Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Aspalls and The Fall, a deadly brew., 14 May 2008
Ive just come in from the garden on a particularly lovely May evening having finished both this biography and three bottles of Aspalls dry cider. (sorry if this lacks coherence)
I'm quite partial to both of them in moderation. Whilst the cider was very good but nothing new I must admit that I was hoping I gain something new fom reading this book.....a different insight and to world of the Fall and Mr Smith. Sadly that didn't happen.
Somewhere around the half way point I couldn't help reading between the lines about all the musicians he's sacked, voting tory, etc, etc. At this he starts to become the grating, misanthropic, reactionary drunkard in the corner of the pub strungling with his false teeth. This side of him soon wears thin and my subsequent interest in the book started to wain. However in the second half there are enough interesting anecdotes of him pulling himself out of impending oblivion and serious scrapes to keep most readers hooked. I also enjoyed his Lady Di, Beckham, Elton John, New-Labour bashing.
I can't forget that this is the man who has given us Sparta, Hit the North, Mr Phamacist and dozens of other stunning, witty, and insightful records over years and years. The over-riding power of this book is that M.E.S is rather like the character of Johnny in the film Naked: the down-trodden, intelligent, dissatisfied outsider looking in on society and commenting on the obvious broken mess around us that most people accept or don't even see. The Fall made really wonderful music. There's much about the tenacity in his life lived through the tough times pretty well described in the book that informs and often powers the music of the Fall.
No great revelations here but it will be a very sad day when he stops.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Man Whose Self-Pity Expanded, 23 Feb 2009
The Fall are possibly the greatest band of all time. They have released a great many wonderful, innovative, thrilling and life-changing albums. You should buy these - especially everything from 1979 (Dragnet) to 1986 (Bend Sinister) - when the gruppe literally could do no wrong.
This book is truly, embarrassingly awful: a petty, mean-spirited, utterly misguided rant about very little of any consequence. It is also - unforgivably - actually very boring, which is something I never expected from MES. The fact that he wastes so much paper slagging off old band members is plain sad. Instead of immortalizing them in print, he should get over it!
MES hates pretty much everything and everyone. While this makes him a vital force on record and onstage, it makes for an unbearably tedious 'memoir', with a surprising amount of self-pity and whinging. Where is the legendary grasp of language? Where is the wit? Where are the insights? Instead, he talks about watching Neighbours. This is a book without structure and without any good reason to exist.
'Renegade' (which should have been called 'And Another Gripe...') has the feel of a tossed off contractual obligation that took two wet Wednesdays to complete. Conveniently, MES can now blame its many faults on the ghostwriter.
On the plus side, The Fall's most recent album - Imperial Wax Solvent (2008) - is quite wonderful. Perhaps even their best for eight or nine years. I just wish he'd never agreed to publish this drab, sorry-for-itself, lifeless, will-sapping, myth-shattering, 'done-for-the-money' book.
If you are new to MES and have £15 to spend, treat yourself by buying Hex Enduction Hour and/or This Nation's Saving Grace. If you're feeling more wealthy, buy the Complete Peel Sessions box-set. It's amazing. But if MES ever approaches you in a pub and offers to regale you with tales about all those who've 'wronged' him, escape while you can. Run. Run fast!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Je ne regrette rien, 28 Oct 2008
In the thirty years that The Fall has been extant the portrayal in the music press of lead singer Mark E. Smith has never ventured very far away from a cynical, caustic and curmudgeonly caricature. The few attempts at biography have done little to dislodge the`narky Mark' image. Take Simon Ford's well-intentioned, well-researched Hip Priest: The Story Of Mark E Smith and The Fall [2003]. Ultimately, it fails because of Smith's unwillingness to disclose anything to Ford; instead, he relies upon the many interviews Smith has conducted over the years. Therefore, Renegade should be hitting the reader with fresh, undiscovered material.
Sadly, it presents very few surprises to those who have found out about his personality through those interviews. Smith, like his fellow Mancunian Morrissey, has been remarkably forthright and engaging in those meetings with journalists. He has always provided good copy because he has never hidden his light under a bushel. Clearly, he is aware of this, as he acknowledges ("I've always looked at interviews as being an important part of the game"). Ergo, Renegade often evokes a sense of déjà vu. So, I was unsurprised when he disses musicians ("I've never met a guitarist I like really") and did not raise an eyebrow when he proclaims that he is always dissatisfied with the way in which things in life work themselves out (before adding "That's what keeps me going").
Renegade's text appears to be the result of conversations between Smith and his ghost-writer (Austin Collings). This has given the book a loose, conversational feel; it is similar in style and tone to Shane MacGowan and Victoria Clarke's A Drink With Shane MacGowan. That manifests itself in the way that the narrative drifts from discussing studio albums, gigs, line-ups and record company troubles into a variety of unexpected topics, including: the disappearance of Manchester's Victorian architecture, William Burroughs' motivations for writing or the drinking habits of Alex Higgins and George Best. It gives the autobiography the feel of an extended magazine feature, rather than a concerted attempt to tell Smith's story accurately and authoritatively.
Throughout the book is marked by Smith's candour. However, this honesty is not in the confessional spirit of the reformed alcoholic/drug/sex addict rock star attempting to atone or repent for his or her sins. To accusations of self-centredness he pleads guilty, but, points out that "It's as if I am the only one who's ever thought of themselves as the centre of this blue and green ball". The fate of ex-band members who have left, or have been sacked, is a matter of indifference to him ("They came, they saw... and now I no longer see them").The leitmotif of Renegade, if there is one, is surely `Je ne regrette rien'.
In the nice, polite world of alternative/'indie' rock Smith's fractious, unorthodox views can (occasionally) be refreshing. He is willing to be open and honest in his opinions about anything and everything, even if that offends. Speaking of The Fall's greatest champion, the late John Peel, he observes that he was "never a huge fan" of the DJ's radio shows, and "preferred it in the early 1970s". His criticisms of the The Clash's late front man Joe Strummer also highlight this plain-speaking. He argues, quite effectively, that "his politics were all over the place, bluster over substance". These and many other examples scattered through the book point to Smith's contrary spirit. As he observes in a moment of self-awareness, he is "trouble"; he is not "a fellow who can be reined in, given enough coercing". Perhaps this explains the dichotomy in the way he is received: he is perceived either as a misanthropic, reactionary drunk or as a national treasure.
Smith's hope with this autobiography was that it "turns out like Mein Kampf for the Hollyoaks generation". It fails in that grandiose aim. However, it is a diverting read which gives a number of interesting insights in to the psychology and philosophy of the man who was once humorously described by Echo and the Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch as "the most balanced person in the world - he's got a chip on both shoulders'.
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