Renegade
THE LIVES AND TALES OF MARK E SMITH
|
Still going after thirty years, The Fall are one of the most distinctive British bands, their music - odd,spare, cranky and repetitious - an acknowledged influence on The Smiths, The Happy Mondays, Nirvana and Franz Ferdinand. And Mark E. Smith IS The Fall - 47 members have come and gone over the years yet he remains its charismatic leader, a professional outsider and all-round enemy of compromise, a true enigma. There have been a number of biographies of the legendary Smith, but this is the first time he has opened up in a full autobiography. For the first time we get to hear his full, candid take on the ups and downs of a band as notorious for its in-house fighting as for its great music; and on a life that has endured prison in America, drugs, bankruptcy, divorce, and the often bleak results of a legendary thirst.
‘Unutterably funny . . . a riot of aimings and blamings and score-settlings. Smith manages to have a right laff, and reveal himself as a figure of dazzling sociological import’ ‘Remarkable, brilliant. A provocative joy. Smith’s rant gushes like a furious fountain of razor-sharp invective over his childhood and the early days of The Fall, relationships/marriage, the record industry/musicians and his views on everything from football to mobile phones, from drinking and drugs to driving, from books to bankruptcy, from Paul Morley to pubs. Unbeatable’ ‘Engrossing, exhausting, dense with fascinating detail. As both memoir and cultural history, Renegade is a remarkable achievement’ ‘Disturbingly revealing . . a razor-tongued rant and terrific comic monologue’ ‘Smith’s about as reliable a narrator as the members of Motley Crue were in their depraved memoir The Dirt. And just as entertaining’ |
 |
|
|
To keep up-to-date, input your email address, and we will contact you on publication
Please alert me via email when:
