Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

The Fall @ The Factory
24th May 2010

Since its opening in February I've been like a half starved cat on amphetamines waiting to pounce on FAC251, and finally my time has arrived. THE FALL @ THE FACTORY does it get any better than this?

Of course I've no idea where the old FACTORY RECORDS office cum new FACTORY CLUB is. Other than it's on Princess Street the longest street in the known Empire. Use the BABYLON COMPASS? (The Sat Nav) No fucking way! I know where THE RITZ I'll head for there. You see I'm a simple bugger when I've been somewhere once, or done something once then I'm OK. I can go on and on repeating and repeating the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. Did I mention I've been at work today?

Anyway I parked just down the road from The Ritz and decided to have a bit of a walk to find THE FACTORY. Even though I've been to Manchester 147 times over the last 46 years today is a first for me. Why? Cos the SUN is banging off the oversized structures of Mancunia and something blue and cloudless can be spied somewhere up there beyond the shadows. Yeah above the incredulous use of multifarious coloured brick is the sun; in Manchester! Those COCKS on the IDIOT BOX would say "Manchester without rain is UNPRESIDENTED! I say "Manchester without precipitation it's pissin' well preposterous!"

I walked for 41 seconds and then decided to ask the way; here comes a suited and booted young business type of a BOD, I'll ask him. "Excuse me mate"……..shit that was too much for him; as soon as my words entered his ears he veered off as if attempting to evade an immanent blow…...I persevered, just slightly louder. "Can you tell me how to get to THE FACTORY CLUB?" He pulled himself up, turned back to face me and said in a faint Irish accent. "Sorry buddy, you looked a bit DODGY. Yeah The Factory, just go up de hill dhere, turn right, dhen turn left down de side of the BBC building and you're dhere". I thanked him as best I could.

DODGY! DODGY!! Cheeky C***! I've never been so insulted in all my life…….no, actually that isn't true. But all the same "a bit DODGY!" Come to think of it though I actually quite like it. A bit dodgy, a bit STREET, a bit fuckin DANGEROUS, a bit fucking hard so watch out you tossers I'm a scary smelly dodgy old DERELICT! [For those of you who are fortunate enough not to know what I look like, I look like an impoverished old non threatening soft as shit TOSS POT!] Not to worry though it was a lovely welcome to the CITY, and hey now I know the way to THE FACTORY.

After a good couple of hours sleep in the back of the car I set out for FAC251. As I walked across Manchester my head rebooted itself and a vague remembrance of days past butted me straight between the eyes. Didn't we send a DEMO TAPE to Factory Records back in '84? I've got a whole pile of replies telling us to "piss right off" from every record company in Britain, but I don't think we ever got a reply from FACTORY. I wonder if they'll be anyone about tonight who can remember our TAPE. If Mr Hook is there I'll ask him.

Now owner of the club Mr Peter Hook is quoted as saying "FAC 251 The Factory; It's not the Hacienda for fuck's sake" And you know what he's right it's not the Hacienda - well thank fuck for that. No FAC251 is definitely not the HACIENDA cos its DUDLEY JB's! What d'you mean you don't know what the inside of Dudley JB's looks like? Well it looks like the inside of THE FACTORY of course you dip shit. A cramped low slung rectangular letter box of a gaff with a bar shoved up one corner and a flashing BANDIT shoved up the other. OK so they haven't actually got a BANDIT at THE FACTORY but they will, they will.

A goodly number of punters were already installed when I arrived; the merchandise people plying their trade; all seemed kushti. I bought a drink and told the young whipper snapper behind the bar about the DEMO TAPE I sent to FACTORY in '84. I asked him if HOOKY was due in tonight. He just pointed over to the big bald suited geezer by the door and said "If you've come in here to jerk people about Granddad that gentleman over there is going to cause you pain. Now you've had your non alcoholic beverage so piss off away from my bar, and behave!" Luckily the support band were about to start.

KIN - yes I know I should have taken a picture of the band. But bear with me a moment, first things first, what the funk does this girl sound like! She seems to have the oscillating larynx of an extraordinarily rare cat. Is she mewing or singing backwards? Let me listen some more. Yeah she sounds like a duet between Lene Lovich and Eartha Kitt, taped onto a C60, cut up with plinking scissors, and selotaped back together by a myopic octogenarian. I like it. Please do it some more.

The band consisted of a bass toting Mohawk called "DING" who rumbled and growled and apparently produced a couple of tracks on The Fall's latest album (he looked vaguely familiar). A beard toting drummer called Howard Jones (shit that's where he went). And a MANINBLACK keyboard geezer who stood in the shadows and conjured up some extremely dark notes and static clicks. The FELINE "KIN" purred and mewed some more keeping the babbling punters rapt for a good twenty minutes or more.

KIN are certainly more Simone Simon than Natasha Kinski and definitely more "Ancient Sorceries" (Algernon Blackwood) than "The Cat People". But perhaps I'm talking bollocks again. For lovers of banal musical comparisons. KIN are Radiohead-esque. Listening to their EP they're definitely sorted as far as bleak introspection and poignant longueurs are concerned, all they're lacking is their very own: "Twenty Four Hours" "Rhythm of Cruelty" "Plug in Baby" or "Creep". With a hypodermic injection of this sort the effects could be quite wonderful - but what do I know - Go listen here.

At half time I decided to have another scout around for Hooky. I feigned interest in the merchandise, he wasn't there. I faked the need for a piss, nope not here and not in any of the cubicles either. Then I spied John Robb that OLD Membrane, NEW Goldblade, PROPER writer fellow at the bar. I sidled up to him and told him about the DEMO TAPE I sent to FACTORY RECORDS back in '84 (I knew he wouldn't mind me interrupting him). I asked him if he knew whether Hooky was coming in tonight. Unfortunately as John turned to face me he stumbled and in an attempt to break his fall his left FIST inadvertently connected with a large portion of my head. I went down like a sack of shit. Whilst down on the lovely new FACTORY floor Mr Robb unfortunately stumbled again trapping his boots repeatedly under my rib cage. I can honestly say without fear of contradiction that John Robb is a person who doesn't know his own strength. A nice man though; he did after all pick me up and lean me against the wall prior to returning to his friends at the bar.

This episode, possibly fictional, possibly not, was not as unpleasant as what actually transpired prior to The Fall. You needed to have been there - it was fucking horrible!


The Fall
Before I set out for The Factory gig I was wondering what the hell I could write about The FALL. After 30 years what can you say that hasn't already been said? I'd intended to do some kind of half arsed comparison between "Your Future Our Clutter" and The Fall debut "Live at the Witch Trials". I'd got some witless stuff to say about Marc Riley's bass playing and about how "Chino" sounds vaguely reminiscent of "Music Scene". I'd have come clean about how when I bought "Witch Trials" it was purely cos I thought The Fall sounded like Devoto's Buzzcocks. And then I believed that The Fall would probably only last as long as the Cocks had. Now standing here at The Factory I can see how perfectly pointless it would have been to compare CLUTTER with any of the 27 albums Fall albums that have preceded it. The Fall have never been away. They've been omnipresent. The Fall are now.

The Factory was sweaty front left. A smoke machine blew in some atmos, unfortunately only the decaffeinated kind. But squint and hold your breath and it felt like nicotine. No arseholes came on to tune up, drummer Keiron Melling just appeared and started chopping wood. The rest of the band followed and did what they needed to. Then a fully mobile Smith appeared shambling through an open side door and into "OFYC Showcase", he was on. He was most definitely on!

Mark E did what he was supposed to; twiddled with the settings, turned his back on the throng, sung a complete song off stage, messed with his Dictaphone and generally pissed about. And The Fall did what they're supposed to too. They flailed around insanely thru' most of CLUTTER, were deranged & dysfunctional during "I've Been Duped". Then by means of serendipity, witchcraft, luck, cunning and osmosis Smith & The Fall reached a place. The place was called: "BURY PTS. 1 + 3" and "Mexico Wax Solvent" nothing else came close.

So what do we know?
If you don't get The Fall then you haven't been listening. When I say you haven't been listening I don't mean you haven't been listening long enough. I mean you haven't been listening. You only think you have. Cut Mark E Smith in two and you'd see he's got existentialist writ right through his middle. With The Fall something is always happening as long as you're listening.

YFOC aka CLUTTER is an excellent album made more so by the quality of the gargantuan double vinyl version. You've been listening to "Get A Summer Song Goin'" which is only available on vinyl so now GO TO DOMINO TO BUY IT. Will CLUTTER be listened to in thirty years time? Yes. But not by me obviously I'll be down with the worms.

Is FAC251 THE FACTORY a decent venue? Fucking yes! Manchester with its pretension amputated is Manchester at its best. When are GOLDBLADE playing there? I'll be standing at the back that night holding the hand of me 82 year old Mother, obviously.

So all was good as I left The Factory yet inwardly I was uneasy. What was eating me? Was it my own dwindling mortality? Nah. Was it the troubles of the planet? Icelandic volcanoes, BP oil slicks and the like? Nah. What was it then? The old fear. The one thing that scares me more than universal Armageddon. The possibility that one day Mark E Smith will ask his barber to cut his hair above the ears. He's done it before once or twice, but one day he'll do it for keeps, and when that day comes Rock N Roll will never be the same again.



I leave you with an interview from '81. Goodnight.