1978 - Mess of My
15 Jun 1978*: 1st John Peel Session - Rebellious Jukebox, Mother Sister, Industrial Estate, Futures and Pasts
11 Aug 1978: EP - Bingo Master's Breakout
?? Nov 1978: Single - It's the New Thing
12 Dec 1978: 2nd John Peel Session - Put Away, Mess of My, No Xmas for John Keys, Like to Blow
After 30 or so gigs across 1977 and the first half of 1978 The Fall first reached a wider audience thanks to their first of what would be 24 John Peel sessions in June.
Hot on the heels of that came their first vinyl appearance - two tracks ('Last Orders' and 'Stepping Out') on the live compilation Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus. The group featured alongside other northern post-punk luminaries such as Warsaw (soon to be Joy Division), Buzzcocks and John Cooper-Clarke.
It's a mark of Smith's prodigious song-writing, quality control and the group's work ethic that neither of those tracks would feature on a Fall release. As Smith himself said to someone calling for an old song on 1980 live release Totale's Turns (It's Now or Never): "Are you still doing what you did two years ago? Yeah? Well don't make a career out of it."
Their first offering in their own name was the much-delayed Bingo Master's Breakout EP with a second single and second Peel session coming before the end of the year.
I could have chosen Bingo-Master for my 1978 selection as it was possibly the first Fall song I would have heard, albeit two or three years later. (I wouldn't have been a Peel devotee until early 1983 I don't think.) I rather predictably called some of the compilation tapes I made in the mid-eighties 'Rebellious Jukebox' so that was a possibility too as was Repetition - an early Fall mission statement from the Bingo Master EP.
In the end I went with Mess of My. When I bought the 5 John Peel Sessions bootleg at Futurama 4 in 1982 I knew the album versions of just about all of the songs on it. Mess of My was one that skipped an official release so was new to me.
The song contains a couple of items that would become Fall themes - having a pop at record companies and the people that work for them, and a distorted vocal element (most likely spoken through a megaphone.)
* I've used first broadcast date rather than recording date.
11 Aug 1978: EP - Bingo Master's Breakout
?? Nov 1978: Single - It's the New Thing
12 Dec 1978: 2nd John Peel Session - Put Away, Mess of My, No Xmas for John Keys, Like to Blow
"This was a beginning"
After 30 or so gigs across 1977 and the first half of 1978 The Fall first reached a wider audience thanks to their first of what would be 24 John Peel sessions in June.
Hot on the heels of that came their first vinyl appearance - two tracks ('Last Orders' and 'Stepping Out') on the live compilation Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus. The group featured alongside other northern post-punk luminaries such as Warsaw (soon to be Joy Division), Buzzcocks and John Cooper-Clarke.
It's a mark of Smith's prodigious song-writing, quality control and the group's work ethic that neither of those tracks would feature on a Fall release. As Smith himself said to someone calling for an old song on 1980 live release Totale's Turns (It's Now or Never): "Are you still doing what you did two years ago? Yeah? Well don't make a career out of it."
Their first offering in their own name was the much-delayed Bingo Master's Breakout EP with a second single and second Peel session coming before the end of the year.
I could have chosen Bingo-Master for my 1978 selection as it was possibly the first Fall song I would have heard, albeit two or three years later. (I wouldn't have been a Peel devotee until early 1983 I don't think.) I rather predictably called some of the compilation tapes I made in the mid-eighties 'Rebellious Jukebox' so that was a possibility too as was Repetition - an early Fall mission statement from the Bingo Master EP.
In the end I went with Mess of My. When I bought the 5 John Peel Sessions bootleg at Futurama 4 in 1982 I knew the album versions of just about all of the songs on it. Mess of My was one that skipped an official release so was new to me.
The song contains a couple of items that would become Fall themes - having a pop at record companies and the people that work for them, and a distorted vocal element (most likely spoken through a megaphone.)
* I've used first broadcast date rather than recording date.
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