Mine aren't. Period. I have tried. Like your friends, they are reasonable and intelligent people. This gives rise to 2 revealing lines of enquiry:

What quality does The Fall have that puts your friends off?

And more interestingly, what excellent quality that makes The Fall great, simply isn't on your friends' menus of what they look for in music? For the answer to this question will supply one answer to the riddle of your uniqueness.

Actually, what's really sad is: not only don't my friends like The Fall, but they don't even like music of any kind. Neither of my two best friends have any way to even play music at their homes. It's all TV, TV, TV. That's why I love coming here. Not only are there Fall fans here, there are discerning music fans of all kinds. Oh, what a relief it is... :wub: :wub:

Eek, TV. I don't have cable and have no idea what people are talking about when they go 'Did you see ..."

I have happy memories of TV from childhood, before I grew out of picture books and such. I so totally like know what you mean.

Yes and no. There used to be loads of fellow Fall fans in my 20s, but they all seem to fall away and listen to shit like alt.country whilst complaining music isn't as good as it used to be.

Now I get the odd surprise, like my raving mate who was playing Reformation Post TLC when I popped round the other day, even though I'd no idea he liked them.

I believe, technically, thats known as a "look back bore"
I know a few...

My mate Simon is a Brix era fan having seen them support U2 at Elland road. He wont listen to or buy anything else. Bought my mate Rich a copy of The Unutterable a few Christmases back, he hated it!
So no joy, no one I have close contact with likes them, which is why I come to the forum.

Some of them do. Namely the ones who have moved to london, New York and Berlin. One of my work colleagues is getting into them through a compilation I did him. He's genuinely enjoying them, not just pretending to keep me happy.

One of my clients. A bloke in his early 30's with mental health problems, is a massive fall fan and has all the vinyl reissues which he was keen to show me the other day. Wouldn't call him a friend though, plus he's agraphobic so he won't be coming to any gigs in a hurry.

out of my 2 best friends one does like the Fall and one doesn't. Well, he hasn't really heard much by them and vaguely remembers the singer being a scouser. He wouldn't like them as he has appalling taste in music.

I'm going out with a bunch of them tonight. None of them really like The Fall, (some of them have seen them and not really enjoyed it), though they don't really mind them: and they'll put up with me going on about them.

Two, of my oldest friends really really do, though they have fallen out with each other. One other likes them enough to come to the odd gig, but he doesn't follow them as such. That's about enough for me, if I want a big club of Fall fans I come to this scary place. :blink:

I used to talk about The Fall all the time and got constantly ridiculed. My very first thread on this forum was about exactly that.

http://z1.invisionfree.com/forums/thefall/...topic=22060&hl=

I just don't tend to bother mentioning them any more. Don't bother playing them in company either. Fuck them...they don't deserve something so sublime, Snow Patrol tossers :D

As I pointed out earlier, one of my work colleagues is becoming a fan, even ringing me when he hears something for the first time that he enjoys.

I'm probably obsessed with The Fall, but all my other musical obsessions are sort of accepted.

One friend: every time we hang out and drink at his house, inevitably at some point in the evening one of his From The Vault Grateul Dead cds will come on and that will be it for the rest of the night. Having a stronger head than me, he'll stay up till daylight grooving away to the Dead while I'm zoning on the couch. He doesn't like the Fall, doesn't get the point. My observation from both this and his liking for the more free-form style of jazz is: rhythm can't be a priority for him, or he couldn't stand the Dead! Nor strong, distinctive singing. Nor musical individualism, by which I mean that the Dead have a corporate feel about them whereas the Fall depends on realizing one man's point of view.

But he loves musical flow and soloing instruments evidently, specifically extended guitar solos. Not much of that in the Fall.

So it's a bit of a east is east and west is west situation. But he's never been rude about the Fall though he considers them a bunch of primitives. For the same reason he'll take Zappa over Beefheart any day.

Friends? :unsure:

Some do, some don't.

"Who'd want a friend?"...Jerry Seinfeld, from his sitcom; pretty funny in context.

Jerry also owned a Don Ho album in the show too.

I've never seen Seinfeld. It's one of my great regrets after everything I've read about it. :(

Fawlty Towers had some funnier episodes but they only made 12. 170 or so Seinfeld episodes were aired and some were hugely funny. It's the best USA sitcom I've seen.
The recent Everybody Love Raymond was almost as good, imo

I've seen a few episodes of that. It played on terrestrial TV over here at strange hours of the morning, for some reason. Yes, very funny. :D

The more episodes you see of "...Raymond" the more you like it because Raymond's father doesn't seem so one dimensional and his brother's humanity comes out...it's good ensemble acting and quite well written....I guess somewhere in the USA an episode of Seinfeld is running...it's pulling in tons of money in syndication

I'm a big fan of Everybody Loves Raymond. I watch it on Comedy Central at 8pm every
night. All I'll say is "Holy crap!"

a half hour spent watching Seinfeld > a half hour spent watching the IT Crowd

[that law holds for any number of half hours]

:o it's all over youtube.

It's hard to generalise. Some do, some don't, some have never heard of them. I don't try and foist it on people, but one thing I have noticed is whenever I've had a party and stuck a Fall record on it's the new stuff that goes down a lot better than the so-called classics.

"...Raymond" was the last tv show I made a point to watch every week. I thought the writing and acting was of the highest quality and it was funny as hell.
the big spoon
"sometimes it is just about the can opener"
cafegymatorium
"Well it ain't gonna make 'em Teamsters"
"who are we?"

I think you had to be there :lol:

"Holy Crap!"

my best mate likes the fall, many others havent even heard of them or bloody hate them! The missus went once to the fall in vienna and said yeah well no i wont go again! my daughter (16 years old) likes some songs but couldnt listen to a whole cd.

Most of em do,

alot loathe them. there mainly into reggae n hiphop.

I've known my group of best friends for over 30 years now, so it doesn't really matter what we do or don't like anymore. None of them are as enthusiastic about The Fall as I am and most either have never heard of them or absolutely hate them.

Luckily, through places like this, I have met quite a few new Fall friends who I can meet up with at gigs etc, so I have the best of both worlds really.

My dad likes Cerebral Caustic, he says it's "good old-fashioned rock n roll". The friends have remained more distant. :mellow:

I knew for sure a couple of friends of mine pretended to like the Fall when they chickened out at the very last minute before the recent Milan show.

Philistines. <_<

a fair few

and all my frenz love them

Zero of my now ex-pals do, :rolleyes: whenever I've mentioned them, they reply "Who?" :grrr: If they haven't heard of a group over here, people won't listen to them, I'm sort of the opposite, think most of us are(?). :) Ah, they don't like bands like this either. :angry:

Got a couple of mates who'll trek along to gigs. One of 'em's even a girl (though she claims to 'respect' MES and the gang, as opposed to out and out love.) The other is a blokey bloke successfully converted to Zappa and Waits.

Other than that, no.

I’ve got quite a few mates that like the Fall, have some of the records, have seen them live etc., but none of them come near the obsession that I have. Many of my friends are so because they are very big music fans and have or have had obsessions with one or more acts now or in the past, so they do sort of understand why I feel the way I do and never feel the need to criticize me for it.

My wife is a big fan, has been since the mid eighties and has seen them about fifteen times. She has recently declared that she will not go and see them again in London, but this is due to the audiences and not the group. Too many people that spend the entire show walking around, often carrying backpacks and pushing and shoving their way past. Should she get a chance to see them elsewhere, then I think that she will go.

Probably about 50/50, although in actual fact most don't like them enough to really check them out or only really like them in small doses. The ones who have heard The Fall but don't like them have nearly all said it's the voice that puts them off.

My closest, oldest friends are ardent fans, and look forward to my forwarding the latest songs as performed live.

Newer friends are a flip. Some have taken to them obsessively, while others tilt their head like a confused dog.

Most of my friends like The Fall in one form or another, although it's hard to convince most of them that the gruppe has done good work since the 90s. Of the friends that don't like The Fall, they usually can't get past the repetition, the vocals, the ramshackle musicianship of the earlier material or the generic music of the more recent stuff.

Really? It's been a while since I went London gigging but I don't recall yer typical Capitol audience being this...twattish? Wankerific? Is the London Fall audience atypically maladjusted?

i have converted a few friends. but i think they have just given in after all these years.

my proudest moment came recently when my best mate worked out who i was when he took a look at the forum!