A New Face In Hell

Once again into the past. Forty years of unsurpassed genius passed on during Wednesday afternoon. Sharing the news with some old school friends took me right back to when I first had my tiny mind blown (my head expanded) and everything changed for me. There was a kid in our class who introduced me to The Fall (and John Peel, and therefore is responsible for opening the door to actual music. Not the limp chart shit I’d been exposed to before). He was not, by any means, a Cool Kid; but he was the coolest of them all. He was considerably more mature than us and he was cool simply because he was himself and nothing that anyone thought anyone should be. We all thought of him as a great friend, and he was. Yet he lost touch with us all (purposefully) within months of school finishing. In retrospect I guess I admired him more than anything. I guess too that he found something, at least, in us lot to hang about with until he could go where he had to go. And I’m grateful for that.

So of course when these things happen nostalgia comes. I remember the anticipation of Bend Sinister being released; I remember how much I loved it when it did come out. I remember feeling they had been around forever before I heard of them, and eagerly devouring their remarkable back catalogue. They had been around for 8 years at the time, only about 20% of the productive life of the irascible, cantankerous, inventive and unique imagination-magician and creative force in charge of the band. He was the only constant in the band; the band the only constant in a changing world. No longer.

But not just nostalgia, for he never stopped. Last year the latest album (can it be – The Last Fall L.P? – typing that brings it home; there’s always more Fall L.P.s. This wasn’t meant to happen), with the fabulously Fallesque title New Facts Emerge, was superb. The sadness is very much also for what more was to have come.

I can’t really explain how important he was to me personally in my musical tastes. Always there, always brilliant, always challenging and, in John Peel’s memorable words, “Always different; always the same”. I have many groups and musicians I admire and love, but he stood over them all; still stands gloriously alone and above, he is forever the Hip Priest looking down. He leaves a body of work consisting of hundreds and hundreds of songs. Stick them on random and you realise every single one is wonderful, makes you listen, makes you think.

I saw them more than any other band, although not for a while. Once after a gig at the UEA we knocked on the door of the tour bus and he came to chat; we shook his hand and wished him happy birthday and thanked him for the gig (which was excellent). My right hand.

I remember once taping their entire catalogue (at the time) off vinyl on to cassette in alphabetical order by song title. By the time I finished that job, they’d released another L.P.

Am I living too late? A (nearly) 50 year old man hankering for his youth, or a music lover hankering for the next Fall record? No, in fact I am Damo Suzuki.

I have so many highlights of albums and songs and sessions that there is no point in trying to choose a selection for here, so instead I’ll take one from the first album, and one from the last. Enjoy, and if you are not familiar you really have missed out, but what a time you have ahead of you catching up…