The Fall
Minneapolis, MN, USA
First Avenue
27 April 1983
(01:24:05)

disc one [from cassette side A] (45:01):

001 The Classical
002 Words of Expectation
003 Ludd Gang
004 Wings
005 Middle Mass
006 Hexen Definitive /
007 Strife Knot
008 Solicitor in Studio
[tape flip]

disc two [from cassette side B] (39:04):

009 Eat Y'self Fitter
010 I'm Into C.B.
011 The Man Whose Head Expanded
012 Backdrop
[tape shut off]
encore
013 Lie Dream of a Casino Soul

As dull as I seem to recall the '80s being at the time, it was actually a great time for me to discover a number of permanent favorite bands - many of which, oddly enough, hailed from Manchester, if not somehwere in the vicinity.  No one could have made more of an impact on me than The Fall, though.  I would borrow the title "New Puritan" for a music/arts journal (" 'zine ", if you must), that I published for about thirteen years; "Petty Thief Lout" and "Mere Pseud Mag Ed." became titles for regular columns in said publication.  In a sideways homage to Mark E., I attempted to style at least one piece of writing in a Fall-like manner, for a song being recorded by my band, Borrowed Time.  Somewhere along the way, I think I even developed a reputation that was nearly as chequered as Mr. Smith - one of the hazards of living too close to home, where art and life are inseperable.

I honestly didn't know what to make of them at the time, other than the fact that I thought they were bloody brilliant - from Mark E. Smith's deliberately affected enunciations, to the determinedly disjointed clatter that the rest of the group passed off as music.  They genuinely seemed unconcerned with what the rest of the music world was doing, although many of Smith's lyrical spoken diatribes showed that he was keenly aware of their position in the "biz".  I would see the band again on subsequent visits to Minneapolis - albeit, in different incarnations over the years, but this was the definitive show for me - at least as "definitive" as this lot would ever get, in terms of the line-up as well as the set list.  Here we get two of my favorites: "Wings", which I understand they've taken to playing again in recent shows, and "The Classical", which has nearly the same in-your-face disheveled bravado as the version they left for us on "Hex Enduction Hour", while pushing concerns for tuning, key, etc. right out the window, if not down our throats.

Technical notes:

This is from an original master, although I had a bad habit back in the day, of "re-mastering" my own masters, so I would have my own similated "live album" of sorts, with fade-ins, fade-outs, an no loud pops from tape flips, etc.  Unfortunately, I was so confident in my abilities to re-master those tapes, that I would often decide to not keep the original cassette, and used the copies as a amaster for trading, etc.  That would sem to have been the case with this one, as the previous version that was posted is a definite match to specific points in the recording.  The big difference is in the fidelity. This version being only one generation away from the original, still retains a broader frequency response than the previously posted version.  It sounded like the other version might have been slightly processed somewhere along the way - possibly some EQ, or an attempt to balance the channels differently.  This one is truer to the original cassette.  I chose not to alter the original fades I placed on the tape vesion, as those represent tape flips, and I didn't really see the point in faking a seamless patch; besides, this makes an easy transistion if you're burning this to discs.  I made slight adjustments to balance the levels (within 0.50dB), and bumped the post-encore downtime from the start of track 013 to the end of track 012, so every track pretty much starts with the music.  I chose to make a split point between tracks 006 and 007, but just remember that if it seems like sacrilege to seperate those tracks, you can always join them for your own purposes, or just let the disc play, and you'll never notice.  As always, if someone feels the urge to play around with "re-mastering", etc, that's up to the individual, but at least here's a nice low-gen. version to start with, and as close to a master as exists at this point.

original master cassette > slightly altered 1st-gen. copy > analog transfer to HD via CDWave (non-SBE tracking) > SoundForge (DC offset, slight channel balance, patch) > .flac conversion via Traders Little Helper