GLOBO’S THE FALL EXPERIMENT ABSTRACT

Globo is made up of three artists; painter and designer Paul Thompson, illustrator Steve Appleton, and writer Mark Wernham. Globo is not a music group, rather, Globo is a creative entity with an agenda to explore what being a ‘group’ means via a series of‘experiments’. Globo have several experiments in production for 2008, and one of them is the Globo’s The Fall Experiment. In this experiment, Globo intend to make a cover version of an entire album by The Fall, This Nation’s Saving Grace. The purposes of this experiment are:
1) To explore whether it is a legitimate exercise to re-interpret 20th century popular music in this way. Is it appropriate to approach an album like This Nation’s Saving Grace as if it were a classical composition? As time passes, and pop culture dissects itself over and over again on clip shows on television, and new bands choose past eras to ape with increasing attention to detail, are we reaching a time when new music groups become the pop culture equivalent of orchestras performing music by Mozart and Beethoven?
2) To explore the musical structures of ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’ in order to come to a greater understanding of the album as a piece of work.
3) To test those musical structures for cross-genre portability. Can The Fall only exist in its already laid-down form, or is there a wider application for its musical output. Has The Fall started to transcend the meaning of ‘group’? The making of Globo’s The Fall Experiment started in January, 2008, and will continue for six months. We hope the album will be ready for an autumn release. The experiment comprises both the experience of making the album and, more importantly, the reaction to our recording and the discussions that may ensue as a result of what we understand will be a relatively provocative act of covering an entire Fall album.

GLOBO’S THE FALL EXPERIMENT PROMO

Posted on the fall online forum by strontium dawg

My friend Mark is in Globo and said this:

"It was a very interesting experience. The day had been stimulating, but very academic. A lot of social theory terminology was used, and papers were referenced to other papers and studies, as you'd expect from a university conference. Alan Wise gave the last talk of the day, and it set the mood for what was to come. He talked about Mark as a man, about his interest in the occult, about how his black glove is a fetish used as a kind of control token. It went all rather spooky, with talk of MES's esoteric religious practice, his occult studies, shamanism, Fall gigs as slightly unpleasant ritual, hauntings, black magic etc. He also said that he could only reveal so much, because Mark was concerned that it might reflect badly on him, and that if he went too far, Mark's power could make him feel unwell. It was Hex stuff. All these themes and ideas are there as plain as day in most of The Fall's albums, especially Bend Sinister, TNSG, and earlier. Palace of Swords Reversed is a tarot reference, after all. I know from my meetings wiht MES that he believes in ghosts and the spirit world. You could hear a pin drop in the room. People were open-mouthed, uncertain whether it was an elaborate wind-up, or for real. However you saw it, it definitely had a peculiar impact, changing the atmosphere from one of cosy, if bewildering academia, to something darker.

Things got off the rocky start in the evening as soon as we arrived. The sisters and mum had arrived early before the conference people (including the organisers) and were asked what they were doing there by people who thought they were gatecrashing, so one sister in particular was quite irritated. She settled down, although we had heard she was not happy about people making money from the Fall without permission, although I think she was soon reassured that no one was making any money, and she settled down to watch the event. This all filtered back to us, and made us quite tense, given that we've covered an entire Fall album without actually asking (although if it does get a commercial release, MES's publishers will receive all the MCPS and PRS money).

Mick Middles took to the stage and started reminiscing very interestingly about his long-standing, on/off relationship with MES and the The Fall. He was charming and articulate as he related the highs and lows of working with MES on the book he wrote, and of the attempt to make a film about The Fall (a clip of which was shown after he left the stage). He was talking about MES could a frustrating character to deal with when suddenly a voice rang out: 'What about you, Mick Middles? We gave you family pictures and we never got them back. You talk about my brother being nasty, what about you?' and so on. It was excruciating, a roomful of polite academics who are also Fall fans, cringing as Mick Middles gets roundly harangued by Mark's sister. It went on for some time. Eventually it stopped, and then Grant Showbiz took to the stage. He did a great job of smoothing the situation by saying what a great day he'd had, how much respect there had been shown to MES's work during the day, and then talked about his experiences producing The Fall. While Grant was on stage, MES's sister took a call on her mobile from MES himself. It was an uncanny moment, and it felt to us like we'd entered the wonderful and frightening world of The Fall whether we liked it or not. It was fascinating, but we were suffering in the knowledge that if the Smith family took exception to our project, we would suffer a similar fate to Mick Middles. He's from Salford, I think, so maybe he can handle it. We're from Norfolk, so we probably couldn't handle it. As it turned out, our presentation (a quick introduction and a 10-minute film - it's on the website now) – a few questions from the floor) went down well. Paul ended up chatting with Mark E Smith's mum, and I chatted with the other sister who said she thought what we'd done was very clever. We waved them all off at the end of the night."