The White Crap Talks Back

April 14, 2008 11:05 AM

"A lot of people have lumped us in with punk, but I've never aligned myself with it. I didn't want to be part of a scene, never have. And I knew it wasn't going to last. Once that quick statement was over, most of the main players couldn't handle the fall-out: they were like a bunch of shell-shocked army majors stuck in time, endlessly repeating their once-successful war cries. When you're dealing in slogans like the Clash and the Pistols, it's hard to keep that shit fresh." An extract from Mark E. Smith's new autobiography. Bonus: long, rambling, exceedingly pointless 4-part interview with Ian Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses).(previously)
posted by nasreddin (29 comments total)

"Don't associate me with that genre!" is tiresome when Andrew Eldritch does it, and it's tiresome here.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:15 AM on April 14, 2008

This is going to be all kinds of awesome. Cannot wait.

And no no man's land ever had this
posted by porn in the woods at 11:19 AM on April 14, 2008

also: Mark E. Smith in: Squirrelgate
posted by porn in the woods at 11:22 AM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

also: Mark E. Smith reads the football scores
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:29 AM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

You missed the traditional "feel", "wrath", "my" and "bombast" tags.

Otherwise, good post. I'll be buying the book as soon as it is out.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:32 AM on April 14, 2008

Oh my god, I can't wait for this.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:32 AM on April 14, 2008

also: Mark E. Smith's dad wants his orange juice (Yes, I'm totally milking that joke forever)
posted by maudlin at 11:33 AM on April 14, 2008

And may I recommend this book while you are waiting? My wife got it for me for xmas, and though it's uneven, like many collections, it's great fun for a fan of The Fall.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:37 AM on April 14, 2008

The best part of the interview is when Smith makes fun of Svenonius' suit and tells him to clean his teeth.
posted by nasreddin at 11:49 AM on April 14, 2008

I adored the NOU, but Ian Svenonius is crap at interviewing people.
posted by Pecinpah at 12:07 PM on April 14, 2008

"If you saw him on the bus you wouldn't sit next to him." Mark E Smith turns 50 on the Culture Show.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:17 PM on April 14, 2008

Ian Svenonius hit on my ex-girlfriend a week or so after we had broken up and for some reason this infuriated me and I'm always hated him since then (this happened in his Make-Up days). But if Mark E. Smith had done the same thing, I'd brag about it.
posted by Falconetti at 1:43 PM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

@porn in the woods: "Mark E. Smith in: Squirrelgate"

In an interview with Uncut music magazine, the 51-year-old said
[snip]
"To suggest in a magazine read by youngsters..."

...there are youngsters that read Uncut? Don't they know they have their own Devo now and everything?

These li'l retrophiles probably eat bagels intead of squagels, too.
posted by britain at 1:49 PM on April 14, 2008

I'm really surprised at how dim and unengaging Svenonius seems. He seems so weirdly detached and distant; it really doesn't work in an interview. I know (and respect) the guy by reputation, but I've never seen him talk before. Is he always like that?

Also, does MES ever give an interview in which he is not drinking a pint of beer?
posted by mr_roboto at 3:04 PM on April 14, 2008

I was pretty excited when I saw this in the Guardian this morning, but it reads like Smith just sat in a pub for a while with a dictaphone, rambling away, then sent off the tapes to be typed up. And not in a good way.

Is he always like that?

To the best of my knowledge, yes. He also has an incredibly annoying habit of poking you in the arm really hard when he's emphasising a point, hard enough to bruise. But who cares? He was in fucking Make-Up.
posted by jack_mo at 3:34 PM on April 14, 2008

There's a weirdly extratextual declarative sentence in one of Kathy Acker's smuttier novels that goes something like: "I want to fuck one of The Gang of Four or The Fall." I didn't know much about music when I read that, and somehow became convinced that she was talking about competing Latin American revolutionary groups.

A year later I moved to San Francisco; Kathy Acker, by sheer chance, lived around the corner from me. Every once in a while I'd see this tiny spike-haired woman riding by on a giant Harley, and every time I'd imagine her being ravished on the jungle floor by a group of guerrillas in blue bandannas as four more guerrillas, in red bandannas, crept toward the clearing with knives clenched between their teeth. This made me feel very grown up. Here, finally, was Life in the City, where you could look at androgynous women going by on motorcycles and see into their heads and inside their heads they were having sex with drug-running Communists.

When, some years after that, I figured out that she'd basically been talking about wanting to suck off Mark E. Smith in a toilet stall, I was a little worried that swapping out a full contingent of mustachioed Subcomandantes for a single Mark E. Smith would fatally undermine my street fantasies, but it has, perhaps unsurprisingly, made them significantly less lame.
posted by dyoneo at 3:40 PM on April 14, 2008 [4 favorites]

I guess Svenonius can only communicate well through writing then, because the NOU liner notes, which if I remember right he wrote all of, were classic. NOU's music was awesome (Plays Pretty For Baby is one of my favorite records), but more people probably remember the liner notes and the gimmick than the music. "Ulysses, little flower, beloved by all the youth".

As for Smith and The Fall, I never got what the big deal was supposed to be. Maybe you have to be British. To this USian, and this is just my opinion so don't rape me for it, they seem like a band that's more cool to like than a band that's actually good. If an obsessive Fall fan could recommend a couple tracks that would change my mind, I'd appreciate it, because I feel like there's something I'm missing.
posted by DecemberBoy at 4:42 PM on April 14, 2008

If an obsessive Fall fan could recommend a couple tracks that would change my mind, I'd appreciate it, because I feel like there's something I'm missing.

Start with Perverted by Language, "Two Steps Back" from Live from the Witch Trials, and "Paint Work" from This Nation's Saving Grace.
posted by nasreddin at 4:51 PM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Or Prole Art Threat from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or How I Wrote 'Elastic Man' from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or Totally Wired from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or Pay Your Rates from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or Putta Block from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or An Older Lover from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or Fit And Working Again from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or Marquis Cha-Cha from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or The Man Whose Head Expanded from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or Neighbourhood Of Infinity from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or Kicker Conspiracy from Palace of Swords Reversed.
Or Wings from Palace of Swords Reversed.

Come to think of it, why not just by Palace of Swords Reversed & be done with it?
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:10 PM on April 14, 2008

buy
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:10 PM on April 14, 2008

As the author of the (previously) post, I'll be buying Smith's autobio the first chance I get, crap piece or not, much like I buy every album this group puts out. Favorite band of the punk/post-punk/modern era, hands down, and one of my favorite personalities in the history of music.
posted by item at 6:22 PM on April 14, 2008

fall tracks I recommend:

"Spoilt Victorian Child" +"I am Damo Suzuki" off This Nation's Saving Grace
"New Face in Hell" off Grotesque (After the Gramme)
"Eat Y'Self Fitter" - Perverted by Language
"Prole Art Threat" - Slates
"Lay of the Land" - Wonderful and Frightening World..
I like nearly all of Extricate and Bend Sinister but left my copies @ work unfortunately. The Unutterable is lots of fun. Perverted by Language my #1 Fall album though.

"Paranoia Man in Cheap Shit Room" and "Hey! Student" are some of the first Fall songs I heard & more accessible, maybe.. or hell just download "Pumpkin Soup and Mashed Potatoes."

re Ian S.. shy I think? I talked to him for a while in a record shop last year and he was very nice and polite..
posted by citron at 6:48 PM on April 14, 2008

Second the vote for Bend Sinister. I was living in the UK when it came out and nothing quite summed up (for me, anyway) the lurking gloom of 1980s England like that album (not even The Queen Is Dead, which was sprightly and jubilant in comparison).
posted by blucevalo at 9:14 PM on April 14, 2008

da da da da da da da
it's M.E.S in shoulder pads!

yup, pretty damn gloomy!
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:27 PM on April 14, 2008

that's a nice list by citron, btw.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:28 PM on April 14, 2008

I hope this comes in a book-on-tape format.

Read by Patrick Stewart.
posted by Stylus Happenstance at 5:30 AM on April 15, 2008

Sad, blustering, "sarcastic" "crap".

Imagine thinking this fat wanker had anything whatsoever to say about anything whatsoever.
posted by Wolof at 5:50 AM on April 15, 2008

*goes uptown!! sideways!!!*
posted by Wolof at 6:05 AM on April 15, 2008

*you're cabbin' it up now! up now!*
*Michael! Michael!*
posted by porn in the woods at 7:20 AM on April 15, 2008