Mark E. Smith with The Rolling Stones - Grotesque Rescue

Haven't put up an annual tribute/commemoration post on the anniversary of Fall frontman Mark E. Smith's death in a couple of years (he died on this date in 2018)... simply because in my opinion there hasn't been very much newsworthy information and/or activity regarding the band in a long, long while. The Fall Online forum, once my frequent go-to, is completely dead - the last update to their "Fall News" section was back in 2020. Same goes for The Official Fall Website - there's just been nothing there to report on.

At least House Of All, the band made up of former members of The Fall (including Martin Bramah on vocals, the great and long-serving Steve Hanley on bass, a dual drum attack from Paul Hanley and Simon Wolstencroft, and Pete Greenway on guitar) is still going strong. When they formed back in 2022, there was a lot of sniping in the press from Smith's family, who disavowed the band and claimed that they were ghoulishy trading on the name and legacy of The Fall (which of course the band members denied). But since that time the group has put out a series of well-reviewed releases which have for all intents and purposes put that issue to bed. While there are some echoes and vestiges of the former
group present, House Of All has managed to create their own unique sound and aesthetic. For their latest album, House Of All Souls, released in February of 2025, for some tracks they added an additional former member whose presence electrified old Fall fans - long-lost drummer Karl Burns. It was their most well-received album to date.

As for what Brix Smith-Start is up to, I really don't know. I haven't paid much attention to her since Brix & The Extricated, that half-assed karaoke band/vanity project she fronted with the Hanley brothers, folded in 2020. She announced the release of a new album, Valley Of The Dolls, in 2023, and I heard she put together another band to tour it. But I've made no effort to seek it/them out.

So, with all of that (such as it is), I can't recall how I first got wind of the release I'm featuring in this post. At first glance, it sounded intriguing: a mashup of two albums by seminal English groups, Emotional Rescue by The Rolling Stones and Grotesque (After The Gramme) by The Fall, both released in 1980, and both albums containing a total of ten tracks. From what I could gather, it was produced by a 
conceptual artist and musician out of Chicago named Peter Speer, who released a couple of other mashups/distortions by other artists on Bandcamp. I've got a number of mashups in my collection, including one of the greatest, Danger Mouse's Beatles vs.Jay-Z 2004 hip-hop masterpiece The Grey Album. So I was expecting/anticipating Speer to focus the same sort of care and imagination in putting this new one together...

Nope.  Sorry, but in my opinion, this is crap.

Instead of trying to meld/blend the two group's sounds and approaches into an interesting and modified sound, it appears that all Speer did was utilize the instrumental tracks from the Stones' album and superimpose Mark's vocals over the music. And for the most part, not in a coherent way. There's little attempt to 'fit' words and music together - Mark's voice is just sort of slapped in there. I tried my hardest to come away with some sort of good feeling from this disc, and finally just gave up. I can't even chalk this up as a noble attempt or inspired experiment; I don't know WHAT this is, but it certainly doesn't come across as such.

Shortly after this was released, the guys running the We Are The Fall podcast (Gavin and Steve) dedicated an entire show to this album - here it is:

I love this podcast, and usually I think these guys are spot-on. But they just go on and on singing the praises of this release... so much so that I was like, "What the f*ck are you two talking about?", and came away thinking that they and I had listened to two totally different albums.

In either event, if you're burning to hear this, here ya go: Grotesque Rescue, a purported Fall/Rolling Stones mashup album, produced by Peter Speer and released on vinyl in limited quantities (and later on CD-R) by Faxed Records on January 1st, 2024. Get ready... and after you've listened to as much of this as you can, let me know what you think, as always.

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