More rant’n’roil than rock’n’roll
Mark E. Smith, singer, songwriter: b March 5, 1957, Salford, England; d January 24,
2018, Prestwich, England, aged
60.
Genius, tyrant, barmy, chivalrous, confrontational, wordsmith, workaholic, maverick; Mark E. Smith has been called all these and many other epithets, some unprintable.
The founder and only remaining original member of Manchester post-punk group The Fall, Smith died after a long battle with lung and kidney cancer.
Formed in 1976, The Fall famously churned through a multitude of members (at least 66) and record companies. Over 42 years they released 32 studio albums, dozens of idiosyncratic singles (e.g. How I Wrote ‘Elastic Man’, Totally Wired, The Man Whose Head Expanded) and, much to the chagrin of Smith, copious company-sanctioned live and compilation albums (one of them, 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong, had the wit to parody the 1959 Elvis Presley album 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong).
Mark Edward Smith, often referred to simply as MES by Fall fans, was born in Salford and raised in Prestwich. He left school at 16 and worked as a clerk at the Salford docks before forming The Fall after going to a Sex Pistols gig in June 1976.
The Fall quickly developed a unique and polarising style that blended the disparate influences of the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, 1950s rockabilly, 1960s US garage punk and 1970s Krautrock with Smith’s heavyduty abstruse lyrics.
A reader of Wyndham Lewis, Philip K. Dick and H. P. Lovecraft, Smith fused prose and poetry, mixing sardonic observation with cryptic pronouncements, delivered in a half-sung, halfspoken monotone, typically ending each line with a characteristic ‘‘-ah’’. More rant’n’roil than rock’n’roll.
True to Smith’s true-grit Northern English work ethic, The Fall regularly toured Europe and North America and visited New Zealand four times (1982 – the Auckland concert was recorded and released as Fall in a Hole by Flying Nun – 1990, 2010 and 2015).
In late 2017, Smith was clearly in a bad way but defiantly performed from a wheelchair. When a US tour was cancelled, the signs were ominous. His last gig was in Glasgow on November 4.
Never known as a group that would frighten the pop charts with their presence, The Fall infiltrated the NZ top 20 in 1981 with the rollicking Lie Dream of a Casino Soul (the flipside is the unremitting Fantastic Life, making this single a double whammy masterpiece).
Their best-sellers in the UK are both cover versions: There’s A Ghost In My House (1987), originally by R. Dean Taylor, and The Kinks’ Victoria (1988). The Fall’s most commercially successful album is 1991’s The Infotainment Scan – it reached no 9 in the UK and is critically regarded as one of their best efforts alongside Grotesque(After the Gramme) (1980), Slates (1981), Hex Enduction Hour (1982) and This Nation’s Saving Grace (1985).
BBC radio announcer John Peel was a long-time champion of The Fall and regularly included them in his programmes.
Legend has it Smith would fire group members if they became too musically proficient or did something that annoyed him (e.g. dance to a Deep Purple song).
However, this antagonistic approach to leadership is not reflected in the tightness of the band’s recordings from 1982 onwards and the relative stability of the band, at least until a 1998 New York stage brawl that resulted in three members quitting the band and Smith being arrested.
In 1987 Smith collaborated with the dancer Michael Clark on IAm Curious, Orange, a ballet based on the ascension of William of Orange to the English throne. He guested on recordings by Edwyn Collins, Gorillaz, Coldcut and Inspiral Carpets (with whom he appeared on Top of the Pops, looking both disdainful and chuffed).
A fan of football and lifelong supporter of Manchester City, Smith was invited by BBC TV in
2005 to read out the Saturday results, which he did with laconic flair before affectionately lampooning the presenter (watch it on YouTube).
While Smith was reported by some to be a warm, generous and humorous individual of piercing intelligence, he was more widely regarded as a cantankerous curmudgeon and misanthrope who treated his colleagues as no better than slaves. Dave Simpson’s
2008 book, The Fallen: Life In and Out of Britain’s Most Insane Group, includes stories from exFall members and is an entertaining albeit disturbing testimony of Smith’s complex confoundedness.
Smith was a heavy smoker and drinker. He was married three times – to Brix Smith Start
(1983-89), Saffron Prior (1991-95) and Elena Poulou (2001-2016). Both Brix and Elena served time in The Fall. He is survived by three sisters and his partner and Fall manager, Pamela Vander.
Smith’s funeral featured music from one of his favourite films, Roman Polanski’s Macbeth, and Tony Bennett’s Stranger in Paradise.
MES once said, ‘‘the great thing about rock and roll is, any idiot can play it. The bad thing about rock and roll is, any idiot can play it.’’ Mark E. Smith was many things, but nobody ever accused him of idiocy. By Greg Cotmore
Sources: The Official Fall Site (thefall.xyz), Facebook group The Mighty Fall, The Fall online (thefall.org)
Smith fused prose and poetry, mixing sardonic observation with cryptic pronouncements, delivered in a halfsung, half-spoken monotone.