My favourites are currently the Peel Sessions box-set (some of the tracks on there are better than the original versions in my opinion), and also Heads Roll which is the best record they've put out in a while. I'm looking forward to Reformations - I saw them play at the tail end of last year with the new line-up and they were super - the best time I've seen them.

no one has mentioned grotesque and slates... slates is originally a 10" mini-lp or ep and imho their best record, six killer tracks, but the remaster has some singles from the era too. grotesque is another must-have, but they haven't really done any bad albums. some of my other favourites: hex, perverted, the wonderful & frightening world, extricate, real new fall lp, fall heads roll.

and yeah, peel session box is totally essential!

I agree about Slates, especially the track Prole Art Threat.
I also really like I Am Kurious Oranj, which a lot of people seem to hate

Yeah, good call.:cool:

My favourite of the early LP's (that means pre-1986 to me) is Room to Live (Undilutable Slang Truth!).

One or two of the early live LP's are well worth getting I think. Live in London - The Legendary Chaos Tape has some good stuff on.

I've not ventured into any of the live albums yet. I've got nearly all of the proper albums though, only about 5 gaps now (which is pretty good going for someone who was about 5 years away from being born when they put out their first record). Any other recommendations from the live corpus, Mr Priest?

Live AT Phoenix is OK. And the Touch Sensitive Bootleg Box Set is cool (more or less the same songs on each of the five discs, but worth it I think. It can be picked up quite cheap). Idiot Joy Show is OK, so is some of the stuff in the Time ENough at Last set (in Glam Racket, the returned Brix screams they say you are a star, but I don't give a f***, I see your head expanding as you're runnig out of luck, which is quite nice).

Listen to Hip Priest. My current appreciation of The Fall is soley due to him. I now have and enjoy Grotesque (After The Gramme), Hex Enduction Hour, Perverted by Language, The Complete Peel Sessions, The Unutterable, and This Nation's Saving Grace. They all kick ass. Just a side comment.

Extricate is a current favourite of mine as well.

There's so many Fall material out there, have a look at this discography which must have taken aaages.. http://www.visi.com/fall/discography.html

The image of the 'Hit The North' cassette single is my scan of my cassette single!!!!

^ That's meant to be a claim to fame and glory, by the way. I do hope everyone is suitably impressed.


Many things happened during your lengthy exile, noumenal. But none are of more importance than the stunning events of summer 2006, when 'The Unutterable' overtook 'The Infotainment Scan' and 'Bend Sinister' to become my favourite Fall LP.

Amusing Fall song with groovy violin

My favourite song is undoubtly "I feel Voxish"

i just want to say that the fall are probably the best band ever!!!!

btw, does anyone have a mp3 of that monks-cover they did, higgledy-piggledy? would be cool to hear that.

i am!

as for favourite tracks, right now i'd say "garden", "slates, slags etc" and the peel session version of "new puritan". oh, and "new face in hell" also.

I think you can get that monks track on a BBC session they did at some point, i think it was on radio 2 or something.

the c'n'c mithering or what the hell the title is, is pretty kickass too.

The Fall performed The Monks' 'Higgledy Piggledy' as part of an interview and session for BBC Radio 3's Mixing It programme last year.

The show was aired on the 10th of February, and they performed Higgledy piggledy, Assume, Midnight in Aspen and Pacifying Joint. Mark was on pretty good form during the interview.

A review said:

The Fall's Mark E Smith is the master of the non sequitur. Asked on Mixing It (Radio 3, Friday) how he recruits new members for the band, Smith responded with what would become his default mode for the whole interview. Silence. Sigh. Whiny micro-mumble. Then, finally, something that doesn't really answer the question. "They can't be Fall fans," he declared. "I don't like musicians in a lot of ways," he added, "I don't like to socialise with them."

The very fine Mixing It team knows better than to be fazed by such curmudgeonly antics, and they know how to persevere to get gold. They ride languor well, chum up wherever possible (Friday's interview included an extended collective moan about how small recording studios are in the UK) and keep the questions simple. This eventually got results, revealing Smith's inimitable way of working on new material ("I whistle into a tape recorder and play it to the group"), and the inspiration behind one of the session tracks. "It's about humans and air flight and rabbits," he explained. "And things like that."
.

that song was the only Fall vinyl released last year, as part of split 7". Its weird many of the Fall's recent 7"ers are almost impossible to get, but their first ones on Step Forward are easily found at a good price. And of course you may have seen the rereleased Rough Trade singles last year...

It's a rare day that I don't listen to a Fall album - a very rare day indeed. I haven't got anything I'd like to call a favourite, but Levitate holds a special place for being nearly ten years in my collection, and still being listened to on a regular basis. Not something I could say for any of the albums I bought at the same time (or 5 years ago for that matter).


Edit: That link Hip Priest added actually answered/ didn't answer a question I've had for a while - whether the rapid turnaround of players is due to the fact that rock musicians were bad at taking instructions (whereas orchestra types are expected to). Brady's a folk fiddler on the evidence of this video, which leaves me with the question of what MES would do with sympathetic classical players.


Edit 2: That's a little oblique - I'm pretty sure, unless I'm much mistaken, that all of the musicians that've been in the Fall have been largely rock-ist auto-didacts rather than coming from 'traditional' fields. Kenny Brady is the only anomaly to this, but it transpires he's a folker, which is equally as idiosyncratic. I know one of the early guitarists was a jazzer, but he was never a very good one.

haven't seen anyone mentioning Live at the witch trials, which is the only Fall LP I own, so it is my favourite by default. Is this an album that is thought of as inferior to their other albums? because i thought it was a great piece of post punk, but i never hear anyone mentioning it.

I like Live at the Witch trials, its quite conventional sounding, on the next few they got a bit more experimental. And his singing is quite audible. Its quite a good starting point actually.

i really like "live at the witch trials" but i am also somehow under the impression that this album isn't that appreciated by other fall fans, as i also don't see it often mentioned...

er, what's this song about?
er... nothing!