Excavate! The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall
2021

This collection of essays and ephemera covering the breadth of The Fall’s 42-year existence attempts to capture the group’s very particular world of influences, especially those of its contrarian frontman Mark E. Smith—from the weird fiction of such as M.R. James, H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen, to the history of British Working Men’s Clubs, provincial football culture, and alternative forms of arts education. A scrapbook in spirit, the volume includes an array of items drawn from fans’ collections, and an exhaustive discography of the group’s 36 studio albums. It also contains the twin essays on Mark E. Smith / Wyndham Lewis that I half-wrote.

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