Totally Wired – Mark E Smith and the strange and frightening world of the Fall - Mimitig

And that’s the thing, ain’t it just? He has always been wired – you don’t have to be weird to be wired was his thing.

Mark is one of those maverick musicians that England throws up from time to time. They are seminal to the musical heritage but outside it, because they simply don’t care for how the world sees them.

The Fall were taken to John Peel’s



heart and he made sure that all their releases were played on his late night Radio One show. But more than that – all the indie promoters wanted the Fall, even though we knew that Mark was a difficult bugger. I never got him to play at my club, but I went to see him and his various cohorts so many times. And, in a very unusual circumstance for an indie producer, I PAID for his records. In my vinyl collection now, I still have all the limited release coloured records – and none for free.

One time fellow Fall man, Mark Riley, once said to me, bloody hell, Mark’s a tricky bugger.



John Peel is dead (RIP) but Mark, amazingly, isn’t. We totally are in awe of the talent and stoicism and just toughness that means Mark is still rocking the vaults and disturbing the elements, even if he isn’t troubling the “charts”. His mates knew their true mission was to be in The Fall.