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Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

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    Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

    A friend of mine just expounded a theory* (down the pub) that, by 2020 everyone in Britain will either have been a member of The Fall or will know someone who has.

    What was interesting is that an old friend of mine used to have a boyfriend who played bass on 'The Unutterable'. (Allegedly, 'Dr. Buck's Letter' was mostly his doing.)

    So... what are your six degrees (or less) of separation from The Fall?

    (* - He might have picked this idea up from somewhere else - probably on the internet.)

    #2
    Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

    Last week, right after Strictly
    I got crow's feet under my eyes
    Paid two days, for getting high

    Freezing, wheezing, got pasted in a bar
    Just hope I've kept her number
    These are the sweetest days of my life


    Beautiful song, and not just because it's named after me. Or Brewer's Drop, possibly.

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      #3
      Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

      Not sure that this is going to be as easy as you think.

      The only things I can find is that I am FB friends with a member of Jon Langford's band who produced a Johnny Cash tribute band with Marc Riley

      I supported the Inspiral Carpets and their singer, Tom Hingley, went onto a band with Craig and Steve Hanley.

      I did a John Peel session, was in a Radio 4 programme he narrated and spoke to him on Radio 5.

      I watched Jonny Cash at Glastonbury 1984 with Andy Hackett from the Rocking birds who also played with the Fall.

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        #4
        Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

        My best mate was bassist for a band - Gallon Drunk - who supported the Fall for a while; and, without wishing to derail the thread, following Bored's post I have to confess that I unsuccessfully tried to sleep with a friend of the Rockingbird's Hackett...

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          #5
          Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

          Did they open for Morrissey on a North American tour, john?

          Gallon Drunk, that is.

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            #6
            Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

            Lard used to greet my wife with a cheery "hello" and then afterwards a polite "thank you" at every home game when she was a steward at Maine Road.

            I've probably sat next to many members of the Fall on a bus and not realised, there's too many to keep track on

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              #7
              Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

              WOM wrote: Did they open for Morrissey on a North American tour, john?

              Gallon Drunk, that is.
              According to t'internet they did, though my mate joined them afterwards.

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                #8
                Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                Bored of Education wrote: Not sure that this is going to be as easy as you think
                A few years ago, there was an interview in When Saturday Comes with Mark E. Smith, i.e. the people at When Saturday Comes 'know' Mark E. Smith.

                Quite a few people on this board have written for When Saturday Comes, i.e. they 'know' the people at When Saturday Comes, ergo they 'know' people who 'know' Mark E. Smith.

                Or doesn't that count?

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                  #9
                  Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                  I 'know' him.

                  He's a horrible wee cunt and his band are shit.

                  Does that count?

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                    #10
                    Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                    Mark E once tried to get my "I like drugs" badge off me.

                    I knew Jonny Brown, who drew the picture on the cover off [b]Bingo Master's Breakout[/i] and who played bass at least once for the band.

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                      #11
                      Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                      I thought the theory was that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world. Has it been proven or otherwise? Does social media count?

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                        #12
                        Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                        I came to know Mark E Smith through my father, Sidney Poitier.

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                          #13
                          Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                          As a schoolboy, I once got beaten up by somebody who went on to play bass in Vice Squad. He’d have known Beki Bondage, who maybe knows Brix Smith because they both had tracks featured on A Tribute To Ed Wood.

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                            #14
                            Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                            Years ago I used to be involved with a fanzine in Berlin. I didn't do all that many interviews (probably no more than about half a dozen, in fact) but looking back they all seem to be somehow connected to the Fall.

                            There was Billy Childish, who seems to crop up a lot on Marc Riley's show these days (and he's read out at least one drunken e-mail of mine, so there's another way in), the aforementioned Gallon Drunk, and the guitarist from the Inspiral Carpets.

                            As it happens, the Carpets had just done that single with Mark E. Smith and it was one of the things we talked about. He thought he was quite an odd man, as I recall, with a penchant for eating raw meat. Although I think they might have been in Germany and MES was eating Hackepeterbrötchen, which is not weird at all, viz. Mettigel threads passim.

                            Another thing we used to do all the time back then (especially when I was in Hamburg) was blag our way backstage when up-and-coming British bands used to come over and play much smaller venues than they were used to at home. They were always surprisingly happy to talk to a set of pissed student twats like us. Logo on Grindelallee was particularly good for that. I drank all the Happy Mondays' beer there because they didn't want it for some reason. They must have had dealings with the Fall.

                            I reckon it would probably be hard to find anyone in the OTF demographic with more than two degrees of separation from the Fall, or three at the very most. And that's not even counting the journalists.

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                              #15
                              Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                              gavc23 wrote: Lard used to greet my wife with a cheery "hello" and then afterwards a polite "thank you" at every home game when she was a steward at Maine Road.

                              I've probably sat next to many members of the Fall on a bus and not realised, there's too many to keep track on
                              My mate sat next to the main man on the 135 the other week. He said that he had a piss behind the shelter after getting off at Sedgeley Park (MES, not my mate).

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                                #16
                                Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                There was Billy Childish, who seems to crop up a lot on Marc Riley's show these days.

                                One of the regulars in my (German) local is obsessed with Billy Childish. You'll be sitting there, talking quietly and seriously with your mates about Olaf Scholz's baldness or whatever, and he'll come up to the table and say something like, "You know 'Prostitutes on Chatham High Street', right? That bit about "With her front teeth punched out': What does that mean? I mean, I know what it means, but what does it mean?"

                                It doesn't exactly ruin the evening, but it doesn't make it any better.

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                                  #17
                                  Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                  He's a man one can reasonably be obsessed with. Unreasonable not to be, IMO.

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                                    #18
                                    Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                    treibeis wrote: There was Billy Childish, who seems to crop up a lot on Marc Riley's show these days.

                                    One of the regulars in my (German) local is obsessed with Billy Childish. You'll be sitting there, talking quietly and seriously with your mates about Olaf Scholz's baldness or whatever, and he'll come up to the table and say something like, "You know 'Prostitutes on Chatham High Street', right? That bit about "With her front teeth punched out': What does that mean? I mean, I know what it means, but what does it mean?"

                                    It doesn't exactly ruin the evening, but it doesn't make it any better.
                                    You're a very tolerant man.

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                                      #19
                                      Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                      Yep, Billy Childish and the Medway Poets would probably be my 'separation' as well.

                                      The(e) Milkshakes (or Pop Rivits, as they were originally known) were - as treibeis and Alderman suggest - big news in Chatham/Rochester, where I was at art school in the early 1980s. Childish (aka 'Steve') was regularly hanging with Tracey Emin and others in the college refectory. I didn't really know him, but I was good friends with a few people who did.

                                      The only other connection of which I can immediately think would be via Tony Lacey, who in 2006 simultaneously acted as chief editor on one of my publications, as well as the autobiography of Mark E Smith.

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                                        #20
                                        Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                        How is Billy Childish connected to MES? I don't see that he's worked with him directly, has he?

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                                          #21
                                          Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                          In Dave Simpson's 'The Fallen' , he talks to clarinettist Dave Tucker, who played on 'Slates', and who lives (or lived) in Haringey and is/was part of the east London jazz and improvisation scene. As was a mate of mine. "Do you know Dave Tucker?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, "I know Dave."

                                          So there you go. Two degrees only.

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                                            #22
                                            Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                            How is Billy Childish connected to MES? I don't see that he's worked with him directly, has he?
                                            He's worked with Marc Riley. And quite possibly other members of The Fall.

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                                              #23
                                              Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                              I once met a fella at a Fall gig who ran his own record label which had once released a Fall single. He sent me a copy of it afterwards. Lovely fella.

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                                                #24
                                                Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                                My mate's brother went to the same school as Mark Radcliffe, who's a friend of Marc Riley.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Six degrees of separation ...from The Fall

                                                  Stumpy Pepys wrote: My mate's brother went to the same school as Mark Radcliffe, who's a friend of Marc Riley.
                                                  My boss went to the same school as Mark Radcliffe. Which, for an intelligent lad from Bolton, isn't really anything unusual.

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