I wonder if somewhere in Mark E. Smith’s attic there’s a beautiful painting of him as a Salford adonis?
Here is Manchester’s finest talking about music, art, this and that from the 1980s to 2010.
More from the mighty MES, after the jump…
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’s Guide to Writing
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)
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…
Because putting together the Phew/Aunt Sally post made me think of them and because I need a unicorn chaser after that cheesy thing I posted just now (ironically from the same time period as this), Here’s The Fall, live in Leeds, doing one of the best odes to speed that I know of, aside from this one or (duh!) this one. I drunk a jar of coffee and then I took some of these !
Alternate version after the jump…
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