Look, know with Smith

Press, 19 August 1982, Page 18

Look, know with Smith

By

DAVID SWIFT

“The Fall have always been good. By the time you saw The Clash they were thoroughly rotten. I saw them after they'd been going for two months . . . they were great."

If no-one else believed in The Fall, their leader, Mark Smith, would. The Fall, you see, are the only thing left. Smith is confident about this, sitting in an average motel room in Christchurch, New Zealand of all places.

What is the “hip priest,” the "angry” (read shy, intelligent, polite) figure of the (old) new British music scene doing here? Well, The Fall have just finished a tour of Australia. They even played in places like Wooliongong. “That was great, one of the best things we’ve done," enthused Smith. “The lads" (as he calls the band) and Smith used to get quite a lot of mail from Australia and New Zealand, more than from the United States, so they decided to make the trip. Kay Carroll, the smart, friendly manager of the band, said that the tour was left to the promoters to arrange, so they went to out of the way places, and enjoyed it. There is a picture that you shall be put into. The Fall were formed by Smith in Manchester in 1977. Carroll became the manager a few months later, and there were a few early personnel changes. They played with a lot of the first contingent of punks like the Subway Sect, and eventually built a reputation and an impressive discography of singles and albums. A 1980 single, “Totally Wired," was a big hit here, and the second to last one, “Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul.” looks like repeating that. Smith is the leader and spokesman and one of the “characters” of these days. He is fairly ordinary looking, but put him behind a microphone and the sneer-ahh, the wit, and the anger come through. They won’t let The Fall on television in England.

“We did two television shows in Australia, double what we’ve done in England in five years. Waste of time,” he said.

He will always grant interviews to the press, however, as he sees that it is the best way, to get,publicity for The Fall, which he regards as The Best, but “small.” They sometimes need the attention, and an interview “costs me nothing.” So read on ... He is very self-critical of his writing style, saying that if he gets a formula, Jie “destroys it.” “If I write a song that is similar to another one, no matter how good it is I rip it up. Do you get my drift? I’m embarrassed. It’s self-plagi-arisation.” Smith writes on the road and off. (“Audiences are not going to get a string of hits. Mark is still trying to do new stuff while he’s here. That’s good, not many bands try that,” said Carroll). The repertoire for each performance is written by him just before it starts, to keep “the lads” on their toes and to keep it “interesting.” The quality of The Fall's records, compared to anything else, has always been

rough, but recent efforts such as the “Slates" EP and “Hex Enduction Hour” seemed to be of a better quality. “I don’t see that. Everyone savs that. I thought 'Hex Enduction Hour’ was pretty raw."

Smith is paticularly hard on bands that he considers to be unoriginal (read “just about everyone except us”) or on those that copy The Fall.

“If I listen to the radio, I'll hear three bands that are just Beefheart, three of Can, Bowie, and Roxy Music. I think that’s horrible.

"Take Joy Division. They were doing Doors licks (repeats for emphasis). I hated that. They were a good band, y’know, but I couldn’t take 'em seriously,” he said. (Listening to Mark Smith going on about other bands is very entertaining). Who does he feel akin to? Dexys Midnight Runners, the soul-turned-folk crew ("dunno about that Celtic thing though”). The parallel between Dexys’ drastic change in style and The Fall's search for “the new thing” is definitely there. Smith's current influences and passions include Hank Williams (aha, where's Elvis Costello then?). Fear — an American band — and the English northern soul. An interesting aspect to The Fall records is the cover notes. For several years, mythical souls called “Roman Totale XVIII” and "Joe Totale" used to cajole, warn, or prepare the buyer of Fall albums or singles. Who wrote these legends? "Well, I sort of did. Most of them," said Smith, modestly. He said that he often went into a room for a day with a few notes, and produced artwork and the ‘words’’ for the record covers. Anyone who has ever tried to understand his lyrics will realise that he must have a fertile imagination. “If it is interesting, then it doesn’t matter what it says,” he said.

"We’ve had letters, people saying ‘well, I really like this line . •. .' and they give us their interpretation of what it meant. It’s totally different to what I was thinking, sometimes better.” He chuckled — “sometimes I use theirs!"

The Fall are still not a big-league band. Their records, said Carroll, sold about 13,000 in the first fortnight of release to the hard core of fans, then struggled upwards from there.

She and Smith do not seem to be paticularly interested in the business side of The Fall. "I know the figures. But things stall when you get down to talking THIS record sale . . . it’s the music that matters," she said. Mark Smith muttered something about being "confused" about the business side.” In the music press, there was a danger of him being made out' to be The Man That Can Do No Wrong, a la Paul Weller of The Jam. “They tried to do that. But we are here for conscience. We don’t need all that . . .” said Chrroil. To get back to where we started — -“The Fall are the only thing left. The music press have gone through everything else.”