paintwork is the only one i've ever seen - there is an interview compilation of lots of bands (incl Fall?) called Tape Delay? could be wrong on that - best stick to the bibiliography on the main site!

they r all 3 coming out soon [feel free to arrange into a sentence of your choosng]

paintwork seems to be out of print/bloody hard to find - are there any you have read that you'd recommend?

I've never read or managed to find any of them plus i'd like to avoid any total arselicking/boring ones if possible.....

:girly:

Yeah, I've ordered through Amazon. Works out about 14 quid, with the postage, which seemed alright.

:girly:

I can't wait for these, I don't like ordering things from the internet, not for untrusting reasons, but all the signing up and passwords and things get tiresome, so I hope these make it to actual bookstores.

I've found amazon.co.uk to be pretty good. Not as good as Action mind you, but Action isn't a bookshop, so these books will be coming to NZ from amazon (just over a week delivery last time). They don't deduct the VAT, dammit.

Does anyone else remember a really old book about the Fall? I remember getting it out of the local library back in 1990 and I think it'd been out a couple of years then. It had a green cover, if that jogs anyone's memory...

Paintwork?

Yep, it's Paintwork all right.

Ta. It's just I hadn't even seen a 2nd hand copy for at least 12 years so I had no recollection of whether I'd even imagined it. :applaud:

If your interested in obtaining a copy there's one currently for sale on eBay

It’s such a pity that (to date) no ex-Fall member has ever written a warts and all account of their time spent in the band. I wonder if S. Hanley or C. Scanlon ever considered it? Steve Diggle wrote a good one about his time in The Buzzcocks
and apparently The Attractions (as in Elvis Costello & ..) ex-bassist has written a good one too which I hope to read at some stage.

Years ago, I interviewed the two of the drummers for a fanzine. Karl Burns and Paul Hanley told me they were gonna write a book called MARK E. DEAREST, all about Mark. We asked Karl..."Oh, does he hit you withh a wire hanger?" and Karl replied, "He doesn't touch us. He doesn't believe in violence. Physical violence anyway."

"Oh. Does he mentally torture you?"

Karl: "YES!"

Paul: "Mental violence, definately!"


An interesting book about a musician's time with a band is SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO: NICO, THE LAST BOHEMIAN by James Young, who played in Nico's band. There's a FALL connection here because Nico was at times backed by the ex-Fall band, The Blue Orchids. Other Manchester notables are mentioned such as John Cooper Clarke.

One of the more interesting, band members to have written a book was ZOOT HORN ROLLO, who wrote LUNER NOTES, about his time in Captain Beefheart ANd The Magic Band. I thought that one was pretty good, because it gave a lot of insight into how those songs on Trout Mask Replica were written. The overall tone of the book seems to suggest that Zoot Horn Rollo didn't have much fun, but was most responsoible for transcribing the ideas in Beefheart's head into songs.

BLACK MONK TIME by Thomas Edward Shaw (Eddie Monk) is a book that's been widley praised...but for some reason I've never been able to get through it...even though I freakin' love the Monks music. As you know, The Fall have covered a couple of Monks tunes.

All in all though I usually love books written by musicians about their music and lives. There are just a few I've never been able to get through. Bill Wyman's book STONE ALONE is the only book I've ever read that can make the Rolling Stones seem like a bore. Marianne Faithfull's autobiography FAITHFULL on the other hand was a really gripping page-turner. I loved that one.

Glen Matlocks book I WAS A TEENAGE ROLLING STONE is indespensible for his insider knowledge, but utimatley he isn't too talented a book writer, athough his songwriting changed the world. I've never read Johnny Rotten's book.

If anyone could write I book about being in THE FALL, my guess would be Steve Hanley. Other that Mark, he was in the Band the longest of anyone. He may already have the idea to tell his story somehow. His last words before departing the stage at his final Fall gig in New York were...."Sting is going to play ME in the movie! STING!!!"

Ooops meant I WAS A TEENAGE SEX PISTOL. Sorry

he is a boring bastard though...so it dont surprise me....
he seems like one of these ppl who hear a joke....begin to laugh....then go back to being miserable cos the futility of humour passes thru their mind all the time...

i will make a note never to buy it...even if it is being sold cheap

I'm quite looking forward to the Mick Middles / MES book - it should be a bit of a laugh at least...

But yeah, Deborah Curtis did that book 'Touching From A Distance' about her life with Ian. Gives you a pretty good insight obviously, and Ian C did indeed vote Tory - "like he always did". He comes across as a twat in places, and one woman I know who read it said she just got the impression that Deborah was really deluded.

Surely Julian Cope's "The Modern Antiquarian: A Pre-Millennial Odyssey Through Megalithic Britain" takes the cake for strange books by rock stars...

Robert

Well, Mark is supposed to be co-authoring the forthcoming book with Mick Middles. Whether or not that's a good thing.....

There is the rumour of a Brix book. (I'm sure i read this in Hip priest). Didnt Ian Curtis wife write a book about him saying how he voted Thatcher. Well we already know that about Mark.
Just to echo annoyareas praise of "Songs they never play on the radio". Those accounts of Nico shoving her heroin stash up her arse at the border crossings are hilarious. Z H Rollo's Lunar notes was far too bitter to be a good read (not that he didnt have good cause to be bitter)
I have read the Rotten book "No Irish No Blacks NoDogs" ( or the other way round) Not as good as Englands Dreaming way too partisan. But it does contain a good description of Chelsea Cloisters. And why doesnt he tell us about the making of metal box? his best album by a mile.

Well, by MEN's estimation the Mick Middles books is out now, but even if it's not I've set up a thread for reviews.

I'm rather looking forward to this book after looking at the MEN piece on it. I hope the 90s are well served.

Oh, and I suppose you've all noticed the references to Lake District hotels and Ambleside on 'PPP!' by now...

i'll see if it is out in london tomorrow

Sorry Patrick - missed the Ambleside reference? PPP? bit pished, might make sense tomorrow. Are you a Cherries fan? If so, see you in Boscombe 4/10.

"She hit him on Ambleside Road" or something.

Don't follow football, I'm afraid. Although I'm usually kicking around Boscombe for cheap clothes and CDs when I'm not at work, so who knows?

My favourite part of Bmth by a long way - I lived in 701 XChurch for a while

And there's plenty of really weird people walking around there, too.

Might add that I looked around the shops for Mick's "The Fall" today and didn't find it, so I guess it isn't out until the 30th after all.

Have you ever seen a really gangly tall bloke doing weird things in Boscombe High St - like, turning on his heel and following people ½ yard behind, running around lampposts and talking to cigarette packets? Think he's scottish. He turned up in Swindon while I was working there and seriously freaked me out. Bet he's a massive Fall fan...

Any sign of this book yet in Engerland???? Should be out now, I think.

Yesterday Amazon said it would take 3 -5 weeks to be dispatched so looks like it's not out yet! :(

Maybe, but they did the same thing when the Simon Ford book first came out.

So which is the best of the new Fall books?
Only want one or 2 maybe.
Thanks

Haven't seen any of them yet, but the consensus seems to be that Simon Ford's "Hip Priest" is the one to get if you only get one, followed by the Middles book, which had its subject's, er, cooperation.

Robert.

i think middles' has wrote the most entertaining one, but it is patchy, some bits just seem padded out.
the simon ford one is the most biographical, but with some/much misinformation too.[who knows?]
the dave thompson one is the reference book, the fall site in a book form.
i aint read the old brian edge one, so can't say.


if you only wanted to get 2.... go for the middles and the ford one

if you only get 1.......depends if you want more of a standard rock biography [in which case the ford book is the one].... or else a more personal look at the fall ,with much more m.e.s. input [in which case the middles one].

Heey! Got mine today, had a brief flick through it at work and will report back once it's all read.

My first impressions are that it ain't a conventional rock bio (obviously), and that there's plenty of MES stuff for fans to pore over for some time.

does anyone in North America have it? I know i keep asking that but I desperately want to get my hands on a copy.

My twopenneth on Mick's "The Fall"...

It's fair to say that MES *is* The Fall, and while this is the foundation of Middles' book, he also sees Mark as something quite seperate to the band at the same time. You'd be surprised how little The Fall feature in this book - aside from the occasional songs cut 'n' pasted from the Lyrics Parade (even down to the unexplained footnote numbers), there's precious little about the band's music, or songs. Many of the most important Fall songs go unmentioned - no Free Range, no Totally Wired, no Paintwork etc. And while Simon Ford's book really goes to town on finding info on former band members, this is very much MES's book and anything that looks vaguely like digging up the past band member-wise is quickly dismissed as crappy retro trainspottery.

This is definitely a book for the fan. Newbies, I suspect, would be put off by the swathes of the band's history and recorded output that goes unmentioned. That said, the new interviews with MES are at times brilliant and very entertaining as usual, when Mick Middles isn't serialising the most trivial events in a novelistic style or letting his own views seep through (I dare say you find out more about Mick than about MES in this book). Touching to find out that Mark has been doing a lot better since marrying Elena, while it's encouraging to see that his worldview remains as unique and controversial as ever. And the interview with MES's mum is welcome.

Still, I'd buy it alongside Simon Ford's more conventional Hip Priest, because the two books compliment each other well and rarely overlap. With HP, you'll find out loads about The Fall's records and personnel, while Middles' book completely deals with MES's side of things. Funnily enough, reading the two books together makes for a total Fall experience - read the evidence, and have a bleedin' guess for yourself.

I'd say that out of Simon Ford and Mick Middles' books, Hip Priest is the strongest. But they really need to be read together, because they're very different. HP is the more conventional release-by-release bio that has a lot about past band members, while Mick's "The Fall" concentrates on MES as the sole embodiment of his band or something (and while it jumps all over the place time-wise, it's very much a 'now'-feeling book more reflective of what's going on with the band at the moment). Then you're really left to make what you will of things (like all Fall records, in fact). There isn't an authoritative text.

maybe j tosti will write one

I should probably be offering a few review copies of Mark and Mick's book. Anyone interested can email me.

Helen