1990 - Chicago, Now!
1 January: 13th John Peel session - Hilary, Black Monk Theme, Chicago Now, Whizz Bang
15 January: Single - Telephone Thing
19 February: Album - Extricate
12 March: Single - Popcorn Double Feature
13 August: Single - White Lightning/The Dredger EP
December: Single - High Tension Line
A new decade brought a new John Peel session on day one. There was an old name with the group though. Martin Brahma, founder of The Fall, was back for another stint on guitar.
The session is a notable one as not all the tracks were broadcast at the time. Whizz Bang (later known as Butterflies 4 Brains) was left out for reasons not entirely clear. (A YouTube comment has MES asking for its omission as he wasn't happy with it. Not a lot to go on I grant you.)
A couple of weeks later the first Fall single of the decade, Telephone Thing, was with us. Looking at the output over the previous couple of years it's hard to say that there's a typical Fall record of this time. Telephone Thing also isn't it. Written with, and produced and mixed by, electronic group Coldcut there's more machines on it than most Fall songs but Smith's paranoid phone-tapping tale means it still works.
Extricate, the first album on the group's own Cog Sinister label is, according to the liner notes :"the culmination of stuff... held back or just wrote over and through the tendril wires and chaos of the last 14 months." As well as the (what would be brief) return of Martin Bramah, there's plenty of violin, provided by Kenny Brady, throughout the record . Brix was now with spiky-haired fiddle player Nigel Kennedy. Coincidence?
MES has denied that some of the songs are directed at the ex-Mrs Smith but Sing! Harpy, Bill is Dead, Chicago, Now! and the cover of Black Monk Theme (also known as I Hate You) have all been linked with Brix. I'll let you decide.
I like the album. It's pretty solid but largely in a non-challenging way. Chicago, Now! (of which more later) is perhaps the exception. I'd say the album is even more commercial than 'Frenz' and if MES had given the green light to Bill is Dead being released as a single could that have provided the group with the elusive hit?
Only another few weeks pass before the next cover version single appeared. Popcorn Double Feature, which had been a 1967 flop for The Searchers, got the Fall treatment and again the group didn't mess about with it too much. Nor did it trouble the top 80.
The next single was an EP with another cover as its lead track. The Big Bopper's White Lightning. It sounds exactly like you'd expect a Fall cover of a Big Bopper song to sound! It was the most successful single by the group this year reaching the heady heights of number 56.
There was still time for a fourth single. High Tension Line is possibly another song about people drifting into middle age but leave that to one side and just enjoy it, especially Smith's vocal performance and a great chorus.
Overall, this year provides a load of songs you'd file under 7/10 material but not much at either end of the scoring spectrum. Contenders include High Tension Line, Bill Is Dead, Blood Outta Stone and Butterflies for Brains but I'm going with Chicago, Now!
I think there's something threateningly cinematic about the way it builds. Simon Wolstencroft and Steve Hanley have already set that tone long before Smith asks: "Do you work hard?" The music makes us realise he already thinks the answer is 'no' and it's not long before he tells us that.
Bramah and Craig Scanlon raise the tension with their guitars, along with Marcia Schofield's occasional keyboard interjections, but I could live without the pace change (it sounds like another song bolted on) and think the track benefits by dropping back into Wolstencroft's brief drum solo.
I've gone with the Peel Session recording as, although similar to the Extricate version, I think it has a better ending. A 'Minnie the Moocher'-like hi-de-hi-de-ho from MES and it's gone.
15 January: Single - Telephone Thing
19 February: Album - Extricate
12 March: Single - Popcorn Double Feature
13 August: Single - White Lightning/The Dredger EP
December: Single - High Tension Line
"Do you work hard?"
A new decade brought a new John Peel session on day one. There was an old name with the group though. Martin Brahma, founder of The Fall, was back for another stint on guitar.
The session is a notable one as not all the tracks were broadcast at the time. Whizz Bang (later known as Butterflies 4 Brains) was left out for reasons not entirely clear. (A YouTube comment has MES asking for its omission as he wasn't happy with it. Not a lot to go on I grant you.)
A couple of weeks later the first Fall single of the decade, Telephone Thing, was with us. Looking at the output over the previous couple of years it's hard to say that there's a typical Fall record of this time. Telephone Thing also isn't it. Written with, and produced and mixed by, electronic group Coldcut there's more machines on it than most Fall songs but Smith's paranoid phone-tapping tale means it still works.
Extricate, the first album on the group's own Cog Sinister label is, according to the liner notes :"the culmination of stuff... held back or just wrote over and through the tendril wires and chaos of the last 14 months." As well as the (what would be brief) return of Martin Bramah, there's plenty of violin, provided by Kenny Brady, throughout the record . Brix was now with spiky-haired fiddle player Nigel Kennedy. Coincidence?
MES has denied that some of the songs are directed at the ex-Mrs Smith but Sing! Harpy, Bill is Dead, Chicago, Now! and the cover of Black Monk Theme (also known as I Hate You) have all been linked with Brix. I'll let you decide.
I like the album. It's pretty solid but largely in a non-challenging way. Chicago, Now! (of which more later) is perhaps the exception. I'd say the album is even more commercial than 'Frenz' and if MES had given the green light to Bill is Dead being released as a single could that have provided the group with the elusive hit?
Only another few weeks pass before the next cover version single appeared. Popcorn Double Feature, which had been a 1967 flop for The Searchers, got the Fall treatment and again the group didn't mess about with it too much. Nor did it trouble the top 80.
The next single was an EP with another cover as its lead track. The Big Bopper's White Lightning. It sounds exactly like you'd expect a Fall cover of a Big Bopper song to sound! It was the most successful single by the group this year reaching the heady heights of number 56.
There was still time for a fourth single. High Tension Line is possibly another song about people drifting into middle age but leave that to one side and just enjoy it, especially Smith's vocal performance and a great chorus.
Overall, this year provides a load of songs you'd file under 7/10 material but not much at either end of the scoring spectrum. Contenders include High Tension Line, Bill Is Dead, Blood Outta Stone and Butterflies for Brains but I'm going with Chicago, Now!
I think there's something threateningly cinematic about the way it builds. Simon Wolstencroft and Steve Hanley have already set that tone long before Smith asks: "Do you work hard?" The music makes us realise he already thinks the answer is 'no' and it's not long before he tells us that.
Bramah and Craig Scanlon raise the tension with their guitars, along with Marcia Schofield's occasional keyboard interjections, but I could live without the pace change (it sounds like another song bolted on) and think the track benefits by dropping back into Wolstencroft's brief drum solo.
I've gone with the Peel Session recording as, although similar to the Extricate version, I think it has a better ending. A 'Minnie the Moocher'-like hi-de-hi-de-ho from MES and it's gone.
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