The Fall are the greatest band ever
 

Mark E. Smith = Pure Genius

The dude released an absurd amount of quality material and a lot of pure "wtf".

He makes most other types of music look just plain boring by comparison.

i like them okay, i have a hard time getting into it. What album do you recommend that i start with?

i do like what comes out of smith's mouth

Yeah, they're really difficult to get into, it's so unlike pretty much everything else out there.
But at the same time the songs have wicked hooks once you start getting it.

Id probably start with Grotesque. It took months for me to get anything beyond that and a few singles.

Mark's approach to music is just so awesome.

He's pretty much like "I didnt even like music, so I had to create something that I liked"

Better than Echo and the Bunnymen? I find that hard to believe.

start with "dragnet"

if you don't like that - this bands not for you

The opening track to that album is a groovy motherfucker. Makes me shake like an absolute lunatic.

Oh, and Choc-Stock is one of their best songs.

every song on that album is a classic imo it's their strongest release. and its their 2nd album (released the same year as the first). can't beat that.

Totally Wired is the greatest single ever.

"Cant you see?
A butterfly stomach round ground
I drank a jar of coffee
And I took some of these!

Im totally wired!
Im totally wired!"

i'm a sucker for "as the moon falls", "muzorewis daughter" and "specter vs rector"

on the other hand to be fair this band put out a TON of shit as well

I think it's 2nd to Grotesque and probably tied with their first album.

I made a Dragnet T-shirt that I wear frequently being the Goth that I am, I love the cover art for it.

i've been wanting to read mark's book for some time. he just shit talks everything.

Yeah, I can't find it in any bookstore and Im too much of a instant gratification guy to buy it online.

I love Rocker auto-bio's. Just read Manson's (It's surprisingly well written) and Eric Clapton's (I didn't know he used to be a heroin addict and then an alcholic, holy shit). Im reading Richard Hell's one write now.

This an awesome band too btw.

surprisingly well ghost-written

and it really isn't. it's full of lies and half-truths and exaggerations

I figured it must of been Ghost Written. I dug it either way.

he spins his own narrative when telling stories so it sounds like he always comes out on top. there are a lot of weird gaps in the stories too that don't add up. i've read it at least a dozen times since it came out and eventually you see that a lot of the major plot points just don't add up.

example - missy's abortion
example - "quitting" drugs after OD'ing at the beginning of recording ACSS

he's just so full of shit/himself

it is a fun read though i'll admit

but he's a total shit-head. reading or listening to recent interviews from the past couple/few years is still highly entertaining though. guy is fucked out of his head and just rambles and rambles. idk if you follow his career much or anything

he's still crawling out of the midst of a total - and i mean TOTAL - psychological breakdown

I never cared about Manson the person, I just really dig a few of his albums for what they are.

So all I know is from the book lol. So obviously Im seeing the best version of him, a character.
Which is what Rock is about imo. I dont care about the actual person, I just care about the performer.

It doesn't matter what you really are, Rock let's you invent a larger than life character, and kind of "become your art." I mean, it's fucking awesome that this D&D playing nerd went to fucking supermodels because of his music.

yea but i mean one of manson's big points in the book is about how there is no separation between manson the person and manson the performer. brian warner ceased to exist.

i will give him credit that he actually does/did live his day to day life exactly like that.

idk which albums you've heard but the earlier work doesn't paint enough of a portrait of how twisted and sadistic his real life was. whereas on later albums he becomes much more autobiographical. point being - its all true. every word of it, in the sense that he's worse/crazier/debaucherous in real life than he is on the albums.

i mean obviously you've read all the backstage stories from the danzig tour with tony wiggins. that had nothing to do with him as a performer.

Haha.
Yeah, some of that shit was pretty sick.

In both a good and bad way.

It's funny how quickly Rock Stars jump from "genius" to "crazy". It's right about age 40 when drug usage catches upand stops being nearly as cool.

i wanted to know what albums you've listened to and where you're coming from with all this. are you just jamming the classic triptych?

i lost interest in the music around mechanical animals but still read up on the guy when i can. he was in absolute train-wreck mode circa 2009 and on, real psychologically damaged behavior.

antichrist superstar is one of my favorite albums of all time though. the whole thing is one big spell.

i could be mis-reading all of this though. i read a lot of rock bios too, even from people i'm only marginally interested in.

regardless, one of my favorites i've read in recent years has been david crosby's "long time gone". it came out right after he was released from prison. midway through it turns into the diary of a basehead. spooky stuff. big fan though.

I like Mechanical Animals the most because of it's post-punk style. (Im more of an introspective groover than heavymetal rocker).

AntiChrist I like a few tracks from but never got super into. Though "Wormboy" might be my favorite Manson track.
I really dig Holywood.
I also like Eat me, Drink me, and parts of his newest album.