Apollo: News

[Len]

RIP Mark E. Smith (1957 - 2018)

Mark E. Smith was in the audience when the Sex Pistols played their legendary gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester, in June 1976. Inspired by what he saw, and using the title of a novel by Albert Camus, La Chute, he formed The Fall.

That same gig was witnessed by others who would go on to form Joy Division, The Smiths and The Buzzcocks. Strangely enough, The Fall outlived them all.

66 different musicians formed the lineup of The Fall over its 40-plus year reign, and it stands as one of the most visionary, singular bands of all time. At the center of the maelstrom, fueled on speed (“I’m irate! Peeved! Bad state! Cause I’m totally wired!”) and copious quantities of alcohol, Mark E. Smith spewed bile and venom over all and everything, while dispensing pearls of wisdom “It pays to talk to no one. No one!” Lyrics wandered from wry observations “I tell ya, the Dutch are weeping in four languages at least” to the downright surreal: “Purchased a pair of flabby wings, I took to doing some hovering.”

Legends surround the band: grabbing a drummer minutes before a show and pushing them on stage, throwing a musician out of a van in the middle of a Swedish forest, fining a drummer 5 pounds each time they missed a beat...

Smith kept on going until the very end, in declining health, giving his last performance in a wheelchair, all the while looking more and more like a demented Stephen Hawking. In honor of all his hell-raising and his talent, Apollo wishes to celebrate his passing by making all his studio albums Neutral Leech for the next 48 hours.