Rob Sheffield Remembers the Fall's Mark E. Smith
Mark E. Smith
Admit it: You thought  Mark E. Smith  would be the last to go. And in a way   he  was the last to go â when the punk legend died on Wednesday  after 40 years leading the U.K. band the Fall   he  took most of the world's bile with  him . "There are 12 people in the world â the rest are paste  " Smith  snarled in  his  1981 anthem "The Classical " and nobody's sure if  Smith  ever met the other 11. Somehow  he  was only 60  but  he 'd never seemed young. The "Hip Priest" had the most evil sneer in rock & roll  punctuating  his  rants with a sarcastic "aaaah" to give every word a serpentine hiss.  He  hired and fired dozens of bandmates  notoriously terrorizing anyone foolish enough to join  his  band  yet no matter who was in the Fall  you could always recognize them instantly â  he  stuck with  his  signature jagged guitar groove for life. Every time  Mark E. Smith  spat on the ground  another 10 bands rose up  and  he  hated every one of them.
Related The Fall: 10 Essential Songs Hear highlights from late  great post-punk malcontent  Mark E. Smith's  sprawling four-decade discography
 Mark E. Smith  was legendary as the most cantankerous bastard in town â and  his  town was Manchester. In  his  dozens of Fall records   he  created  his  own wonderful and frightening (but especially frightening) world.  He  stayed mean right up to the end. "People still cross the road from me; I've still got that "  he  said in  his  final interview. "I can clear a pub when I want to. It's a talent." If there's a punk heaven   Mark E. Smith  is already on  his  third drummer.
If  his  huge and sprawling catalog seems too daunting to explore  it's easy â start with "The Classical " a song that sums  him  up perfectly  from the 1981 masterwork Hex Enduction Hour  a monster groove with two drummers and crazy bass. "Hey there  fuckface-aaaah! Hey there  fuckface â aaaah!"  Smith  announces at the outset; it's  his  way of welcoming you in.  He  harangues away with insults ("This is the home of the vain! There is no culture!")  complaints about how it all sounds too pretty ("too much romantic here")  bad jokes ("I just left the Hotel Amnesia ... where it is  I can't remember")  advice ("Kill  it ! Kill  it !") and cultural commentary: "You won't find anything more ridiculous than this new profile razor unit  made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail." At the end  the song explodes into the sarcastic chant  "I never felt better in my liiiiife" â he makes it terrifyingly true.
 Smith  was a working-class lad who left school at 16 to become a Salford dockworker who read voraciously by night. Then  he  heard the Sex Pistols  decided  he  could do better  and began one of punk's longest  strangest careers  a hard-drinking left-wing literary autodidact and self-proclaimed "Prole Art Threat." "The difference between you and us is that we have brains "  he  told the crowd on an early live album.  He  set the tone for  his  whole career with early anthems like "Totally Wired" ("I drank a jar full of coffee and then I took some of these") and "Repetition."  He  was notoriously fond of lager  whiskey  speed â like MotÃ¶rhead's Lemmy  who  he  resembles in so many ways   he  thrived at a chemical pace that would have turned anyone else to slush.
When a rock star dies  other musicians line up to share affectionate memories of their warmth and compassion. This will not happen to  Mark E. Smith .  He  famously fired a soundman for ordering a salad. (In  his  defense   Smith  said "the salad was the last straw"  dismissing  his  ex-bandmates as "dickheads who couldn't hold their beer and needed to get home to Cheshire.")
 He  scared away so many musicians  the journalist Dave Simpson wrote a 2008 book called The Fallen compiling their horror stories â one of them quit by escaping from the van on the freeway during a snowstorm.  He  liked to dismantle  his  bandmates' equipment onstage  just to keep them from getting too slick.  He  fined  his  drummer five pounds every time  he  hit the tom-tom. On  his  disastrous 1998 visit to New York  the band disintegrated into an onstage fistfight that ended with  Smith  in jail for a couple of days.
But no matter how legendary  his  offstage personality  it was  his  music where  Mark E. Smith  truly became the stuff of nightmares. You can spend years exploring  his  catalog without coming close to figuring this guy out. The Fall hit their stride with the perfect 1980 EP Slates  in blurts like "Leave the Capitol" and "Fit and Working Again!!" At one point on Slates   he  orders the band  "Don't start improvising  for God's sake." (When Pavement made Slanted and Enchanted  their future label boss Gerard Cosloy praised them in in his zine Conflict as "a Slates tribute band" â the ultimate compliment.) "The only thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes "  he  announced in "How I Wrote Elastic Man."
 His  music took a totally unexpected turn in the early Eighties when  he  arrived home with a young American bride on  his  arm. Brix Smith was a blonde California art girl who was glam  tuneful  flashy and a few dozen other things that Mark E. Smith wasn't. They were perfect for each other  as her eccentric pop flair fit  his  caustic two-chord minimalism. They meshed beautifully in the 1983 Perverted by Language â especially in "Hotel Bloedel " where her doomy crooning meets his slang-king snarl over droning violin for a profoundly creepy sound.
 Smith  kept churning out music right to the end.  He  made 30 albums  or 31 or 32 or something like that â part of the fun in being a Fall fan was knowing that  even Smith  wasn't keeping score. Despite  his  rigorous ethic  they varied widely in quality  especially in the Nineties  after Brix left and things got dark. The Infotainment Scam was mind-blowingly bad in that "influenced by acid house in 1990" kind of way  while 1994's Middle Class Revolt was a hearty blast with "You're Not Up to Much."  He  remained a legendary crank â check out  his  infamous 2007 interview on the U.K. chat show  Transmission  where the poor host tries a harmless question about why  he 's so tough on  his  bandmates. "People seem to go a bit crackers when they're around  me  "  he  says with a straight face. "I'm a nice fellow  as you can see."
When the jazzman Chet Baker died in 1988  art critic Dave Hickey paid tribute by pointing out that Baker "died with gigs left to play  thus deserving the freelancer's ultimate epitaph: 'If This Dude Wasn't Dead  He Could Still Get Work.'"  Mark E. Smith  went that one better:  He  died with gigs still getting cancelled on  him . The Fall had an oft-delayed  oft-rescheduled string of NYC shows booked for February at Brooklyn's Baby's All Right; they sold out instantly  even though literally nobody thought these shows would ever happen. Here's to  Mark E. Smith   a lesson for us all in how to remain magnificently yourself and unshakably tough. A man made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail. Rest in rancor   Mr. Smith .
Admit it: You thought   [TGT] would be the last to go. And in a way    [TGT]   was the last to go â when the punk legend died on Wednesday  after 40 years leading the U.K. band the Fall    [TGT]   took most of the world's bile with   [TGT]  . "There are 12 people in the world â the rest are paste   [TGT] snarled in   [TGT]   1981 anthem "The Classical " and nobody's sure if   [TGT]   ever met the other 11. Somehow   [TGT]   was only 60  but   [TGT]  'd never seemed young. The "Hip Priest" had the most evil sneer in rock & roll  punctuating   [TGT]   rants with a sarcastic "aaaah" to give every word a serpentine hiss.   [TGT]   hired and fired dozens of bandmates  notoriously terrorizing anyone foolish enough to join   [TGT]   band  yet no matter who was in the Fall  you could always recognize them instantly â   [TGT]   stuck with   [TGT]   signature jagged guitar groove for life. Every time   [TGT]   spat on the ground  another 10 bands rose up  and   [TGT]   hated every one of them.
Related The Fall: 10 Essential Songs Hear highlights from late  great post-punk malcontent   [TGT]   sprawling four-decade discography
 Mark E. Smith  was legendary as the most cantankerous bastard in town â and   [TGT]   town was Manchester. In  his  dozens of Fall records   he  created  his  own wonderful and frightening (but especially frightening) world.  He  stayed mean right up to the end. "People still cross the road from me; I've still got that "  he  said in  his  final interview. "I can clear a pub when I want to. It's a talent." If  [TGT] is already on   [TGT]   third drummer.
If  [TGT]  [TGT]   huge and sprawling catalog seems too daunting to explore  it's easy â start with "The Classical " a song that sums  him  up perfectly  from the 1981 masterwork Hex Enduction Hour  a monster groove with two drummers and crazy bass. "Hey there  fuckface-aaaah! Hey there  fuckface â aaaah!"   [TGT]   announces at the outset; it's   [TGT]   way of welcoming you in.   [TGT]   harangues away with insults ("This is the home of the vain! There is no culture!")  complaints about how it all sounds too pretty ("too much romantic here")  bad jokes ("I just left the Hotel Amnesia ... where it is  I can't remember")  advice ("Kill  it ! Kill  it !") and cultural commentary: "You won't find anything more ridiculous than this new profile razor unit  made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail." At the end  the song explodes into the sarcastic chant  "I never felt better in my liiiiife" â he makes it terrifyingly true.
  [TGT] was a working-class lad who left school at 16 to become a Salford dockworker who read voraciously by night. Then   [TGT]   heard the Sex Pistols  decided   [TGT]   could do better  and began one of punk's longest  strangest careers  a hard-drinking left-wing literary autodidact and self-proclaimed "Prole Art Threat." "The difference between you and us is that we have brains "  he  told the crowd on an early live album.  He  set the tone for  his  whole career with early anthems like "Totally Wired" ("I drank a jar full of coffee and then I took some of these") and "Repetition."  He  was notoriously fond of lager  whiskey  speed â like MotÃ¶rhead's Lemmy  who  he  resembles in so many ways   he  thrived at a chemical pace that would have turned anyone else to slush.
When a rock star dies  other musicians line up to share affectionate memories of their warmth and compassion. This will not happen to  [TGT]  .   [TGT]   famously fired a soundman for ordering a salad. (In  his  defense    [TGT] said "the salad was the last straw"  dismissing   [TGT]   ex-bandmates as "dickheads who couldn't hold their beer and needed to get home to Cheshire.")
  [TGT]   scared away so many musicians  the journalist Dave Simpson wrote a 2008 book called The Fallen compiling their horror stories â one of them quit by escaping from the van on the freeway during a snowstorm.   [TGT]   liked to dismantle   [TGT]   bandmates' equipment onstage  just to keep them from getting too slick.   [TGT]   fined   [TGT]   drummer five pounds every time   [TGT]   hit the tom-tom. On   [TGT]   disastrous 1998 visit to New York  the band disintegrated into an onstage fistfight that ended with  Smith  in jail for a couple of days.
But no matter how legendary  his  offstage personality  it was  his  music where   [TGT] truly became the stuff of nightmares. You can spend years exploring   [TGT]   catalog without coming close to figuring this guy out. The Fall hit their stride with the perfect 1980 EP Slates  in blurts like "Leave the Capitol" and "Fit and Working Again!!" At one point on Slates   he  orders the band  "Don't start improvising  for God's sake." (When Pavement made Slanted and Enchanted  their future label boss Gerard Cosloy praised them in in his zine Conflict as "a Slates tribute band" â the ultimate compliment.) "The only thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes "  he  announced in "How I Wrote Elastic Man."
 His  music took a totally unexpected turn in the early Eighties when  he  arrived home with a young American bride on  his  arm. Brix Smith was a blonde California art girl who was glam  tuneful  flashy and a few dozen other things that Mark E. Smith wasn't. They were perfect for each other  as her eccentric pop flair fit  his  caustic two-chord minimalism. They meshed beautifully in the 1983 Perverted by Language â especially in "Hotel Bloedel " where her doomy crooning meets his slang-king snarl over droning violin for a profoundly creepy sound.
 Smith  kept churning out music right to the end.  He  made 30 albums  or 31 or 32 or something like that â part of the fun in being a Fall fan was knowing that  even Smith  wasn't keeping score. Despite  his  rigorous ethic  they varied widely in quality  especially in the Nineties  after Brix left and things got dark. The Infotainment Scam was mind-blowingly bad in that "influenced by acid house in 1990" kind of way  while 1994's Middle Class Revolt was a hearty blast with "You're Not Up to Much."  He  remained a legendary crank â check out  his  infamous 2007 interview on the U.K. chat show  Transmission  where the poor host tries a harmless question about why  he 's so tough on  his  bandmates. "People seem to go a bit crackers when they're around  me  "  he  says with a straight face. "I'm a nice fellow  as you can see."
When the jazzman Chet Baker died in 1988  art critic Dave Hickey paid tribute by pointing out that Baker "died with gigs left to play  thus deserving the freelancer's ultimate epitaph: 'If This Dude Wasn't Dead  He Could Still Get Work.'"   [TGT] went that one better:   [TGT]   died with gigs still getting cancelled on   [TGT]  . The Fall had an oft-delayed  oft-rescheduled string of NYC shows booked for February at Brooklyn's Baby's All Right; they sold out instantly  even though literally nobody thought these shows would ever happen. Here's to  Mark E. Smith   a lesson for us all in how to remain magnificently yourself and unshakably tough. A man made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail. Rest in rancor   Mr. Smith .