Pay Your Rates!

I may have mentioned this before, but The Fall are the best band in the world.

I listen to The Fall whenever I'm feeling creatively stagnant or artistically bereft, and they cleanse me like a glorious bleach. They are the black coffee of music - pure and rich and cynical.

Mark E Smith is a hero, largely because there's never any question that he's a nice guy. There's no part of me that thinks we'd really get on. From the outset, I've known that he's scathing and ugly, and that enables me to respect him, without diluting that respect with affection or warmth.

That's the trouble with hero-worship. I used to want my heroes to believe everything I did, and to be just like me.

I love the wit and musical ability of Ben Folds, but he's a bit of a misogynist. I love the integrity and skill of Stewart Lee, but he seems aloof and a bit of a snob. I love Chris Benoit's professionalism and wrestling acumen, but he murdered his wife and child, and committed suicide. Heroes shouldn't really do that.

But Mark E Smith is a grumpy, erratic dick. A genius-dick, I'll grant you. But a dick nonetheless. So I can bathe in the acidity of his work without worrying about whether he'd like me. He wouldn't like me. There's something appealing about that.

The first Fall track I heard hooked me immediately. I don't know why, exactly. Your mid-20s are probably too late to be falling in love with bands. Here it is:



We all know that people heaping praise on someone or something is really annoying, so I'll stop there.

It's difficult to strike the right balance between irritating fanboy love and constant complaining. You want to share your enthusiasm in a non-annoying way, like Josie Long does. But it takes a level of skill that I don't really have.

So instead, I avoid the issue, by wandering off on stupid diversions, like an ox straying from a country lane into the Indy 500 (only to finish in third place, after a yak and a horse dressed like Penelope Pitstop).

That last sentence annoyed me. It was a bit too wacky, just for the sake of it. It's bad to self-annoy. You have no-one to punch but yourself. I could delete it, of course. But I'm scrupulously honest. If I deleted it now, I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror.

Sometimes, having this much integrity can be something of a burden. That's why once a month, every month, I burn down an orphanage.