THE RISE, THE FALL, AND THE RISE -
BRIX SMITH START
It's no reflection on Brix Smith Start but in an autobiography of 461 pages it's not until page 147 when Mark E Smith enters the story that things start to get interesting but then understandably so given him being the stuff of such cantankerous legend. Before this, it's all about Brix growing up in Los Angeles where she lived on some sort of ranch with her dysfunctional, psychiatrist father. Do we really need to know about the pet tortoise Brix had as a child? Well, no, not really but it's forgivable because such attention to detail bodes well for when she starts writing about her time in The Fall. And that's why we're all here, right? That's what we've come for?
Does The Rise, The Fall, And The Rise warrant our attention? Is it worth the effort of ploughing through what is a near-tome of a book? I would have to say yes but you need to have an interest in The Fall to act as a motivator as without that you might just as well read Viv Albertine's autobiography which if not better, is definitely shorter.
As I said, it's not until Mark E Smith enters the story that things start to get interesting but the high comedy starts when Brix leaves America in May of 1983 and flies to England to live with Mark in Manchester. 'I never expected Manchester to be so grim,' she writes 'Nobody smiled. Everybody looked so poor. All their clothes were drab. Where was the colour?'
In the taxi from Piccadilly train station to where Mark lives in Preston, Mark points out all the must-see sights of his beloved city: 'Look, Brixie, there's the Boddingtons Brewery! There's Strangeways Prison!' All Brix can see, however, are squat little buildings with the words 'Cash and Carry' spray-painted on their front windows. 'I didn't know what Cash and Carry meant,' she writes 'but I had a feeling it wasn't glamorous. It was a long way from Bloomingdale's, that's for sure.'
It's on arriving at Mark's flat for the first time, however, that the comedy goes from observational to full-on Monty Python:
'Shall I make you a cuppa?' Mark asks. 'Yes, please,' say Brix 'I'll get the milk. Where do you keep it?'
'Out the window,' Mark tells her .
'What do you mean, 'out the window'?'
Mark pushes open a sooty window at the back of the kitchen to reveal a cement ledge where perched precariously is a small bottle of milk, a pack of Danish back bacon, a carton of eggs and a loaf of Hovis white bread. Brix is incredulous. Perhaps this is a traditional resourceful British custom, she wonders?
'Where is your washing machine and dryer?' she asks.
'I wash me clothes in the bathtub,' Mark replies.
'Mark, there's no hot water!'
'You have to turn on the immersion heater, love.'
'What's an immersion heater?'
'Do you have a shower?'
'Of course.' Mark then proceeds to show Brix a bizarre hose-like contraption that you attach to the mouth of a tap.
Brix is aghast.
It must be said, this is first-class, top-notch comedy. Things get even more hilarious later on in the book, however, when Brix recites an anecdote about her sex escapade with Micky Mouse at Disneyland. I won't reveal the details but it's genuinely bizarre. And if Brix thought Manchester was a culture shock, she was in for a surprise on her first visit to Blackpool. Her mother and stepfather are coming over from America to visit so Brix asks Mark where they could take them?
'Let's take them to Blackpool, it's great,' Mark says 'You'll like it, it's like Disneyland and it's by the seaside.'
'My family loves the beach,' Brix writes 'so we rented a car and drove to the most heinous place I've ever been to in my life. It was grim and freezing. They call the amusement park area Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The rides were like the rides of doom, rickety and old. Along the promenade they hang lights, grandiosely called 'illuminations'. They do this in lots of seaside towns. They looked like crude crappy candy canes in black and white. I've seen backwoods country carnivals with better lighting decoration. My mother turned to me and said 'This is the night of the living dead'.'
Brix's book isn't a constant stream of funny anecdotes, by any means. Mark E Smith, for example, is revealed as being a very naughty boy that leads to divorce between Brix and him. There's a lot of airing of dirty washing going on here but then that's the thing about autobiographies in that they allow this. It's probably the only place to do it, really. It's also the place, of course, to settle scores and on that point, Morrissey of The Smiths is but one of the targets. Did Morrissey name The Smiths after Mark E Smith? It's feasible. And what's worse: being fired from The Smiths crew for eating meat whilst on tour, or being fired from The Fall crew for eating a salad? It's obvious which one is the funniest and this also makes it obvious that without Mark E Smith having a central role in Brix's life, her story wouldn't be half as good and would certainly not be half as entertaining. And entertaining it most certainly is.
John Serpico
