Hot on the heels of the successful ‘Slates’ Live! release, Popstock records is proud to present the second of their reimagined Fall albums. ‘Grotesque’ Live!, out 25th October via Popstock / Bella Union and available to preorder here, is another dynamic journey through a landmark release by The Fall curated from thousands of hours’ worth of live recordings by former members of the group.

Frustrated by a lack of recognition, consultation and compensation by some of the labels putting out reissues, live LPs and compilations from the 40-year history of the well-loved post punk group, Paul Hanley, Steve Hanley, Marc Riley and Craig Scanlon devised a plan to shift some of the balance back in the favour of former members of the band. Ex Fall bassist/guitarist Riley says that in some cases labels had asked them for sleeve notes but not actually given them a finished copy of the record while former long-standing bassist Steve Hanley also flags up issues he had regarding quality control. Riley adds: “It’s a terrible phrase but really we wanted to take back control.”

They settled on something of a unique solution: to totally recreate albums they had appeared on but from recordings taken at a variety of shows. They formed the label Popstock – named after a song Scanlon wrote, which had its name changed before it appeared on Dragnet as ‘Chock-Stock’ – and got in touch with the most fervent bootleg collecting members of “the Fall Army” they knew to lend a hand. ‘Grotesque’ Live! is a thrilling trip through a gig experience that never happened. Mark E Smith was always a step ahead of his audience, always planning the next record as soon as the current one had hit the shelves, and the group never once played an album in full live.