London’s Barbican Center currently has a retrospective exhibit on avant garde choreographer Michael Clark — titled Cosmic Dancer — and to celebrate, they got Jarvis Cocker‘s band JARV IS… to do a special streaming set from various rooms of the exhibit. One of those is a recreation of the stage set from I Am Kurious Oranj, the ballet Clark created with The Fall in 1988. Amidst the giant hamburgers, fries and baked beans, JARV IS… perform “Big New Prinz” from the ballet (and album), which is pretty great.

Jarvis and the band also cover The Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs,” and perform Jarvis’ solo single “Further Complications” and JARV IS… single “House Music All Night Long” (from this year’s Beyond the Pale). You can watch that, and The Fall’s video for “Big New Prinz” (which features Clark), below.

Read our interview with Jarvis from earlier this year.

Meanwhile, a few Fall albums will be the subject of Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties this weekend: on Saturday, October 17 it’s Hex Enduction Hour at 3 PM ET, and on Sunday, October 18 it’s Groteque (After the Gramme) at 3 PM ET and Slates at 4 PM ET. All feature live tweet commentary from The Fall’s rhythm section for those albums — brothers Stephen and Paul Hanley. Head to Tim’s website for more info.

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A 15-SONG THE FALL PRIMER

“Repetition”

It all starts here with this b-side from The Fall's three-song debut EP, Bingo-Master's Break-Out, that became the band's maxim, all set to a nagging beat: "Who are sick of fancy music? / We dig repetition...this is the Three R's: Repetition, Repetition, Repetition!"

“Totally Wired”

Another of The Fall's early signature songs, IDLES frontman Joe Talbot called "Totally Wired" Mark E. Smith's "opus as a song." Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys' other band The Last Shadow Puppets covered it on an EP and in their lives shows. It's powered by a two-note bass hook, a pounding beat, an instantly catchy shout-along chorus, and Mark E. Smith's love of stimulants: "I drank a jar of coffee...and then I took some of these!" MES also remind us that "You don't have to be weird to be wired."

“Lie Dream of a Casino Soul”

The Northern Soul scene was huge in England in the early-'70s, with kids dressed to the nines, flooding clubs to dance to obscure Motown singles. Mark E Smith was a fan, and The Fall's 1987 cover of R. Dean Taylor's Northern Soul classic "There's a Ghost in My House" was their biggest UK hit. But MES was less a fan of those who went to clubs -- like the famed Wigan Casino -- and pretended like it was still 1963. (Or the bands who did, for that matter, like Dexy's Midnight Runners.) "Meanwhile in the sticks / Proles rich, dance in cardboard pants."

“Kicker Conspiracy”

A song that juxtaposes football hooliganism with the music scene at the time because of a similarity that Mark E Smith saw going on: that violence became the only interesting thing about either to the press. The references to both may go over a lot of people's heads but the band, banging out the kind of droning post-punk rockabilly The Fall always did so well, is killer, with MES shouting "FANS!!! Remember, you are abroad! Remember the police are rough! Remember the unemployed! Remember my expense account!"

“Hip Priest”

While Mark E Smith said over the years that the lyrics were a bit of a joke (and are either about how people saw him, or are a takedown of cooler-than-thou journalists), "Hip Priests" is more known for its methodical, decidedly sinister vibe. It was that unrelenting dark tone that had filmmaker Jonathan Demme use the song in the tense climax of Silence of the Lambs.

“C.R.E.E.P.”

Brix Smith, who both married Mark E Smith and joined the band in 1983, brought new ideas like choruses and pop hooks to The Fall. Almost overnight, Brix reshaped the band into something much more commercial, without really changing the band's M.O. One of the first singles she co-wrote is one of the poppiest things the band ever released, with "La La" backing vocals and an earworm keyboard riff. It's makes for a nice contrast to MES' lyrics about a "horrid trendy wretch" that might've been about former Fall bassist Marc Riley (who would later form The Creepers).

“I Am Damo Suzuki”

A noted krautrock fan, Mark E Smith paid tribute to Can yowler Damo Suzuki on this track from what many consider to be The Fall's finest hour, 1985's This Nation's Saving Grace. Smith drops in references to Can albums and singles throughout -- "What have you got in that paper bag? / Is it a dose of Vitamin C?" -- while the rhythm-heaving music is very clearly modeled on Can's Tago Mago classic "Oh Yeah."

“Hit the North”

The Fall's first experiment with a sampler yielded their biggest UK hit that wasn't a cover, as well as an enduring anthem for Manchester and all points North. Stephen Hanley notes in his memoir The Big Midweek, "Hit the North" was "initially inspired by Mark's dislike of Norwich... On the way back from playing there, Mark said, 'I don't like it round here! It's too flat. I can't wait till we hit the North.' And a couple of days later he had the words to a new political anthem." One of The Fall's all-time bangers, with one of MES' most iconic screeches.

“New Big Prinz”

In 1988, The Fall collaborated with choreographer/dancer Michael Clark on a ballet (!) called I Am Kurious Oranj that was kinda done in honor of the 300th anniversary of William of Orange's ascension to the English throne. (As you'd expect, the stage had a giant cheeseburger on it.) For it, and the accompanying album, they reworked their song "Hip Priest" into a shuffle beat glam rock stomper and "New Big Prinz" became a new instant Fall classic (which has also been covered by the Pixies).

“Bill is Dead”

A rare sincere, genuinely pretty (and admittedly Smiths-y) song from The Fall which came at a point in their crossroads, as 1990's Extricate! was their first album after Mark and Brix's divorce. Some posit that the song is about Brix, while others say Mark wrote it as a reflection on pre-rave Manchester. Such are the very open to interpretation lyrics of MES, but it's clear that with its chorus of "these are the greatest times of my life," this one meant something special to him.

“Idiot Joy Showland”

Mark E. Smith took great pleasure in mocking scenes and fads, and this song from 1991's Shift-Work takes aim at the the "Madchester" scene that overtook his hometown in the late-'80s and early-'90s with hoards of baggy-dressed ravers and bands aping Happy Mondays and Stone Roses. He pulled no punches: "Idiot groups with no shape or form / Out of their heads on a quid of blow / The shapeless kecks flapping up a storm / Look at what they are: a pack of worms."

“Hey Student!”

The Fall took an early songs they never recorded ("Hey! Fascist") and reworked it to be about the grunge/slacker college scene for 1994's Middle Class Revolt (which came out in the US on Matador which made them, at the time, labelmates with Fall fans Pavement). It's still a punk song, minus the crunchy power chords but with extra bile: "When walking down the street, it's always you I seem to meet / Long hair down and sneakers on your feet / As you listen to Pearl Jam in your room / I pick up a knife and I sing this song."

“Touch Sensitive”

While it only hit #90 on the UK charts in 1999, "Touch Sensitive" -- and its infectious "Uh hey hey hey hey!" chorus -- became something of a hit a couple years late thanks to being used in a Vauxhall car commercial. The riff nicks a little from The Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man" but The Fall, as always, make it their own.

“Dr. Buck’s Letter”

After a dodgy mid-'90s, The Fall rallied in the early '00s with some of their best records in ages, including 2000's excellent The Unutterable. The album is loaded with classics but none better than this one where MES reads an "essentials checklist" from celebrity DJ Pete Tong that was published in an in-flight magazine, over a killer, dubby groove. Mark E. Smith cracks up reading it at one point, which is one of the song's highlights.

“Blindness”

"Blindness," from The Fall's last great album (2005's Fall Heads Roll) features a fearsome bassline and shuffling beat that was apparently inspired by UK rapper Roots Manuva. This one was picked by Fontaines D.C. drummer Tom Coll, who says, "I still remember the time I heard our manager DJing it in the Workman's in Dublin and I had to go up and ask him what it was. It's just the best Fall tune there is."

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