Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (49 page)

Marcellus Hall, Railroad Jerk:

It was totally amazing to me when I heard the Fall. I was really impressed that you could speak over music in an authoritative way, it had a real power to it, and I realized we could use that too, talking through a song in an urgent way. We do it all the time: “Ballad of Railroad Jerk,” “Talking Railroad Jerk Blues,” are directly from the Fall’s declarative singing (and Woody Guthrie type talking blues of course).

From the start, Smith emerged as a distinctive vocalist, with his cool monotone, pissed-off talk-sing, northern drawl, and curious habit of drawing out the final syllables of lines. Among the most successful earlier Fall releases is 1980’s
Grotesque
, where Smith focuses on Manchester as a subject, with both fondness and scorn, in songs like
Mancabilly
and
The North Will Rise Again
. With 1982’s
Hex Enduction Hour
, another fan favorite, the Fall added a second drummer for a more intricately rhythmic sound.

Personal and personnel changes put the Fall at a crossroads in 1983. Smith’s partner Kay Caroll, who served as the band’s manager, ended her involvement with Smith and the Fall, and guitarist Marc Riley, a key Smith collaborator since he joined in 1978, left as well. At the same time, Smith met American guitarist Laura Salinger, who under the name Brix would join the Fall and eventually marry Smith. More than any other past or current Fall member except Smith himself, Brix would exert a huge influence on the band. With
Perverted by Language
, the first Fall record featuring Brix, the band took a distinct turn toward a more accessible, pop-oriented sound. Despite a tribute to krautrock band
Can
’s lead singer (
I Am Damo Suzuki
), 1985’s
This Nation’s Saving Grace
showed Smith more willing to sing – however flatly – than ever. Still it wouldn’t be until their cover of the Kinks’
Victoria
on 1988’s
Frenz Experiment
that the Fall would score their first U.K. hit.

Mac McCaughan, Superchunk:

The Fall was my favorite band, I probably have more Fall records than any other band. I really like the Brix period. They were still weird, with a great rhythm section, heavy basslines and drums, but also getting really poppy, with catchy songs. And they still make good records, that’s why I like them so much, they’ve managed to stick around for 20 years and still do interesting stuff.

While the band was experiencing its first taste of mainstream success, it was also pushing its music further. In 1986 Smith wrote music about papal politics, and in 1988 the group composed the score to a ballet called
I Am Kurious Oranj
. By 1990, though, Smith had alienated his closest collaborator, and Brix left both their marriage and band. Smith soldiered on with
Extricate
, which featured production work by British dub guru
Adrian Sherwood
and techno wizards Coldcut. The record was a clear indication that, after a decade and a half, Smith still had plenty more areas to explore.

As young bands who were clearly informed by the Fall’s music emerged in the ‘90s, it looked as if Smith and company would cash in on its reputation and influence. 1991’s
Shift-Work
provided the Fall – now streamlined down to a four piece – with its biggest U.K. hit yet, and two years later the band released the first of two records for influential American indie label Matador Records (the label of Fall devotees such as Pavement and Railroad Jerk).

Scott Kannnberg, Pavement:

A lot of the vocal delivery that Steve [Malkmus, Pavement singer] does, and I do in some songs, comes from Mark Smith. A song like “Forklift,” the talk-singing and using language not found in most songs. We tried to get Gary [Young, original Pavement drummer] to do that weird, syncopated drums, too. “Condo for Sale” is a total Fall rip-off, and Two States.”

Smith’s guest appearance on Inspiral Carpets’ 1994 album indicated that a new generation of Manchester acts was acknowledging their debt to the Fall. But despite an ever-growing willingness of American acts to admit the Fall’s influence, the band remains as underground as ever in the U.S. Recent albums, which explore electronics and mark the return of Brix to the band (though not the marriage), have not even been released domestically. Recent internal fighting and legal trouble have put the band’s future in question.

DISCOGRAPHY

Bingo Master’s Breakout
EP
(Step Forward, 1978)
.

Live at the Witch Trials
(Step Forward / IRS, 1979)
.

Dragnet
(Step Forward, 1979)
.

Totale’s Turns (It’s Now or Never)
(Rough Trade, 1980; Dojo, 1992)
.

Grotesque (After the Gramme)
(Rough Trade, 1980; Castle Classics, 1993)
.

Early years 77-79
(Faulty Products, 1981)
.

Slates
EP
(Rough Trade, 1981)
; along with the
Hex
record, often viewed as the finest Fall material.

Hex Enduction Hour
(Kamera, 1982)
; the high point of the Fall’s early period.

Room to Live
(Kamera, 1982)
.

A Part of America Therein, 1981
(Cottage, 1982; Dojo 1992)
; live album, reissued with
Slates
EP.

Perverted by Language
(Rough Trade, 1983)
; the first record to feature Brix, and thus the start of the Fall’s more accessible middle period.

Kicker Conspiracy
EP
(Rough Trade, 1983)
.

Fall in a Hole
(Flying Nun, 1983)
.

The Wonderful and Frightening World of ...
(Beggars Banquet/PVC, 1984)
.

Hip Priest and Kamerads
(Situation Two, 1985; Beggars Banquet, 1995)
.

This Nation’s Saving Grace
(Beggars Banquet / PVC, 1985)
.

The Fall
EP
(PVC, 1986)
.

Bend Sinister
(Beggars Banquet, 1986)
.

Domesday Pay-off
(Big Time, 1987)
.

The Peel Sessions
EP
(Strange Fruit, 1987)
; tracks collected from the band’s appearance on the British show, John Peel’s Radio 1.

The Fall in: Palace of Swords Reversed
(Rough Trade / Cog Sinister, 1987)
; a fine compilation of early ‘80s stuff.

The Frenz Experiment
(Big Time, 1988)
.

I Am Kurious Oranj
(Beggars Banquet / RCA, 1988)
; featuring music written for a ballet to commemorate William of Orange’s accession to the British throne.

Seminal Live
(Beggars Banquet, 1989)
.

Extricate
(Cog Sinister / Fontana / Polygram, 1990)
.

458489 A Sides
(Beggars Banquet / RCA, 1990)
; compilation of ‘45s from the ‘84-‘89 period.

458489 B Sides
(Beggars Banquet / RCA, 1990; 1995)
; double CD of the B sides from
A Sides
’ singles.

Shift-Work
(Cog Sinister / Fontana / Phonogram, 1991)
.

Code: Selfish
(Cog Sinister / Fontana / Phonogram, 1992)
.

The Collection
(Castle Communications, 1993)
; a U.K. compilation of early ‘80s material.

Kimble
EP
(Strange Fruit / Dutch East India, 1993)
; more Peel sessions, including cover of
Lee Perry
’s
Kimble
.

The Infotainment Scan
(Matador / Atlantic, 1993)
; the first of two records made for U.S. indie Matador, home to a number of Fall-influenced groups.

Middle Class Revolt / The Vapourisation of Reality
(Matador, 1994)
; the second and last Matador release.

Cerebral Caustic
(Permanent, 1995)
; unavailable domestically in the U.S., the record marks the return of Brix.

The Twenty-Seven Points
(Permanent, 1995)
, a double live CD with some demos thrown in.

The Legendary Chaos Tape
(Scout / Rough Trade, 1995)
; CD version of
Live in London
cassette from 1980.

Light Users Syndrome
(Jet, 1996)
; a recent studio album exploring new directions, such as drum ‘n’ bass, as well as old rockabilly styles.

Levitate
(1998)
.

GANG OF FOUR

Flea, Red Hot Chili Peppers [from the liner notes to the
Songs of the Free
CD]:

Gang of Four is the first rock band I could truly relate to, the first to make me want to go crazy and dance and fuck and feel tike I was part of something cool... It completely changed the way I looked at rock music and sent me on my trip as a bass player... I hear their influence on really great bands, too, like Fugazi and Jane’s Addiction...
Not Great Men
is the first thing I put on my turntable to show somebody what shaped the sound of the rookie Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The English group Gang of Four turned funk inside out and melded it with punk polemics, taking George Clinton’s great funk dictum “free your ass and your mind follow” to a whole other level. With music that simultaneously made listeners dance and think, the band created a “politics of dancing,” where crowded discos become social movements and regimented dance steps subtle forms of solidarity. And with the gray economic climate of early-‘80s Britain, dancing – even as an escape from everyday frustrations – was political in a very real way.

While some of the issues Gang of Four addressed may have faded, the group’s influence is more apparent than ever. Their agit-prop lyrical style has been adopted by bands such as Fugazi and (somewhat clumsily) Rage against the Machine. Musically, the stark punk-funk of jerking guitars and walloping bass can be heard in many of the major “alternative” bands of the past decade: the Cure, U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails.

Tom Moreilo, Rage against the Machine:

When I first heard [Andy Gill] play I thought it was the most atonal crap I had ever heard. Only later did I realize the genius of those jagged rhythms, unpredictable honks, and unapologetic stutter-funk grooves. His deconstructed playing perfectly offset the band’s neo-Marxist politics, [from Alternative Press, November 1996]

Gang of Four took its name from the radical post-Maoist Chinese political faction that was still recent news when the band formed at Leeds University in 1977. Though punk was in full bloom throughout Britain by then, from the start the group’s reference points included funk and R&B as well. “We were happy to be part of any movement we felt would bring about change in England, but I wouldn’t have felt comfortable being called a punk,” bassist Dave Allen says. “We didn’t follow the punk fashion or lifestyle, but we thrived on the energy of it all because it was knocking down lots of doors.”

The group became politicized, partially, in reaction to the growth of ultra-nationalist skinhead groups in England, particularly in depressed northern cities like Leeds. Through their camaraderie with outspoken black groups such as Steel Pulse (both bands later toured as part of Rock against Racism), the influence of reggae and dub music seeped into the Gang of Four’s sound. Gang of Four gigged their way through ‘77, ‘78, and much of ‘79 before putting out a full-length record. This allowed the band to blend its many influences into a cohesive sound that hit with maximum intensity when they finally put out their first album, at the end of 1979.

Bono, U2:

Hard, angular, bold... Andy Gill’s chin is the very black hole of ‘80s music we should have all disappeared into... a dimple atop the body pimple, a pimple on the arse of pop. A Gang of Four metal gurus, a corporation of common sense, a smart bomb of text that had me “at home feeling like a typist.” [from the liner notes to Songs of the Free]

Entertainment!
captured the band’s spare, uptight live sound perfectly. The alienation expressed in the lyrics to songs like
At Home He’s a Tourist
and
Damaged Goods
, the tightly-wound rhythms of Hugo Burnham’s drums and Allen’s bass, with Andy Gill’s irregular chainsaw-jerking guitar, conveyed a profound discontent. It shredded funk into a joyless grind, amassing as much tension as it released. This was dance music that had been clawed through by punk, a symptom of British decline, and unlike the punk music of other angry English kids, vocalist Jon King’s lyrics were smart enough to explain it all.