Mark E Smith may be gone, but his genius shines as bright as ever with the news of a new bootleg live recording called ‘Live at St.Helens Technical College, ‘81’ being released via Castle Point Records exclusively on vinyl (12” and a 7” in a gatefold jacket, including a digital download) on February 19th. Pre-order here
Castle Face will be donating 50% of their profits to Centrepoint which helps the homeless in the Manchester area get back on their feet, so the local and deserving Fall fans get a little, and give a little back, too.
Of the record, Fall keyboard/guitar player of the time, now vying for greatest living Englishman with his 6music shows and podcasts Marc Riley says: I stumbled upon the link to the recording of the St Helens Technical College gig on Twitter. I started to listen and recognised it as one of the better sound-board recordings I’d ever heard. Knowing John (Dwyer – of Osees and Castleface Records) was into The Fall I sent him the link just for him to enjoy. He got back and said it was one of the best live Fall sets he’d ever heard and asked if we were cool with him releasing it. So I contacted Steve and Paul Hanley…. then Paul got in touch with Craig Scanlan – and within the space of a week we’d given Castleface the ‘OK’ from four of the five Fall members on recording. The fifth of course being Mark E Smith who is no longer with us. I believe (from a mate who is armed with a functioning memory and was there on the night) the gig was poorly attended. So much so that the Promoter attempted to pull our fee…which resulted in him being pushed to the floor by our manager Kay Carrol. Sounds about right”
Ahead of its release, Castle Face have given us all a little taster of whats to come by releasing Leave The Capital. Given that it is a live soundboard recording, it’s crisp, with the band sounding tight and (dare I say) funky, and Mark sounding typically spiky and edgy. Gone but never forgotten.
