Vanity and Presumption

6 March: Album - Hex Enduction Hour 19 April: Single - Look, Know 27 September: Album - Room to Live "When what used to excite you does not" I realise this might seem a contrary choice from the greatest album ever made but I'll explain further on. Hex Enduction Hour was recorded in Iceland and Hitchin in late 1981 against a backdrop of tension in the group and even the possibility that this was to be their last work. I'm delighted it wasn't but if it was to have been, what a way to go! This has taken me a while because I find it quite difficult to write about 'Hex' as I've read so much about it. Probably best I don't go into too much detail and embarrass myself so for now I'll just say it is at times powerful, confrontational, provocative, contrary, thoughtful and brutal. In reflective moments Mark E Smith, who never had much time for looking back at his old work, would say he was proud of the record. That endorsement is worth way...

31 March: 4th John Peel session - Middle Mass, Lie Dream of a Casino Soul, Hip Priest, C 'N' C/Hassle Schmuck 24 April: Album - Slates 15 September: 5th John Peel session - Deer Park, Look Know, Winter (Hostel Maxi), Who Makes The Nazis? 13 November: Single -  Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul "Everybody hears a hum at 3am" Is this the year it all came together? Two stunning John Peel sessions (Hassle Schmuck maybe excepted!) the brilliant Slates mini-album and yet another in a great series of singles in the shape of 'Lie Dream'. Both Peel sessions looked into the future and four of the eight tracks recorded would feature on 1982's Hex Enduction Hour LP. In between those sessions came Slates. A six-track record costing £2 only (u skinny rats), it was neither eligible for the single or album charts. However you view it, the ideas that swirled around Grotesque are now fully formed. It has a bit of everything. Middle Mass has Riley and Scanlon...

?? January: Single -  Fiery Jack 05 May: Live album -  Totale's Turns (It's Now or Never) 11 July: Single - How I Wrote 'Elastic Man' ?? September: Single - Totally Wired 24 September 1980 - 3rd John Peel Session - Container Drivers, Jawbone and the Air Rifle, New Puritan, New Face in Hell 17 November: Album - Grotesque "My heart and I agree" I knew I was taking on a difficult job when I started this and 1980 really brings it home. One track from a year which most bands would want as a career! Three epic singles, a live album, a studio album and a Peel session where at least one of the tracks is more highly regarded than the studio version. The year started with Fiery Jack, the last release for the Step Forward label. It's an excellent single that evokes the early spiky Fall while also introduces glimmerings of what would be the group's 'Country and Northern' sound. The first release for Rough Trade was the (mostly) live album ...

16 March 1979: Album - Live at the Witch Trials 30 July 1979: Single - Rowche Rumble 26 October 1979: Album - Dragnet "I get better as I get older" Yep. Two albums in little over seven months. Live at the Witch Trials was recorded the previous December (in one day after Smith lost his voice ahead of the session) and is an energetic round-up of the group's early work. Songs about drugs ('Underground Medicin', 'No Xmas for John Quays', 'Like to Blow') appear and recur throughout Smith's work. By the time of the excellent single Rowche Rumble in July Smith is the sole founding member remaining in the group. What started as a 'musician's collective' had already seen Smith take over as leader and the leaving, hiring and firing of group members that ran through the first 30 years of the Fall was under way. This year also saw Steve Hanley join on bass and his playing would come to define many people's idea of the Fall sound....

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 "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 ...

There are plenty of people better qualified to write about music than I am. There are plenty of people better qualified to write about The Fall than I am. But that's not going to stop me. Fall songs have featured heavily in the 'Track of the Week' diary posts over at my  Tea at Johnny's  blog but I wanted to do a bit more - so this is it. The idea is for me to pick one track that was released or broadcast for the first time in each year of the Fall's 40-year recording career and write about it. This isn't going to be easy. Some of them may have personal connections with where I first heard it or what it reminds me of. Others will be simply because they are stunning records that deserve a wider audience and I want to hear them again (and again). I'll try to focus on studio recordings and Peel sessions (some live stuff may creep in) and I'll also hope to keep it purely the Fall despite Mark E Smith making a couple of fantastic collaborations with...

Handsome, well-meaning, but slightly a careless type. Not malicious, I hope you understand and grasp. (Athlete Cured) The Fall were part of the soundtrack of my life for about 35 years. After Mark E Smith's death in January 2018 it's still hard to believe that there will be no more Fallsound. I can't remember the first Fall record I heard. It may have been Totally Wired, Rowche Rumble or Bingo Master's Breakout. I'm sure my friend David would have been the person who played it around 1980 or 1981. I can't remember the first Fall record I bought. It could have been either of the above or maybe How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'. The first fall gig I went to was at Swindon's Brunel Rooms on 26 March 1982. All I remember is two drum-kits and someone who kept shouting for Spectre vs Rector. I'm fairly sure the first Fall album I bought was Dragnet. Most likely from Kempster's on Commercial Road in Swindon. What I do remember is buying a...