Disco de The Fall: “Touch Sensitive: Bootleg”

The perfection, the brilliance of this band DOES come across to me on this 5-CD collection, moreso than on recent studio albums. Those albums had some great stuff on them. But they also had lesser material on them.

It has to be said also that some of the group's material, especially songs from the quickly-recorded "Are You Our Missing Winner" sounds better on here from these gigs than it did on the album. Much of this material is meant to be played live, and sounds perfect live. "Crop Dust", "Beourgeousie Town", "Kick the Can", and "Way Round" to pick three sound here like they should. "Ketamine Sun" is another.

The Fall continue to promulgate a garage-rock aesthetic unlike anyone else on the planet. Smith and his cohorts continue to mine a rich vein of minimalist noise crossed with rhythmic complexity. They continue to journey into the heart of rock and roll darkness, emerging time and time again with gems that connect 50's rock to 60's garage to 70's punk to 90's grunge to new millenium dance. This band will be understood by future generations as something that was really great, and really undervalued by undiscerning consumers.

I don't like everything that Fall produces, but I like this a lot. I recommend this to anyone who thinks they might be interested in it.

Well, I went through all the incarnations of this very prolific band/singer songwriter (the imitible Mark E. Smith).

For me, being a tad older, the original FALL (whatever that might mean!) in the mid to late seventies (had already gone through a few line-up changes) had a foundation of Scanlon , Burns, and Hanley which lasted through damned near two decades - in the late 90s Smith (a notorious drunkard, as well as a wild and outrageously bombastic rant/poet) fought with and fired the long time collaborators.

Since then, i'm not sure his band has been altogether one thing.

I caught them in London in 98 and it was more or less (as a friend quipped) looking like a band of his daughters.

But the current incarnations of the Fall are tight and musically adept. And these live concerts all around the end of 2001 - attest to an ingenuity and enjoyable noisiness that can only be the fall. Smith is on, mostly, he doesn't do the stuff he did in the early days - chatting amicably with the audience, or teasing them - he's more the lost in the lyrics type now (looking a bit like a cross between a ravaged Lou Reed and a starving owl). The thing that has always made the Fall so a different experience is MES's lyrics, and delivery. He has almost always been a strange rapper he talk drones his poetry - timing it with the guitars and drums. He rarely sings, and even this has been the joke of some older songs.

So, what is this Set of Cds? 5 shows of the fall, showcasing MOSTLY material honed from the period recent to 2001.

Cropduster is a stand-out of this period - the impressive studio version of which is on the ARE YOU ARE MISSING WINNER album.

Purposely misspelled and almost the most perfect fall thing to do -

the other thing to know about this band is that they have always championed LOW production value. They are a garage band first and foremost and damned-near always have been. They have been pretty - especially in the era of the early to mid 80s with Brix Smith - (who was as cute as a monkey) but they aren't pretty anymore.

They are gritty, original, and captivating.

Someone once said that there's more on just the liner notes from a fall album than there is most other band's entire records!

and that is probably still true.