If you vote for Gavin Newsom, I will kick you in the fucking dick, if you give a dollar to Matt Yglesias, I will kick you in the fucking dick, there is no negotiation with fascism, you do not need advice on fighting a dragon from someone who’s never even smelled the fire

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 12: EXTRICATE. What an odd record. A revanchist answer to the previous “pop” albums, it accidentally contains one of the most beautiful songs MES ever wrote. There’s also a song about his ex-wife called “Sing! Harpy,” which is uh unsubtle.

youtu.be/Opx3URKdc14?...

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 11: I AM KURIOUS ORANJ. It’s like a madlib: “post-punk band writes soundtrack to modern ballet about William of Orange.” It’s a mess of an album and I kind of love it? I will never get over how MES pronounces “orange.”

youtu.be/OQKb-psjNc8?...

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 10: THE FRENZ EXPERIMENT. A couple of stellar songs surrounded by a lot of halfassery. I’m not sure you could say The Fall were ever on autopilot, but this one comes close. At the very least it sounds like they’re all bored.

youtu.be/rBnrsUuNPUA?...

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 9: BEND SINISTER. Their darkest album since DRAGNET. Not as sonically engaging as the couple of preceding albums, but sometimes you just want to hear an angry man sound exhausted.

youtu.be/E2JVFLZDTbU?...

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 8: THIS NATION’S SAVING GRACE. If this is your favorite Fall album, I get it. I slightly prefer HEX but it’s just splitting hairs. More fun than most of their records, with a tad more swagger. Brix really came into her own on this one.

youtu.be/3okaBjf9_B4?...

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 7: THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING WORLD OF THE FALL. MES goes pop! Kinda. Brix’s first full record, the end of the two drummers era, and the cleanest production of any Fall record to date. The cassette version (with C.R.E.E.P.) is best.

youtu.be/0qXV8aB3-fc?...

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 6: PERVERTED BY LANGUAGE. It’s like William S. Burroughs was fronting Tago Mago-era Can (complimentary). You can almost whistle one or two of these songs. Would’ve loved to have been at The Hacienda when they recorded Tempo House.

youtu.be/rVtzzc_zZLw?...

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 5: ROOM TO LIVE. Most Fall albums sound slapdash at first blush which belies an incredible thoughtfulness in both music and lyrics. This just keeps sounding slapdash, 40+ years later. The first Fall album that I don’t truly love.

youtu.be/QWRdMYhcdUw?...

31 Days of Mark E. Smith-mas, Day 4: HEX ENDUCTION HOUR. My favorite Fall album, and favorite album of the 1980s. A monumental, un-fuck-withable album of humor, vitriol, phantasmagoria, and sonic adventure. The addition of a second drummer was a masterstroke.

youtu.be/dx10715hFKo?...

And today’s GROTESQUE, which would be an all-timer if concurrent singles “How I Wrote Elastic Man” and “Totally Wired” were included. As it is, it’s an album that I don’t return to very often. But it’s their first record that doesn’t sound like it was recorded with tin cans.
youtu.be/1DXBR3oxlr0?...

Then yesterday was DRAGNET, which might crack my personal Top 3 Fall albums? More mature than its predecesor, darker, more inventive, and just fuckin rocks. “They say music should be fun /
Like reading a story of love /
But I want to read a horror story.” Me too, Mark.

youtu.be/ArJ9EMxsf9c?...

Kicking it off was LIVE AT THE WITCH TRIALS, which is as fully-formed a mission statement as any band could ever have for a debut album. Literate, irreverent, at times inscrutable, cool as hell. Took me way too long to realize that “No Christmas for John Quays” is a pun.

youtu.be/z6oFtDJ623g?...