Essential Links
2005
Trust In Me
Featuring guest vocals by Billy Pavone, engineer at Gigantic Studios, Ding, co-producer and former Fall bassist, and Kenny Cummings and Phil Schuster of New York group, Shelby. A chunky, crisp production that's a little bit Wire, a little bit Queens of the Stone Age and not much like The Fall. I like it.
Breaking The Rules
Why, if it isn't the music to 'Walk Like A Man' (see 2004) transformed to conjure up a completely different song. Fairly bouncy and er... that's about it, really. Nothing particularly stunning here. Move along.
Early Days Of Channel Fuhrer
Channel Four/Hitler/Who knows - it's all very vague lyricwise. Relaxing waltz beat with brushes and a lilting, almost Hawaiian, guitar. Lovely. Comedy moment when guitarist Ben Pritchard's speeded up voice pleads, 'Where's all the choccies gone? Where's all the choccies gone?' The sleepy, lullaby vibe continues to the end with the spoken 'Fade out' and 'Shhh.'
Youwanner
A three note assault, exhilarating in its repetitiveness, especially with the harmonic guitar bits. You get the feeling it was indeed a work in progress and MES decided to just leave the 'work in progress' lyric in there. The most intriguing line here - 'It's the outsidedness flavour of it' originally manifested itself as 'the outside flavourness of it' on MES's other spoken word album 'Pander! Panda! Panzer!'
Bo Demmick
A lot of old familiar territory revisited here. Powered by that Bo Diddley beat. Lyrics partly culled from 'The CD In Your Hand' (from the MES spoken word album, 'The Post Nearly Man'), hence good old 'Moderninity' is raised again. The main lyrical refrain sounds like 'Hey Fatty' or even our old friend 'Hey Fascist' (see 1977), but, I am assured it is in fact '8.30.' Clever. Alternatively known as Bo Doodak. Fair enough.
Aspen Reprise
Basically, just more of Aspen In Midnight (see below). Different words, though, so earns its own separate entry. Fades in, ends suddenly.
Assume
Awash with swashbuckling layers of guitar, reminiscent of that old multitracked Sex Pistols sound. Lyrically, as usual, it's anyone's guess, as MES comments while watching TV at the beginning, 'It's a weird new language init?' I assume he is merely playing around with the sound of 'Hume','Hulme' and 'hoon' as sparked off from his random observational aside. Pop culture students may be interested in the appearance of Cliff Barnes reading out the lyrics of Hey Jude.
Midnight In Aspen
A mellow MES reflecting on the demise of Hunter S Thompson who lived near Aspen, hence the allusion to Orion, the hunter. The music is very, er, normal, and also recalls PIL's 'Poptones' just in case it was getting too normal. 'Bestest powered rifle' is a cracker, while the accent on 'He was lucky this week' is a nice touch. On the Radio 3 session, I like how he keeps going at the end once the gruppe's stopped and laughingly comments on the fact.
Pacifying Joint
Take your pick about the subject matter. So many connotations - a place, a smoke, meat, and a connection. MES naturally plays with these different definitions. Not a lot of subtlety going on here. Which is good. A basic three chord riff echoed by the keyboard. Ba ba ba ba bahs aplenty. Not to mention ah ahs.
Video: Pacifying Joint
Ride Away
Surprisingly (deliberately?) lacklustre white boy reggae guitar chops with a bass line sounding like a backing for a comedy song. It works though and it's hard not to love that solid drum beat. The cute keyboard parts also make me smile. But the high point of this simple but captivating tune, for me, is that fabulous 'a hey-hey!' pronunciation. This is what it sounds like when The Fall are happy.
Where's The Fuckin' Taxi? Cunt
Drunken nonsense as MES attempts to get a taxi home from somebody's house amid other pished group members. Complete with 'my besht mate' type slurrings. No music (unless you count the occasional drunken strum on an out of tune acoustic guitar). If you, or anyone you know, has been affected by this outburst, why not try The Foul's unique alternative blend of this track which combines the havers with the 'Taxi' theme tune, Paul Young and Diana Ross.