There’s a notorious quote from the dearly departed Mark E. Smith that goes like this: “If it’s me and your granny on bongos, it’s the Fall.” It’s tempting to read this as Smith claiming that he was the sole crucial member throughout the prolific postpunk outfit’s four decades of constantly mutating lineups—and it’s true that when Smith came onstage, you knew what band you were getting. But it can also mean something very different: that the Fall’s sound was about musical chemistry, about holistic connections among players, rather than about conventional competence or lone genius.
Drab Majesty, Facs Fri 5/17, 6:30 PM, Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park, $30, $25 in advance, all ages
“We made a conscious decision not to talk about the dissolution of Disappears. There was no press release about it, no ‘This thing is finished,’” explains Leger. “We quickly figured out that a new ingredient was having three people instead of four. The space that inherently comes with one less person gave us new ideas.”
But the first Facs record also clearly breaks with Disappears, both in its minimalist postpunk bent and in Case’s new role. The transition to bass seems to have been out of necessity, but he claims he doesn’t regret it. “I learned a lot from not playing guitar in the beginning. I could sort of refocus. I didn’t feel like I was repeating myself in Disappears, but I didn’t feel like I was getting outside my own box as much as I wanted,” he explains. “That being said, I was very happy to switch back to guitar.”
“The last Disappears tour, we were opening for Explosions in the Sky [in Oakland], and Alianna said she was moving back to Chicago. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, but I was like, ‘When you get back, let’s play together,’” Case remembers. “Fast-forward one year, and Disappears has broken up and all of a sudden we’re playing together.”
“A lot of our songs fit together like a strange sort of puzzle, and because Alianna plays bass like a drummer, the way the other components go together is very intuitive,” explains Leger, who also drums in instrumental-rock trio Electric Hawk.
