The Fallen

Life In and Out of Britain's Most Insane Group

Dave Simpson, , Dave Simpson

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781847671448
• eBook ISBN:
  9781847676405
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

Ever been thrown off the bus in the middle of a Swedish forest or asked to play at one of the UK's biggest music festivals with musicians you've just met who are covered in blood? If so you've probably been in The Fall. Dave Simpson made it his mission to track down everyone who has ever played in Britain's most berserk, brilliant group. He uncovers a changing Britain, tales of madness and genius, and wreaks havoc on his own life.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• In Loving Memory of the Fallen
• Prologue: Remembering the Fallen
• Chapter 1: ‘It’s like football. Every so often you’ve got to replace the centre-forward.’
• Chapter 2: ‘The night it all went apeshit.’
• Chapter 3: ‘Sorry, boss … I am only a drummer.’
• Chapter 4: ‘After a while in The Fall you’re no longer normal.’
• Chapter 5: ‘I’m losing my hair through stress!’
• Chapter 6: ‘We were best friends who fell out.’
• Chapter 7: ‘I knew Mark got me in to fuck off Friel.’
• Chapter 8: ‘I took a lot of drugs and was a bit of a nutcase!’
• Chapter 9: ‘There was an outbreak of fleas.’
• Chapter 10: ‘I was living this incredible double life!’
• Chapter 11: ‘There are a lot of skeletons in the Fall cupboard, stories that haven’t been told.’
• Chapter 12: ‘I’m not an arsonist, I work for the BBC!’
• Chapter 13: ‘A whole different universe.’
• Chapter 14: ‘’Ello, luv. Are you having a nice holiday?’
• Chapter 15: ‘It was like some kind of medieval Italian principality. Or a Chinese court, full of would-be sycophants and mandarins.’
• Chapter 16: ‘Dependency on the organisation … attack the self.’
• Chapter 17: ‘Creative management, cock!’
• Chapter 18: ‘He looks much the same as he ever did – short hair, glass eye.’
• Chapter 19: ‘I neither left nor got sacked.’
• Chapter 20: ‘He smashed up my keyboards quite often. It was an occupational hazard.’
• Chapter 21: ‘It was like your last tour of Vietnam, with appropriate flashbacks and nightmares.’
• Chapter 22: ‘He had a face like a mouse’s snout.’
• Chapter 23: ‘Dear Mark, you’re my hero. Maybe when I’m of legal drinking age we could go for a drink?’
• Chapter 24: ‘We’d had abuse and death threats!’
• Chapter 25: ‘I’m proud that I survived three years before the first punch-up.’
• Chapter 26: ‘He’d knock on the windows or sing through the letter-box!’
• Chapter 27: ‘So what do you do? Are you in a group?’
• Chapter 28: ‘It was like spontaneous combustion.’
• Chapter 29: ‘I’m becoming a travelling minstrel.’
• Chapter 30: ‘Come on, cock, you can do it. We’ll have a rehearsal before you go on.’
• Chapter 31: ‘If you’re a mate, you can tell him to fuck off!’
• Chapter 32: ‘It was all done very quietly, so no one knew I’d gone.’
• Chapter 33: ‘I found him barking like a dog.’
• Chapter 34: ‘I thought I was going insane. The only way I got through it was by taking up meditation.’
• Chapter 35: ‘My job was to stop the musicians having fun.’
• Chapter 36: ‘You’ve got the curse of The Fall!’
• Acknowledgments
• Photography Credits and Permissions Acknowledgments
• Copyright Page