Obscure Band of the Day: The Fall

During the summer of 1985 I attended a punk show for the first time. That experience sparked my interest in music that couldn't be heard on album rock radio or seen on MTV. One of the only ways for me to learn about new music back then was through a low-wattage public free-form radio station in Dallas called KNON. There was a show that came on after 10 p.m. that played stuff I'd never heard of before. I used to tape the show, listen to it over and over again, and then go look for more stuff by the bands they'd play. This process led me to a band from England called The Fall. I'd never heard anything like them. Most of their songs started off with a spooky repetitive guitar. Then some guy would start ranting, not singing. I loved it. The first song I ever heard by The Fall was called "L.A." I assume the song was about Los Angeles, but I couldn't tell. I bought the album "This Nation's Saving Grace" that summer and it became the weirdest and most wonderful thing I owned in my expanding music collection. The Fall, lead by the crumudgeonly Mark E. Smith, may be better known in England, but they never caught on in the States. Americans like cuddly British rock acts, and The Fall definately did not qualify. I got to see The Fall about two years ago play in Dallas. There may have been 40 people who accompanied me in seeing this groundbreaking band perform. All of the membership had changed save Mark E. Smith, who looked like he was 70 years old and should have been manning the counter at some dusty old book store instead of ranting into a microphone like a mad poet. But they still sounded as fresh and weird as the first time I heard them some 20 years earlier.