4. The FallPerverted By Language

I was 13 years old when my school friend Jon Coupe, who was a few years older than me, played me this, my first Fall record.

In a way it gave me that feeling I had as a small child hearing the Gong record, it kind of scared me. It was like hypnotic anti-music. That voice, those words, that rhythm section, a keyboard repeating all the wrong notes, out of tune guitars playing chords not in the chord book; I’d never heard anything like it and I didn’t have a clue what it meant. It just sounded simultaneously like the cleverest thing, the most primal thing, the most annoying thing I’d ever heard. The following weekend I went with my spends to HMV in Manchester and bought a copy on vinyl and played it and played it till it was no longer scary. The following day I saw Mark E Smith walking up a road, smoking a fag, in a long black coat, on a really warm sunny afternoon near my folks’ gaff in Higher Broughton, Salford. I was too scared to say anything. I presumed The Fall came from another planet, not a few streets away; this revelation that you could be the best group, as cool as fuck, as weird as hell and live in Salford, was totally inspiring to me.

Mark E Smith is the Chairman of the Board, the number one agitator, The Main Fucking Event.