A few words on The Fall taking in: The Fall at the Arcadia in 1980, The Fall at Sir Henry’s in 1997. Mark E. Smith, Dave Simpson’s The Fallen, Freakscene and Gigantic at Sir Henry’s, The Beatles, Freakscene flyers, Uaneen Fitzsimons and No Disco, The Fall’s Levitate, The Fall at The Pavilion in 2012, and Rob Anthony’s Number One Fan comic strip.

Laminated Pass: The Fall, Sir Henry’s, Cork (5 November, 1997)

I’ve been slowly adding old interviews to my playlist “From the Archives” on Soundcloud. The latest addition is an interview with music journalist Dave Simpson from 2008. I interviewed Simpson for Songs to Learn and Sing on 103.2 Dublin City FM upon publication of his book The Fallen: Searching for the Missing Members of The Fall.

We’d a great chat about his quest to track down all the ex-members of The Fall. I regaled Simpson with my own Mark E. Smith encounter, which involved operating a slide projector for a Fall gig in 1997.

The interview with Simpson can be heard below.

Paul McDermott · From the Archives - The Fallen by Dave Simpson (2008)

Simpson got the shortened version of the story, here’s the full tale.

In the 1990s my old pal John O’Leary ran two huge indie clubnights in Sir Henry’s in Cork. Freakscene on Wednesdays and Gigantic on Fridays. I DJed with John on Fridays.

John never did anything by halves. If we came up with an idea to promote the clubnights, regardless of how costly or madcap they were, chances were that John was on for it. Most of the costly or madcap ideas were John’s.

We once hauled a load of huge cardboard sheets into Henry’s for a Gigantic 60s-themed night. John spent over £200 on yellow paint and it took us a day to transform the DJ booth above the oval-shaped bar into a giant floating yellow submarine. John hired Sgt. Pepper suits and wigs for the pair of us.

John was Paul and I was John. We thought we looked fab. We didn’t, we looked like the bootleg Bootleg Beatles. The pair of us walked around Cork’s pubs giving out flyers.

We had no shame.

John and Paul as Paul and John. Photograph by Kieran Hurley.

At the end of the night the music finished and the lights went up. Hundreds remained on the dancefloor singing ‘Hey Jude’. A bouncer stormed across the gangway into the DJ booth screaming at us to turn off the music. John and I fell about the place laughing, the music was off.

“Na-na-na, na-na-na-na”

John did a series of flyers for Gigantic of Classic Album covers: Violent Femmes, Tindersticks, Beck, The Cardigans and more. This was just a ruse so that he could produce a blank white flyer for The Beatles’ White Album.

Jim Comic, the printer, thought this was nuts: “but people will think it’s a printing error!”

“Jim, just print it,” replied John.

For another flyer series John took photographs of Action Man and Barbie dolls. For one of these flyers he actually made a model of Henry’s. Look closely, Cork-centric graffiti adorns the cardboard wall and one of the bouncers is smoking a cigarette.

It’s all in the detail!

Here I am on a beach down in Myrtleville balancing the dolls so John could get his photo. We even placed a second “couple” walking in the distance in the opposite direction. My job was to steady the dolls in the sand and then get out of the shot. The dolls kept blowing over so I had to put a strategically-placed twig down the leg of Action Man’s pants and stick it into the sand.

We were pros.

We also had way too much time on our hands!

And here’s the finished flyer.

The Fall played four gigs in Cork between 1980 and 2012. The first gig on Leeside was in the Arcadia on 17 October, 1980.

“I spent the afternoon of their gig taking them down to the train station, taking their photographs, they were a fantastic bunch of lads,” remembered Ciarán Ó Tuama in my Microdisney Oral History (Iron Fist in Velvet Glove - the story of Microdisney).

“I knew a little bit about them at that stage and I had heard that they mightn’t be easy to work with or whatever but they spent half an hour with me and they were fantastically cooperative. For a band who were fairly big in England at that stage they needn’t have spent time with a guy who was literally 16, long hair and scruffy, they gave me all the time that they shouldn’t have.”

The Fall - (L to R) Scanlon, Hanley, Smith and Reily — on stage at the Downtown Kampus at the Cork Arcadia, 17 October, 1980. Photograph © Ciarán Ó Tuama, used with permission.

Ciarán’s incredible photograph appeared on the back sleeve of The Fall’s compilation album, Hip Priests and Kamerads.

The Fall - *Hip Priests and Kamerads* (back sleeve) (LP, Situation Two Records, 1985).

The first Fall album I purchased was 1991’s Shift-Work. Prior to Shift-Work, the only Fall music I had was a tape of my friend Dympna’s copy of 458489 B Sides. As the title suggests this was a comp of the B-Sides from 1984 to 1989 that appeared on singles released on Beggars Banquet.

In The Fallen Simpson writes: “My colleague Michael Hann has a theory that every Fall fan’s favourite album is the one they hear first - because when you hear The Fall they sound so odd compared to other bands the experience sticks with you forever.”

Yes, The Fall sounded quite odd to me on the comp of B-Sides, I found it tough going but I took a leap of faith and bought Shift-Work. I stayed with the band since 1991 while also working my way back through their discography but Shift-Work remains my favourite album by the band.

The Fall - *Shift-Work* (LP, Cog Sinister Records, 1991). Photograph by Paul McDermott.

In September 1997 The Fall released Levitate and a Dublin gig was announced for November. The band hadn’t played Cork since that gig in the Arc back in 1980, so I contacted the band’s agent through the Mean Fiddler.

In Episode 45 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited (At the End of a Winding Day by The Hedge Schools) I chatted to Patrick Barrett and realised that it was his older sister Bernadette, who at the time worked for the Mean Fiddler in Dublin, who put us in touch with The Fall’s UK booking agent.
In Episode 49 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited (The D They Put Between the R & L by A Lazarus Soul) I chatted to Brian Brannigan about his first band Sub Assembly supporting The Fall in the Mean Fiddler in 1997. For Brian, a lifelong Fall fan, it was a dream to get this support slot.

The Fall agreed to play in Cork the night before the Mean Fiddler gig, they wanted £2,000.

One thousand had to be lodged into an escrow account a few weeks before the gig and the remaining sum needed to be paid in sterling an hour before showtime. John guaranteed the fee. We were on.

The label sent over a few copies of Levitate and a press photo of Mark E. Smith. It’s the only promo photo that I ever framed.

We were huge fans and did everything we could to coerce people into buying tickets. For weeks before the gig, every Wednesday and Friday night, we hooked up a TV playing a Fall video at the ticketbox where people queued to get into Sir Henry’s. I suppose today’s equivalent would be a reel on social media.

We were faxed the PA and monitor-mix specifications from the band’s agent and were completely freaked out by the cost of everything.

The gig was off.

John Robb’s Gold Blade played in The Lobby a few weeks before the gig and Emmett Greene from Bandicoot Promotions let us know that their sound engineer also worked with The Fall. We called into The Lobby during Gold Blade’s soundcheck and the engineer looked over the fax pages and laughed while crossing off loads of unnecessary equipment. It saved a fortune.

The gig was back on.

We were so thrilled to be putting on a gig by The Fall we even got Jim Comic to print up laminated passes for us. We thought this was hilariously un-Fall like and it still remains my favourite piece of gig memorabilia.

On the day of the gig I had to chaperone Smith and Julia Nagle from Sir Henry’s over the Grand Parade and down the South Mall to RTÉ’s Cork studio where Uaneen Fitzsimons was waiting to interview him for No Disco. I have no idea what Smith was saying to me on our 10-minute stroll around town. As I waited with Nagle in reception Uaneen tried her best to get a few coherent answers out of Smith.

Tried and failed.

After the soundcheck Smith asked if they could use John’s slide projector. Tommy Crooks, The Fall’s guitarist, had a load of slides with him. Smith asked me to project the slides behind the band during the gig. I remember putting the slides into the projector’s tray and asking him what order he wanted them projected in: “Suit yerself, our kid thinks he’s an artist” came the retort.

Sir Henry’s was part of the Grand Parade Hotel complex and The Fall were staying in bedrooms upstairs. At the duly appointed hour myself and John went to pay the remainder of the band’s guaranteed fee. We got out of the lift and walked down the corridor. We could hear shouting from one of the bedrooms. We knocked on the door and the room went silent.

The door opened slowly and there stood Steve Hanley. Behind him were Smith and the others. Hanley held out his hand into which John placed a brown envelope containing one thousand sterling in cash. It had taken him two days and a visit to a couple of banks to find that much sterling in Cork. Hanley smiled, gave us a reassuring look and slowly closed the door.

A few seconds later the shouting started again.

John and I stood silently outside the door listening to the commotion. We looked at each other.

“What the fuck have I just done,” said John.

I was afraid to open my mouth. We turned and walked back down the corridor and into the lift.

The gig itself wasn’t without incident - one or two songs in Smith walked off, followed by the band. I remember running backstage to see what was going on. Smith was at one end of the room and the rest of the band were at the far end. Hanley turned towards me and gave me that reassuring look once more. Nothing was said, but I knew things would be OK. I also knew that I had to get out and leave them to it. They returned to the stage a few minutes later and continued the set. It was a good gig.

Afterwards over a few scoops of Beamish, Smith asked what I thought of the gig. Feeling disappointed that they hadn’t played some of my favourite tracks and courageous with drink, I answered honestly, that I thought the gig was good but had expected more.

Smith looked at me and snarled, “but it’s The Fall!”

Ticket Stub: The Fall, Sir Henry’s, Cork (5 November, 1997)

The gig lost money. Attendance was close to 400 which easily covered the band’s guarantee but by the time PA, printing, accommodation, and rider costs were all included the night was pushed into the red. John had no regrets. Well, he probably had some regrets but he had also promoted a gig by The Fall.

Steve Hanley, Tommy Crooks and Karl Burns would all leave The Fall after the infamous gig at Brownies in New York the following April. Nagle left in 2001.

Hanley and Burns are currently touring with House of All.

Tommy Crooks now runs the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company.

From Fall guitarist to the cosmetics industry, that’s a career pivot.

The Fall - *Live @ Pavillion Bar Cork 21st July 2012* (CD, Cog Sinister Records, 2019).

It felt like The Fall were done and dusted after the events of April 1998 but Smith recruited new members and returned the following year with the incredible The Marshall Suite.

Into the early 00s we were gifted a fantastic run of albums: The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click) (2003); Fall Heads Roll (2005); Reformation Post TLC (2007) and Imperial Wax Solvent (2008). Classics one and all.

I was lucky enough to catch The Fall a few more times after that 1997 gig: twice in Dublin in 2001 (Redbox and Temple Bar Music Centre); at Primavera Sound in Barcelona in 2007; and at Tripod in Dublin in 2010.

I missed The Fall when they played in the Spiegeltent during Cork’s Midsummer Festival in 2008 but I did get to see them one more time at The Pavilion in Cork in July 2012.

A messy gig, it did however inspire an amazing gonzo review on The Fall online forum by forum member “trickleondaftdan” all about his trip to Cork to see his favourite band.

After Smith passed away in 2018, the aforementioned Jim Comic brought this fantastic review to the attention of illustrator Rob Anthony. In tribute to Smith, Anthony firstly created a one-pager titled, When The Fall Played The Pavilion Cork.

Anthony then expanded the one-pager into a four-pager titled, Number One Fan.

Anthony’s website is down, but I’ve reproduced his pages below.

The Fall at the Pavilion in Cork - it’s the only gig I’ve attended that was officially released as a live album AND turned into a comic strip.