an onstage punch-up during a disastrous 1998 US tour. Smith later described the pair as “Jesuit lads” – a compliment, we think.

THE MUSIC

Of course this would be only slightly interesting if The Fall hadn’t released some of the most astonishing music of the last 30 years. Amazingly, despite the ever-changing line-ups, every Fall album is unmistakeably The Fall. As their most famous fan, the saintly John Peel, said: “The Fall: always different, always the same.” The band’s output spans genres including post-punk (Live At The Witch Trials), pop (The Infotainment Scam), rockabilly (Grotesque), experimental noise rock (Hex Enduction Hour) – even a bit of drum ‘n’ bass in the mid-nineties (Levitate).

The classic early-80s Fall sound was typified by Scanlon’s scratchy, dissonant guitar sound, while the arrival of Brix introduced a pop sensibility on a number of John Leckie-produced albums that saw them at arguably at their most accessible (Perverted By Language, This Nation’s Saving Grace). The last few incarnations of the band, meanwhile, have hit upon a seam of invigorating garage-rock. Repetition has also been a constant of The Fall’s music – from early b-side, er, ‘Repetition’ to the circular rhythms of last year’s Reformation Post TLC – while much of the band’s early output glories in an unashamedly lo-fi production ethic (none more so than 1979’s Dragnet).

THE VOICE

There’s no getting round the fact that Mark E Smith cannot sing. An acquired taste to say the least, his voice has probably cost The Fall as many fans as it has won. But for admirers, his vocal delivery is part of what makes The Fall great – an abrasive bark, a kind of proto-rap (or “crap rap” as Smith himself put it), with odd inflections and emphases, most famously his habitual dragging out of the last syllable of a line into an ‘ah’ sound – as in “We are living leg-ends-ah!” The youthful Smith had a nasal, whiny quality to his voice that in the early days saw him dismissed as a Johnny Rotten-wannabe (an accusation to which he alludes on ‘C n’C-S Mithering’), and was also prone to alarming high pitched shrieks. But for all its technical shortcomings, Smith’s voice is a versatile implement. Over the years it’s evolved and, on the more ‘produced’ albums, especially from the mid-Eighties, sounds almost conventionally tuneful. Since 2000’s The Unutterable, the ageing Smith has added a throaty growl and a (not totally welcome, it must be said) range of incomprehensible guttural noises to his repertoire. Like everything else about The Fall, it’s an odd and remarkable thing.

THE LYRICS

Mark E Smith, let it be said straight off, is one of the great rock lyricists. His surreal, hilarious, stream-of-consciousness wordplay is utterly peerless and – at its best – stands alone from the music of The Fall as an oddball poetry. This was in evidence as early as ‘Bingo Master’s Break-out!’, which recounts the tale of a bingo caller driven to madness and suicide by the drudgery of his job: “A glass of lager in his hand / Silver microphone in his hand / Wasting time in numbers and rhyme / One hundred blank faces buy”. Since then, Smith has penned innumerable classic lyrics, covering an amazing range of topics, from the supernatural (‘Spectre Vs Rector’), drugs (‘Underground Medecin’) , the BBC (‘Deer Park’), country living versus city living (‘M5’, ‘Hard Life In Country’), to state of the nation addresses (‘English Scheme’, ‘Container Drivers’), Harold Shipman (‘What About Us?’), football hooliganism (‘Theme From Sparta FC’) and practically anything you care to mention in between. Of course there many occasions when it’s absolutely impossible to fathom what Smith is on about. Here’s a snippet from 2002′s ‘Mountain Energei’: “So I went fishing / A note from the fish said: ‘Dear dope / If you want to catch us / You need a rod and a line / signed, Fish,” Erm… okay!

THE CULT OF SMITH

Like Joseph Stalin – another man who ruled with a rod of iron – Smith understands the power of the cult of personality. There’s a rich and amusing stream of self-mythologising running throughout his back catalogue, from ‘Hip Priest’ to ‘How I Wrote Elastic Man’. Notoriously irascible, he appears to despise interviews (beginning one mid-Nineties Q&A session with Loaded magazine by attempting to stub out a cigarette in his inquisitor’s eye) and refuses to reveal too much of himself – once telling a TV crew from the Beeb: “I don’t want to give my secrets away to the fucking BBC, you understand?”

If all this gives the impression that actually being in The Fall is a somewhat thankless task, then that’s probably no coincidence. But their pain is our gain. Over 30 years of booze, bust-ups and wayward brilliance, Mark E Smith and The Fall have provided those willing to listen with some of the most enthralling music ever committed to tape. Roll on the next Fall album. “Living leg-ends”, indeed.