1991 - Idiot Joy Showland

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23 March: 14th John Peel Session - The War Against Intelligence, Idiot Joy Showland, A Lot of Wind, The Mixer
15 April: Album - Shift-Work

After the departures of Marcia Schofield and Martin Bramah last summer on the Australian tour the group were back to a five-piece for this year's John Peel session.

The four tracks all appeared on the following month's Shift-Work album so after a winter of writing writing and recording were fairly well formed for the Peel Show appearance. The extended A Lot of Wind showcases Steve Hanley's bass more than the album version but otherwise there's not too much difference.

Shift-Work seems to get short shrift from the Fall fans community. The title track, Edinburgh Man,  and Rose are all at the tender end of the MES scale and those kind of songs seem to fare poorly when a 'Fall Cup' rolls round on the forum. I was keen to listen to the album again thinking it had been a bit hard done by but there's not a lot of stand-out Fall classics here that's for sure.

All in all, it's not a year to re-visit in a hurry. The Peel Session Lot of Wind, Pittsville Direkt, Sinister Waltz and Edinburgh Man have their merits but the easy choice is Idiot Joy Showland.

Smith's acerbic take on the burgeoning Madchester scene starts: "Idiot groups with no shape or form, out of their heads on a quid of blow" to leave you in no doubt about what he thinks. In a 1994 interview Smith suggests the 'scene' is why he moved to Edinburgh.

MES lyric is absolutely top drawer and we should be thankful for that from this year at least.

"The working class has been shafted
So what are the fuck you sneering at?
Your prerogative in life it seems
Is living out some ad man dream."


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