An A-Z of The Fall - U & V
U is for...
U2
On 1 July 1997, The Fall acted as an unlikely last-minute support act for U2 at Elland Road, replacing World Party (download here). Craig Scanlon ended up with a black eye and a badly-bruised arm after being dragged down a staircase by U2’s security; he and Steve Hanley had tried to get backstage to procure autographs for the bassist’s Irish relatives.
The U2 gig was referenced in 'In These Times': 'Diluted Jesuits pour out of mutual walkmans from Elland Road to Venice Pensions and down the Autobahns'. Smith commented on the song’s origins in an interview with Dave Haslam:
‘In These Times was written at a time last year when things were pretty shocking and tasteless. There's a bit in the song relating to when I went to Italy for the first time in four years for a holiday with Brix. I thought at least I'd get away from cars and U2. And the first thing I heard were these two street-theatre people doing U2 songs on acoustic guitars, mixed with Beatles' songs. It was a nightmare.’
Bono and co. also got a mention in MES's amended lyrics for The Fall's cover of Hank Williams' 'Just Waiting': ‘the cretin is waiting for U2 to come on MTV again / but the producer is waiting for the blonde bird’.
EDIT: On Twitter, Ashley Stokes has reminded me that U2 also get a mention in 'A Past Gone Mad':
'if I ever end up like U2 slit my throat with a garden vegetable'
The United States of America
Influential but short-lived LA-based psychedelic band, who split up after their eponymous 1968 debut album. Reformation Post-TLC opener 'Over! Over!' was virtually a cover of their song 'Coming Down'. You can also hear the song's influence to a lesser extent in 'Scenario'.
The Untouchables
The Untouchables was an American crime drama series set in the prohibition era that ran for four seasons between 1959-63. An episode entitled 'The Big Train', included the line 'there are no big shots on the rock' ('The Rock' being Alcatraz) that was used in 'Pat-Trip Dispenser'.
V is for...
Valium
The subject of ‘Rowche Rumble’ (see R), which was inspired by Smith’s experiences as a shipping clerk when most of an accidental overorder of the drug (‘I sent 70 pounds instead of 70p to pharmaceutical company Rowche AG’) ended up stuffed in his bottom drawer.
There's a line (‘wives need their pill’) that echoes the Rolling Stones’ 1966 track ‘Mother’s Little Helper’ – ‘Mother needs something today to calm her down / and though she's not really ill, there's a little yellow pill… mother's little helper… gets her through her busy day’.
Valley of the Dolls
'L.A.' features the line ‘this is my happening and it freaks me out’, which was taken from Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, a 1970 Russ Meyer film. The character who delivers the line, Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell, was loosely based on Phil Spector.
Pamela Vander
MES's final partner, and also The Fall’s last manager. She designed the cover of New Facts Emerge and appeared onstage with the group in July 2017 at London’s 100 Club. She can also be seen wheeling Smith onstage at The Fall's final gig.
There are several pictures of MES on her Instagram account, two of which are especially touching:
Victoria Train Station
When New Facts Emerge was released, there was minor controversy regarding the title of 'Victoria Train Station Massacre'. A couple of months before the album’s release, a suicide bomber had killed 23 people and injured 139 at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena, which is adjacent to the station. A Cherry Red representative stated that this was an ‘unfortunate coincidence… The track was recorded and the artwork sent off for manufacture long before the terrible events in Manchester.’
The lyric was actually about MES's disapproval of architectural changes to the station, something upon which he elaborated in an interview for Uncut:
‘I’m actually very fond of the architecture of Victoria Station, but it’s all been trashed to f*ck, and that’s what the song’s about. You know all that beautiful Victorian latticework, like they have at Paddington? They ripped it all off. And you know why? Because the students coming to Manchester wanted to have access to north Manchester [pauses]. We don’t want ’em here [laughs]! So they put this big canvas canopy up, and about six months ago it fell on all the passengers in the rush hour.’
The collapse of the roof took place in October 2016.
Vinyl Justice
The Adam and Joe Show, presented by Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish, ran for four series between 1996 and 2001. The ‘Vinyl Justice’ section saw the duo ‘raid’ rock stars’ homes and search their record collections for embarrassing albums. In Smith’s appearance (filmed at Buxton’s flat as MES refused to use his own house), he dances (sort of) to Don Bowman's ‘Little Diesel Driving Devil’ with Buxton and Cornish.
Speaking to The Guardian in 2019, Cornish said: ‘The only way you could get in touch with him was to get his manager to pin a message on a board in a working man’s club in Salford… To persuade him to cooperate we had to get him a great deal of booze and £200 in cash.’ In a 2020 Instagram post, he elaborated further: ‘Adam was a big fan of The Fall whereas I knew almost nothing about them. I think Mr. Smith picked up on that and took a dislike to me. He proceeded to put a plastic bag over my head, sit on me and punch me repeatedly in the head while smoking a fag and grinning. Only now, all these years later, do I realise what an honour it all was’.
Von Südenfed
Arguably MES's greatest collaboration (even my better half, who considers The Fall to be 'the worst band ever' concedes that the album has some merit), Tromatic Reflexxions was a joint project with German electronica outfit Mouse On Mars, released in 2007.
Smith had first worked with Mouse On Mars in 2004, resulting in the tracks ‘Sound City’ and ‘Cut The Gain’ that appeared on their EP Wipe That Sound.
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