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When I first heard The Fall, I thought the music was annoying and incomprehensible. Then that was what became fascinating. — Stewart Lee, English comedian
Everyone who works for The Fall, you know, they’re just regular people. I wouldn’t pick them otherwise. I don’t want Fall fans in the band. — Mark E. Smith, lead singer of The Fall
Music has always played a big role in my life, as I am sure it has in yours. Recently, though, it has dropped off the scene a little. (more…)
3,456 words
The poets and dreamers wove their magic webs, and a world apart from the world of actual experience came to life. But it was not all myth, nor all fantasy; there was a basis of truth and reality at the foundation of the mystic growth . . . — Jessie Weston, From Ritual to Romance
My friend said, what are you doing these days? I said, I’m working for Killing Joke. He said, Killing Joke? Are you mad? They’re evil. They’re devil-worshippers. — Chris Kimsey, music producer (more…)
2,917 words
Simon Reynolds
Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978-84
London: Faber, 2005
In January 1978 British band XTC released their debut album. Punk rock in the United Kingdom had passed its zenith but there were many such acts, clearly not punk but propelled to the forefront of the music scene by the effects punk had had on commercial music. (more…)
1,745 words
Here are the young men.
But where have they been?
— Ian Curtis, “Decades”
Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man.
— Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls (more…)
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On this day in 1977, a band from Salford, England called Warsaw took to the stage for the very first time in their career. They were supporting the Buzzcocks at the Electric Circus concert in Manchester.
“Warsaw” was the name chosen by a group of young men, namely Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Terry Mason, and Peter Hook, (more…)
1,257 words
Crisis was an English punk-rock band formed in 1977 in Surrey. Their initial lineup consisted of Insect Robin the Cleaner, Phrazer, and the most famous two who didn’t have absurd nicknames: Douglas Pearce and Tony Wakeford. Crisis was explicitly a Leftist band, appearing at various Rock Against Racism concerts and collaborating with artists and organizers from the Anti-Nazi League. (more…)
3,156 words
Joy Division left us with the most relentlessly depressing body of songs since Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. In some ways, though, this singularity of approach, this lack of light touches to add color to the palate, is responsible for making them enduringly fascinating. (more…)
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“What can you buy, that lifts a heavy heart up to the sky?” This question, the opening words of New Order’s Music Complete, is meant to be rhetorical. But there’s a straightforward and rather obvious answer: you can buy Music Complete