The Fall: Live At The Witch Trials Album Review

The Fall's first album release was Live At The Witch Trials. It was recorded in a single day in December 1978, and was mixed the following day. When it was released three months later, Mark E. Smith was the only original member of the band remaining.

The opening track is Frightened, which Smith wrote when he was 16. It's about taking speed and feeling frightened. One thing that strikes me about this song is how together everything is. The drums, guitar, bass and keyboards are all an important part of the song. There's a wall of sound in the chorus that Sonic Youth would be proud of. Smith's vocals sound confident and assured.

Crap Rap 2/Like To Blow sounds more like the type of song you would use to open an album. It even includes the trademark introduction often used at live shows. It really grabs my attention when I hear it. Smith always said that The Fall were at their best live, so I wonder if this quick approach to recording was in part to achieve that sound on record? More drug references in this song. Rebellious Jukebox sounds like another comment on the state of the music industry with the band being the jukebox in the title (playing what they like instead of the accepted norm). Listening to The Fall feels like entering another world and I can feel that on this album.

No Xmas For John Quays is one of my favorite songs on the album because of the tempo and vocal delivery. It's relentless and the repetitive beat is hard to escape. The live version on Totale's Turns is arguably even better. I remember annoying people at work with this when I first started working. Listening to this album, anyone would think that The Fall spent all their time playing music or hanging out in pubs.

Mother-Sister! doesn't seem to be about much, but there's an interesting take from a quote by Martin Bramah on The Annotated Fall site. It suggests that his family referred to his mother as his sister so they wouldn't have to explain the absence of his father. I like the guitar tone in this one and the ranting delivery of the lyrics. Side 1 ends with Industrial Estate, which is another reminder that you are in The Fall's world. Can you imagine The Beatles singing this? It's almost poppy with the bouncy delivery, but the lyrics and scratchy guitar keep it gritty.

Side 2 kicks off with Underground Medecin, which seems upbeat and hopeful in the context of this album:

I found a reason not to die
A reason for the ride
The spark inside

There are a variety of musical styles on the album, with the most dominant being short rants or measured dark narratives. Two Steps Back falls into the latter category and it's another song full of drug references. I particularly like the way that the band is given time to flesh out the song with a lot of exploratory instrumentals. It's a good contrast to the shorter rants. A lot of Smith's lyrics make me laugh, but I'm generally more into the style of music and the way the lyrics are delivered than the actual meaning of the songs. This is true when I listen to any band.

Live At The Witch Trials brings things to an abrupt halt and is more prose than song. It's a typical Smith statement which is half sarcastic and half serious. It leads into the complete rant which is Futures And Pasts. I'm not sure whether it is about one of Smith's experiences, or just life in general, but I love the tempo. Music Scene was a live favorite that Smith once introduced as "this one lasts about three hours." Being a huge Modest Mouse fan, this reminds me somewhat of Truckers Atlas in that it goes on and on with the band just improvising all the way. I like that the riff from Repetition is thrown in there and everyone just seems to be having a blast.

Live At The Witch Trials contains an interesting mix and showed that The Fall were a band with a lot more depth than most of their contemporaries. If you look back to 1979, it was a weird time. Pink Floyd had a Christmas No. 1, Joy Division released Unknown Pleasures, and The Fall released their first two studio albums. This was an exciting debut and I wish I could go back to 1978 and hear these songs live.

Bass – Marc Riley
Drums – Karl Burns
Electric Piano – Yvonne Pawlett
Guitar – Martin Bramah
Vocals – Mark E. Smith

77 - Early Years - 79 review

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The Fall: 77 - Early Years - 79 Album Review

My Fall collection consists of 81 releases on vinyl or CD, including a few on both formats. I've decided to write a series of reviews explaining why I love some of these albums.

This is the first band I saw play live and I immediately loved the concert experience. All I could think about was when I would be able to go to another concert. I had missed so many opportunities to see the bands I liked.

The first studio album was Live At The Witch Trials, released in March 1979. However, The Fall were touring for almost two years before that release. A compilation of singles and demos covering those two years was eventually released in 1981, and that's where I am going to start.

I've often thought that the first album you hear by a band is the one that you end up rating higher than everything else because it introduces their sound to your ears. For me, the first Fall album that I bought was Grotesque. I think, for that reason, I somehow missed the significance of this Early Fall compilation. It was released in 1981, so The Fall already had three studio albums and a live album to their name by the time I bought this compilation of singles and a demo. After reading about the formation of the band and looking at the songs they played at the early shows, this release now seems much more important than it did at the time. I almost feel like I am discovering the music for the first time. I eventually added most of the singles that make up this album to my collection, but I love hearing it as a coherent piece. I feel like I'm closer to the songs than I ever was.

Repetition was probably played live more than any other song during those formative years. It's like a statement of intent for what was to come. When I listen to those lyrics, it describes The Fall. I've since learned that Martin Bramah was going to be the vocalist, but Mark E Smith seized that role because his guitar-playing wasn't that good at the time? Like most of my favorite vocalists, Smith can't really sing. However, he's extremely effective and I've learned to love his unique delivery-ah. I can understand why a lot of people would hate the music; it's raw; it's unconventional; it's not designed to be smooth or pleasant. Repetition is a raw song, as many of the songs on this album are. But this sounds like The Fall already, and it has Smith's wry humor in the lyrics. Repetition is a vital part of The Fall's sound.

Bingo Master's Breakout and Psycho Mafia are arguably an easier listen. Both are faster and a lot more bouncy than the plodding delivery of Repetition. This sound is closer to punk than the album's opener. One thing that jumps out at me listening to this is the vast amount of information in the lyrics and it feels like an assault.

Various Times offers something completely different. This is a song that narrates a story and it grabs me and draws me in. The band gets to showcase its skills here, with the heavy bass line and the drums playing an important part. It feels like it carries more weight than the two previous songs. Over the years, this structure appears regularly. This song wouldn't feel too out of place on Hex Enduction Hour. I don't remember anything else sounding like this at the time. It's The New Thing ends Side 1 and it's another bouncy track. As with many Fall songs, it talks about the music business. Smith was obsessed with singing about the industry, journalists and how inept most other bands were at the time.

I remember sitting around for hours with friends trying to figure out some of the lyrics in Rowche Rumble from the Totale's Turns version. It wasn't easy with no Internet and nothing to use as a resource. It took ages before we decided on "beer and speed is okay, but wanting full use of your body isn't." One of us ended up making a tape which just repeated that song about 10 times. It was a strange world full of Swiss gnomes, and we were hooked. Incidentally, I highly recommend The Annotated Fall website if you are curious about the lyrics and their possible origins.

In My Area introduces us to a dwarf and a doppelganger. Many of Smith's lyrics were taken from literary works he had read or films that he had seen. Other influences came from his own surroundings. Dice Man was based on Luke Rhinehart's novel and it's about having the ability to change, as The Fall did with their musical style on a regular basis.

According to Smith, Psykick Dance Hall No.2 was written about a building in his area which used to be a dancehall and ended up hosting meetings for old psychic women. I particularly like these lyrics which are somewhat prophetic:

When I'm dead and gone
My vibrations will live on
In vibes not vinyl through the years
People will dance to my waves

The Fall took influences musically from Can and The Velvet Underground, among others. A lot of their songs from this period feature a scratchy, tinny guitar sound. The lyrics often favor the stream of consciousness method that Don Glen Vliet (Captain Beefheart) was so fond of.

2nd Dark Age is a rant about the general state of things and namechecks ABBA. There's a lot going in in this song lyrically, despite its short running time. Fiery Jack has a great intro and uses the repetitive style described in the album's first song. It describes a particular type of character that Smith saw in people around him; hard men with hard lives who coped with their existence by drinking and using drugs.

This collection of songs seems heavily focused on life in Smith's town. The band's sound is raw and gritty, and just starting to form some of the sounds that I grew to love over the years. When I listen to Early Years, I am magically transformed to the time when I was just starting to form my own opinions about the music I liked, rather than go along with the accepted sounds delivered by what was played on the radio and TV. I realized that some of the rock albums I owned were pretty uninteresting compared to post punk and The Fall. My taste started to change.

I fully accept that The Fall are an acquired taste. Smith's voice clearly annoys a lot of people. The lyrics might appear like total nonsense if you didn't grow up in England or haven't explored some of the things referenced in the songs. But I find a lot of this funny in a dark way, and I love the layers of sound. Musicians often seem to be doing their own thing, but it somehow comes together. This happens to an even greater extent when we get to albums just a couple of years later, but I'll cover that another day.

Early Years is a fascinating glimpse into the origin of a great band. I enjoy visiting this formative era and I'm looking forward to continuing the journey. This isn't where I would begin if I were introducing someone to The Fall, but I would definitely suggest checking it out when they are familiar with the band. It's a rewarding listen.

Here's Rowche Rumble:

Bass – Marc Riley (tracks: Side A), Stephen Hanley (tracks: Side B), Tony Friel (tracks: Side A)
Drums – Karl Burns (tracks: Side A), Mike Leigh (tracks: Side B)
Guitar – Craig Scanlon (tracks: Side B), Martin Bramah (tracks: Side A)
Guitar, Keyboards – Marc Riley (tracks: Side B)
Keyboards – Mark E. Smith (tracks: Side B), Una Baines (tracks: Side A), Yvonne Pawlett

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Modest Mouse/Isaac Brock Career Overview

Modest Mouse started making music around 25 years ago and their sound has evolved in all kinds of ways since that beginning. I remember how my own introduction to the band found me loving The Moon & Antarctica and The Lonesome Crowded West, but I needed more time to fall in love with debut album This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About. The reason was that the production was so raw and I found it jarring compared to some of the things I listened to on a regular basis. I now wonder how I would attempt to introduce someone with no previous exposure to the band to this wonderful music.

Some will love the new sound because the band often performs with eight or nine members on stage and the layers of sound are dense and rewarding; others will scream that the old stuff is the best. Yet another type of fan will have discovered the band through Float On and insist that Good News For People Who Love Bad News was the highlight. In my case, I love it all. If you picked the least great Modest Mouse album, I would still choose it over any album by any other band.

In order to reach the level of appreciation that I feel for Isaac Brock's music, you'll need to do a couple of things:

The first thing is to embrace all the rough edges. If you need your vocals to sound like Jeff Buckley, look elsewhere. Isaac can sing calmly and in tune, but he's just as likely to scream something at you with the slight lisp that still remains. He delivers his lyrics like he means them and sometimes SHOUTS for no apparent reason. This is all part of the charm if you have managed to embrace the sound of his vocal delivery. The guitar sound is also a bit unusual because of all the harmonic bending. That may be the most definitive thing in the band's sound and I love it.

The other thing is repeat listens. Most music is full of simple structures with a chorus and hooks that are easy to recognize. You can hear those songs and feel like you know them on the first listen, but Modest Mouse has layers. There's a lot going on underneath. Jeremiah Green's drumming and the multitude of supporting musicians are all part of the magic. You can't fully love the music until you know it well enough to know what is coming next. That takes a bit of work, but the reward can be enormous. It was for me and I will never be the same.

For this particular project, I decided to make a playlist to showcase Isaac's music. I say it in those terms because I have included two Ugly Casanova tracks. I set myself the following rules:

• An unreleased song to demonstrate the quality of music that doesn't even guarantee a release
• Two tracks from each Modest Mouse album (including compilations)
• One track from each Modest Mouse EP
• Two songs from Ugly Casanova
• The latest single

The songs are mostly in the order in which they were written. I did it that way so that you can hear the evolution of the sound.

Another thing to note is that I didn't simply choose my outright favorite songs. Some songs were chosen to illustrate a particular style or sound, or perhaps because of the lyrical insight. Float On was a breakthrough for the band and gave them a new level of exposure and popularity, so it is in for that reason. I wanted some banjo songs and that's why they are in.

Anyway, I hope that you like what I have done and that you get something from it. That's especially true if you are new to the band. For those who are already fans, what songs would you have chosen for the purpose of showcasing the band for new listeners?

Click for a playlist of the 25 songs.

The videos were chosen because of their sound quality. If you want live versions or other versions, there are plenty on YouTube or in my other playlists.

For the record, here are the 25 songs I chose to introduce newcomers to Isaac Brock's music. Let me know yours or what you think about my choices.

Needle Point
Birds vs. Worms
From Point A To Point B
Dramamine
Talking Shit About A Pretty Sunset
Edit The Sad Parts
The Waydown
Heart Cooks Brain
Cowboy Dan
Never Ending Math Equation
Broke
You're The Good Things
The Stars Are Projectors
Lives
Diggin' Holes
Night On The Sun
Float On
Bukowski
Parting Of The Sensory
Spitting Venom
Here's To Now
King Rat
Lampshades On Fire
The Ground Walks With Time In A Box
Ice Cream Party

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