The Fallen: Life In and Out of Britain's Most Insane Group

A good companion piece to Mark E. Smith's own "Renegade," which I read immediately before this one.
Dave Simpson tracks down all the ex-members of the Fall to hear their side of the story. What emerges is a fascinating profile of the most idiosyncratic man in rock music. Smith sounds terrible to work for, but even after the chaos, most everybody seem to look back on it fondly and would gladly do it again. Only Martin Bramaugh remains elusive, and Karl Burns is MIA.
Simpson includes bits of his own life story, and occasionally indulges in album criticism hidden as narrative, but he tells a good tale.

The book hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for the group, and actually made me admire the whole enterprise more.

And suddenly it dawned on me:

Mark E. Smith is a bully.

‘the thing with punk was that it was ‘working- class’ music. But in fact it wasn’t. The Sex Pistols were on Virgin for Christ’s sake - they were the enemy as far as me and my friends were concerned’ (Mark E Smith sez).

http://www.culturewars.org.uk/index.php/site/article/dead_hands/