Mark E. Smith, founder, singer, lyricist and sole constant member of Manchester post-punk band the Fall, died at his home on the morning of January 24 after a year of ill health. He was 60 years old.
One of the most prolific and uncompromising artists in pop music history, Smith and the Fall endured for over 40 years, having released 32 albums, dozens of singles and EPs and playing thousands of shows around the globe with an ever-changing roster of musicians for a total of 66 past and present members. Though the Fall never came close to mainstream success, the group made occasional incursions into the charts in its native England and maintained a fiercely loyal international fan base. The band was also famously championed by legendary British DJ John Peel, who declared the Fall were his favourite band because “they are always different they are always the same.”
The Fall’s influence can be heard in the music of internationally known bands such as Pavement, Franz Ferdinand, Fat White Family and Sleaford Mods. When I first started drumming in the Toronto scene in the early 80s, groups like Fifth Column, Believer’s Voice Of Victory and Polkaholics clearly had at least a passing acquaintance with the Fall’s music. Their influence became more prevalent in the city’s post-punk renaissance of the early 2000s, when bands like the Creeping Nobodies and the Two Koreas openly wore their love on their sleeves, with Two Koreas frontman Stuart Berman deliberately mimicking Smith’s vocal style in an open tribute.
A few years ago, Blue Rodeo, the band I play in, was taking a break when I heard that a Fall tribute band called Mr. Pharmacist was looking for a drummer. Amazed that such a thing even existed, I got in touch and we’ve been friends and bandmates ever since, bonding over our love for the Fall as I had with my friends in high school. The Fall aren’t for everyone, but that’s why they bring people together.
Smith formed the Fall in 1976 after seeing a legendary Sex Pistols show at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall that was also attended by future members of Joy Division, the Smiths and the Buzzcocks. Though his delivery was heavily influenced by Johnny Rotten at first, he quickly developed his own unique, ranting style. A cryptic and brilliantly inventive lyricist, he used colloquialisms, local slang, obscure literary references and words of his own invention to tell bizarre tales of psychic phenomena, the trials of the British working class and day-to-day human folly. He eschewed the punk fashions of the time, preferring thrift shop sweaters and shirts and inadvertently creating an anti-fashion trend.
He didn’t play an instrument, but he had such a definite sense of what he wanted to do musically that he managed to hammer dozens of different lineups into something that was always undeniably the Fall. He did this with a relentless determination that saw the band survive countless upheavals as business deals soured, relationships dissolved and copious consumption of drugs and alcohol took their toll. He persevered to the end, playing his last show in October while in a wheelchair and looking gravely ill, but still delivering his pointed lyrics with conviction.
I’ve loved the Fall ever since I first heard them in 1979 as a spotty, suburban teen fascinated with British post-punk. Their distinctive mashup of rockabilly, Krautrock and punk with a little Captain Beefheart thrown in the mix, was definitely an acquired taste but for those that got it, the Fall often became an obsession. My own interest waxed and waned over the years, but every now and then I would hear a record I had missed that would invariably surprise me with its vitality and freshness. Smith’s consistent ability to resist trends, changes in technology and the mellowing that comes with age while continuing to deliver unique and challenging music was one of the true hallmarks of his greatness.
Being in Mr. Pharmacist has driven me to delve deeper into the Fall’s catalogue and history, increasing my fascination (and occasional revulsion) with this complex, difficult and uniquely determined artist – an interest that I suspect will endure to the end of my days.
Long live Mark E. Smith. Long live the Fall.
Mr. Pharmacist plays E-bar in Guelph on February 9 with Dead Souls and the Linsmore Tavern in Toronto on April 7 with SFH.
Glenn Milchem has been the drummer for Blue Rodeo since 1991. He has also played with Andrew Cash, Big Sugar, Change of Heart and others, and fronted his own band the Swallows.
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