Photo credit: Paul Husband
Continuing their newly formed venture after the debut release of Slates Live. the Hanley’s, Riley and Scanlon have a blast at Grotesque Live this time around and it’s another good ‘un.
Hot on the heels of the successful Slates Live! release, Popstock records is proud to present the second of their reimagined Fall albums. Grotesque Live!, out 25th October via Popstock / Bella Union and available to preorder here, is another dynamic journey through a landmark release by The Fall curated from thousands of hours’ worth of live recordings by former members of the group.
Frustrated by a lack of recognition, consultation and compensation by some of the labels putting out reissues, live LPs and compilations from the 40-year history of the well-loved post punk group, Paul Hanley, Steve Hanley, Marc Riley and Craig Scanlon devised a plan to shift some of the balance back in the favour of former members of the band. Ex Fall bassist/guitarist Riley says that in some cases labels had asked them for sleeve notes but not actually given them a finished copy of the record while former long-standing bassist Steve Hanley also flags up issues he had regarding quality control. Riley adds: “It’s a terrible phrase but really we wanted to take back control.”
They settled on something of a unique solution: to totally recreate albums they had appeared on but from recordings taken at a variety of shows. They formed the label Popstock – named after a song Scanlon wrote, which had its name changed before it appeared on Dragnet as ‘Chock-Stock’ – and got in touch with the most fervent bootleg collecting members of “the Fall Army” they knew to lend a hand. ‘Grotesque’ Live! is a thrilling trip through a gig experience that never happened. Mark E Smith was always a step ahead of his audience, always planning the next record as soon as the current one had hit the shelves, and the group never once played an album in full live.
Some of the tracks on this recreation of The Fall’s third studio LP, Grotesque (After The Gramme), are lo-fi, some amazing quality for an audience bootleg, but all of them are scorching. They showcase some of the best-loved tracks from the band’s 525-song back catalogue, at crucial points in their development during two years at the start of the 1980s. Paul Hanley singles out the version of Pay Your Rates as “excoriating” and the “powerful” dual drummer version of Container Drivers. Some of the tracks are culled from American dates when Paul Hanley was too young to tour and feature the enigmatic Karl Burns (for which he’s getting his cut), which raises the question of future releases featuring other former members… an idea the Popstock guys confirm they’re really keen to explore.
This album comes with brilliant artwork by post punk artist Mark Reynolds that pays homage to the original illustration by Mark E. Smith’s sister Suzanne Smith, with lyrical connections that should keep even the most ardent Fall scholars happy for a long time to come. Also featured are sleevenotes by Fall-mega fan Henry Rollins, who says it’s clear that the audiences to these shows are being given “no option other than to totally reconsider what music is”.
When asked which was their favourite song to play from this era, Marc Riley and Steve Hanley both chorus: “Container Drivers”. Riley expands: “We weren’t great musicians, we were just a bunch of mates being adventurous, not really knowing where each show was going to go. Sometimes it would be crap, but then other times it would be amazing. I wish I could have been in the audience for some of those shows.”
‘Grotesque’ Live! is everyone’s chance to experience one of the world’s greatest rock bands being amazing and singular once more.
Forewords by Wayne Carey, Reviews Editor for Louder Than War. His author profile is here
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