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Formed
in Manchester in 1977, The Fall were the brainchild of the mercurial
Mark E. Smith. Over the years, he ruthlessly went through a
battalion of musicians while taking the group through a personal
odyssey of hiy wayward musical and lyrcal excursions. The first
line-up featuring Una Baines, Martin Bramah, Karl Burns and
Tony Friel made their debut on Bingo Master's Breakout, a typical
example of Mark E. Smith's surreal vision
Initially signed
to the small independent label Step Forward, the group recorded
three singles, including the strange Fiery Jack plus Live At
The Witch Trails
In 1980, the unit signed to Rough Trade
and went on to release the critically acclaimed but often wilfully
bizarre singles How I Wrote Elastic Man and Totally Wired. Meanwhile,
a whole series of line-up changes saw the arrival and subsequent
departures of Marc Riley, Mike Leigh, Martin Bramah, Yvonne
Pawlett and Craig Scanlon. The Fall's convoluted career continued
to produce a series of discordant, yet frequently fascinating
albums from the early menace of Dragnet to the chaotic Hex Enduction
Hour. An apparent change in the group's image and philosophy
occurred during 1983 with the arrival of Mark's wife Brix (Laura
Elise Smith). As simultaneously continued recording with her
own group, the hard pop-orientated Adult Net. She first appeared
on The Fall's Perverted By Language and her presence was felt
more strongly when the group unexpectedly emerged as a potential
chart act, auccessfully covering R. Dean Taylor's There's A
Ghost In My House and later the Kinks' Victoria
The fusion
of Brix's Rickenbacker guitar sound with Mark E. Smith's deadpan
vocals and distinctive phrasing and accentuation proved intriguing
beyond expectations
On later albums such as This Nation's
Saving Grace and The Frenz Experiment, they lost none of their
baffling wordplay or nagging, insistent rhythms, but the work
seemed more focused and accessible. The line-up changes had
slowed, although more changed were afoot with the arrival of
drummer Simon Wolthenscroft and Marcia Schofield
Proof of
Mark E. Smith's growing stature among the popular art cognescenti
was the staging of his papal play Hey!ü Luciani and the involvement
of dancer Michael Clark in the production of I Am Kurious Oranj
Any
suggestions that The Fall might be slowly heading for a degree
of commercial acceptance underestimated Mark E. Smith's restless
spirit
By 1990, Brix had left the singer and the group, and
Marcia Schofield followed soon after
Unpredictable and
unique, The Fall under Mark E. Smith's guidance remain one of
the most uncompromising yet finest groups in British rock history
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