3:01 Pick Me Up: The Fall

Let’s face it: 3 p.m. is the cruellest time of the workday. The morning latte has worn off, and the post-lunch crash has you staggering around like an extra from a George A. Romero flick. That’s why, each weekday at 3:01 p.m., we present you with a video hand-picked to kick-start your heart. If the following clip doesn’t bring you temporarily back to life and help get you through the rest of the afternoon, chances are you’re dead inside.

Today’s offering: Unless you’re the Stooges and it happens to be 1970, you’ll have a hard time wringing more brilliance out of a single primal riff than the Fall could. Here’s the band with “New Big Prinz”, the lead track from its 1988 album I Am Kurious Oranj. This is arguably not the Fall at its very peak, but pretty damn near it, and packing the wildly tense contradictions that made them great: asphalt-tough and yet hypnotic, pubby and yet glamorous, and all in the service of Mark E. Smith’s demented-public-announcement vocal style, not to mention lyrical abilities that represent one of rock music’s few legitimate claims to poetry. It took Smith a long time and a busload of ex–band members to run this formula into the ground, such was the level of talent and originality to be overcome.

Comments

3 Comments

R2

Dec 15, 2012 at 11:27am

Now that's a fukn pick me up and yes I still do the 'hokey cokey'!
Vid needs more bass though....

A. MacInnis

Dec 15, 2012 at 11:27pm

Actually, that's my favourite Fall record!

msmsmsmse

Jan 3, 2013 at 9:29pm

ace track of FALL history