Hotel Bloedel

Written by: Mark E Smith, Brix Smith, Steve Hanley

Studio release:

Perverted By Language
Totally Wired – The Rough Trade Anthology

In his notes accompanying the 2005 re-release of Perverted By Language  Daryl Easlea writes: “Adapted from an old Banda Dratsing [Brix’s old pre-Fall group]track, ‘Everything For The Record’, it is a pivotal moment, as it marked Brix’s first vocal part on a Fall record. Written in a hotel adjacent to an abbatoir the couple were staying at in Nuremburg, the duet between her and her husband is as incredibly effective as it was surprising when it was first heard.”

Brix Smith in an interview with Simon Ford for his book Hip Priest (Quartet, 2003): “I remember doing the vocal, and it was just like a hand-held mike, it was really crude and recorded in one take. For years I just couldn’t listen to it. I’m singing like a man. I didn’t know how to sing then, but there’s something really good about that song…There’s just something magical about that even though it was very crude.”

From The Big Midweek (Steve Hanley and Olivia Pierkarski, Route, 2014):

“I notice it’s quite a melodic riff I can easily add to and, an hour later, we’re all miked up ready to go…But uh-oh, Mark’s getting his violin out. Now we’re in trouble. Please God have mercy on us all and let him have practised playing it since the last time we heard it in a studio. Brix starts with her riff, plunging us into the main thrust of the song which alternates between the wasps’ nest scrape of the violin and her girly punk vocals gushing their way across the studio. Clearly this effect is intended, because Mark’s vocals sound almost honeyed in comparison. There’s a sickening lurch to the melody; just the sort of music you could happily slaughter cows to.”

Brix Smith in an interview with Nick Walters:

“I didn’t know they were recording, I was rehearsing by myself and my guitar wasn’t even plugged in, and I was singing into a guitar mic, not even a vocal mic, and they just took it. I was practising, thinking no-one was listening, but they were listening in the control room and I thought they were just getting the sound right, but suddenly they said, That’s it, it’s done! And I was like Nooo, I’m not happy with it. And I was never happy with it.”