This Is The Summer Of Malcontent

Can you tell that very little effort has been put into this weeks post yet? I like to think that with the quality of the music posted my words are made a bit redundant anyway. I still kid myself on that people do take the time to read the pish that's typed on these pages, so please don't burst my bubble with comments to the contrary!

Anyway,  I know of at least one person who will be less than thrilled by today's piece of music.  Free Range was the first single that "the mighty Fall" released in 1992 and what a single it is, it seems to be brimming with the threat of violence, or is that just me; but every time I listen to this single I have visions of scorched earth,  the siege of Sarajevo and other images of the Balkan conflicts. That same year the band released Code Selfish an album that not many Fall fans would count amongst the band's finest output. Perversely I quite like it, you can hear the influence of techno all over the album which was apparently very deliberate as Smith was rallying against the influence of a certain west-coast musical movement that was prevalent. When interviewed at the time of the album's release Smith let it be known what he thought of the grunge scene.

"Funny thing is all of those American bands, Pearl Jam and Nirvana, are dead into the Fall. Nirvana tried to get into our bus, Courtney, What's her name, the actress, tried it and we pushed her off. But they all come from this horrible place, Seattle, which is just like Moss Side on a bad night. And they're nothing more than glorified longhair guitar salesmen, y'know. Fucking idiots, playing pub rock. Aye, pub rock, that's what it is. If they were English, you wouldn't put up with it."

But we did just a couple of years later. MES' fabled precognition letting him down there.

The version posted is the superior, aren't they all, Peel session version,

The Fall - Free Range (Peel session)