Here's a band I honestly have no business writing about. The nearest example I can draw to the Fall is, oddly enough, Frank Zappa. While this blasphemous comment will invariably prompt spit-takes from die-hard fans of each, let me explain. According to a relatively recent issue of Brit music mag, Mojo, The Fall have released no fewer than 26 studio albums and upwards of 60 live albums and compilations. There is a veritable planet of music on offer by this tirelessly prolific band. Similarly, Frank Zappa -- prior to his death in 1993 -- released countless albums, to say nothing of the vast archive of live albums, bootlegs and other collections. In the case of each, you could devote every waking hour of your day to soaking in as much of their music and still not have gotten the whole picture. I own a grand total of two albums by Frank Zappa -- and cherish them both -- but couldn't possibly be more in the dark about the rest of the man's disarmingly vast cannon. Likewise, I own a tiny smattering of material by the Fall, and I completely dig it, but it's probably not espeically indicative nor fully representative of the band's overall output. That said, apart from their respective penchants for the surreal, the similarities between the Fall and Zappa pretty much end right there.

My introduction to the Fall was an inauspicious one. Sometime in the mid-80's, I remember seeing a postcard with their picture on it on a rack of "Punk Postcards" at the Tower Records on W.66th street. A gormless gaggle of chinless, sweater-vest-wearers with greasy hair, they looked more like a chess club than a band of proper "punks" (my idea of Punk Rock at the time still narrowly adhering to the tonsorial ludicrousness and slack-jawed nihilism of bands like The Exploited and Fear). In the same manner I'd initially dismissed Mission of Burma, I decided that since they dressed like bank tellers, the Fall must be boring (without hearing so much as a note of their music), so never gave them another thought.

A few years later, my mother was dating this gent that we'll call Angus. I can't remember what Angus did for a living, but I gather he was reasonably well-off. In any event, he got wind of the fact that I was a big music freak, so took it upon himself to make me a mixtape. Loaded with 12" mixes of crap like Shalamar, DeBarge and Chaka Khan (and titled "It's Getting Hotter!", or something simmilarly ridiculous), I pretty much immediately dismissed it. He asked me how I enjoyed the tape a little while afterwards. I pompously replied that it really wasn't my kinda thing and that I was more a fan of music that kicked you in the teeth, grabbed you by the scalp and dragged you around the room - rudely assuming that he wouldn't know what I was talking about in the slightest. A couple of months later -- after he and Mom had already stopped seeing each other, I got a note from Angus, saying he was changing his entire music collection over to compact disc, and would I be so kind as to take his vinyl collection off his hands. "Oh great," I thought, "all the Sheila E. and Eveyln 'Champagne' King records I could ever want." I consented, of course, and walked over to the man's apartment on Fifth Avenue (adjacted to the Frick Museum, if I recall correctly). Waiting for me in the lobby were three large boxes stuffed with records.

Well, it seems I'd prematurely sold Angus down the river for being a latter-day disco dingbat. Inside these boxes was a veritable trove of amazing Punk, Post-Punk and New Wave records -- including ones by Siouxsie & the Banshees, Rip Rig + Panic, The Slits, New Order, The March Violets, Nash the Slash, Television, Sparks, Pauline Murray & the Invisible Girls, Creatures, The Au Pairs, Altered Images, The Individuals, Swans, The Teardrop Explodes and loads more. He even included an original copy of Metal Box by Public Image Ltd. (which I still cherish today). Thinking that he'd easily replace all of them on compact disc seemed a bit naïve (some of these records are still not available on the soon-to-be-obsolete-format), but that wasn't my problem. I'd undeservingly inherited a gold mine of new music.

Scattered among these albums were a couple of selections by The Fall, notably Perverted By Language and the single of "Cruiser's Creek." The album, honestly, did so little for me that I almost didn't even bother playing the single. But, wanting to give it a fair shake, I placed it on my turntable and dropped the needle. Following a brief, bullhorned exhortation from notoriously caustic lead singer Mark E. Smith, that barbed, angular riff kicked in and knocked me over.
Inspired by "Cruiser's Creek," I sought out other recordings by The Fall. They were kinda all over the place (and the band has had more members pass through its ranks than can be accurately quantified), though they've always been led by the endearingly cantankerous Smith. My favorite era of the band is probably their incarnation featuring the incongruously stylish Brix Smith -- Mark's wife at the time -- on bass, adding a dash of punky glamor to a pointedly image-free band. But underneath their decidedly oblique lyrics, crudely abstract cover art and Mark's oft-incomprehensible singing style (punctuating consonants with needless "aaahhs" and the like), The Fall had a stubborn pop streak. Throughout their muddled cacophony, their music is rife with great riffs and irrepressible hooks. "Cruiser's Creek" is a fine example, but there are scores of others.
Though rightly revered back in England, The Fall have never been anything more than a critic's band on these shores. Their highest profile exposure here probably came via a fleeting sonic cameo in Jonathan Demme's "Silence of The Lambs," wherein Jamie "Buffalo Bill" Gumb plays "Hip Priest" -- a dreary, meandering dirge -- in the torture garden of his basement (perceived translation: only deranged serial killers enjoy this music). Intentional or not, it's hardly a ringing endorsement. Though their gruff, angular sound has been a seismic influence on some of my other favorite bands The Wedding Present and Cop Shoot Cop (think of that bass sound), The Fall are rarely the first band to be cited in terms of their contributions to punk/post-punk, although Mark E. Smith's stridently belligerent persona makes Johnny Rotten seem like an accommodating sycophant. The Fall will never be fashionable, and that's probably quite by design.
I couldn't keep up with The Fall. The band proved to be tirelessly prolific. The last "new" album of theirs I picked up was Middle Class Revolt in 1994. They've gone on to release about twenty-five albums since then. I'm sure some of them are brilliant, but it's far too late for me to catch up. I'm happy with the clutch of singles, albums and compilations of theirs I do have. And my favorite track will always remain "Cruiser's Creek."

The thing about "Cruiser's Creek," though, is that I have absolutely no idea of what the song's about. Swinging maybe? The lyrics are fairly oblique, and the entirely bizarre video for it is even less illuminating (although the shots of Brix Smith riffing away while the boys shimmy and frug around her is pretty entertaining). In any case, I think it's brilliant. Crank it.