Various Times, atrocious article in Times

In today's Times -

So how exactly does Smith being in favour of the Falklands make him a Lord Haw Haw figure?

This guy has a fucking brain impediment.

These sort of articles really do a beautiful, scathing band a disservice.

I've included it here as the article isn't linked to.

Felix




Hit & myth
Bob Stanley





AMONG pop’s cantankerous and contrary, the Fall’s Mark E Smith has no rival. While other bands queued up to join Red Wedge in the 1980s, Smith was all in favour of the Falklands war, effectively rendering himself the Lord Haw Haw of the indie charts. He claimed that his favourite comedians were Lenny Bruce, Bernard Manning and “all Ian Curtis derivatives”.


Smith has been known to start fights with Fall members on stage and to take ten-minute breaks during shows to give the rest of the band a “pep talk”. The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith (BBC Four, tonight, 10pm) has to cover a lot of ground — 30-odd albums since Totale’s Turns and more than 40 former band members.

Smith once sacked the drummer Tom Head on the way to the Reading Festival, leaving him at a service station. At the site they asked the instrument-free Chemical Brothers if they had a drummer — they volunteered their manager Nick Dewey, who hadn’t drummed for ten years but was a huge Fall fan. His rehearsal involved drumming on a guitar case ten minutes before they went on.

Somehow, the group were nearly signed by Motown in 1983. Smith went along to meet the label, which had already drawn up a £46,000 contract, and dropped off a copy of their latest album, Hex Enduction Hour. Not a good idea.

Its opening song, The Classical, was a sarcastic dig at how post-punk UK pop had become shiny and overblown with soulful backing singers and synth strings. The opening line was: “Where are the obligatory niggers? Hey you, f***face!” Within days, the group received a communique from Berry Gordy’s American office: “We see no commercial potential in this band whatsoever.”

thats it! it just ends there in mid air? he's taken a couple of random events that make mes look like a dickhead and given no context, critique or anything. is it a blurb for the doc or a column article or what? its atrocious, a blatant attack without any rationale. is this the whole article felix?

Stop buying newspapers and spend the rest of your life running them down, like me. I hope to see the bastard things die out in my lifetime.

I'm afraid it is. I think it may be a regular column called Hit and Myth. It just runs down the side of the tabloid second section and has a picture of Smith in haggard Gene Vincent mode at the bottom. It is awful, I almost feel ashamed for having even read it.

Felix

MES himself claimed that Marquis Cha Cha was the best song ever done about the Falklands.

I can believe that's true, but how many others were there? "Shipbuilding" is really a generic anti-war lyric. Were there loads of shitty sub-Crass anti-war singles in the 1982 indie charts?

i get the irish times everyday at student price of 70c. mrs freeranger complains that i don't actually read them and they clutter up the house and make less room in the recycling bin. i say i do read them just in college thats all but really i don't i just love doing the cryptic crossword (always do the simplex first to warm up though )

Shameful,
What half-wit asked this guy to sum up The Fall in 300 words?
Lord Haw Haw? What the....?

Not convinced about this interpretation of that line... and isn't it true that the American end of Motown had nowt to do with the whole thing...? Excusable to report the latter, but I don't know how he came up with that explanation of the Classical line.

I reckon Crass themselves reallly came into their own during the Falklands. How Does it Feel to Be the Mother of 1000 Dead, Sheep Farming in the Falklands, Gotcha, probably some others...

I don't see the Lord Haw Haw thing as a problem.

He's just suggesting that it was a treachery to the indie mindset of the time to take that view, and it's just a poor way of saying Smith went against the mainstream indie view, no big deal.

I was reading this thread and found it weird (ironic) that the advert at the top was for a "Looking to hire a great Motown band"..............

Yeah, but saying that you are for the Falklands War is surely the opposite of being a Quisling or Haw Haw isn't it? I see your point though - ah, fuck it, its just a very badly formulated sentence, thought, article, journalist etc.

Felix

I thought that the best pro-Falklands song was by the Macc Lads - 'There was a bunch of fairies, in Buenos bloody Aires....'.

To give the author the benefit of the doubt, I think that he is trying to make the band sound as interesting as possible in 300 words. Bad publicity is still publicity and all that. If he had gone on about 'garage band.....post punk....179 albums....' as per the norm, it might not have had much impact.

Still, he has chosen some of the most negative Fall anecdotes that come to mind.

To come to the rescue of journalists writing about The Fall that the Time Out preview article (linked to on the Fall News page) is very good.

Felix

Just to add another thing, like a distant rumble of thunder after the excitement of the thread storm has long passed, but it is quite reassuring to see so many of the papers choosing this documentary as one of the picks of the day - even the FT gave it five stars and a glowing non-garish write up.

Felix

Quote from Bob Stanley here: "The Fall were a tremendous influence, particularly on me and to an extent Pete. More the attitude than the music."

(I assume this is the same Bob Stanley etc. etc.)

St Etienne did a cover of Choc Stock once, live.

Felix

The 'thirty albums since Totale's Turns' reference shows up the depth of the research in this bone idle wittering.
Lord Haw Haw was Irish.

Not really. The line "Dad, they're gonna take me to task" roots it to the Falklands skirmish which had been given the snazzy brandname The Task Force to sell it through the papers.

Shortly after its release, Smith himself described the character in Marquis Cha Cha as a 'Lord Haw Haw figure...'

Yes, I think that is where the confusion came from - a lot of the opinions in this little piece seem to come from other places - I've seen that explanation of the obligatory niggers line somewhere else before as well.

Felix

Well I think it's funny, he's having a laugh; at our expense.
Possiblty a lurker here.
Fuck off THE TIMES (assuming it's the London edition, not Irish/New York etc...), you only write what Murdoch wants.
Broadsheet tabloids.
I'm with you Mr Lime.

CRASS may be a joke in the UK for all I know, but I loved the hell out of Sheep Farming in the Falklands. The miles of shrieking, feedbacking guitars are like unto choirs of angels to me.

This is a terribe article. Do a lot of Brits dislike The Times? I have never read it. Very few amerikan cities have decent newspapers. I agree with Harry Lime to a point. I don't believe they are informative (except maybe about very localised events) and I think they mainly exist as a way to market more crap at us and allow a bunch of assholes to reap profits from the dissemination of their own, usually backwards, world views.

Oh, they certainly are not, although they were overlooked for a while.