Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith

Description

'I've hung on in there this long, so why fuck off now? That's all part of who The Fall are anyway- the persistent effort that goes into it, the coping, the getting by, and the times when the group's tiptop and you go and have a drink . . . '

Mark E. Smith founded Manchester band The Fall in 1977, one of a great trio of bands (with Joy Division and the Buzzcocks) to come out of the city at that time. They released a remarkable 111 albums, and went through 66 different members over their 41 year existence. There was just one constant: Mark E. Smith, who continued releasing and touring right up until his untimely death in January 2018.

Ranting, raging, burning...relentlessly splenetic, a long and sustained rant...may also be the funniest music book ever written * Observer * 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 * Independent on Sunday * 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' Time Out Engrossing, exhausting, dense with fascinating detail. As both memoir and cultural history, Renegade is a remarkable achievement * Daily Telegraph * A hoot * Hot Press * Stuffed with crazy wisdom * London Lite * Hilarious * Scotland on Sunday * A wide-ranging, eccentric set of fugitive opinions, a smart marshalling of numerous rambling pub conversations * The Times Literary Supplement * Vicious, funny, always contrarian * Daily Telegraph * Smith's about as reliable a narrator as the members of Motley Crue were in their depraved memoir The Dirt. And just as entertaining. Delving into Renegade is like listening to Smith hold court down the pub...it contains far too many astute, poetic observations to be dismissed as colourful ramblings from a committed curmudgeon * Scotsman * 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 * Independent on Sunday *