Mark E Smith dissing Blue Jam in January 2001

[Chriddof]

I've been meaning to post this for a while... recently I bought a digital subscription to The Wire and got access to all the back issues online. Blue Jam pops up here and there in them, always in a positive light, but here's a rather peculiar and frankly unfair dismissal of the show from Mark E Smith of The Fall, which occurred during one of those Invisible Jukebox things they do where they play a famous avant musician various songs without telling them what they are. The Wire writer put on the Warp CD release of Blue Jam, and this is what happened (comments in bold are the journalist, comments without are MES):



Incidentally, during the same feature the journo plays him a Merzbow record and Smith complains that "it doesn't go far enough for me".

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Mark E. Smith is a singer?

[imitationleather]

The dissing is clearly ironic.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

The dissing is clearly ironic.

The whole controversy is preposterous.

[Funcrusher]

Mark E. Smith is a singer?

I was more amused at him calling himself a singer/songwriter. Not someone people would generally mention in the same breath as James Taylor or Harry Chapin.

[Spiteface]

HE'S MENTALLY ILL, ALRIGHT?

[DJ One Record]

I remember reading this years ago and wondering why they'd chosen to play this particular sketch to Smith. Usually they picked records that had some relevance to the artist in question, but to this day I've never worked this one out. Some really tangential Stewart Lee connection, or am I just being drastically ignorant? Presumably the interviewer was going to explain it, but Smith's rather terse reaction cut him short.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I love the idea of him seeing Gordon Brown as wanting to be a pop star.

That bit in particular just says it all.

[the psyche intangible]

Him being the sound bite guy for every weekly music publication from the mid eighties to early nineties. They were looking for it and got that shit from a non song.

[Fabian Thomsett]

I think my favourite Smith quote was when he was asked what he thought of Kurt Cobain by the NME, dissed him ("he wears crap clothes, has too much money") but then ended it by saying "he's married to that actress - Courtney Pine."

Ever since I read that, I've wondered whether he deliberately misremembered Ms. Love's name or not.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think Mark E Smith and Morrissey should have a tv show where they are given a list of things to decide whether they are good or bad (all bad obviously, until stated otherwise). I think I'd watch at least an hour of that a week, as they half-arsedly dismiss individuals they only have a faint grasp of.

[babyshambler]

HE'S MENTALLY ILL, ALRIGHT?

I've seen him eat a plastic pie.

[Pepotamo1985]

HE'S MENTALLY ILL, ALRIGHT?

TRUCKERS NEED GREASE FOR ROADS

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

OFFICER POLICEMAN

[Obel]

The whole controversy is preposterous.

This imbroglio is epiphenomenal.