Guardian and Observer Editorial

≤ Steve Davies Drums/congas, 1980 Now: does music workshops in schools and prisons ‘I refused to tour with a rock band ever again’ ≤ Kay Carroll Backing vocals/man- agement, 1977-83 ≤ Now: doctor’s Dave Milner assistant Drums, 2001-04 ‘Mark never let Now: taxi driver anybody feel part ‘The Fall is the of the Fall’ ≤ band to be in if you Una Baines desire extremes’ Keyboards, 1976-78 ≤ Simon Archer Now: singer Bass, 2003-04 ‘Mark is certainly Now: musician not just an ogre’ ‘All the stories and myths about Mark ≤ ≥ Simon Julia Adamson were true’ Wolstencroft (then Nagle) ≥ Ruth Daniel Drums, 1986-97 Keyboards/guitar, Keyboards, 2002 Now: musician 1995-2001 Now: researcher/ ‘I learned so much Now: works at a record label manager about life, just publishing company ‘Mark would bark listening to Mark’ ‘I was quite poorly like a dog’ after dating Mark’ ≤ Ed Blaney Guitar/tour manager, ≤ Karen Leatham 2000-04 Bass, 1988 Now: ‘free man’ Now: Designer/carer ‘My duties included ‘Looking after keeping ex-members gentlemen with out of the dressing mental needs is room’ not unlike being in a band’ ≤ Dave Tucker ≥ Tommy Crooks ≥ Brix Smith Clarinet, 1980-81 Guitar, 1997-98 Guitar, 1983-89, 94-96 Now: musician Now: artist Now: runs a boutique ‘Mark brought in ‘The Fall are the ‘Mark fired a people like me to best British band soundman for make the other ever, including Excuse me, weren’teating a salad’ yyou in theguys nervous’ Fall?the Beatles’ Mark E Smith’s band is legendary for its ever-changing line-up. Dave Simpson made it his quest to track down everyone who has ever been a member t’s a Tuesday morning in years after the band first formed, their year, I began to wonder if the Fall’s con- ≤ Paul Hanley December, and I’m ringing audiences still include fans who don’t tinued relevance could be attributed Drums, 1980-85 people called Brown in follow other bands. Smith’s inspired, not only to Smith’s genius way with Now: works in computing Rotherham. “Hello,” I begin social sci-fi songs are revered by every- splenetic observations, but to the trail ‘It’s a crazy band to Iagain. “I’m trying to trace one from comedians Frank Skinner and of havoc left by the revolving line-up. be in, but that’s why Jonnie Brown who used to play Stewart Lee to the designer Calvin At the very least, I wondered where all they’re so good’ in the Fall. He came from Rotherham Klein, artist Grayson Perry, and authors these people were. As Peel had said, and I wondered if you might be a rela- Irvine Welsh and Philip K Dick. noting that most former Fallers simply tive.” “The Who?” asks the latest Mr Musicians and music critics love them, disappear: “I don’t know if he’s killing Brown. “No. The Fall — the band from too: David Bowie, Bo Diddley, Thom them or what.” So I resolved to track ≤ Steve Hanley Salford. He played bass for three weeks Yorke and Alex Kapranos all claim to be them down, not realising that this Bass, 1979-98 in 1978.” “Is this some kind of joke?” fans, and the band’s latest album (their would involve afternoons writing Now: caretaker ≤ ‘After a while in This has been my life for weeks. I’ve 26th), Fall Heads Roll, won a five- letters to defunct addresses in ≤ Nick Dewey Marc ‘Lard’ Riley the Fall, you’re no become an internet stalker and a tele- star review in the Guardian for its Doncaster and eight-hour sessions Drums, 1999 Guitar, 1978-82 Now: broadcaster longer normal’ phone pest, all because of an obsessive “paint-stripping riffs, hail of one- searching for a single person. Now: Band manager ‘I’m most proud of drive to track down everyone who has liners, withering put-downs and I started with Smith, who sank ‘It was like a being in the Fall. It ever played in the Fall. That’s 40-odd bewildering images”. pints of lager in a Manchester hotel childhood dream’ was a start in life’ ≤ Keir Stewart people, including drummers abandoned My own obsession with the as he explained his policy of Guitar, 1997 at motorway services, guitarists left in band has been a long time successively “freshening up” Now: runs a recording studio foreign hotels and various wives and in gestation. I first saw the band. “It’s a bit like a ‘When a friend died girlfriends of the band’s provocateur- them play at Leeds’ Riley football team,” he said. I saw a different, ringmaster, Mark E Smith (right). Smith Hall in 1981: the “Every so often you humane side to Mark’ The Fall lend themselves to obses- fact that the singer was have to get rid of the ≤ Marcia Schofield sion. In John Peel’s Record Box — which called Smith and the centre-forward.” Smith Keyboards, 1986-90 contained the late DJ’s favourite records guitarist (Marc) Riley has based his career on Now: doctor — Fall records had an entire section to seemed to give this looking forward, so he was ‘The Fall was like a themselves. Peel called them the some weird signifi- unlikely to give me numbers medieval Italian principality, with Mighty Fall: “the band against which cance. As the band for clarinet players who left sycophants and Culture ± all others are judged”. More than 25 approached their 30th in 1981. The numerous lee; Jon Super; Redferns Baron; Martin Robertson; Sarah Godwin; Graeme Christopher Thomond; Frank mandarins’ 18 The Guardian 05.01.06 The Guardian 05.01.06 19 ± record companies the Fall have had fine drummers £5 each time they hit the just said, ‘I like your songs. Can we use ≤ Charlotte Bill members worried that he was dead. over the years had only ever dealt with tom-tom, and that on tour in Europe he them? Can you play on them?’ He’s so Oboe, 1990 Some suggested he had “moved to the Now: documentarist Smith. The Musicians Union claimed to would employ the “European phrase- fucking smart I can’t tell you,” she sighs. ‘I was only a guest, hills” in Rossendale, Lancashire, but have “no information relating to any- book”, sending guitarists to say things “He wasn’t educated, but he was so neither left nor appeals to the area’s local papers pro- body who was ever in the Fall”. like “I am a flower” in German. Hanley’s extremely well-read. The way he looked got sacked’ duced nothing. Riley suggested I “try I did have another lead, however. brother Paul, a drummer, remembers at the world was so different. Because the prisons”, which led me to Ed Blaney, Sixteen years ago I interviewed a man how one of Smith’s favourite jokes was he wouldn’t see things the same way, who indeed left the Fall because he was ≤ ≤ called Grant Showbiz, and remembered to “take new members abroad just so he he wouldn’t speak the same way.” Mike Leigh Adam Helal sent to prison (“Dangerous driving,” he that he sometimes produced the Fall. He could send them home”. Another was A bizarre number of Fall members Drums, 1979-80 Bass, 1998-2001 says). He hadn’t seen Burns either. Now: ‘selling Now: musician gave me some numbers, though sadly, to dismantle the band’s equipment in seem to have come from the same 500 ‘Mark has a PhD in When I caught up with former Fall/ most of them were dead — the numbers, the middle of a gig. “When you’re play- square yards in Prestwich/Salford, or insurance’, according Elastica keyboard player Dave Bush to Steve Hanley, who manipulation’ not the ex-members. But I did reach ing five or six nights a week the group Smith’s local, the George, before it was bumped into him in (now studying web design in Wiltshire), former guitarist/sleeves man Tommy get slick,” Smith said in his defence. For knocked down. Guitarist Adrian PC World he told how Burns once turned up for a Crooks, now an artist in East Lothian. him, routine is “the enemy of music”. Flanagan recalls how, when he was 15, US tour armed only with sticks and a He’d been a part of the Fall’s most noto- For all that he can be surreally he would “put notes through Mark’s hat, was fired, spent two months riding rious implosion, when the band (bar funny, Smith’s intent is deadly serious. door saying: ‘You’re my hero. Everyone ≤ Martin Bramah around on a motorcycle before taking Smith) had disintegrated following a As a man called Eric the Ferret — the else is rubbish. Maybe when I’m of Guitar, 1976-79, 89-90 the same flight home as the band. Bush ≤ Yvonne Pawlett punch-up on stage in New York in 1998. band’s bassist in 1978, and one of the legal drinking age, we could go for a Now: musician cleared up one of the Fall’s biggest ‘It’s all too personal Keyboards, 1978-79 Over a crackling phone line, Crooks people at whom Smith threw a chair — drink?’” He soon ended up in the band for public Now: biologist mysteries, the fate of founding recounted what was to become a familiar comments, sagely: “The Fall don’t — “He’d always give local kids a break.” consumption’ ‘I never really fit in’ drummer “Dave”. Bush knew him on theme. He describes being in the Fall as cruise.” Among Smith’s tactics for One of the strangest entrances is the Manchester party circuit as Steve, “the pinnacle of creativity” but with “a instilling the required creative tension, that of Nick Dewey, who attended the and says he became schizophrenic lot of madness”.

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