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The Mark E. Smith Guide to Writing
11.12.2013
06:59 pm
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It’s time Manchester did the decent thing and honored its most celebrated son. If their Merseyside rivals can honor John Lennon by renaming their international airport after the sarky mop top, then Manchester should do something similar and at least rename its bus station after Mark E. Smith. 

But let’s not stop there. A local holiday should be adopted on his birthday, with street parties and free beer, with a statue erected in his birthplace of Broughton. Not much to ask for the man whose band The Fall have been essential listening over the past thirty-odd years.

Forty odd years indeed, with Smith the only constant in The Fall’s ever-changing line-up through a long, difficult, but productive, and brilliant career. How the great Mancunian has survived the bitter fights, spiked drinks, broken bones and riots says it all about Smith’s ambition and touched-by-genius talents.

Yea, let us rejoice, for we are alive in the days of Mark E. Smith.

This little gem is from Grenwich Sound Radio in 1983, when Smith gave his “guide to writing guide.” Not the kind of toss you’ll get from those writing-by-numbers courses, no, but something far more oblique and entertaining.

Here’s how it goes:

“Hello, I’m Mark E. Smith, and this is the ‘Mark E. Smith Guide to Writing Guide.’

Day by Day Breakdown.

Day One: Hang around house all day writing bits of useless information on bits of paper.

Day Two: Decide lack of inspiration due to too much isolation and non-fraternization. Go to pub. Have drinks.

Day Three: Get up and go to pub. Hold on in there as style is on its way. Through sheer boredom and drunkenness, talk to people in pub.

Day Four: By now people in the pub should be continually getting on your nerves. Write things about them on backs of beer mats.

Day Five: Go to pub. This is where true penmanship stamina comes into its own as by now guilt, drunkenness, the people in the pub and the fact you’re one of them should combine to enable you to write out of sheer vexation. To write out of sheer vexation.

Day Six: If possible, stay home. And write. If not, go to pub.”

I must remember this the next time I have writer’s block…
 

 

Bonus: ‘The Fall - The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith.’
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Becoming a hermit solves nothing’: The Fall’s Mark E. Smith writes Tony Friel, 1977
‘No Place Like It’: Read a short story by The Fall’s Mark E. Smith
‘The Legend of the Fall’: A slapdash cartoon love letter to Mark E. Smith
Babies that look like Mark E. Smith
For H. P. Lovecraft’s birthday: Mark E. Smith reads ‘The Color Out of Space’
Mark E. Smith fabric doll
As far as Morrissey is concerned, what do Mark E. Smith and Robert Smith have in common?
The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith
Mark E. Smith, Morrissey, Tom Waits, Barbra Streisand and ‘Spinal Tap’ face cakes
Mark E. Smith: A brief tour of Edinburgh
Mark E. Smith As A Mancunian Jesus
Hip Priest: The Fall’s Mark E. Smith used to do tarot card readings for drugs

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.12.2013
06:59 pm
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Kicker Conspiracy: Mark E. Smith reads football scores in his inimitable Mancunian drawl
08.16.2013
09:22 am
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Anyone who’s grooved to “Theme from Sparta FC” from the Fall’s 2003 The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click) has probably figured out that postpunk legend Mark E. Smith is a serious fan of football, or as we say in the United States, “soccer.”

“Theme from Sparta FC” is a fanciful meditation on the existence of a soccer team in ancient Greece, quite possibly one of the Fall’s more immediately comprehensible compositions. Since 2005, much to the BBC’s credit, the song has been used as the theme music to the “Final Score” section of BBC television’s Saturday afternoon sports coverage.

On November 19, 2005, the producers of the show invited Smith into the studio to read the day’s results. For anyone who has indulged in the Fall’s indelible catalogue, Smith’s scarcely modulated rendition of the scores (“Reading 3, Hull City 1 ... Sheffield United 2, Millwall 2 ... Southhampton Town 3, Leeds United 4” ...) needs little more than a typically hypnotic Fall bassline to become an accepted part of the Fall canon.

The Mancunian‎ Smith, not very surprisingly, is a Manchester City fan, and it is to be presumed that he despises his club’s crosstown rivals, the far wealthier and more successful Manchester United. On that particular day Manchester United bested Charlton Athletic 3-0, whereas Manchester City had to settle for a 0-0 draw against the Blackburn Rovers. Later in the clip, Smith calls Manchester City’s performance “hopeless, as usual.” Smith also makes fun of the haircut of host Ray Stubbs and disparages England’s national team as a collection of eleven millionaires rather than a cohesive unit of cooperating players.

In 2010, Smith recorded an earnest (for him) World Cup ditty titled “England’s Heartbeat” for reasons unknown, that includes a sing-along chorus and the inspirational phrase “Like a rainbow through a storm.”
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Pint-sized Mark E. Smith: Coming to a bar near you
Mark E. Smith fabric doll
Mark E. Smith As A Mancunian Jesus

Posted by Martin Schneider
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08.16.2013
09:22 am
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What does ‘Mark E. Smith’ think about Margaret Thatcher dying, anyway?
04.08.2013
03:04 pm
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I really wish this was actually Mark E. Smith’s Twitter account. Whoever tends to this feed does quite adept job at capturing the Mancunian bard’s drunken surrealist essence.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Wit and Wisdom of Mark E. Smith

With thanks to Elizabeth Veldon!

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.08.2013
03:04 pm
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The Wit and Wisdom of Mark E. Smith
03.18.2013
12:58 pm
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NME has posted a big ol’ collection of witticisms from the always cuddly, Mark E. Smith. He’s a one-man drunken Mancunian meme generator…

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Via Post Punk Tumblr

Posted by Tara McGinley
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03.18.2013
12:58 pm
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The Fall’s Mark E. Smith does his Courtney Love impersonation, 1994
11.05.2012
11:43 am
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From Mick Middles’ 1994 documentary on The Fall’s early years.

I nearly spit out my coffee when I watched Mr. Smith’s spot-on impersonation of Courtney Love.

I don’t think the perpetually drunken Mancunian elf-lord had much love for Los Angeles, either.

 
With thanks to Xela Ttun!

Posted by Tara McGinley
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11.05.2012
11:43 am
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Mark E. Smith: A brief tour of Edinburgh
09.11.2012
07:13 pm
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Mark E. Smith has occasionally claimed that Edinburgh is his favorite city. He lived there between 1988, when he performed I Am Kurious Oranj, with The Fall and Michael Clark’s Dance Company at the Edinburgh Festival, until around the mid-nineties, when he returned to England. Edinburgh has long captured the imagination of writers and artists - in part because of the city’s mythic history and role as “the Athens of the North” during the Enlightenment. But also because of its darker and more murderous associations.

This symbolic division is reflected in the city’s design of Old Town, with its original fortress and fishbone wynds off a cluttered HIgh Street; and the New Town, to the north, with its Georgian and Victorian splendor. This physical division symbolically underlines the duality at the core of the Scottish psyche and literature.

It was G Gregory Smith who first noted and defined the division in Scottish psyche and literature as Caledonian Antisyzygy - the “idea of dueling polarities within one entity”:

“...[Scottish] literature is the literature of a small country…it runs a shorter course than others…in this shortness and cohesion the most favourable conditions seem to be offered for a making of a general estimate. But on the other hand, we find at closer scanning that the cohesion at least in formal expression and in choice of material is only apparent, that the literature is remarkably varied, and that it becomes, under the stress of foreign influence, almost a zigzag of contradictions. The antithesis need not, however, disconcert us. Perhaps in the very combination of opposites - what either of the two Thomases, of Norwich and Cromarty, might have been willing to call ‘the Caledonian antisyzygy’ - we have a reflection of the contrasts which the Scot shows at every turn, in his political and ecclesiastical history, in his polemical restlessness, in his adaptability, which is another way of saying that he has made allowance for new conditions, in his practical judgement, which is the admission that two sides of the matter have been considered. If therefore, Scottish history and life are, as an old northern writer said of something else, ‘varied with a clean contrair spirit,’ we need not be surprised to find that in his literature the Scot presents two aspects which appear contradictory. Oxymoron was ever the bravest figure, and we must not forget that disorderly order is order after all.”

This notion of “a zigzag of contradictions” was further developed by the poet Hugh MacDiarmid who saw it as a key influence on Scottish Literature, for example R L Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. It was also a theme in MacDiramid’s greatest poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, in which he wrote his own definition:

“..I’ll ha’e nae half-way hoose. But aye be whaur extremes meet – it’s the only way I ken…”

Jekyll and Hyde may be set in London but it is one of the best novels about Edinburgh and the Scottish psyche. Here is a fictional representation of such infamous Edinburgh characters as Deacon Brodie, who was a cabinet-maker by day and a burglar by night, or its Resurrection Men (Burke & Hare), and indeed, of Stevenson’s own experiences as a visitor to brothels with his student friends, one of which, a respectable family man, was implicated in the murder of a prostitute. This split continues today Irvine Welsh and his Edinburgh of Trainspotting, Filth and Porno.

Unfortunately, in this quirky and very brief tour of Edinburgh, Mark E. Smith only highlights his rather superficial likes and dislikes. His main dislike is the statue to Field Marshall Douglas Haig, the First Earl Haig, on the Castle Esplanade. It was Haig’s whose mismanagement during the Battle of the Somme and the Third Battle of Ypres, that led to the needless slaughter of thousands of soldiers during the First World War.

However, Smith does like the military statue to Blackwatch Regiment, situated at the top of the Mound. Smith’s old man was in the Blackwatch, and he claims he likes to visit it when he feels sentimental. But it’s the Scotch Malt Whisky Society that Smith describes as favorite location in the city.
 

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Bonus track ‘Edinburgh Man’ by The Fall, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Alan Shields
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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09.11.2012
07:13 pm
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Babies that look like Mark E. Smith
07.08.2012
02:02 pm
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“Hey, your baby looks just like Mark E. Smith…” is probably not something a lot of parents want to hear. Some, but not most.

A small collection of MES look-alikes can be found here.

Thanks, Syd Garon!

Posted by Tara McGinley
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07.08.2012
02:02 pm
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The Pint-sized Mark E. Smith: Coming to a bar near you
03.22.2011
03:02 pm
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This must be on some “100 Things To Do Before You Die” list - have a beer named after you. Something Mark E Smith can tick off, as The Fall’s legendary frontman has just had an Indian Pale Ale named after him.

Produced by Northern Brewing, an artisan brewery in Nantwich, Mark E. Smith IPA is currently only available in one bar in the UK, the Snooty Fox in Islington, London.

It was Snooty Fox’s owners Nicole Gale and Jonathan Tingle, who commissioned MES IPA for their “Hit the North Festival”– (also named after the Fall song – which is celebrating northern beer and music. As Nicole explained to the Manchester Evening News:

“Jonathan is a massive, massive Fall fan so we thought it was only right to name a beer after the great man. It was the most popular beer at the festival.”

The Snooty Fox sold their order of 72 pints in just two hours.

Mike Hill, director of Northern, said: “I had never heard of him to be honest. We prefer Northern Soul, which inspired the names of most of our beers.”

If you want a taste of Manchester’s famous son, then have your local put in an order for Mark E. Smith IPA.
 

 
Previously on DM

Mark E. Smith Fabric Doll


Mark E. Smith’s Guide to Writing


 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.22.2011
03:02 pm
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Mark E. Smith fabric doll
01.10.2011
06:45 pm
Topics:
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Odd Mark E. Smith Special Edition Fabric Doll by Flickr user MAINMIN. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear Mr. Smith is available for purchase.

Below The Fall’s “Dresden Dolls.”

 
(via Fuck Yeah The Fall)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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01.10.2011
06:45 pm
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Mark E. Smith: A Guide to Writing
10.17.2010
04:06 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
It’s time Manchester did the decent thing and honored its most celebrated son. If their Merseyside rivals can honor John Lennon by renaming its international airport after the sarky mop top, then Manchester should do something similar and rename its bus station after Mark E. Smith.  But let’s not stop there - a local holiday should be adopted on his birthday, street parties held, and a statue erected in Broughton. Not much to ask for the man whose band The Fall have been essential listening over the past thirty-odd years.

Thirty odd years indeed, with Smith the only constant in The Fall’s ever-changing line-up through a long, difficult, but productive, and brilliant career. How the great Mancunian has survived the bitter fights, spiked drinks, broken bones and riots is proof of Smith’s creativity, ambition and touched-by-genius talents.

And let us not forget, Smith’s ability to be a thorn in the side of the condescending prissy-mouthed southern soft lad press, who’ve repeatedly written him off as a “piss-head,” failing to see that a piss-head could never produce such quality or quantity of work. Yes, let us rejoice, for we are alive in the days of Mark E. Smith.

This little gem is from 1983, when Smith gave his guide to writing - not the kind of shit you’ll get from those writing-by-numbers courses, but something far more interesting and entertaining.
 

 
Bonus clips of The Fall after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.17.2010
04:06 pm
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The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith
05.03.2010
06:00 pm
Topics:
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While my Fall phase stopped completely with ‘88’s still-excellent I Am Kurious Oranj, Mark E. Smith and his rotating cast of band members have continued pumping out albums with almost Woody Allen-like consistency (28 albums, 33 years).  

In yesterday’s NYT article, Mr. Smith Shows His Staying Power, Ben Ratliff calls the new Fall album, Your Future Our Clutter, one of the band’s best.  He also attempts to zero in on just what it is that makes Smith such a fascinating, and yes, endearing, character.

Um, maybe it’s the crank factor?  The 53-year-old singer claims that Pavement, “didn’t have an original idea in their heads.”  He also thinks that Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore should “have his rock license revoked.” 

And while Smith may have written in his autobiography, Renegade, “The Fall are about the present, and that’s it,” what follows below is a considerable chunk of his past, Part I of the ‘05 BBC documentary, The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith (links to the other parts at the bottom).

 
The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith Part II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX

Bonus: Kurious Oranj, Live In Edinburgh

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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05.03.2010
06:00 pm
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