Journalists completely lost it around this time, in the mid to late 80s, and have yet to recover. I think it had something to do with the success of Smash Hits and The Face. Both of them were shit. In one corner you had empty vessels asking you worthless questions about your favourite colour, and then in the other you had these hip bands grassing on their drug dealers in order to get a matchbox-size picture in The Face. Suddenly, journalism’s all about tat and pictures. Aside from a couple of okay writers, that’s all The Face was – cool photography. They’d never have us in there, because I once wore a tatty jumper.
Smash Hits did give us one of my favourite reviews, though. I mustn’t have a go at them too much.
Singles reviewed by Samantha Fox, 1986
The Fall: Living Too Late (Beggars Banquet)
I didn’t like this at all – it’s really crappy … he sounds like he’s been having yodelling lessons. It seems to be the fashion at the moment to like The Smiths and these sorts of groups, and to me the lyrics are really depressing. I heard one the other day while I was in Kensington Market trying on some jeans and it gave me a headache. The Smiths, it was. Singing ‘Oh my God, I can’t get a job, what am I going to do?’ As for this song, I listened to the first half and I had to turn it off. My mother was in the other room and she shouted, ‘Nah, I don’t like that one – get it off!’
That’s as good as it got inside Smash Hits: page 3 birds airing their views. I think it’s great actually – better than being harangued by Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill.
I’ve always looked at interviews as being an important part of the game. I very rarely read other groups’ interviews but when I do they usually come across tame and irrelevant. The group used to moan about me hogging the limelight in the late 70s/ early 80s, but as soon as they were given the opportunity to spew forth they loused it up and ended up sounding like they’d never seen a book or a newspaper in their lives. Hacks and hackettes love all that. They love not being challenged. But with me it’s different – totally opposite.
Most journalists believe everything they read. It sounds clichéd but it’s the truth. They’ve got bollocks for brains, and they’re lazy. They can’t be bothered to verify what’s in front of their eyes. They’re so distanced from the subjects they’re writing about they have to turn to the internet.
And then you turn up for the interview and it’s as if you should feel privileged that some Luke or Alex chap is asking you a list of third-rate questions that some other journalist asked you two years ago from the same magazine. It’s not always the fault of the person asking the questions; most of the time they’re just youngish blokes who can’t handle their drink. I blame it on the editors and their passion for revisiting old ground. You only have to look at the people they have on the covers – it’s a six-month cycle of accepted icons, like The Beatles and The Sex Pistols, Neil Young and Pink Floyd. It never changes. I think it’s because they’re as docile as the audience they’re writing for – Tony Blair’s flunkies; ageing hippies who smoked too much pot in the 70s; office men with roadie hairstyles who play along to Pink Floyd on their guitars after work. I shouldn’t laugh … the editors are only looking out for these guys. They have to be reminded why they liked these bands in the first place.
And what’s the point of those little interviews I do with them? They’re on the phone for about an hour and a half. Then they print a few paragraphs and a picture of me laughing. It’s a joke.
It was the same with Hey Luciani. They didn’t bother to listen to what I was saying and my reasons for writing it. It sailed so far over their heads I might as well have been writing hate mail to their wives.
‘But I thought he wrote lyrics. What’s he doing writing a play?’
It’s astonishing that half of them could even cross the road to actually see it …
I wrote it in a blaze. It began as a song for the Bend Sinister album and then turned into a play when I went on to write the bulk of it while on tour in America. I’d get back from playing and just get on with it.
It’s good to work like that sometimes – to live in two separate worlds. Parts of it were based on David Yallop’s book In God’s Name, about these mysteries surrounding the death of Pope John Paul I, Albino Luciani, in 1978. He’d only been in power for thirty-three days and then he died from a ‘heart attack’. But Yallop suggests that there was more to it, because he aimed to eradicate all the corruption at the heart of the Vatican. It wasn’t all that earth-shattering to hear something like that, not for me anyway. It’s hardly shocking news that the Vatican isn’t a beacon of honesty. The really interesting thing about the book is the supporting characters and their ability to deny their involvement.
But, as with most ideas, the more I worked on it the less it had to do with all that shit – the pope, the Vatican, etc. In the end I seem to remember describing it as a cross between The Prisoner and Shakespeare. That’s how I thought of it at the time anyway. I guess it’s better to read it than it is to watch, though – that’s what I like about Shakespeare.
It was one of the first instances of the broadsheets covering something that wasn’t standard ‘Art’. You get it all the time nowadays – pop stars getting reviews in broadsheets. But it was different then. Sure enough, they didn’t think much of it, but you’re always going to get somebody wanting to do a number on you when you try something completely different. Most of them just thought I was winging it. That’s inevitable, especially in the theatre world, which is a Vatican in itself.
But through doing that I met Leigh Bowery. I think he was still doing his thing in Leicester Square in the Taboo nightclub; wearing those outlandish outfits, dancing and singing. I’d already met Michael Clark before Hey Luciani when he used some of our stuff for one of his ballets.
I admire the discipline of ballet. You’ve got to work at it. It’s a hard business, both physically and mentally. And Clark was seen as a bit of a maverick. He liked his nights out and whathavya and he was open about it, but he was still very professional. It’s similar to the European painters: he felt it more than understood it.
We worked on I Am Kurious, Oranj. We adapted the title from a Swedish porno film – I Am Curious, Yellow. I was trying to make the point that we all share some kind of common knowledge that’s within ourselves; that comes out in all sorts of things. Some people call it a gene pool. It’s as if you already know subconsciously about historical incidents. You don’t have to have been taught it. It’s in-built. At the time I wanted to put this across, basically as a loose explanation of what was happening in Belfast: it’s in the head and bones and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I was on a roll at that time. I’m rarely short of ideas, and I’m not into preserving them too much, either. If it’s in your head and you’ve got the right people around you, then there’s no better time to tell that story. You can’t be afraid of reactions when it’s like that. I think too many writers hold too much back for another time and then lose the initial spark.
The idea was that Clark would do the ballet side to it and we’d come on and play every now and again. The band was very tight at the time and I reckon we could have played anywhere and delivered.
We took it to the Edinburgh Festival and it was a real punch in the face for the artistes and critics. The confidence behind the production threw people; there were no half-measures. It was all very bright and brash, and those that got it really got it. You see it a lot more now in films and on TV, historical fiction depicted in a brazen way. It was never intended to be high art or low art. I don’t know what those terms mean, to be honest. It was fuck-all like anything else. That’s good enough in itself, if you ask me. I’ve certainly never seen anything before or since quite like it. I’m not saying it was perfect or brilliant, but I know for a fact that those who did hook into it experienced something special.
Me and Leigh Bowery would slope off for a pint between rehearsals. He was a good fellow like that; none of the other performers came. Just me and
Leigh still wearing his makeup and the underclothes to his Heinz baked beans costume. He would stand at the bar in this hilarious get-up ordering two pints and two whiskys, with all these hard-nut Scots staring at him. He didn’t give a fuck. He’d just nod to them and sit down.
It was a terrible shame that he died. He was very bright. Never had any money but that never deterred him: a proper artist. It’s a real test of somebody’s mettle when it’s like that. The good ones ride it and come out the other side, not necessarily wadded but better at their game. There were a lot of people around that whole Taboo scene who basically cashed in on his big personality, who appropriated a poorer version of him. It always happens with the real originals: the plagiarists are never far behind, waiting to rake it in.
I remember another great character – Fred. He was the landlord at The Woodthorpe in Prestwich. A funny bastard.
I spent a lot of afternoons talking to Fred. He was great. He’d boot you out if you didn’t drink quickly enough. He’d tell you to drink up and get another or leave – a proper landlord.
‘Look at him over there,’ he’d say, pointing at an old man with an untouched half. ‘All afternoon he’s been there. He’s no good to me. Not like you, Mark.’
We had a band meeting there once, with Ben, Steve and Spencer, and he refused to serve Spencer.
‘I don’t serve ex-cons.’
Fucking hilarious. All because of Spence’s cue-ball bald head. That’s the way he was, the last of the good landlords.
He left a few years ago. He got out before the pub got refurbished and became just another concentration camp with taps. It’s an important building, over a century old. Joseph Holt, the famous Manchester brewer, used to live there. They wanted to turn it into a nightclub at one stage, but it’s written somewhere that they can’t fiddle around with it too much. It’s not what it used to be, though.
I’d sit there watching all the workers rolling in, resenting my presence because I didn’t live like them. It’s funny how you can be so quickly disliked for ruling your own time. I’m not saying I’m better in any way. I just find it strange that it’s such a big deal.
Record companies are the same: they don’t like you doing your own thing. When I started up Cog Sinister there was an audible groan of disappointment among them. That might sound strange now, after all the shenanigans I’ve had with record companies over the years, but it doesn’t matter who you are: if you can nail an album a year some fucker will want to sign you. So they weren’t best pleased when I started up on my own.
After Bend Sinister, The Frenz Experiment and I am Kurious, Oranj it dawned on me that the time had come for me to do it myself, to move on. It was all about control again. Maybe the reason why Seminal Live (1987) wasn’t such a great album is that I had my mind on other things. But that’s not to say I deliberately released something that was wilfully shoddy. I’ve never purposefully knocked out a shit album.
Still, it wasn’t a particularly cosy time. Brix and I had pretty much had it with each other, and I wasn’t overly enamoured with the Beggars way of doing things. I wanted full control. At the time I thought Palace of Swords was a good way of letting people get hold of old Fall stuff. Having ripped up contracts in the past, I was still able to release some of our old recordings which weren’t readily available then. All those years of beans and skrimping for cigs were a blessing in disguise in a roundabout way.
Looking back, it’s evident now that it was another one of those ‘clear out and clear off’ periods. Time to grow new bones etc.
Cog Sinister was the first step.
The phrase ‘pre-cog’ comes from having the ability to see into the future – pre-cognition. I’ve always felt this. Countless times I’ve written something or said something and it’s manifested itself in reality. I’m not talking standard coincidence. It’s more than that, something slightly more sinister – hence the name of the label. I guess you could relate it back to the tarot.
I had an office on Princess Street in Manchester. The idea was I’d go there and write while working on the label side of things. But we’re talking Manchester here. As soon as anybody starts anything up in Manchester you’ve got bodies at your door. I’d go to the offices in the day and John the Postman would be manning the place for me and it’d be rammed with people. It was like a Marx Brothers sketch. You’d have Inspiral Carpets over there and a Shaun Ryder-ite in the other corner. I didn’t write a word. I’d just do a swift about turn and fuck off back to the pub, the one place I was supposed to be getting away from.
They weren’t on the make as such. They were just looking for a break. You’ve got to remember that Manchester was little more than a wasteland in 1988, especially when it came to music labels. Factory was on its arse. The Smiths weren’t around. The only thing that had a future was all that acid house stuff, but it wasn’t as if there was a real outlet for that sort of thing. It’s no wonder my office was swamped with blokes holding cassettes.
People knock Pete Waterman for being a manipulator and a proponent of tacky music. But he’s a good worker. All those years digging graves have held him in good stead. When he set his office up in Manchester a couple of years later he gave people a chance, and not in a Simon Cowell way. He never made enthusiastic kids feel worthless in the way that Cowell does. The simple fact was that Manchester needed him at the time. They’d all have a laugh at him, at his music, at his clothes, but he knew what he was doing.
He was always alright with me. In 1996 I worked on a single with him and these two lads called Dose – the single was called ‘Plug Myself In’. I couldn’t come up with a hook line for the song. So they brought in eight people to work one out, four women from London and four lickarses from Manchester, plus these two lads from Dose. It wasn’t the best of times for me. I was drinking a lot and I didn’t have much money. One minute they’re all my best friends, having a drink and all that; and then they’re complaining to Waterman, saying, ‘He won’t do this and he won’t do that!’ We all had a meeting in this big room, Final Solution style. Wartime Pop Idol. They wanted to say, ‘Sing this,’ and then discuss what we’d just heard. I wasn’t having any of it. Waterman just said, ‘What’s the problem? Do you know who you’re talking to? If you fucking carry on like this you’re fired, because you’re talking to Mark E. Smith. Whatever he wants to do he can do. However much he wants, give it to him.’
The single went nowhere of course, but I respected him for that.
Cog Sinister just ran its course. It was okay releasing Fall stuff but the minute I took a gamble on new acts that’s when it got tricky. They didn’t sell. If I’d stuck to my own LPs it would have been a different story. But at least I never let it spiral out of control like Factory. People got paid and I tried to help a few mates out. Everybody knew where they stood. I don’t have any regrets about doing it. It was non-stop in the end though. I’d be writing and touring and trying to concentrate on Cog all at the same time. That’s why we had to use Fontana as a vanity label.
People ask me why I don’t set another label up. But it’s not something that interests me at the moment. You need the right people when you’re embarking on projects like that. And I’m not talking about people who know their music or how to balance accounts, but people with scruples, because eventually there’ll come a time when things either hit the wall or go stellar. Either way, you’ve got nervous breakdowns in the offing.
And I have enough of that with the group and the other things that have a tendency to threaten your sanity.
He said he’d have a uniform for me by the end of the week; if not, the week after. G.B. doesn’t like us to work in our normal day-to-day clothes, but with the way things are, with the chaos and all, they’ve not much choice …
14. A Man Alone
It sounds crackers now, but I moved to Edinburgh in 1989 because, firstly, I needed to get away from Brix. Also, I didn’t like Manchester at the time. It was all turning very hippy-fied. And I wasn’t getting on with the group.
It was an impulsive thing; and the only place I’d been to that I actually liked was Edinburgh. Not the people, just the way it looked.
I was in one of those periods when it was time for a change. I just thought to myself, ‘Well, you’re not too badly off – you’re in a job that allows you to work anywhere you want. So why stay here?’ And I scooted.
I divorced Brix – she went to London and I went to Edinburgh.
I’d never lived on my tod before in my life. It’s ridiculous really: thirty years old and never lived alone. I just needed time, not necessarily to get myself together but to get things together. It was good for me. I just packed a few clothes and got a mate of mine to drive me to the train station.
At first, it was quite worrying. I moved to Leith, and it’s a mixture of working-class and upper-class people there. I was the only Englishman around. Thankfully, it turned out great. I walked into a pub and they liked me. They didn’t like the English but they liked me. So I made friends very easily, mostly with people who didn’t know who I was. I liked the way they weren’t your mates because of who you were – they were just your pals. I used to go on the piss with doctors and coppers and acid heads and all sorts. The problem was, I wasn’t getting much writing done.
I had an advance from Polygram, the record label. I wasn’t living it up or anything. I spent a lot of time in these small specialized science and law libraries. They were the perfect places to go and kill a few hours before you had a drink. I’d peruse all these great psychiatric reports and law files. I spent a lot of time in there, just reading bits and pieces from these strange papers. It was like a second education in a way. I’d never read anything quite like that before. And, more importantly, it was all free. Anybody was allowed in there. It’s not closed off like it is here, where only a doctor knows what a doctor does. You could have a cig in some of them as well. Some fellows used to bring hip flasks in; you’d see them nipping away while reading about nineteenth-century law. It was very civilized. That’s how it should be in England. Go into a library round here and you’ve got a load of repressed stormtroopers gawking at you. It’s no wonder kids don’t read as much as they used to.
Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith Page 14