The Fall's Mark E. Smith R.I.P: Clues to Axl Psychology

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

I think I'd heard of The Fall before Mark E. Smith died last week, but didn't know anything about them.

Having heard about him since, I think he seems a more extreme example of the Axl frontman.

He took control of the band, and had lots of members, saying he didn't care about what the crowd thought, only wanting the purest form of art.

Also liked to drink and dance with Mr. Brownstone in the extreme, to the end at 59.

Video about him on YouTube: 

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by Axl's Agony Aunt
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[Blackstar]

What a great band. Not made for mainstream appeal, but largely important. Mark E Smith was a legend in his own right. RIP...

Maybe there are indeed personality similarities. A big difference though (apart from musical genre and relation to rock stardom) is that Mark E Smith was very prolific, releasing an album every year (in the early days The Fall had released even two albums per year).

---------

Speaking of comparisons and similarities, here is an interesting case of someone who is the only original member in his band and has been touring regularly without having released an album since 1993 - the last album of original material was in 1990; and also hates Trump

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Eldritch

Recordings were delayed, to the frustration of the band as Eldritch was still working on lyrics. Gary Marx: "He'd got far too caught up in the business and had lost his edge as a writer. We wasted weeks at a time in the studio, waiting for him to come up with a handful of lyrics. It was very painful and very expensive."[12] A notable exception was "Marian". Eldritch, inspired by Gary Marx's original lyrics to "First and Last and Always", wrote new words to a Wayne Hussey composition which contained a few passages sung in German. "'Marian' is a very special song; it's not like any of the other songs. I wrote it in ten minutes, usually the lyrics take me up to half a year."[13]

The vocal takes proved to be time-consumingly elaborate. Marx: "After each session Andy would say, 'But is it epic?', and we'd go, 'Yeah Andy, it's great!' And he'd go back and do it again. Andy's a complete perfectionist."[14] "We could write and record a double album in the time it took him to get the headphone mix to his liking."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_and_Last_and_Always

It’s been 22 years since the last Sisters album, Vision Thing. Are you any closer to releasing a new album?

We record bits and pieces from time to time, but we never get around to finishing them, so I don’t think a new album is uppermost in our thoughts. Making an album requires a lot of time and nervous energy and a little bit of money. And I’m not sure my lads want to be tied up for that long doing that – with no prospect of recompense at the end of it. We’re one of the few bands that can sell concert tickets without having to put out an album, so the usual motivation doesn’t apply. With the music industry imploding, it’s hard to see why putting out an album would make much sense. And I don’t have the existential need to do so.

Meaning what?

I don’t make music for you. I make it for me.

But if you’re creating new music, don’t you want it to be heard?

At concerts we always play new songs, and not always the same ones. But I think there’s a big difference between creativity and the aspect you refer to, which, in my unkinder moments, I might regard as simply preening. I’m not much of an extrovert.

Surely the Sisters fans that come to the gigs and hear the new songs must tell you they’d love to hear a new album, though?

It sounds like work, and I don’t like work. Work is stuff you do because people pay you to do it – stuff you wouldn’t do otherwise. I’m perfectly happy to make music. I’m not nearly as enamoured with the whole releasing process, having done it a few times. It was dismal.

When did you last write a new song?

The last time I decided definitively that a song was finished and untouchable was 2010. I’ve written a lot since then, but I’m still tinkering with them. I like to tinker. With computers, information is much more fluid now. A file is infinitely modifiable. So it’s a bit hard to decide when something’s finished. That fluidity does tempt me to be very absorbed with tinkering, which I find a very fulfilling process in itself.

http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-11-13/sisters-of-mercy-i-wanted-to-sound-like-a-disco-run-by-the-borgias

Edited February 8, 2018 by Blackstar

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

Thanks Blackstar, and Soon for the like. 

Yeah, Eldritch sounds too intelligent, with all his languages it must be difficult to decide on the best words; but not a finisher, from quitting his courses to not completing songs/albums. Bit like a brilliant dribbling footballer who dances through the other team, only to stumble or stall in front of goal!

In the U.K. he reminds me of Dave Brock of Hawkwind in that he's the band, although Brock is quite prolific in his creative output, more like you informed me about Mark E. Smith. 

Back in the U.S.A., although Axl didn't rate Lynyrd Skynyrd, I was reminded of him and Guns reading about how Ronnie Van Zant controlled and cajoled the band to musical brilliance and deserved success, before his untimely passing: http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-10-08/lynyrd-skynyrd-a-southern-ghost-story

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

Some Van Zant/Skynyrd - Rose/Roses connections from the article: http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-10-08/lynyrd-skynyrd-a-southern-ghost-story

He drilled his band mercilessly, driving out to Green Cove Springs, Florida to a little tin shack on 90 acres north of Jacksonville. This sweltering shed, which quickly earned the nickname Hell House, became the boot camp where Van Zant moulded his raw recruits into musical men. He picked up his bleary-eyed and grumbling troops in his battered old ’55 Chevy truck every morning at 7.30am, stopping for jugs of coffee at the donut shop where his mother worked. By 8.30 he’d be putting his charges through their paces in workdays that regularly ran eight to 12 hours; sometimes they wouldn’t straggle back until the next morning.

The members of Lynyrd Skynyrd were strangely united by one thing. The bandmates, almost to a man, had lost their fathers early on.

Hammered was the operative word. Van Zant had no compunction about hitting a band member across the mouth if he saw some dereliction of duty.

He was the sort of guy that pulled himself up by his bootstraps. To the effect that he started with very little and he was getting somewhere and although he still had a bit to go, he still thought ‘Well if I continue to do it my way I’ll do okay. I’ve proved this to myself, so why should I listen to anybody else?’

Van Zant and his band became known as offstage boozers and brawlers who would fight among themselves if no external adversaries were available. Their antics reached such proportions that many viewed the airplane crash as a symbolic culmination of the band’s violent lifestyle.

“I loved and respected Ronnie Van Zant, “says Pyle. “I mean that from the bottom of my heart. But I have seen the man turn into the devil right in front of me and hurt people.”

“If we were The Beatles, Ronnie was the mean Beatle,” says Rossington. “He was super mean, and super nice.”

“They were all mean around here,” remembered Van Zant’s mother Marion. “But Ronnie was the meanest of them all.”

“Ronnie’s meanness, they all have it,” remembers Jeff Carlisi, a neighbour of the Van Zants, and bandmate of Ronnie’s younger brother, Donnie Van Zant, in .38 Special. “He grew up in Shantytown [the rough and tumble West Side of Jacksonville]. Violence was just part of the culture there. If you didn’t fight for it, somebody would take it from you.”

As mean as he could be, there was a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to Ronnie Van Zant. “He’d give you the shirt off his back,” remembers his brother Donnie. “He always paid for everything,” remembers writer Cameron Crowe,

“Ronnie was such a gentleman, he wouldn’t let anybody mess with us,” says Jo Jo Billingsley. Although all three Honkettes were stunning, there wasn’t a man in miles who would come near them if Van Zant was around.

“Ronnie had this here charm about him,” remembered his mother Marion in 1996. “He could charm anybody. But he was straightforward with everything he did. You could say he always knew his own mind. He never ever changed, either. He saw his old friends when he came off the road

Then of course, there was the lyrics to That Smell, one of the last songs Van Zant wrote for Street Survivors. At the time people were chilled when he sang: ‘The smell of death’s around you.’ After the crash, the words took on a macabre, prescient feel.

Van Zant had written the song as a cautionary tale to his band members, inspired by Rossington’s near-fatal 1977 car crash and the feeling that some of them were pissing away their future with excessive drinking, drugging, and carousing.

 

[bucketfoot]

On 2/2/2018 at 10:38 PM, Blackstar said:

Speaking of comparisons and similarities, here is an interesting case of someone who is the only original member in his band and has been touring regularly without having released an album since 1993 (and also hates Trump )

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Eldritch

Easily the closest comparison to Axl imo. The Sisters have been playing a lot of fantastic new tracks live for years now, you can get them on bootlegs, youtube etc. Eldritch did say he would release a new album if Trump got in so let's hope he's true to his word.

Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is another possible comparison, although he did finally release another album a couple of years back, with all of the original members as well.

Lee Mavers of The La's is probably the most extreme example you can find, did one brilliant album, disowned it and rarely heard from since.

Edited February 4, 2018 by bucketfoot

[Blackstar]

http://newsthump.com/2018/01/25/axl-rose-to-take-over-as-lead-singer-for-the-fall/

[bucketfoot]

46 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

http://newsthump.com/2018/01/25/axl-rose-to-take-over-as-lead-singer-for-the-fall/

Brilliant.

The last paragraph.

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

10 hours ago, Blackstar said:

http://newsthump.com/2018/01/25/axl-rose-to-take-over-as-lead-singer-for-the-fall/

Thanks, I hadn't seen that, looks like they noticed the similarities before me!

[Len Cnut]

Mark E Smith is nothing like Axl Rose.  Or was nothing like.  Its really not that rare, its happened with a lot of bands, the frontman or a member taking over and the band becoming a revolving door of musicians that come in that he's the head of, John Lydon did it with PiL too, in fact they always had a fluid line up.  

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

Thanks, yeh, you probably know more about Smith than me, and maybe Axl too.

They're probably not much alike in some parts of their personality, such as Axl seems more hyper/aggressive, but similar in that they both seem to like to say what they want, and not have too much consideration for political correctness, or people who get in their way, even bandmates, free spirits etc; or didn't, in both cases, as the youthful Axl seems to have gone too, or matured. 

Yes, the old musical differences thing is quite common as you say. Roger Waters seems like the 'Axl' of Pink Floyd!

The Gallagher brothers in Oasis are kind of similar, but a bit different, with both having a bit of 'Axl': Noel the guitarist is the main songwriter, possessive of 'his songs', while Liam is the singer, and mouthier one, more liable to Axl-style rants; although Noel can be controversial on social media and in interviews too, admitting he does it for publicity.

 

 

20 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

Mark E Smith is nothing like Axl Rose.  Or was nothing like.  Its really not that rare, its happened with a lot of bands, the frontman or a member taking over and the band becoming a revolving door of musicians that come in that he's the head of, John Lydon did it with PiL too, in fact they always had a fluid line up.  

, apart from their 

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

Smith's funeral was reportedly like you might have expected Axl's to be if he'd died in the late '80s early 90s; if he was late for it anyway!!; with a brawl breaking out:

Guitarist Ben Pritchard posted: “Unfortunately the parasites and the vultures couldn’t show any respect for Mark for one day. Absolutely disgusting behaviour, he would have loved it! Just about managed to escape with my life from Mark E Smiths funeral."

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5535896/mark-e-smith-laid-to-rest-as-brawl-brakes-out-at-rockers-funeral/

[bucketfoot]

Wasn't Mark really just 'a bit of a cunt?'

[Len Cnut]

47 minutes ago, bucketfoot said:

Wasn't Mark really just 'a bit of a cunt?'

Exactly   But thats OK, you forgive it in talent.  Most of the time when someone is 'a singular man' what they mean is, he's a bit of a cunt.  But we need cunts.  I'd even go so far as to say cunts make the world go round

[bucketfoot]

25 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

Exactly   But thats OK, you forgive it in talent.  Most of the time when someone is 'a singular man' what they mean is, he's a bit of a cunt.  But we need cunts.  I'd even go so far as to say cunts make the world go round

 

[Blackstar]

I didn't know he was in that shape :-/

 

[Len Cnut]

 

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

18 hours ago, Blackstar said:

I didn't know he was in that shape :-/

 

Doesn't look too good, but still keeps rapping/singing, maintaining the hypnotism of the music, which is mostly created by the band.

Maybe some similarities there with Axl too, from when he was out of shape a few years ago and in the chair after the fall.

He's thankfully looking much better and more mobile now, although his voice problems sometimes make it look as if the band's 'carrying him'.

Axl and the band still put in an epic three hours show though, so hats off to them for that, and I'm chuffed they're all still around, and those involved in the reunion are making a great success of it, and entertaining massive amounts of people around the world. 

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

On ‎11‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 11:24 AM, Axl's Agony Aunt said:

Doesn't look too good, but still keeps rapping/singing, maintaining the hypnotism of the music, which is mostly created by the band.

Maybe some similarities there with Axl too, from when he was out of shape a few years ago and in the chair after the fall.

He's thankfully looking much better and more mobile now, although his voice problems sometimes make it look as if the band's 'carrying him'.

Axl and the band still put in an epic three hours show though, so hats off to them for that, and I'm chuffed they're all still around, and those involved in the reunion are making a great success of it, and entertaining massive amounts of people around the world. 

Didn't even realise 'the fall' pun - maybe Axl could be their next singer, as well as AC/DC?

Was thinking Ozzy and Sabbath is another classic singer v band example, from back in the '70s/80s, with band keeping the name that time as well, like Pink Floyd.

Axl's bucked the trend really, in keeping the name for himself, the vocalist.