The Fall
I Am Kurious Oranj (Beggars Banquet)
by Nik Rainey
It’s twenty years after the would-be insurrection of punk rock, and it shows – most of the wild-eyed soldiers that made up its ranks are stooped shadows of their former selves, every last one of them a bunch of grumbling old men. Only one footman remains on the front lines – Mark E. Smith, the indefatigable, inscrutable frontman and ill conscience of The Fall, probably because he was a grumbling old man from the day he left the Manchester docks and, inspired by his Link Wray, Can, and Big Youth records, decided to give this rock ‘n’ roll thing a bash. And so it has been, through a collector-smothering outlay of releases and more lineup changes than a South End station house on St. Patrick’s Day, and so, it seems, it ever shall be. Without a single hiatus in two decades, Smith and whatever group of sidepeople he can tolerate that week have held fast to the dictum presented on their first, statement-of-purpose single in December ’77: “Repetition in the music and we’re never gonna lose it.” A Fall record is a formulaic thing, which is not as damning as it sounds – they simply have the right formula: a simple, inspired guitar riff repeated indefinitely over a raw, circular rhythm, varying degrees of weird sounds over the top, and somewhere in between, the tone-deaf locution of Mark Smith ranting on about something. What it is, you can’t quite be sure (even if you have the lyrics written out in front of you), but somehow, it’s dead-on right. The very definition of a cult band – apart from sporadic charges up the British pop charts and the very occasional US radio semi-hemi-demi-hit, The Fall remain a taste palatable to a vociferous few – but their influence looms large over modern music, and their resilience and creative consistency are truly astounding given the constant upheavals running throughout their long and bumpy existence.
The Fall dipped their toes into multi-media waters once again with the commission of a score for a ballet. Hunh? Yes, you read me right. This was no David Byrne high-brow dilletante move, however, as the photos accompanying I Am Kurious Oranj demonstrate – Michael Clark’s dance dramatization of the 17th-century rise to power of William of Orange included such sights as a guy dressed as Elvis hobbling around the stage on crutches and ballerinas dressed as, you guessed it, oranges – so The Fall’s presence was pretty evenly matched in visual terms. Fittingly, many of the songs on Kurious are couched in history. The Fall’s history, that is. Never before had they been so flat-out self-referential (“New Big Prinz” recasts their ’82 classic “Hip Priest,” the lyrics of “Overture” consist solely of Brix rasping lyrics to other Fall songs, and several tracks amount to “Stars on 45”-type dance remixes), which, along with slight numbers like “Yes O Yes,” left them vulnerable to charges of backpedaling from some corners. Yet, in retrospect, Kurious is a perfect snapshot of a band, a country and a planet teetering on total collapse and Smith channels the tension into a handful of brilliant songs. “Dog Is Life/Jerusalem” begins with an anti-canine rant, then contrasts William Blake’s famous paean to God and country with a portrait of late-Thatcher era disgruntlement. “Guide Me Soft” is stark and surprisingly beseeching. “Van Plague” acidly dissects casual heartlessness in the age of AIDS (“Father takes it in his stride/Says `back in the closet, son'”). And “Bad News Girl” obliquely hints at domestic strife, and, sure enough, Brix left Mark and the band shortly after the record was completed.
These six discs represent a mere slice of The Fall’s assault on rock convention, now loping into its third decade. Their integrity and refusal to bow to fad or fashion except as it suits them remains a model of the punk ethos and an iconoclastic beacon for unorthodox music-makers the world over. If you’ve yet to acquire this singular taste, these records are a fine place to begin, but be warned: if, once hooked, you find yourself liquidating all your assets to buy up the back catalogue and wind up-ah talking-ah like this-ah all the time-ah, I’m not to be held responsible-ah.
