Customer Reviews

Live in London: The Legendary Chaos Tape

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In one sentence: If you don't like this record at all then you probably won't like any 1978-1983 Fall. Realistically though, you as a reader deserve more. To be honest, this release has terrible sound quality (it started out worse than on this disc) and the band is off key, constantly screw up, and MES is constantly steamrolling over the lyrics. When this came out, MES wodered why a record label would want to record such a terrible night. Maybe you should save your money and buy "Totale's Turns" for an awesome early fall live album or the albums these songs came from like Dragnet, Live at the Witch Trials, Grotesque, and Slates throught the expanded editions. That's the end of the review, really. For a wandering rant, read on. Just got this today on my way to Arabic. This is my astounding fifteenth Fall release. At this point as a fan I have bought 2 comps (Time Enough at Last and It's the New Thing! The Step Forward Years) which every fall fan does before they find the official fall website at visi. com slash the fall and look up the discography. That'll tell you how to find the best version of all 26+ essential albums. But back to this one. I can't imagine that anyone cares how it was recorded so I won't tell you. If you're a real fall fan, you'll know why you need this, so here's it for those who aren't. This and Totale's turns take a very angular and course (soundwise) band and make them slightly more lighthearted. Personally I would start you off with the soon to be out of print "Slates/A Part of America Therein, 1981" because it combines a stellar early EP (or 10") with a great live LP (12") for the same cost as a regular album. This double album will be broken in 2 later this year, so the smart person will save up and get both. As a rule, for all Fall albums from 1978-1985, it's better to wait a little while for the expanded releases that are now out through 1981 (as of December, 2004) That means for the new fan, start at the beginning (if you like that) and their 16ish 1990-2004 albums (Are You Are Missing Winner, Cerebral Caustic, Code Selfish, Extricate, Infotainment Scan, Levitate, Light User Syndrome, Marshall Suite, Middle Class Revolt, Pander! Panda! Panzer!, 2G+2, The Post-Nearly Man, The Real New Fall LP (US Version), Shift-Work, The Unutterable, and finally Twenty-Seven Points) and "This Nation's Saving Grace"/"The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall" (head-to-head for best Fall album, and you apparently have to pick one of the two) and wait for their 1980's Late-classic/Brix-Era Fall since by the time you've gone through all that the Expanded Edition series will be through 1987 or so. But all that is useful Fall data to be squirreled away with your "Confusion is..."/"Chronic Town"/? musical knowledge. This is a good live album from a band that was always better live, but keep in mind that there is no one best place to start with a band. I like the say that what if you could only have one shot to really appreciate a band. You can only choose one album from their massive catalog. How should you choose? I usually go with their first album because I like it raw. You might want to go with the trendiest release ("Daydream Nation"/"Loveless"/"Spiderland" etc.) or the release that sounds like it would appeal to you most (The Queers' "A Day Late and a Dollar Short" is raw, crude, anti-pc, and more fun than their more polished LPs and I like records dirty) or whatever. The next era 1984-1990 is the Brix Era; if you buy any official album (ie, not a comp) and you don't like it at all, then you probably won't like that era much. 1990-present is a mixed bag. MES is on his own, but he's super-old and bitter. There are a ton of 1990's albums available for 2-7 dollars used here, so you might want to start with those. The era that this here reviewed album is from is generally the most constant (album contentwise) that the Fall ever had, so you might be better off starting with an album not dissimilar to this one. If you end up loving the fall, you already have the best possible version ever of this release. That's a start. Thank you for reading, I love you all.

When I started listening to this five or six years ago--I have it on a cassette tape--I didn't know The Fall very well. I had one compilation and about three of their albums. The Chaos Tape was what really made me fall in love with The Fall. Since it's live, the sound quality isn't fantastic, but they sound as alive and exciting as they ever have, and some of the tracks are better here than on the studio versions, like Jawbone and the Air Rifle and New Face in Hell.