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What Mark E. Smith liked: Lou Reed, Sex Pistols, Frank Zappa, Philip K. Dick & Kurt Vonnegut, a list
04.04.2018
12:18 pm
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02mespint.jpg
 
When asked what he would do if he was ever elected Prime minister, Mark E. Smith replied:

“I’d halve the price of cigarettes, double the tax on health food, then I’d declare war on France.”

Daft questions got daft answers. Smart ones were few and far between. Most questions were recycled answers from previous interviews. No matter the question, Smith always stayed true to what he thought was right and what he believed in—he never softened his answer to suit more fashionably sensitive times. That’s what made his band the Fall so special—it led, it never followed, even if it was just Smith and “your granny on bongos.”

Among the more interesting questions came in 1981, when the NME asked Smith for a list of his favorite things. The list was for the paper’s column “Portrait of the Artist as a Consumer” which centered around the idea the way to the heart of artist was through the food their brains consumed. Or something like that… In his answers, Smith offered up an eclectic mix of genre and cult writers—including Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Norman Mailer and two novels by Colin Wilson; artists, in which he includes soccer player-cum-manager, Malcolm Allison; comedians where he gives a nod to “Ian Curtis derivatives,” Bernard Manning and drag artist/comedian/actor Alan (Alana) Pellay; and some of his favorite albums/cassettes. All of which ran as follows in the NME 15th August 1981:

READS

Gulcher—Richard Meltzer
A Small Town in Germany—John Le Carré
A Scanner Darkly—Philip K. Dick
The Sirens of Titan—Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The Deer Park—Norman Mailer
The Black Room—Colin Wilson
Ritual in the Dark—Colin Wilson
Cogan’s Trade—George V. Higgins
At the Mountains of Madness—H.P. Lovecraft
Beyond Good and Evil—Frederich Nietzsche

....AND

U.S. Civil War Handbook—William H. Price
How I Created Modern Music—D. McCulloch (a weekly serial)
True Crime Monthly
Private Eye
Fibs About M.E. Smith by J. Cope (a pamphlet)


WRITERS

Claude Bessy
Burroughs


ART

Wyndham Lewis
Malcolm Allison
Virgin Prunes Manchester live, Manchester Dec. ’77


COMEDIANS

Lenny Bruce
Alan Pellay
Bernard Manning
All Ian Curtis derivatives


FILMS

Polanski’s Macbeth
Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety
Fellini’s Roma
The Man with X-Ray Eyes and The Lost Weekend starring Ray Milland
Visconti’s The Damned
Days of Wine and Roses with Jack Lemmon
Charlie Bubbles with Albert Finney


TV

Bluey
John Cleese adverts


MUSIC

Take No Prisoners—Lou Reed
Peter Hammill
Johnny Cash
The Panther Burns
God Save the Queen—The Sex Pistols
Raw and Alive—The Seeds
Pebbles Vol. 3—Various
16 Greatest Truck Driver Hits cassette
Radio City—Philip Johnson (cassette)
Der Plan
Alternative TV
Land of the Homo Jews and Hank Williams Was Queer, live—Fear (L.A. Group)
We’re Only In It for the Money—Mothers of Invention

 
MES on interviewers ‘waging war on you with your own words,’ after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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04.04.2018
12:18 pm
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The man whose stocking expanded: The Fall’s Mark E. Smith reads Lovecraft. For Christmas.
12.18.2014
10:28 am
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They say music should be fun / like reading a story of love / but I wanna read a horror story.”

Readers, if this post seems disjointed and disordered—if I sometimes lose the eldritch thread that knits together the all-too-discrete patches of this bafflingly incoherent holiday quilt—it is because I am slowly going mad with terror as I write these words. You see, I’ve just watched Mark E. Smith read H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour out of Space,” filmed in 2007 as part of BBC Collective’s Christmas festivities. And indeed, what better way to celebrate the birth of our Lord?

If you haven’t read “The Colour out of Space,” it’s basically the same story as O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.” The main difference is that, instead of the woman selling her hair for a watch chain and the man selling his watch for some combs, there’s an extraterrestrial plague that kills the livestock, blights the crops, and drives everyone mad with terror. Merry Christmas! If you think about it, Mark E. Smith is kind of like Santa Claus, too, except instead of a bottomless sack of prezzies, he carries around a ruined stomach full of bile.

MES explained how he selected this festive text at the BBC Collective site:

I’ve been a fan of HP Lovecraft since I was about 17. I chose to read this story because it’s very unusual for him; it’s not like his other tales. They are usually about people who live underground, or threats to humanity - which I like as well - but The Colour Out Of Space is quite futuristic. He wrote it in 1927, which is weird.

I’m writing my own book at the moment. It’s supposed to be my autobiography, but I’ve put a few short stories in it too. It’s out in April 2008. My stories are very much like Lovecraft’s actually. Everyone wants me to write about dark and doomy things, like my lyrics. But some of my stories are quite cheerful.

 

Posted by Oliver Hall
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12.18.2014
10:28 am
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