MARK E SMITH AND IAN HUNTER THE LAST MEN STANDING
Before the real last show at the Hammermith Palais
We were talking before about famous last words.
Adam Faith, Brit 50s star turned business tycoon, with the remote control on the hotel bed, in a provincial resort
“There’s a lot of shit on channel 5″
River Phoenix, in the ambulance, in LA on the way from the Viper Room to the check out zone
“I’ve taken a lot of drugs and I’m goin to die”
Little did we know we werre in for another one
Mark E Smith, classic Mark E Smith, Mark E Smith now aged 50, turned on March 5th this year, the last white man on the stage of the Hammersmith Palais.
His last words. Little did we know how priceless they would be as Mark departed the heathen shell, capping another night of vituperation, of lets be fucking having you rock action.
Of stern rebukes and idiomatic poetry.
Of hard lives and in your face skull warping anthems
The security had been at it , livid they were, before the encore.
Somehow someone had got through the cordon and they were on the look out for em because these, these northern scummages, these old thorn in the sides, these Fall types
THEY WERE NOT MEANT TO BE THE LAST BAND AT THE HAMMERSMITH PALAIS.
NO!
That honour was meant to go to last night’s act, that would have given it some symmetry seeing as how The Good The Bad and The Queen have Damo creaming all over about The Clash as an influence.
And Paul Simonon - in deference to his late great Field Marshall Strummer’s greatest song (the one that says “if Adolf Hitler flew into today…” you knows it)- hacked off bit of the stage at the end of that band’s show.
Not enough of it for Mark not to be able to make his , err, Mark.
Mark who has been in a wheelchair, who has scrupulously avoided talking to me for Kevin’s book, who has been through 549 different musicians in his upkeep of this Fall brand.
Ever gig the same . Every gig so very different. And tonight at the end.
Mark his words
“Thank you for letting us into your security area, we’re going back to civilisation.”
That was it. Mark, proud as peacock can be in the clothes and body of a rock battle scarred veteran, was off into the night.
THE END
Come back Jo -e a coda to White Man was a happenning here.
Happening in the dark mirrored corners.
The old 70s 80s hiding from Thatcher Mecca style decor.
With them last words Mark was Into the dressing rooms where he will studiously ignored, fled from, assorted journos and documentary makers .
Documentary makers who have to be explained the significance of those last words.
Explained how Mark - the antidote to everything - was just making the call.
For him, by his obtuse standards it was deliciously direct.
Eloquent.
Because when he said it he said it all.
The tune is Steely Dan Haitian Divorce - “the band was hot-so
We danced the famous Maran-go”
And the stage - swarming it was by that time, swarming with Iridium Security staff, (iridium, I shit you not, Iridium security staff, that is what they were called) all because they fluffed it badly pre encore and let a stage invader take control, make a bit of a people’s announcement on a mic that shoullda been switched off.
And then cap his announcement awith a dive into the audience.
A bit of fun in the last minutes of a great rock insititution.
But it wasn’t in the hymn sheet health and security meltdown - someone’s head was gonna roll.
The order had come down from above it was time to call a halt.
And there they were ranged in close.
The fu-fu-fu- fu-fuckers.
Out to kill rock n roll.
But they cant kill it because rock lives on.
In the fibre and being of its greatest practicioneers.
Like Ian Hunter, turns 68 this June, new album Shrunken Heads another feather in the cap, due soon( in June, actually)
Hunter - another guy who has just kept going kept doing his own thing, going his own way.
The new album a beautiful brilliant summation of everything he’s done.
And Hunter always , always that little bit on the outside.
And the tune is Mortt The Hoople Back Street Kids
Ian gets paid tribute to, but no big major media kerfuffle each time he does something.
Not like there is for say, David Bowie.
Bowie is often credited with saving Mott’s career.
Savig it?
Look, you know what, I’m not saying Bowie RIPPED ANYONE OFF OR NOTHING. But you gonna tell me Demon Darling Dame David didn’t learn him some licks offa Mott The bleeding Hoople ?
Ian was my guide for most of the early evening I going back all the way to the 70s.
The Saturday Gigs, on the ipod.
Ian, like Mark, often took the posture, in his songs, of a man from or championing a forgotten time.
Pining for the never was or whats to be.
British folk artistes, weathermen to tell which way the wind blows - both of em.
Oh, I know, Mark may hate, loathe and despise Ian and Ian may not keep up to speed with The fall.
But both in the same game, both fighting the same cause.
I mean are you gonna tell me that Mark on the stage of the Galtymore in Cricklewood earlier this year, singing about his mother’s hair, his mother hair making him cry (do people stop to listen at Fall shows, does everyone see different things , hear different things at differnt moments? Know that Mark is the most naked, prepoosterous, the ruffest, the tuffest act we’ve got?).
Are you gonna tell me that you cant run a line from that display of openness, of famiial love and dread and Ian singing I Wish I was Your Mother.
And these guys… these fucking guys…
THEY AND THEIR ILK …THEY ARE THE SAVIOURS OF THE RECORD INDUSTRY
Oi lissen up you Cowell sucking cheats.
You fucked up executive cant see the real stuff for the bluff fucks.
Coz you take a man like Mark, whose early record sleeves are something that you collect and study, that are art pieces in themselves (before you get to the music).
And you take a Mott single a marvel of 7 inch or you take a Hunter solo beauty like Standing In My Light, these are the songs and the records that make people committed to your business.
Of course thats all gone now.
All gone because the carpet baggers with their copyright jones, with their big comfy money jones with… all that shit, they sold the soul of the fucking thing.
Doesnt matter to Mark or Ian, listen to their records - these guys were wise way before their time, knew which way the game played out long before the fuckers got their pants in a twist over digital and not being able to farm out their millions on the backs of poor and dead black folks no more.
Mark’s a people’s rocker.
Christ he does White Lightning, the most accessible of all George Jones songs.
Early days rock abilly. Roger Armstrong’s Ace Records must have sold a few of their early rockabilly jones material on the back of the Fall.
But the Fall are different - proud, mellow, cool as fuck.
Those bands that slipped off the edge - we were talking about this earlier too - Joy Division circa Pleasure, T Heads round Fear of Music.
We reckoned a dark episode had begun there with Lou reed’s berlin, rock without a safety net.
Its what Mark has been doing for years.
Theres a great moment, ritualistic now, where he gets Eleni’s keyboard and starts pounding.
Just the right atonal and attritional, the man of licker the central fugal force.
Think Best, Clough, Vegas, Johnny.
The drinking man is often the centre of attention.
And Mark has been known to down a few himself.
But who cares, as he says a rock n roll show the singer has a few pills and a few drinks - whats the big deal?
He got so into it once back then when he saw a picture of Black Sabbath drinking beer in a garden in the afternoon.
And thought - “that looks like a good way of life!”.
And he cant get out..wouldnt want to.
Ian neither.Stars that shine bright but don’t go for superstar shite hearing instead the words of Hunter’s Hymn for the Dudes
“Go tell the superstar/All his hairs are turning gray/At his star spangled feet/All the people disappear/The limelight FADES AWAY
You aint the Nazz you’re just the buzz.
Some kind of temporary….”
Soldiers in awar they didn’t start. Winning a battle they never asked to fight.Offering victories of heart and soul in the flesh and on the tapes. Doing it good and doing it right.
Smith and Hunter. Crackshots - still right on target after all these years .
