Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith

Still going after 30 years, The Fall are one of the most distinctive British bands, their music—odd,spare, cranky, and repetitious—an acknowledged influence on The Smiths, The Happy Mondays, Nirvana, and Franz Ferdinand. And Mark E. Smith IS The Fall—47 members have come and gone over the years yet he remains its charismatic leader, a professional outsider and all-round enemy of compromise, a true enigma. There have been a number of biographies of the legendary Smith, but this is the first time he has opened up in a full autobiography. For the first time we get to hear his full, candid take on the ups and downs of a band as notorious for its in-house fighting as for its great music, and on a life that has endured prison in America, drugs, bankruptcy, divorce, and the often bleak results of a legendary thirst.