ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #17

And at the third time of asking, the series finally delivers in the way it is supposed to.

A series for 2025 in which this blog will dedicate a day to each of the twenty-four of the sessions The Fall recorded for the John Peel Show between 1978 and 2004.

Session #17 was broadcast on this day, 5 February 1994, having been recorded on 8 December 1993.

Recorded a full five months before the 3rd May release of the album that was to house all four tracks, ‘Middle Class Revolt.’ Apart from a lacklustre ‘Behind The Curtain’, with a seemingly disinterested and on-off mic Smith, there’s a crunching reading of city paean ‘M5’. It also contained ‘Hey! Student’, which was a re-working of ‘Hey, Fascist’, heard by John Walters as that very first Fall gig he attended in Croydon, 15 years earlier. Possibly the ultimate Fall mancabilly, complete with album lyric ‘as you stare in your room at Shaun Ryder’s face’ becoming irresistibly ‘as you masturbate with your Shaun Ryder face’.  This reference to Manchester peers Happy Mondays after they had peaked and before Black Grape, captured the out-of-date hipness of many students perfectly.  ‘Reckoning’ may be the closest The Fall ever came to Steely Dan instrumentally (!?) and Smith at his most sloppily venomous and lucid with corkers such as ‘And you’re sleeping with some hippie half-wit who thinks he’s Mr. Mark Smith/Reckoning’

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – M5 (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Behind The Counter (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Reckoning (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Hey! Student (Peel Session)

Produced by Tony Worthington

Mark E Smith – vocals; Craig Scanlon – guitar; Steve Hanley – bass; Dave Bush – keyboards; Simon Wolstencroft – drums

JC