yeah, and thurston claims he was comparing his first encounter with the swell maps to the fall's music, this on the liner notes to that swell maps compilation mute put out in the early 90s. that'd mean the fall were a benchmark for thurston in the late 1970s!
the fall were a great band and their best records stand up to anything and everything happening today. in my opinion, you're nowhere without owning "this nation's saving grace"
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Originally Posted by Dead-Air
Smith says and does many stupid things when he's drunk, which is of course, a whole lot of the time. And the one time I saw them live it was a disgrace.
However, you are seriously missing out if you truly never heard the Fall. They've been pretty hit and miss for decades, but early stuff like Live at the Witch Trials, Hex Enduction Hour, and the Wonderful and Frightenting World of... are every bit the "groundbreaking underground avant garde music" you speak of and have nothing in common with the pop new wave bands you mention. Instead they mined the middle ground somewhere between No Wave and Kraut Rock in an entirely individualist regional manner that made for some of the most challenging rock of it's day.
Seriously Rob, if you haven't ever heard them, you should do yourself a favor. Listening to Mark E. Smith's pissed prattling today, no, nobody should have to do that, but that has nothing to do with the Fall's recorded legacy (and their later output is still often significantly better than that by, say, the Butthole Surfers or Bob Mould).
I'm sure Thurston was B.S.ing when he said they hadn't heard the Fall when they covered those songs in '88. We are talking about one of the world's all time biggest record collectors and a legendary band here. I'm sure if any of us had Thurston's deadpan monotone voice and every two-bit indie-wanker journalist in the world asking us stupid questions, we'd tell some whoppers to see what they'd believe too.
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