1. why is this being said, is this meant to take pressure off ed, and we all hate mes now?
2. why say that he is thankful for all the work on the site, then slag off stefan, who hardly says a thing on the site?
3. r u from salford or er fuckin manchester or texas and want to say something but cant?

I am very shocked by it myself.

oh well i guess mr smith to whom we r talking will get away with it..... i know i think it is mark who is bein the sad old bastard here

as usual i agree with you ffd.

this isn't meant to offend anyone (i think this site is superb and all those on here make it so) BUT this isn't surprising is it? MES has always seemed to have a low view of the internet and so called fanatics on it. that's not him at all, but that's what we are i guess. it takes all sorts and MES is a law unto himself . . . that's why we like what he does (i think).

please tell me if i'm talking rubbish . . .

i think mes is doing it, as a way to act like he is big and bad, but then again, i dont want to get into it with anyone. same thing happened with conway and the sancuatary bs.

no this is totally different



you cant on the one hand say u r launching an attack on someone and the site...


and on the other hand say you are extremely thankful for all the hardwork and deny that you have been up to any kind of attack on the site...


this has nothing to do with having a low view of the site....


this just makes no fuckin sense at all....

now in lyrics and on stage...nonsense isn't such a big deal and a bit intriguing

but to do this in real life... nobody would tolerate it ...might as well go up to mark and say 'u r gr8 mark' :D ....then go up to him 2 secs later and say ' oh it's u, u fuckin cunt :banghead: '

makes no sense

I know everyone will be getting really upset about it and I'm not condoning it but does it really matter?
Mark sems to be a master at courting controversy.............years of experience...................that's where Morrissey began and continues toi rip him off, and then passes it off as Oscar Wilde.
I any case that's what makes Mark interesting and the reason he is a real man because he doesn't hide his thoughts too much. No-one would be arsed if it was someone else...........just because it's the site..it's no good getting to precious about it all.



baton down the hatches.

well i expect asmuch from u anyway


never have liked you

I do share FFD's and others feelings here. Much as I've admired and been entertained by MES's studied mardiness, he can be fucking rude.. What does he think gives him the right to slate those who've spontaneously responded to his work, and admire and (at least partially) understand what he's trying to do? He should save his breath for some more deserving targets and stop being so parochial

I think it's always the booze with him. I've got an alcoholic mate who has the same problem, can be very entertaining, talented and off-the-wall.. The he overdoes it and he's a rude and insensitive twat..

We ought to know by now how MES is. The Fall is a sucking pit, you don't want to get too close.

I think Smith is quite often out of order, but at the same time I think we have to recognise his mental health issues - he's spoken and written before of something he calls "rubber band syndrome" - he wrote about it on that webpage he contributed to. Every so often he goes off on one. Seems like the collapse of the US tour might be attributable to that, maybe, and this interview was conducted around that time. Just a guess, no doubt wrong, but hey.

Remember that infamous Loaded interview? Same kind of thing. Remember Thurston Moore remarking that MES was very cordial when they met, despite having slagged off Sonic Youth mercilessly.

We don't have to approve, but maybe we also shouldn't take it too personally.

So long as Stefan knows how highly we think of him, that's really what matters here, not the rantings of MES. It's none of his business, after all, like his personal and creative inner operations are none of our business.

Dan

If MES ever goes back to Texas (well he said he had loads of mates there) and that is where you live Stefan, I believe, then give him a smack in the mouth and tell him to stop being such an ungrateful bastard.

Am I the only one who doesn't actually understand a word of it after 'I'm mounting a campaign against him', then?

He's obviously having a pop but beyond that I have no idea what he's going on about.

I've just read that extremely nasty piece on The fall website attacking Stefan :huh: . I find it especially disturbing as it's an attack on somebody who doesn't warrant it in the least.
MES u r bonkers!

Stefan why not pull the fuckin' website, fuck it!.. until u receive an apology and a couple of grand at least for all yer hard work!

if the wee lads gonna go round bad mouthing you like that, you might as well give him good cause to -_-

as R. Totale posted earlier....it's just the booze man..i aint drank for 4 years after my wife showed me a video she filmed of me after a gig i had just done....slagging everybody off..acting like a cunt.......also mes loves his wind ups too...i work with a group of blokes about his age who live for winding people up..it's all they got left.............SNOTBALLS!

I aim to please.................cheers Dave sorry I can't say the feeling's mutual.

couldn't agree more. one shouldn't get too precious about it - a man famous for having pops at people has a pop at someone and we're supposed to be surprised or horrified or disappointed?

he's off on one, isn't that largely what the fall has always been about?

no not u ...u r gr8 ;)


but u see what i mean?

there was no real point to me havin a go at u


but u guessed that already u cunt


oops

i am goin round and round


anyway bottom line

i think mes was way out of order...... and should apologise for it...and explain what he was on about too...unless it was drunken random name calling

It doesn't make sense to me, unless there is personal history we are unaware of, however, Stefan's reaction sounds more bemused than anything.
I can't actually make sense of Mark's train of thought either. In terms of psychaitry, "thought disorder & tangentiality" are my guess. (no I'm not a psychiatrist for anyone who missed that episode).
It's be helpful to know if he was intoxicated, taking the piss (and grim Northern Humour being misinterpreted by American journo) or responding to some other line of investigation. I have checked out the Left of the Dial website but find no mention of Smith or the band.
Dannyo mentions mental health issues and on 2 of the vids I downloaded Mark gives us a clue.. on the vinyl police he declares that he's mentally ill & on the show where he's reviewing cable tv he mentions having seizures. Also, one one of the intros, doesn't he ask for the strobes to be switched off because someone in the band has fits? I don't think I'm overstepping the mark here, because these are things Mark has said on TV.

Now I'm not saying people with epilepsy are mentally ill, but there is a condition called temporal lobe epilepsy which can produce psychosis - like symptoms.

If this is the case, Mark should be forgiven as these are symptoms af an illness over which he may have little control.
Otherwise he's an ingrate.
Better than Coronation street, this band, eh??

Come on. He's just being an arse. Did the same with Scanlon. Infact has made a career of turning on people. It's par for the course.

From the incoherence of the interview I would stick my neck out and say it was a good bet that he'd had a few beforehand...

And from the way it was later said (from a press release or whatever it was) that "Mark appreciates all the hard work done by Stefan and Conway on the website", I would guess that he regrets what he said, and this is his way of reversing the damage. Remember that this interview was done quite a while ago, before all the stuff about the message board/Ed Blaney/Sanctuary came to a head and got sorted out.

So, I think MES has already given the nearest we'll ever get to an apology... so we should maybe just forget that it ever happened. Everyone knows that Stefan and Conway do a fantastic job, so no one here is ever going to take these particular comments of MES seriously.

Wow, that's the most serious post I've ever made on this board... :)

P.S. I may have got muddled up as concerns the order in which everything happened . In which case the above post is a load of b*llocks, so please feel free to point that out.

Can I just say again at this point that Peter Wyngarde smells.... Great!

Seems fair enough to me.
Perhaps we should settle this down before Conway cops it next & any chance of an Antipodean tour will be dead & buried forever???

Sounds as if Ed, who told me himself (before the gig in South Williamsburg) that he didn't like the site at all and felt that most of the nut jobs on it were only interested in seeing The Fall play their hits from the 80's, had Mark's ear by this point in the aborted tour.


So why is this being released now? Is this fallout from the aborted tour or is it just Ed and Mark's way of thanking Stephan by being complete cunts?

I wouldn't assume MES has any control over the time of publication - it's presumably just an ordinary delay, so in a sense we're getting redundant old news.

I think it should be read in the context of MES's avowed contempt for the internet (which we invented) - boards are all just sad nerdy trainspotter gits to him, but that doesn't stop him being nice if you meet him in the flesh & he's not in a particularly foul mood.

It is important to remember that this is from May, and we know there was plenty of bad stuff going on in May and June, so maybe it's best considered water under the bridge, superseded as it is by the Conway/Stefan statement.

I wish he wouldn't be so mean in print & then such a lamb with real sad twats like BBC6 - like they're god's gift to fucking music - my arse. I suppose it's the distance between interview & printed product that suppresses those inhibitions, and the knowledge that if he overdoes the hospitality he may not get on air. Inhibitions aren't always a bad thing, in moderation.

:lol:

Which is why, of course, Mere Pseud, Spoilt Victorian, and Wrong Place Right Time are back on the setlist...

Me, I'd rather hear some of the stuff off Levitate get another live airing.

i dunno where this idea came from that the fans on here just wanna hear 80s hits....when in fact we usually moan that they r playin not enough new material.... but they play the old shite anyway

I agree w/ Chief Mango & Dannyo... MES obviously went through a particularly bad patch recently, health problems, US tour, firing everyone etc. Not to excuse his comments, but when has he not contradicted himself? Bear in mind that Ed Blaney's thanks to the Irish fans was a more recent comment from the Fall camp... and also that there are few who can satisfy MES's high standards ;)

we did find out one thing for sure out of this.... there was a campaign against stefan and the site....and that is a bit more than an off-the-cuff remark....

by campaign i assume they refer to all the misinformation sent to stefan and conway...and the sanctuary incident too......to make out the news was totally unreliable.... and this dont help the fall get thru a bad patch anyway

Stefan is in very good company.
By that I mean M.E.S. has also slagged off John Peel, The Pope and Marc Riley.
There's probably another list to be made here- People Who've Been Slagged Off By M.E.S! :)

The point to remember is that Stefan never expresses his own opinions about the band, not on this message board or on the 'offical' website, or at least I can't recall an instance when he has done so, he just seems to report the news, reliable or otherwise. So I can't imagine what he has said or done to upset Mark Smith.
Half the time I don't take Mark Smith interviews seriously, especially ones with the boorish and overused "I know people from like, Salford, Manchester...." line

From page 234 Hip Priest - The Story of Mark E Smith & The Fall by Simon Ford (Quartet Books 2003) - [n.b. as Fall News states - buy it now for a fiver from HMW !] - Brix recalls events around the end of 1994 :

As someone said in this thread, I'm completely bemused by Mark's comments about me in the interview (although I was shocked when I read it for the first time a couple of days ago). I can't imagine what I've done to offend him so deeply, and why I should "shut my fooking mouth" I have no idea either. I see my role on the site as the guy who collects the reviews, press stuff, memorabilia, etc. into one place for easy reference by Fall fans. I hardly ever review the Fall myself, and if I do (say after attending a gig), I've *always* said it was a great gig. Even in 1998!

There's loads more slagging in the interview -- it's quite a read. I can't remember Mark having a go at someone quite like this before. I've met him three times and he's always been polite to me.

Stefan

I got mine yesterday at HMV instead... was made to queue through Wannabe and Blue Monday... makes you look at Posh & Co in a new light somehow...

We all love you, and surely that's all that matters ?

Context is key here, Stefan, and as loads of visitors to your site (hugh emphasis here) have pointed this out (i.e. MES pissed, bad hair day, feeling vindictive, sick, misguided, etc, etc), I really wouldn't spend any time fretting over it.

As my quote from the book suggests, everyone seemingly has their turn in the shit parade with MES, and that particular day in May was your "turn".

I can appreciate you feeling delicate, but fear ye not - we think you're the mutts nuts (a.k.a. the dogs bollocks) here, and that's what counts at the end of the day.

Chin up :)

Don't forget it's old stuff, Stefan - if he hasn't kept it up since, it's surely a one-off. Not nice, definitely, but you're above it. Mind you, you are one of those internet types he's always having a go at, at least you get namechecked. The rest of us are just anonymous trainspotters. :lol:

Hear Hear! :applaud:

would be hilarious if MES started ranting in his lyrics about forum members.

I think you just overestimate MES. Don't bother too much. The Fall are a fantastic band, but MES is an average miserable individual like all of us. I never paid any attention to what he said all these years. Really why even bother reading an interview? What needs to be said is in the songs. The rest are just blah blah blah. Don't bother....