The Fall Cup: Last 16, Ties 1-2

        


Tie 1: New Puritan v Bury

Steve: Something may come along at some point and swipe my vote for the furious torrent of ideas that is NP, but Bury - as much as I love its joyful stomp and council of bad knaves - is not quite it.

Eric: In the first round, I awarded "New Puritan" four of a possible 12 points, and in the second round, I gave it three of a possible 20. I picked "Chicago, Now!" to beat it in the Round of 64, and "Shake-Off" to beat it in the Round of 32. I find its original "studio" version (it's not, really) to be of pisstake quality, and while various live versions are more intriguing, none of them seem particularly special or magical to be. I continue to believe that this one has elements of "you had to be there to see it performed live in its time" for it to carry such heft and import, and I wasn't there, so I don't feel it. And therefore I'm voting for "Bury" (I like the "Parts 2+4" version best) to win this tie. Which means you can go ahead and pencil "New Puritan" in for the Round of Eight, if you're keeping score at home.

bzfgt: New Puritan. The Peel session is one of the greatest Fall recordings extant. The instrumental coda is unbelievably thrilling.  

Richard: The acoustic demo version of Puritan is an arte-povera artefact of true beauty and a window into the early working process of the group ("You go back to that riff"), but Bury is something simple yet incredible, chunking along in its pub-rock clarion-call fashion: I imagine a weird alt-universe advert for Do It All, where hordes of freaks and oddballs march dow the street waving broken tools to this track.

Lewis: Now it's getting seriously difficult. Played them both, yet again, it should be simple but it isn't because both are classic Fall tracks albeit poles apart. Both have lyrical brilliance that few can fathom (inc. me), one has a superb guitar riff (chord? I dunno), the other that pounding repetition that the group are renowned for. It's got to be New Puritan, grotesque peasants stalking the land are always going to beat a Spanish king with a council of bad knaves trying to come to Bury. 

Result: New Puritan 3 - Bury 2



Tie 2: Fiery Jack v The Classical

Steve: As above, something may come along at some point and dissuade me from being boringly predictable and voting for arguably P.Hanley and K.Burns' finest double-drummer hour. Jack's tale of hard livers with hard livers and faces like unmade beds comes close, but isn't quite enough.

Eric: We've got a couple of epic "Look Back Bore" head-to-heads in this round, this one being a particularly fine example of that dynamic, with a pair of songs widely known and highly touted by both serious Fall geeks and casual fans who only know bits and bobs of the catalog as winners and keepers. And, to be fair, they both deserve those plaudits. But I'm going to go with the elder of the pair here, one of two surviving songs ("Elastic Man" being the other) released in 1980, but debuted in the '70s. Yeah, "The Classical" has that wondrous double drum clatter, and yeah, it kicks off the arguably greatest album in the canon, but there's an urgency to "Jack" that makes it feel more immediate, and urgent, and important to me, along with its truly evocative lyrical narrative, which includes no unfortunate racial epithets. I think "Fiery Jack" was an important template and waypoint that honed the group's strengths and made conceivable much of what followed. 

bzfgt: Fiery Jack. I think I voted against FJ before and, much as I love the Classical, I don’t want it to win. 

Richard: Jack is a single of which any band should be proud, but it is ultimately a pastiche, a knowing parody, whereas The Classical is original and unique; also the "Fred in the white coat" part that appears in many live versions is hilarious.

Lewis: The Classical is pretty well what it says in its title, the classic Fall song. Every aspect of it is brilliantly thrown together in as loud and ramshackle way as possible with some added controversial lyrics which upset the modern day PC mob. Today however it's up against one of my favourite Fall singles, a fantastically swaggering rockabilly tune about a middle aged beer, fags, chips and gravy type bloke who's doing ok. And that will do for me. 

Result: Fiery Jack 3 - The Classical 2





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