The Fall
87 articles
Free articles
The Wit And Wisdom Of Mark Smith
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 10 January 1981
DID YOU KNOW?That Andy Gill discovered all these pearls of wisdom – and more – while talking to The Fall. ...
Mark E Smith: Not Falling, Soaring
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, June 1991
MARK E SMITH'S REPUTATION precedes him like massed stormtroopers on the horizon. Fourteen years on, the Fall frontman still sets everyone on edge, either in ...
The Fall: Totally Wired — The Rough Trade Anthology/The Rough Trade Singles Box (Sanctuary) ***
Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, October 2002
Northern white crap that talks back meets west London liberals: early-Eighties Fall on Rough Trade ...
Audio interviews
The Fall's Mark E. Smith (1983)
Interview by Simon Witter, Rock's Backpages audio, 22 May 1983
Accompanied by blushing bride Brix, the splendid Mark E. Smith talks about all things Fall: getting the band together, being the 'leader', songwriting, performing, the north v south debate and much more.
File format: mp3; file size: 55.9mb, total interview length: 58' 14" sound quality: ***
The Fall's Mark E. Smith (1990)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, September 1990
The Fall frontman picks highlights from his record collection, from Link Wray to the Mothers of Invention via the Doors, the Twilight Zone soundtrack, the Seeds, Schoenberg, Can, Black Sabbath, Bhangra and... Jethro Tull! Along the way, much else gets discussed.
File format: mp3; file size: 50mb, interview length: 52' 04" sound quality: ****
List of articles in the library
Manchester: They Mean It Maaanchester
Overview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 30 July 1977
MANCHESTER as a Rock and Roll town just didn't use to exist. It fed dutifully off London, and there were frequent visits from groups to ...
Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 15 October 1977
Prime Manchester venue closes... Power cut at the Electric Circus ...
Report and Interview by Danny Baker, ZigZag, February 1978
AH THE FALL! My mind fell on a quote that was all I knew of the name, something like '...there's hardly another band fit to ...
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 19 August 1978
REEL-TO-REEL life: patt-ur stagg-urs on... In bu-tween the s-o-n-g-s... ...
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 16 September 1978
I AM A commentator in a Consumers' Guide. This week I guide you towards entertainers The Fall, as I always have done. ...
Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 17 March 1979
Psychotic awareness — it's the new thing ...
The Fall: Live At The Witch Trials (Step Forward SFLB 1) *****
Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 24 March 1979
Music for the man who has everything (and wants it all on one album) ...
The Mekons/The Fall/Human League/Gang Of Four/Stiff Little Fingers: The Lyceum, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 31 March 1979
AND THE STARS look very different today... For all practical rock purposes, we may as well own up that we are now living in the ...
The Fall: Live at the Witch Trials (Step-Forward SFLP 1)
Review by Jon Young, Trouser Press, July 1979
"I STILL believe in the r'n'r dream/R'n'r as primal scream." ...
Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 4 August 1979
Manchester city fun ...
Joy Division, Pil et al: Futurama '79 Festival — Set The Controls For The Squalor Of Leeds
Live Review by Andy Gill, Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 September 1979
The World's First Science Fiction Music FestivalWords: Ian Penman and Andy Gill. Pix: Kevin Cummins ...
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 5 January 1980
JUST ABOVE my typewriter on the mantlepiece is an eye-catching tube of 10 orange flavoured effervescent tablets. Each tablet contains 1g orange flavoured concentrated Vitamin ...
The Fall: Manchester Polytechnic
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 19 January 1980
LET US all get together and cry for rock's little problem child. The Fall are a damn nuisance. They are continually prodding the music media, ...
The Fall: The Prestwich Horror And Other Strange Stories
Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 31 January 1981
Mark Smith of The Fall discloses fragments of the "Totale Mythos" to Edwin Pouncey. ...
Interview by Deanne Pearson, Smash Hits, 30 April 1981
DEANNE PEARSON DISCUSSES THE FUTURE WITH MARK SMITH, LEADER OF MANCHESTER'S MOST MILITANT COMBO. ...
Anti-Social Workers: The Fall at North London Poly
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 31 October 1981
UNLIKE MOST other Angry Young Singers, usually by proxy, Mark E. Smith is not a rhetorician. He does not reduce the obscenities of the English ...
Hip Priest: The Mark Smith Interview
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 14 November 1981
"WE WILL FALL," sang Iggy Stooge to the accompaniment of John Cale's viola, but he might have continued, "When we dead awaken..." ...
The Fall: Hex Enduction Hour (Kamera)
Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 6 March 1982
OF COURSE, YOU don't actually review a Fall LP. You hover in the shadow of the aura and attempt to catch some of the sparks ...
The Fall: Hex Enduction Hour and Live At Acklam Hall, London 1980
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 6 March 1982
IN A constantly flowing stream of creativity, through each consecutive fad, fantasy and fashion The Fall have always strived to go against the grain to ...
These Fallish Things: Hex Enduction Hour (Kamera)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 March 1982
"Everyone gets too serious about The Fall."Mark E Smith, November 1981 ...
The Fall: Hex Enduction Hour (Kamera KAM 005)
Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 20 March 1982
What the hex ...
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 8 May 1982
COINCIDENCE AND surprise save the world from going flat! Like, the same issue of Artforum which boasts that superb Laurie Anderson flexidisc also has an ...
The Fall, Danse Society, Felt: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Mick Sinclair, Sounds, 18 December 1982
FELT ARE hinged around guitarist and singer (in that order) Lawrence, a lovably naive, hick-ish figure from a village just outside Birmingham. ...
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 15 January 1983
THIS IS SPLENDID Fall country. From the bricked ugliness of the Victorian railway buildings the crawl of streets pitters up slopes, entwines a town centre ...
The Fall, Christmas, Bird Songs of the Mesozoic: Rathskeller, Boston MA
Live Review by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 21 April 1983
Fall: Provocative, and wordy ...
The Fall: I Don't Know What's In There
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 13 August 1983
"AS A kid I used to be obsessed that like I was reincarnated from the trenches of the First World War. I used to think ...
Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, the Fall, Neil Innes: Elephant Fayre, Port Eliot, Cornwall
Live Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 11 August 1984
JUMBO NUTBURGERS! ...
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 3 November 1984
"I THINK the difference is in the mechanical sounds of our time. Like the sound of the airplane in the '40s was a rmoooooaaaahhhhhhhh sound ...
The Fall: Hip Priest And Kamerads (Situation Two)
Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 23 March 1985
FALL, BY THE WAY ...
Watching The City Hobgoblins: The Fall
Profile and Interview by Mark Sinker, The Wire, August 1986
Author's 2005 note: In which I find my voice? In between all the "important rock does this" droning. ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 30 August 1986
Welcome back Mr Contrary Bastard. Who else but the demonic MARK E SMITH would complete a mass anti-everything grumble with "Give me the Queen anyday"! ...
Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Only Music, November 1986
ON STAGE AT the Ritz in New York, the Fall are putting on their typically powerful, mesmerizing show. The band churns out discordant but catchy ...
The Fall Play Hey! Luciani: Riverside Studios, London
Live Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, December 1986
THERE'S A PLAY in every one of us, even Ernie Wise. And perhaps Mark E. Smith. In fact, most of the ingredients are here, maybe ...
The Fall: Hey! Luciani – The Times, Life & Codex Of Albino Luciani, London Riverside Studios
Review by Roy Wilkinson, Sounds, 13 December 1986
TWO WEEKS after David Byrne's True Stories opened in Britain, Mark E Smith weighs in with his own medium expansion, Hey! Luciani, a play based ...
The Fall, A Certain Ratio: Free Trade Hall, Manchester
Live Review by James Brown, Sounds, 10 January 1987
A BRILLIANT CAREER ...
Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, 21 February 1987
BRIX SMITH is the girl who can't really help it: she has rich-baby eyes, heavy blonde hair, a voice that comes in giggles. It's the ...
The Fall/The Bodines/Happy Mondays: International, Manchester
Live Review by John Robb, Sounds, 2 May 1987
STRANGE HOW, these days, any gathering of vaguely well known groups always makes you think of charity and polished consciences. But tonight seemed to be ...
Siouxsie And The Banshees/The Fall/Wire: Finsbury Park, London
Live Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 1 August 1987
AND DARKNESS fell over all the earth. Well, only a teensyweensy bit of it actually, but it turned into the arse-end of Pandemonium. A plethora ...
Essay by Mark Sinker, New Musical Express, 2 January 1988
"Oh, grassy dale and lowland scene/Come see, come hear the English Scheme!" (The Fall)"You might sleep, but you will never dream/Oh, Manchester! So much to ...
Michael Clark & Company v The Fall — I Am Kurious, Oranj: Sadler's Wells, London
Live Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 1 October 1988
M.E.S. IN TUTU DRAW ...
The Fall: I Am Kurious Oranj (Beggars Banquet)
Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 29 October 1988
"When I was at the Witch Trials of the 20th Century, they said: 'You are white crap. You are an aesthetic anesthetic. Your repetition will ...
Interview by Keith Cameron, Sounds, 5 November 1988
Ballet, national anthems, William Of Orange and Blake's poems are all getting in on The Fall's act. Mark E Smith explains all while discussing their ...
Mark E Smith, Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan: The Three Horsemen Of The Apocalypse
Interview by James Brown, Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 25 February 1989
For its second pop summit of the year, NME lent SEAN O'HAGAN and JAMES BROWN £10 each to buy SHANE MACGOWAN, MARK E SMITH and ...
Essay by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 7 April 1989
Why The Fall continue to rise ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 20 January 1990
• And they said it wouldn't last! In the pop marriage of the'80s, COLDCUT producers Jonathan Moore and Matt Black invited Mark E Smith to ...
Mark E. Smith Extricates Himself
Interview by John Robb, Sounds, 3 February 1990
WHILE THE WORLD WENT MAD FOR MANCHESTER THE FALLKEPT QUIET. NOW THEY’VE RETURNED TO FORM WITH EXTRICATE AND MARK E SMITH’S BACK VENTING HIS SPLEEN ...
The Fall: Funfair For The Common Man
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 3 March 1990
IN A CHEAP INDIAN RESTAURANT IN LONDON'S BRICK LANE Mark Smith's eyes begin to glint. His bony figure leans forward and stiffens. From deep in ...
Interview by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 1 September 1990
Now in their 14th year, Manchester's the Fall are still operating on rock's margins, still refusing to adhere to any consensus. But how will one ...
Mark E. Smith's Record Collection
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1990
CROUCHED IN THE CORNER of a back room in a semi somewhere in Prestwich, Mark Smith flips through one of several large stacks of records; ...
The Fall: "You Can't Knock It, Can You?"
Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Observer, 23 December 1990
GIVEN HIS curmudgeonly image, you might expect Mark E. Smith to regard Christmas as a time to endure rather than enjoy. ...
The Fall: Code Selfish (Cog Sinister)
Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 14 March 1992
"THOUGH PROUD of the way I've avoided prison.../When the cell door slams/I walk to the wall.../These are the words of success expectation/These are the words ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1992
Few people alive today can remember a time when there wasn't Mark E. Smith, fronting his band The Fall and snarling harsh, cryptic couplets at ...
Mark E. Smith and I, Ludicrous: Notebooks! Lout! Plagiarists!
Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 12 September 1992
• Which scabrous, sarky interviewer could give Fall-derivatives, football-obsessive and all-round smart alecks I, LUDICROUS a good going-over as their Idiots Savants LP sneaks out? ...
Ground Control To Major Labels
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 30 January 1993
Unattached, paranoid, fancy working your ass off and seeing five gigs a night, listening to 400 tapes a week and shouldering the blame when the ...
The Fall: The Infotainment Scan
Review by Stephen Dalton, Vox, May 1993
FALLWATCHERS might have expected serious new directions after the band's recent severance from Polydor, but their Permanent debut finds human word-processor Mark E Smith digging ...
Interview by Carol Clerk, Melody Maker, 1 May 1993
THERE'S SOMETHING TREMENDOUSLY reassuring about the fact that The Fall, and Mark E Smith, exist. ...
The Fall: The Infotainment Scan (Matador)
Review by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 11 July 1993
THE FALL is one of England’s enduring cult bands. Formed in 1976 by the singer and lyricist Mark E. Smith, it evolved into one of ...
The Fall: The Crankiest Band From The UK
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 6 August 1993
MARK E. SMITH, leader of the long-running English post-punk band The Fall, says these sorts of things invariably happen to him. ...
Profile and Interview by Jason Cohen, Rolling Stone, 16 September 1993
MARK E. SMITH is one of Britain's great misanthropes. On the 1980 live album Totale's Turns, only the third record by his band the Fall, ...
Insprial Carpets and Mark E. Smith: Manchester United
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 26 February 1994
Inspiral Carpets team-up with Mark E. Smith! For a one-off collaboration called ‘I Want You’! Psychedelic optimism meets psychedelic miserabilism! ...
Mark E. Smith: What's Your Problem? Hippies
Interview by Lisa Verrico, Vox, March 1994
Inspired by the title of an Albert Camus novel, Mark E Smith formed The Fall in Manchester in 1977. Smith's snarling vocal style and sharply ...
Interview by Tom Doyle, Melody Maker, 3 June 1995
Fifteen years of experience has carried producer JOHN LECKIE from a-song-a-day sessions with John Lennon, to hours spent pouring over the endless noodlings of The ...
Mark E. Smith: By Gum, it's Mr Grumpy
Profile and Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 22 September 1997
He's getting old and his teeth are falling out, but The Fall's Mark E. Smith is as fresh as ever, says Caroline Sullivan. ...
Review by Neil Mason, Melody Maker, 24 October 1997
AFTER 20 years, nine labels, 22 line-ups and one ballet, the Fall hit us with Levitate, their 30th album. Yup, that's 30 albums. Nevertheless, with ...
The Fall: Totale's Turns/Slates/A Part Of America Therein, 1981 (Essential/Castle)
Review by Angus Batey, New Musical Express, May 1998
"I DON'T PARTICULARLY like the person singing on this LP," opines Roman Totale XVIII in his sleevenotes to Totale's Turns. "That said, I marvel at ...
Live Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 10 January 1999
BACK AT GROUND Zero, having sacked/been deserted by the foot soldiers of his old Rythm Revue, riffmeister General M Smith returns to the London stage. ...
The Fall: Dingwalls, Camden, London
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, November 2000
Well, they’re untouchable, aren’t they? Since Mark Edward Smith initially put the very first Fall line-up into place some 23 years ago, generations of chin-stroking ...
Mark E. Smith: Just Who Does Mr. Grumpy Think He Is?
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Cox, The Times, 24 November 2000
Mark E. Smith, leader of the Fall, is captain of the awkward squad. That didn't deter Tom Cox. ...
50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong: The Very Best of The Fall 1978-2003
Sleeve notes by Daryl Easlea, Sanctuary Records, Spring 2004
IN THE EARLY months of 2004, The Fall’s first album, Live At The Witch Trials, celebrated its 25th anniversary. When The Fall started, rock wasn’t ...
Mark E. Smith and The Fall, 1979
Interview by Tony Fletcher, iJamming.net, 2005
AS SURELY BEFITS The Fall's longevity, my 1979 interview with Mark E. Smith and Marc Riley seems more relevant – and certain more prescient – ...
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 29 October 2005
POP MARK E SMITH IS MISSING, and whispers in the crowd ponder whether the notoriously unpredictable frontman has finally gone the way of the 40-odd ...
"Excuse me, weren't you in the Fall?"
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 5 January 2006
Mark E. Smith's band is legendary for its ever-changing line-up. Dave Simpson made it his quest to track down everyone who has ever been a ...
Interview by Mark Paytress, MOJO, February 2006
Heading: Hates "school prefect" Blair and punk. But after 30 years of booze, wives and 28 studio albums, has the Fall frontman finally found redemption? ...
How to buy: Rough Trade Records
Guide by Kieron Tyler, MOJO, December 2006
The revolutionary, still-smokin' independent. ...
The Fall: Becks Induction Hour
Retrospective and Interview by John Doran, Record Collector, May 2007
After a career that has included 26 studio albums, 50 compilation albums, 50 singles and 40 line-up changes, you might think it was hard to ...
Von Südenfed: Tromatic Reflexxions
Review by Ben Thompson, The Guardian, 20 May 2007
THE NAME VON SÜDENFED suggests a German First World War flying ace who went on to build a global pharmaceutical dynasty around a popular headache remedy. ...
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 6 April 2009
MARK E. SMITH is hunched at the back of the stage in black leather jacket and wheelchair, looking like Salford's Davros. ...
Steve Hanley and Olivia Piekarski: The Big Midweek: Life Inside The Fall
Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Guardian, 1 October 2014
(This is the original – and very slightly different – version of the review that appeared in the Guardian...) IN HER BLURB for this compelling memoir, ...
Into The Valley! The Deeply Vale Festival
Retrospective and Interview by Rob Hughes, Uncut, January 2015
1978. Hippies and punks come together at an idyllic free festival near Rochdale: "It was a really transformative moment!" ...
Totally Wired: The Fall in NZ, 1982
Book Excerpt by Roger Shepherd, 'In Love with These Times' (Harper Collins), October 2016
WE ALL LOVED The Fall. They were one of the original English punk bands inspired by the Sex Pistols' visit to Manchester and quickly grew ...
The Fall: The 100 Club, London
Live Review by Julian Marszalek, Gigwise, 27 July 2017
Less wonderful and more frightening than ever before ...
Comment by Simon Reynolds, TIDAL, 10 May 2022
How Wet Leg, Dry Cleaning, Black Country, New Road and other groups are carrying a rich post-punk tradition forward — while providing a properly sardonic ...
see also Adult Net, The
back to LIBRARY
