The Fall In Fives

  'It's a pain in the arse getting covers sorted out nowadays. In the past I'd just hand them the artwork and say, "Use that!" and they'd go off and knock it out in a day or two. All they've got to do is follow instructions. But it's not as easy as it sounds...' MES, Renegade This is a topic that several people have suggested to me over the last couple of years. I've tinkered with it from time to time, but have somehow never got around to finishing it. Having just run out of Monday Playlist themes (and having finished my Wedding Present blog ) I thought it was about time I sorted it out. Not for the first time, I am grateful to dannyno for rooting out my factual errors. Obviously, like all my evaluations, this list is entirely subjective. Also, I am no expert in art or graphic design, so this is simply a ranking based on what looks good to me and how well I feel it matches the contents. Feel free to disagree - as I'm sure you will! One fina

 Following on from my first collection of Fall photographs, here's a selection from the first Brix era... 1983 Clockwise from top left:  Bradford, 17 January (photo by Ian Ellis - you can see more here ) - there's a review of the gig here Brussels, 9 February (photo by Philippe Carly - more here ) New Jersey, 4 April (photo by Charles Charas) - pictures from this gig featured on the back cover of the 'C.R.E.E.P.' single Guildford, 15 October (photos x2 by Guy Van Steene) - more photos here St. Gallen, Switzerland, 2 February (photos x2 by Marcel Elsener) Leeds Warehouse, 16 January (photo by Ian Ellis - more  here ) 1984 Clockwise from top left: Dundee, 24 October (photo by Dougie) Prestwich, 16 March (photo by Michael Pollard) Trans Musicales Festival, Rennes, 12 December (photo by Richard Dumas) Prestwich, 16 March (photo by Michael Pollard) Colchester, 27 October (photo by Gary Walker) Leuven, Belgium, 6 December (photo by Philippe Carly - more here ) Sounds, Octob

  Welcome to the third and final instalment of The Fall's "borrows" - those tracks that, accidentally or otherwise, had at least a hint of another track about them. In the last couple of weeks, I've had a couple of new ones drawn to my attention, so you get a bumper twelve-track playlist this week. Spotify Playlist YouTube Playlist Elves We'll start with one of the more famous ones. Brix claimed that it was a deliberate homage, a ‘witty commentary, a send-up of punk’. Steve Hanley suggests that his brother pointed out the similarity and Brix’s response was that she’d never heard the song. Either way, it's clearly indebted to The Stooges' ' I Wanna Be Your Dog '. Blindness According to Jim Watts: 'We took a break from Tuff Gong to go for a drink in The Original Wire pub. Pretty much the worst pub in Warrington. I remember a cloud of flies buzzing around in there. And in the car on the way back we heard Witness by Roots Manuva and Spencer got ve

  Happy Monday to you all. Since last August, I've posted a themed ten-song Fall playlist every Monday (full list here ), and - with only a couple of exceptions - I've avoided duplication of songs. Given that there are 500ish Fall songs and that this is number 24, it won't be a surprise that I'm starting to run out of themes! So, after this one (and next week's final instalment of the group's 'borrows') I will be going off at a few different tangents. But for now, there's one topic that I haven't yet covered, namely MES's interest in entomology.   Spotify Playlist YouTube Playlist The Aphid This piece of scratchy, grimy garage-rock from Cerebral Caustic  is an obvious starting point. Possibly inspired by Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly , in which the main character imagines himself covered in aphids ('it's what Philip K. Dick people who were on drugs would do in 1962', MES explained).  Cyber Insekt The Unutterable  opens with a

  Happy new year to you all! I hope you had as good a time if possible, even if like here it was just a Zoom quiz and a few glasses of wine. The first Monday playlist of 2021 revisits the theme of The Fall's 'borrows' that I touched on in playlist #18 . These are the tracks that aren't covers (although some come rather close) but take some inspiration from the work of others - sometimes a little, sometimes a lot ... YouTube playlist Spotify playlist Mansion Brix had perpetrated one of the group's most notable borrows on 1984's 'Elves'; the following year saw her in magpie mode again, as the riff of  This Nation's Saving Grace 's opener is a clear lift from ' Billy The Monster ' by The Deviants. The Deviants were a late 60s psych-rock who released three albums, the last of which, The Deviants 3  (released in 1969) contained 'Billy'. Vocalist Mick Farren sporadically played under the Deviants name from 1977 until his death on stage