I'm going to be petty for a moment and talk about an inconvenient aspect of death. It can really mess with the plans of the living. Here I was, planning on featuring a Leslie Winer record (NB that I did anyway) and in comes the news that Mark E Smith has died. What on earth am I supposed to do with this? I did what I could, and what I always do--I played a Fall song on the radio.
Should I have gone with two hours' worth? Maybe, though frequent listeners will already be overly familiar with my Fall habit. I certainly didn't become acquainted with the band through large doses. Funnily enough, my first relevant memory is of hearing a tune in the car, age 16 or 17, not knowing who it was, having it stick in my head firmly enough to drive me crazy with curiosity, and finding out years later that it was "Barmy." There was also Friend of Bombast Jeremy, who had a copy of Palace of Swords Reversed that he would try to get me to listen to but I couldn't seem to be bothered, most of the time. Still, things stuck with me--bits of "Leave the Capitol," "Fit and Working Again" and "Kicker Conspiracy," and all of "Marquis Cha-Cha." At some point I bought this compilation and was bowled over by the rendition of "Wings." (Ah, this one, here! So good!) I wouldn't call this succumbing instantaneous or gradual; it was very random and staccato. Things just lingered, waiting to be latched onto. Seems fitting.
It's been weird, the last 20 years, watching the man's personal decline--hearing about the belligerence, the drinking, the verbal and physical violence. I have to say that I haven't made sense of it--I'm unable to bracket off the "product" from the personal, but I also can't stop listening. I can't quit him though I know I probably should. It is probably like this for other people.
If this seems like an abrupt ending, that's how life works.
BOMBAST playlist, 2018 January 24, 2100-2300:
a train to Crewe
https://www.facebook.com/radiobombast?ref=hl
https://twitter.com/KidCatharsis
Cruising Altitude Departure 21, 2016 July 23
Best Thing for You To Do Is Hide: Transmission 318, 2017 January 11
We Let In Light and We Banish Shade: Transmission 317, 2017 January 4
Night Is Warm and the Stars Are Bright: Transmission 316, 2016 December 31
Haven't Got a Good Mind for the Details: Transmission 315, 2016 December 28
Cruising Altitude Departure 20, 2016 June 4
You Want It, You Buy It, You Forget It: Transmission 314, 2016 December 26
Consensus Or Confession, I Don't Recognize Depression: Transmission 313, 2016 December 21
Franchises of the Mind: Transmission 312, 2016 December 17
Memory Serves Us To Serve You: Transmission 311, 2016 December 14
Cruising Altitude Departure 19, 2016 March 13
You Don't Change, Or I Don't Notice Your Changing: Transmission 310, 2016 December 7
Unaware, Certainly, of Some Imminent Disaster: Transmission 309, 2016 November 30
Derange and Disengage Everything: Transmission 308, 2016 November 16
Just You and Me and Our Conspiracies: Transmission 307, 2016 November 9
As We Push Back the Frontiers of Science: Transmission 306, 2016 October 26
We Move Like Children Think Sometimes: Transmission 305, 2016 October 12
Tight As Slow Motion But Crazed With Devotion: Transmission 304, 2016 October 5
I Lose Myself in the Rituals of Bad Art and Failure: Transmission 303, 2016 September 28
Supposing We're All Wished Right Out Of Space: Transmission 302, 2016 September 21
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