Goodbye to The Fall’s Mark E Smith

In 1988, as a kid with a fresh CD of “I Am Kurious Oranj,” I was not the toast of the party. I remember playing it for friends. No one was into it.* Christgau loved it apparently but that didn’t amount to anything (despite the VV’s popularity in that era).

My favorite records have always been alienating. When I was 10, I played this LP for my grandparents and it, appropriately so, horrified them. A few years later, I bought Fact. 40 in a sealed purple box at a Listening Booth record store (without knowing what was inside). I couldn’t shut it off. My girlfriend tried to.

Mr Smith was tagged as a difficult man to work with, even back then. It didn’t matter to me. As cute as Brix was, The Fall was Mark. He crammed a lot of great music into 40 years.

* I stand corrected. My drumming friend Eric Moore was.

Author: Troy Keiper

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