Current mood: RUN RUN RUN.....
Category: RUN RUN RUN..... Music
The last blatant steal I'm gonna take from last weeks NME is this...
It's a Henry Rollins telling us all to like The Fall...
He is of course right - The Fall are one of the few continually important bands that have kept things fresh and lively despite (or probably because of) regular ignoration...
But I'm not sure what I make of Rollins.
I've always liked his brutal honesty, but I do at times find up limited....
Yes boss, I saw him play Reading in (I think) 1994 and didn't much like his fooling about - I was looking for the kind of set that DESTROYED THE CROWD!!! But he was monkeying about and I didn't feel it fitted the music he played at all...
I then saw him do his spoken word thing sometime around the late 90's and really enjoyed it. He talked for 3 hours without even taking a sip of water - it was an epic and it was very very funny...
But then, I also see the point an old acquaintance of mine once made
'I've never understood what Henry Rollins problem is??'
I mean you know he's a sweetheart deep down and probably very very soft - hence all the bulk and tatoos.
I'm always therefore wondering if there's gonna ever be a Hank Rollins unplugged?!?!
When he slims down, stops wearing black, stops body building and fucking well relaxes???
I guess you could also wonder if Mark E Smith is ever gonna chill out and/or embrace the mainstream - but I don't spend too much time pondering it, because I don't reckon there's any chance of that happening now...
I think he came closest to it in the 'Brix' period Fall, the records were selling, the sound was pretty close to commercial and there was a clear window to step on in and be adored by the masses....
I get the impression, his wife and band mate was the thurst there.
I reckon she was able to exert some pretty considerable though very subtle, (I find women are great at this) pressure on Marks stubborn old head...
The Fall were almost on easy street - but in the end Mark triumphed, they split up, she left the band and Mark ploughed on down his own resolutely uncompromising route...
The thing that puts Mark E Smith over and above the likes of say Billy Childish in my eyes, is that he's always moved with the times.
Each Fall album is different and each shows a nodding knowledge of how sound has evolved and developed....
And having got my teeth into Childish and his work this last 6 months or so, I'm left with one big question:
Why this resolute 'NOTHING AFTER 1970something!!!!'
It strikes me as being a weakness in the work - an unwillingness to progress and instead this continual repetition of what he knows..
Hundreds of paintings, hundreds of woodcuts, hundreds of pretty similar sounding records...
Quantity is one thing - but I criticise Oasis for continual repetition of the same working formula, and don't see what that critique shouldn't also apply to Childish...
I'd love to hear Billy working on a laptop or in a 72 track digital studio. I'd like to some plastic in his work, some adverts, a computer, some magazine gloss - an artists job is after all to reflect the times he lives in and not just the times he likes or is interested in...
Bukowski is the same. I read 4 or 5 books of Bukowski poetry about 10 years ago and kinda realised that there wasn't going to be too much different in the other 10 or however many their are nowadays, so I stopped reading them..
I found that each has a few blinding poems, a handful of very good ones and then a load of samey filler on the same themes...
I know that's something approaching blasphemy in the alt.literary circles of today - 'BUKOWSKI WRITING FILLER?!?!?' IMPOSSIBLE!!!!.
But it's how I see it.
Now, don't get me wrong - I like both Bukowski & Childish a great deal - what they do, they do very well indeed and they're head, shoulders, knees and toes above most of the other crap out there.
I admire their discipline against more or less blanket ignoration over many years.
And I like the fact they've always done what they like to do and not worried too much about anything else - all their work is genuine and felt.
It's all done for the survival love...
But I also like to see adaptation and development and I reckon Mark E Smith has achieved both...
So Viva Mark E Smith and The Fall!!!
Smith has a side project on the go these days that has (as is nearly always the case) it's recieved next to no publicity and attention despite it being worth 3000 Kid A's...
It's called Von Sudenfed
And here's my favourite track thus far...
 | Currently listening : Tromatic Reflexxions By Von Südenfed Release date: 2007-06-19  |
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