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1979-80 Live (ITS NOW OR NEVER) Totale's Turns (It's Now or Never)
(1980) ***
"The difference between you and us is that
we have brains," Mark E. infamously baits the audience during the brief
band-intro before they rip into "Fiery Jack." The difference I notice
is that live the Fall are even more sloppily raw and cacophonous than
in the studio, which is to be expected but still saying something: even
by Fall standards, stretches of this sound like little more than the
musicians banging and crashing into each other while Mark E. rants on
top of the free-form noise. It's a mighty wind, to be sure, but
certainly shouldn't be a neophyte's intro the Fall: the album sounds as
cheap and shitty as it looks. Now this being the Fall those are not
necessarily slurs but recommendations. I said not necessarily; the
bloody rawness carries excitement but, yeah, as you might expect some
of this can be pretty rough going. I have no intention of reviewing
all of the 50,000 crappy and not-so-crappy live releases of the Fall,
legit and semi-legit and completely illegit, but I'll make an exception
for this because:
a) It's their first live album
b) For years it was one of the few easily obtainable (that is,
obtainable, period) Fall records available in the U.S.
c) It's
a pretty good set, even though at that point they only had two albums
out, and the band rock out if not live at Leeds at least live at some
northern England industrial go-nowhere shithole
d) There are
three new studio tracks
The studio tracks come near
the end. "Cary Grant's Wedding," sounds like it could be live, though,
it's so under-rehearsed and noisily raw, and this time those aren't
compliments. Much better is 'That Man," the first catchily melodic Fall
pop song. It's an outtake from Dragnet and I can see why it wasn't
included, as its sprightly jingle wouldn't have fit onto that dark LP's
mood at all; anyway, it's nice to shake hands with it here, and I don't
think you can find it anywhere else. You can even have fun changing the
chorus to "Batman, he loves you!" There's a extremely, extremely,
extremely lo-fi home recording of "New Puritan," that literally sounds
like Mark E. was recording it while cowering under a toilet. It's
probably not a version I'd like to listen to more than twice, as the
more widely available Peel session version is much, much superior, but
Fall completists, go for it. As for the remaining half hour of live
rant, I think I already described it, didn't I? What do you want, a
tracklisting? Aside from the hilarious intro quoted in the first
sentence, Top 3 ad lib moments from Mark E.:
1) "Are
you doing what you did two years ago? Yeah?! Well... don't make a
career out of it."
2) "Will you fucking get it together instead
of showing off?" Mark yells mid-song during "No Xmas for John Quays,"
at either the bass player or drummer (maybe both)
3) Mid-way
through "Rowche Rumble," he alters the chorus to, "The promoter is a
jerk! The promoter is a jerk!" | |
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