Comments on: The White Crap Talks Back

The White Crap Talks Back

nasreddin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:05:56 -0800

"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)

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:15:52 -0800

"Don't associate me with that genre!" is tiresome when Andrew Eldritch does it, and it's tiresome here.

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:19:15 -0800

This is going to be all kinds of awesome. Cannot wait. And no no man's land ever had this

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:22:56 -0800

also: Mark E. Smith in: Squirrelgate

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:29:58 -0800

also: Mark E. Smith reads the football scores

By: thatwhichfalls

thatwhichfalls — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:32:25 -0800

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.

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:32:39 -0800

Oh my god, I can't wait for this.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:33:51 -0800

also: Mark E. Smith's dad wants his orange juice (Yes, I'm totally milking that joke forever)

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:37:03 -0800

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.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:49:36 -0800

The best part of the interview is when Smith makes fun of Svenonius' suit and tells him to clean his teeth.

By: Pecinpah

Pecinpah — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:07:12 -0800

I adored the NOU, but Ian Svenonius is crap at interviewing people.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:17:16 -0800

"If you saw him on the bus you wouldn't sit next to him." Mark E Smith turns 50 on the Culture Show.

By: Falconetti

Falconetti — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:43:08 -0800

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.

By: britain

britain — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:49:07 -0800

@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.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:04:00 -0800

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?

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:34:59 -0800

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.

By: dyoneo

dyoneo — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:40:05 -0800

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.

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:42:29 -0800

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.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:51:32 -0800

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.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:10:38 -0800

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?

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:10:50 -0800

buy

By: Item

Item — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:22:19 -0800

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.

By: citron

citron — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:48:09 -0800

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..

By: blucevalo

blucevalo — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:14:59 -0800

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).

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:27:38 -0800

da da da da da da da it's M.E.S in shoulder pads! yup, pretty damn gloomy!

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:28:18 -0800

that's a nice list by citron, btw.

By: Stylus Happenstance

Stylus Happenstance — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:30:05 -0800

I hope this comes in a book-on-tape format. Read by Patrick Stewart.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:50:15 -0800

Sad, blustering, "sarcastic" "crap". Imagine thinking this fat wanker had anything whatsoever to say about anything whatsoever.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:05:23 -0800

*goes uptown!! sideways!!!*

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:20:10 -0800

*you're cabbin' it up now! up now!* *Michael! Michael!*