“‘GROTESQUE’ is the new LP by The Fall .. The Fall are the group who keep being brought up and slagged by other insecure bands – this automatically invokes a curse on them which usually takes its toll. This is true. Most people who like The Fall don’t like other groups anyway and don’t own coffee tables.
‘GROTESQUE’ contains very few choruses but a lot of beat and the raw edge of The Fall is retained. If they were psychotic, they’d think every other group was mad except – them. This band thrives on being in tight spots, odd knots, and calling the shots .. SHUUT UP! ENTER
JOE TOTALE: As he writes this weak TV rock filters through from the adjoining room. SMITH SAID ‘78 was the year of the average man. WELL IF That’s true ’80 is the year of the average band. The Fall are the GROTESQUE EXCEPTION.
ON this LP Every class gets what’s COMING TO IT. MY FATHER said: THE FALL WILL OUTLIVE YOUR SINS.
Get this – ‘GROTESQUE’ also tells stories ..”
And what stories.
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Categories: The Fall · hip replacement
Tagged: 1980, Grotesque: After The Gramme, manchester, music, old records, Rough Trade, the fall
I STARTED writing this a couple of years ago. I have no idea why it took me so long to finish it off. So, anyway …
* * *
ME AND the Fall go back a long way but there are times when Mark E Smith’s grüppe have just been too heavy and noisy for me, when they’ve been too slickly produced, when they simply played too many guitars for my wildly oscillating tastes (this was, of course, during the rave era and I was a touch confused, a lot of the time).
No offence to our colonial cousins, but I’m not right keen on the current line-up of bearded Americans, it has to be said.
Not to worry. There’ll be another one along in a minute.
The fact that, sooner or later, I generally realise that I’m just being daft, and they were – he was – right all along, is neither here nor there.
Mark E Smith gets under your skin. He’s like a rash that won’t go away. Writing from his own unique and inimitable perspective, his insights into the northern, white working class mindset often have an eerily consistent relevance to those of us who have followed his work for a while – although I‘m sure they have as much relevance in New Zealand or Holland or Brazil.
Weirdly prophetic, darkly sardonic, accusatory, mystical, cynical, nonsensical, just plain odd – sometimes all at the same time – Smith can seem like he’s talking about your life just as much as he is his own, God help us all.
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Categories: The Fall · hip replacement
Tagged: 1988, i am kurious oranj, music, old records, the fall
