juLY 2019 • uNCuT• 93
P HANLEY: You’d be crucified for
that now and rightly so, but he got
a free pass from the music press,
the record company, everyone.
He got away with it by playing a
character. It felt like the Buzzcocks’
“Oh Shit” but taken to the nth
degree: deliberately provocative.
S HANLEY: Einar Örn [later in the
Sugarcubes] got us over to play three
gigs in Iceland, and we recorded
“Hip Priest” and “Iceland” there
in a studio with lava walls. “Hip
Priest” is Mark singing about
himself – “He is not appreciated”. He
did that a lot, but then would cover
himself or change something, so he
wouldn’t be giving anything away.
CARROLL: Mark was humbled by
Iceland. I’d never seen anything or
anyone have such an effect on him.
The schoolchildren in Reykjavík
knew about Captain Beefheart.
Einar took us way out and showed
us this huge volcano, the Heck,
which he said was “the gateway to
hell”. I never asked – because Mark’s
credo was “What does it mean to
you?” – but Heck’s induction hour...
Hex Enduction Hour...
S HANLEY: The album was
deliberately designed to be an hour
long. The last track, “On This Day”,
was originally 25 minutes long, but
Mark snipped it to fit in 60 minutes
and that was that.
PERVERTED
BY LANGuAGE
ROUGH TRADE, 1983
Guitarist Marc Riley departs after
a punch-up with Smith in Australia,
to be replaced by the singer’s
Americanfuturewife,Brix.The
resultbeginsa shifttowardsa more
melodicFallsound
S HANLEY: Marc
and Mark hated
each other by
then, but losing
Marc was a
massive blow.
He was a great
writer and we were all inseparable,
mates from school. We talked about
forming another group, but I’d just
got married and Marc said, “I don’t
want to see four people on the dole.”
P HANLEY: We recorded in Pluto on
Oxford Road [Manchester], where
The Clash did “Bankrobber”.
There’s miles more space than
Hex.... “Smile” and “Garden” are
Craig’s: shit gear, no effects pedals.
All he needed was an amp and a
chair. But Mark was great at
knowing when to change things.
S HANLEY: Brix brought shorter
songs, three minutes not 15, which
was great, ’cos we’d exhausted that.
BRIX SMITH START: Mark wanted to
use my song “One More Time For
The Record”, then he wanted me to
play and sing on it. I was hideously
nervous, practising my heart out to
be ready for the take, but the raw
practice of me fucking up that song
and not even singing through a
proper mic became “Hotel Bloedel”.
We’d stayed there when our van
broke down near Dachau. We woke
up to guttural screaming, this
horrific smell, and saw a girl in a
Bavarian outfit carrying bags of
blood. It turned out that Hotel
Bloedel was a guest house anda slaughterhouse.SoMarkputthis
spoken-wordmonologueovermy
song,inspiredbythatexperience.T H I SN AT I O N ’ S
SAVINGGRACE
BEGGARSBANQUET, 1985
After1984’sfineTheWonderful
AndFrighteningWorldofTheFall,
KarlBurnsoccupiesthedrumstool
aloneforthismagnificentapex
oftheBrixSmithera
S M I T H S TA RT:
Mark felt Rough
Trade were
focusing all
their efforts on
The Smiths, so
Beggars came
in and were fantastic. John Leckie as
producer had worked with people
like Lennon and Harrison, but was
retired and living on a commune
before he came back to music with
us and was fundamental in creating
the Fall sound of that era.
S HANLEY: They were good times.
Bigger budgets. Stylists. We did our
first photo shoot that wasn’t in a
back alley. Mark relaxed a bit: Brix
made him a nicer person. Simon
Rogers [keys, bass] was classically
trained, the first proper musician
in The Fall, but was hilarious with
Mark. When I took three monthsoff
when we had a baby, they toured
America and recorded “Cruiser’s
Creek”, “Rollin’ Dany” and “Couldn’t
Get Ahead”. So Simon taught meall
the stuff they’d been working on.I
wrote “Bombast” based on a Dolly
Parton tune, an unlikely influence
to appear in The Fall.S M I T H S TA RT: “Bombast” and “Gut
Of The Quantifier” were big riffs.
Craig poured art: a sensitive, fragile
guy with a darkness to him. I
brought accessibility. “Paint Work”
and “My New House” were about
our new house in Sedgeley Park.
“Hey Mark, you’re messing up the
paintwork” is something the
decorator said. Mark stayed up
drunk and taking speed, writing
into the night. “Bombast” was
before the first Gulf War, and the first
line was, “Baghdad eat death.” His
lyrics are full of such premonitions.EXTRICATE
FONTANA, 1990
After Smith’s annus horribilis of
divorce from Brix, a car crash and
his father’s death, co-founder
Martin Bramah returns as The
Fall’smajorlabeldebutsignals
anothercreativerevamp
BRAMAH:
After Brix left,
I phoned Mark,
then he asked
me to rejoin the
band. With ...
Witch Trials,
we’dbeenfriends,creatingthe
soundtogether.ByExtricate, hewas
theboss.Hewasanalcoholicandno
onewouldtellhimforfearoflosing
theirjob.It wasanuglysituation.
S HANLEY:Thatwasthenormthen,
butwewereflyingeverywhere,big
tourbuses.Fromtheoutsideit
lookedgreat.
BRAMAH:We’dalwaysrecorded
quickly,butnowtherewerethree
producersandresidentialstudiosSmith: “He was
an alcoholic, and
no-one would tell
him for fear of
losing their job”Peak “pop Fall”, 1985:
(l–r) Smith, Steve
Hanley, Karl Burns,
Brix, Craig Scanlon,
Simon Rogers. B
STEVE HANLEY
Gabor Scott/redfernS; carole SeGal