Mark E. Smith – Brighton Festival, Old Court House, Saturday, 24th May 2008 (merged)

Interesting aftenoon in the Brighton sunshine.

Mark was a bout 10 mins late which seemed to freak out the guy from the venue. Austin Collings was the 'host' of the chat with Mark, and he seemed pretty uncomfortable with the role.

The Q&A was much better and entertaining. Worthing 1996 was bought up with was the highlight for me. MES remembers stuff like it was yesterday.

Lined up with Frank Skinner to get our books signed.

Our group left and went on to drink lots of beer.

very good
mark seemed to veer away from the usual pseudo/intellectual questions

a good afternoon spent in balmy brighton

still found it hard to dance to though






low light no flash
hence grainy pictures

Well, that was fun.
Many thanks to the 50 Fall fans who came to 50 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong.
Amazing!
Hope you enjoyed hearing it as much as me, Jim and Elvis loved playing it.

xx

Just saw the photos.
It's been said before about how apt it was to have an old court house as a venue.
But, erm, imagine MES on trial there.
"At least I didn't obey orders, pal!"

Anyway, time for bed said Zebedee...

Cool afternoon, which turned into a great night, thanks all.
We got to thinking The Fall should do Eurovision next year.
Anyone got any ideas?

x

Great event. Spot on attitude from Smith, he was surprisingly cheerful /friendly, and also really attentive when answering people's questions.

I reviewed it on my blog with a few photos, here:

http://fcoll-reviews.livejournal.com/6847.html

"I spent yesterday afternoon in the same room as the most volatile maniac in rock."

Now THAT is an intro.

"Here I was, trained journalist..."

Fuck, man, you just totally blew it.

Ex-journalist though! Sod it.

squirrels and groundhogs
however inane
they did not stop him in his tracks

mmmmmmmusing

maybe because i did not buy the book he only signed my ticket rather than write all the best
didn't say alright frank to me either!

hope a recording of this shows up somewhere

The Consortium.

"So I said: Why didn't you write your biograpy yourself, when you're clearly creative enough? And he liked it. Instead of being asked about his Groundhogs appreciation, or about killing squirrels in his garden, here was a question to genuinely stop him in his tracks."
I don't think that clever question it 'stopped him in his tracks'.

However, the squirrels and Groundhogs discussion was really entertaining.

The 'Worthing' issue was the highlight.

You should have thought of that.

"I must mention before I go on any further that Mark E Smith was surrounded by four bottles of beer and apart from two tentative sips of the stuff, he chose to drink water throughout instead. Good Lord."
This is lazy 'journalism'. I might add that a couple of Fall fans nicked the 2 bottles he left behind.

He won't mind that at all.

Why why are people grudgeful, boy?
Tell me why are people grudgeful, boy?

He paused to think about it which he didn't for any other question. Yawn.

He worked well with very tabloid stimulus with that squirrel question and the "local interest" questions didn't really shed new light on anything. I don't think artistic-vices is claiming to be the genius of the land with that question, just to have given him pause for thought.

Well, given the speculation on this forum about his drinking affecting the quality of live performances and Mark's own health, I don't think it's "lazy" "journalism" at all to note that he looked in good health and was eschewing the beer in favour of water.

Why why are people grudgeful, boy?
Tell me why are people grudgeful, boy?

Idolatry, I suppose.

Good question about the writing of it himself.

If he had written it himself it would've been a better book. But he couldn't be bothered to do it. It would probably have taken about 5 years.

My mate said he was surprised I wasn't at the do - but I'm afraid my memory is shot and I had plain forgotten. My mate was there though and said it was very good. Wish I'd gone - not least to see who I could have bumped into from the forum. Would have been a laugh although I am off the sauce at the moment so maybe I would have just been in a very bad mood/sulky.

I'll post this event on Dime soon, as I'm afraid I don't have a trendy blog-spot.

No laptop wanking to Fallsound.

Aye.

"Hove on the same 'global line' as Marseille."

"Birmingham on the same 'global line' as Dusseldorf."

It’s all on my Consortium Ipod.

"I've had lots of things stolen from Fall Brighton gigs"

Inc. "lyrics sheets."

Great review there. I really enjoyed reading that.

Here's what the Guardian blog/music section has to say: Smith dodged the questions!

Two Youtube clips from Saturday. Thanks to Johnny Mills for the phone call.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YjH3kscw5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEMDyKouID8

Hear it here.

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details...198548&edited=1

hi

i filmed the brighton event for the publishers. they'll use it on the Penguin website and for any other publicity for the book. there may be some footage from Hay too

i've put a clip up here for now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEMDyKouID8

I'll put more up when i've got it edited...

Great review there. I really enjoyed reading that.

Cheers! Glad to hear it