Marc Riley - Musical Career

Musical Career

Born and bred in Manchester, England, Riley was in a band at school called The Sirens before joining The Fall between June 1978 and October 1982. He originally was a fan of the group and then worked as a roadie before being added to the line-up playing guitar and bass. He can be heard on this instrument on their second single "It's The New Thing" and debut album Live at the Witch Trials. He switched to guitar and keyboards in 1979 and held this position until falling out with Mark E. Smith during the group's 1982 tour of Australia and New Zealand. In 2005, he told the BBC that Smith had sacked him by telephone in early 1983, telling him that they were undertaking a tour without him. According to Smith this happened on Riley's wedding day, but Riley has said that this wasn't true. Riley formed his own band, The Creepers. Steve Hanley, Paul Hanley and Craig Scanlon played on The Creepers' first single. They released several albums during the following years, but had disbanded by the end of the decade. He then formed a band including ex-members of Pere Ubu and Captain Beefheart's Magic Band called The Lost Soul Crusaders (named after a fictional group in an episode of the detective series Columbo whose lead singer was played by one of Riley's heroes, Johnny Cash) but the record company funding the band went bust before any material could be recorded.

Animosity between Smith and Riley continued to influence both bands' material. The Fall's 1983 single "The Man Whose Head Expanded" was a thinly veiled attack on Riley, followed in 1984 by the even less veiled single "C.R.E.E.P." as well as "Hey Marc Riley", a rewritten version of Bo Diddley's "Hey Bo Diddley", to date only available on live bootlegs. Riley responded in kind with his 1984 single "Jumper Clown" – a reference to Smith's then affection for bad 1970s jumpers, as well as "Snipe" on the 1985 Shadow Figure EP and his own live only co-opting of Bo Diddley, "Marc Riley is a Gunslinger". Riley co-owned the In-Tape label with Jim Khambatta until it went bust in 1991, managing the label between 1983 and 1986.

In 1988, he co-produced (with Jon Langford) a Johnny Cash tribute album, Til Things are Brighter, to raise funds for the Terrence Higgins Trust.

Between 1986 and 1989, he drew and wrote the comic strips Harry The Head and Doctor Mooney for the comic Oink!, as well as recording a flexidisc single for the comic as a giveaway. These have become collector items.