Cadgwith, Cornwall, Summer 1978

We were on holiday in Cornwall and were visiting some relatives in Cadgwith, a classic Cornish fishing village. 

When I was a kid my mum and dad didn't have a record player. All they had was the radio, which was permanently tuned in to Radio 2, which in those days was full of stuff like Sunday with David Jacobs, Pete Murrey and if you were really lucky, Ed Stewart's Junior Choice. It was utter turd.

I'd been starved of access to good music, I knew nothing about music and frankly had never heard anything the piqued my interest. Well, you wouldn't listening to that shite would you ?

Whilst visiting the relations and becoming more and more bored as the adults talked, I asked if I could use the record player. After brief instructions, I donned the headphones and put on the first record that came to hand.

First track, a massive riff started up, quite slow and repetitive. What the feck was this ? After it finished I put the needle back to track one. I instinctively turned up the volume and played it over and over and over again,  until the volume was up to max and the riff pummelled it's way into my brain. My ears were ringing and I'd discovered something magical. 

The track was Sweet Leaf and the album Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath. Still a banger as da yoof would say.

Ever since then I've been mad on music.  First band I really got into was The Stranglers, then The Clash and The Fall.

Peel always referred to them, rightly, as The Mighty Fall. The awkward, cantankerous, contrary genius that is Mark E Smith died an incredible eight years ago but ( cliche alert ) the music lives on.

Different tracks periodically get in my brain and get played repeatedly, the incomprehensible lyrics and unique delivery casting a spell.

Recently it was "Impression of J Temperence", a story of a dog breeder, peasants and domestic violence. Like almost every other Fall song it makes no sense.

There's been dozens more, but the one that gets played more than any other is "Blindness".

A menacing, repetitive ( that word again ) baseline, a weirdy sinister sound from what sounds like Woolworths keyboards and Smith muttering and shouting, "I was on one leg ! Blind man! Have mercy on me !"

Search for the live versions at Hammersmith Palaise and Renfrew Ferry especially. 

It's a glorious, malevolent, chaotic racket, never to be repeated again. Ever.