An A-Z of The Fall - R
R is for...
Rasputin
Russian mystic who exerted extensive influence on Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra in the years leading up to the Russian Revolution before being assassinated by a group of noblemen.
He makes an appearance in 'Fantastic Life':
'The Siberian mushroom SantaWas in fact Rasputin's brother'
Lou Reed
The Velvet Underground front man had a reputation for being a difficult, curmudgeonly interviewee that rivalled MES's. The Velvet Underground were a big influence on the first line-up of The Fall, something which can certainly be heard in much of Martin Bramah's guitar work on Live At The Witch Trials.
In December 1976, MES had drafted a potential setlist for the group’s first performance that included a cover of ‘You’re Driving Me Insane’, a pre-VU Reed song recorded by The Roughnecks.
'New Face In Hell' was indebted to VU's 'What Goes On', and Reed also pops up in 'Shoulder Pads' ('couldn't tell Lou Reed from Doug Yule'), which references an anecdote about David Bowie (see B part 2).
Reed's influence can also be heard on The Fall's 'Ketamine Sun', which borrows heavily from 'Kill Your Sons'.
Regal Cinema
The majority of Hex Enduction Hour was recorded The Regal in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. The Regal Theatre had opened in 1939 and closed as a cinema in 1977. It was converted to a studio and concert hall (hosting Spandau Ballet, the Thompson Twins and UB40) before being demolished and replaced by an office block in 1986.
As Paul Hanley points out in Have A Bleedin Guess, a mythology has grown up around the album’s recording that suggests that ‘the group broke into a derelict building… in order to ensure that [their] rejection of studio artifice was created with sufficient verité’. MES frequently contributed to this impression: ‘I thought we should go to an old cinema and get a bit of a live feel to it’. In fact, The Regal was at the time an active venue with a 16-track recording studio upstairs from the performance space.
Around half of the Regal recordings (‘The Classical’, ‘And This Day’, ‘Fortress/Deer Park’ and ‘Mere Pseud Mag. Ed.’) took place on the downstairs stage. The musicians were arranged in a circle, with the two drummers facing each other; Smith recorded his vocals in the upstairs studio. The remaining songs were better suited by a more traditional studio environment; the freezing weather (there was no heating in the stage area) was also a factor in the group moving upstairs.
The Reynolds Girls
Pop duo consisting of sisters Linda and Aisling who had a hit in 1989 with 'I'd Rather Jack', released on Pete Waterman's PWL label. The song, which criticised ageing radio DJs for playing older artists rather than Stock Aitken Waterman acts, reached number 8 in the UK chart.
Speaking to the NME in 1996, MES expressed admiration for 'I'd Rather Jack', calling it 'a bloody great song'.
Kevin “Skids” Riddles
Filled in on keyboards for a handful of gigs in 1990 following Marcia Schofield’s sacking. Described by Steve Hanley as ‘eighteen stone of hairy-arsed Motorhead roadie’.
John Robb
Musician and journalist Robb is vocalist and bassist in The Membranes and also runs the music site Louder Than War, where he regularly reviewed The Fall.
Robb suggested that 'Nine Out Of Ten' was ‘an acidic dark humoured snark attack’ on him for having given Ed Blaney’s recent album a good review. Whilst it is true that Smith mentioned him in the song’s third performance in Southampton on 27 January (‘I got a review from John Robb’) this doesn’t really sound much like an ‘attack’; it’s more likely that he just improvised the line having spotted Robb in the audience.
MES mentioned Robb in a hugely entertaining interview with Mojo journalist Ben Thompson that was recorded in front of a live audience at the 2015 Green Man Festival. (The part about Robb is right at the beginning of the video below.)
Roche
‘Rowche Rumble’ was inspired by Smith’s experiences as a shipping clerk when most of an accidental overorder of Valium (‘I sent 70 pounds instead of 70p to pharmaceutical company Rowche AG’) ended up stuffed in his bottom drawer.
The pharmaceutical company is actually called Roche: whether the alternate spelling was to avoid legal issues or was just one of Smith’s habitual misspellings is unclear.
Rock Against Racism
Rock Against Racism was established in 1976 in reaction to increasing racist violence, the rise of the National Front and Eric Clapton's racist on-stage rant ('Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back').
The earliest full-length recording of a Fall gig comes from a RAR benefit that took place at Stretford Civic Centre on 23 December 1977, captured on Live 1977. Despite the nature of the event, Smith had little to say between songs about racism beyond a couple of remarks about National Front leader John Tyndall. One of these (‘he thinks we are jungle negro music’ ) came in the introduction to ‘Hey Fascist’.
Ted Rogers
For some inexplicable reason, Ted Rogers - TV gameshow host of 3-2-1 fame, pictured above with trusty sidekick Dusty Bin - attracted Smith's ire on 'Joker Hysterical Face': ‘Ted Rogers' brains burn in hell’.
Rough Trade
Geoff Travis (pictured above) opened his first Rough Trade shop on London’s Kensington Park Road in 1976, specialising in reggae and punk. A record label under the same name was established the following year, its first release being ‘Paris Maquis’ by French punk band Métal Urbain.
Travis co-produced the 'Fiery Jack' single, and then signed The Fall to his Rough Trade label in 1980. The first Fall release on the label was Totale's Turns.
MES saw signing to Rough Trade as an opportunity for increased financial reward:
‘They went out to sign us and in the end we were that bloody desperate we had to for money, like. They were good in that they always gave you your royalties. Not like our first label, Step Forward, for whom we did those first singles and first two albums but we never saw a penny. That's a fact, we were bloody starving to death.'lt's A New Thing' [sic] was single of the year and we had no fuckin' money in our pockets.’
Being signed to Rough Trade brought its advantages: for example, unlike the first two Fall albums, both Grotesque and Slates enjoyed a simultaneous release in the US. However, in 1981, MES signed a deal with Kamera (see K) having tired of Rough Trade’s ‘hippies’ who would ‘only send review copies to left-wing magazines instead of the daily papers’.
Following Kamera's financial collapse, The Fall returned to Rough Trade in 1983, via whom they released the 'The Man Whose Head Expanded' and 'Kicker Conspiracy' singles, plus Perverted By Language, before signing up with Beggars Banquet.
Route
Pontefract-based company who have published autobiographies by Steve Hanley and Simon Wolstencroft as well as Paul Hanley's fascinating dissection of Hex and his history of Manchester music, Leave The Capital.
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