The latest merchandising screw-up worth a giggle comes from the UK, where a pressing of the new album by Britain’s Got Talent winner Faryl Smith—a 13-year-old opera singer who even Simon Cowell likes (I can already hear the “you’re only 13!” echoes in my head)—was given music from a person who shares Smith’s surname, but not her style. Yes, that’s right, people expecting to hear Faryl Smith’s dulcet versions of standards like “Amazing Grace” and “Ave Maria” might instead be treated to the grumblings of Mark E. Smith, whose 2008 album Imperial Wax Solvent wound up being pressed to hundreds of copies of the disc, which is officially in shops a week from today. This has resulted in “severe words” beng flung the pressing plant’s way, as well as a chance for us to compare the vocal stylings of the two. Think of it as Britain’s Got Talent… But What Type Of “Talent” You Prefer Might Vary Widely!
Hey, when you get oddly worded e-mails from… More »
What would happen if Flannery O’Connor wrote a book in the one-album-per-tome 33 1/3 series about the Fall’s Hex Enduction Hour? More »
What would happen if Flannery O’Connor wrote a book in the one-album-per-tome 33 1/3 series about the Fall’s Hex Enduction Hour? More »
One doesn’t expect rowdiness at the Mojo Honours List ceremony (the whole point is that winning bands are tasteful enough in their aggression to be enjoyed by Mojo readers), but Mark E. Smith evidently didn’t get the memo. XFM claims that the singer became belligerent when asked to pose with British rockers The Cribs after they presented him with the Maverick Award. Smith pushed the band offstage, swearing and demanding to only be photographed by himself. The band, either out of reverence or genuine fear, fled the scene.
Cantankerous Fall frontman Mark E Smith is not a fan of things that get in his way, especially if they’re doing things like eating his garden fence. Which is why, he told a writer for Uncut, that he had killed a couple of red squirrels to death in the weeks leading up to his interview with the magazine, because they’d been noshing on his fence and attracting rats to his house. Smith’s interview was read by a staffer at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and as it turns out, the amateur pest control he’s been engaging in is a crime under the UK’s Wildlife and Countryside Act, and punishable by things like a fine of £20,000 or six months in the pokey!
Statistically speaking, it’s impossible to believe that we haven’t posted more songs from the Fall: After all, Mark E. More »
