The Fall - Grotesque
#448
by Chris Roberts
November 17 1980
The Fall
Grotesque (After The Gramme)
Genre: Proto Lo-fi post punk
Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Chris’s Rating: 4 of 5.
Highlights:
Pay Your Rates
CNCS Mithering
Container Driver
Impression of J. Temple
WMC-Blob 59
In 1980, I did not have the guiding hand of an older sister or brother, nor many cool friends. All I knew about music was unavoidable: KISS and Queen, Elton John, ELO, The Bee-Gee, The Beatles and The Beach Boys, plus the songs played on The Mighty 690. My favorite album was The Empire Strikes Back OMPST(I still have my original double vinyl LP, with photo booklet bound into the sleeve). What would eleven-year-old Chris Roberts have thought about The Fall? He may not have even realized The Fall was music.
Chris Roberts in 1992 would have loved Grotesque (After The Gramme) as it sounds like early Pavement. Pavement’s Slanted & Enchanted was my favorite album from 1992 (purchased on CD at Mad Platter in Riverside). Fall frontman, Mark E. Smith agreed, and said this of Pavement: “They haven’t got an original idea in their heads.” The Fall themselves were accused of ripping off the SEX Pistols, and because shit rolls downhill, Smith heaped it on all that followed and loved him. (Pavement even followed in the Fall’s footsteps of being jerks to other bands on their records, famously dissing Smashing Pumpkins as “nature kids” and Stone Temple Pilots as “elegant bachelors.”)
I kinda just want to keep talking about Pavement, since I know and like Pavement better than The Fall. Pavement had a short but great five album run, and I could argue how Wowee Zowee is overrated with the kids today. Meanwhile, The Fall released a bazillion trillion albums of music I’ve never heard, but got in your face and went all over the place, influencing all my favorite bands to come. From what I’d heard, I thought The Fall albums mostly sounded the same, and if you don’t get past Smith’s vocals, that’s true.
While I don’t love this album, Grotesque was solid as an experience, and ballsier than John Williams’ space sequel soundtrack. Grotesque made me poke at a few later Fall releases, and because of their influence, I give them some extra credit.
Grotesque is mid-September, the leaves are turning, but its still blistering hot and there’s a smog alert. Grotesque has oblique song titles and lyrics. LoFi “numbers station” aesthetic. Non-album art album art that violates all rules of good design, but somehow rises above it to become cool. All the songs on Grotesque sound like they are about something important, but with all the janky production, heavy accents and local cussing, good luck figuring out what that is all about! And, as Pavement would sing, I could really give a fuck.
Here’s my play-by-play:
Pay Your Rates. Hot spasms out of the gate, I love how Smith’s voice just falls apart at the end of the song, a trick he employs a lot. This is fast and obnoxious, broken and wonderful. Then English Scheme changes it up a little, but it’s another quick shot. Great 1-2 punch, then… Boom! New Face In Hell. Bring in the kazoos! Let’s talk about Pavement s’more. So, the band Blur were big Pavement fans, and as it turns out, “New Face In Hell” sounds exactly like Blur’s “Parklife,” which in 1993 I thought was the most British sounding thing I’d ever heard. Also, Damon Albarn dated Justine Frischmann in Elastica, and produced their first album, for which Elastica settled out of court with The Fall on plagiarism charges. But no hard feelings, because Elastica turned around and collaborated with The Fall on their follow up! Wow!
CnC-S Mithering
I can only think of Mr. Burns at first. But then a lyric catches my ear, “Californians only think of sex/or think of death” which is exactly what I was thinking at the time, so I read the lyrics to this song, and I figured out this song is about The Fall signing an American record deal, or all record deals, or music as an industry. Or just deals and dealing. I decode the title. Mithering is pestering. “Cash and carry, stop mithering.” Got it! I am happy when this song is over, but I realize I’ve listened to it about a dozen times trying to figure it out.
Container Driver
The transition reminds me of “Shake Your Rump” on Paul’s Boutique. While X, The Vandals, others have more fun with cow punk, this reminds me more of Benny Hill and would be killer in a road trip mix before “Convoy,” and after some Molly Hatchet, if you want to drive your passengers insane. I like it, though it’s a lesser version of their better song, “How I Wrote Elastic Man.”
Impression of J. Temple
Sinister groove, and the constant reference to “this hideous replica” makes me think of Frankenstein’s monster. I like scary music, so this works.
In The Park Smith is an anti-masker? WTF is a huckleberry mask? Not much time to figure it out, because now we are listening to WMC-Blob 59, a really crazy, quick bit of completely unidentifiable field recording. I like this!
Gramme Friday
By this point, I want to yell at The Fall to shut up and stop mithering, but we’re almost done, and this is sort of the title track.
The NWRA
Yay! Fuck the police! Wait, no? It’s The North Will Rise Again, which is a little bit of a 1980’s British culture war song. FWIW, Pavement will wage their own NWRA war on “Unfair,” where Malkmus gets real about how LA steals all the water from SF. I’m done with The NWRA several minutes before it’s over. That’s good and bad news. The 1980 version of the album stops here, but since we live in the future, there’s two super-duper Fall singles tacked onto later versions: the aforementioned “Elastic Man” and “Totally Wired” along with a bunch of other broken junk.
https://open.spotify.com/album/375U3Kolt8TLiqKg3bUiKJ?si=99LJmuKWS0GDAqlbHcvhPA
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