I've liked plenty of bands with a single leader and ever-changing line-up, i.e. the Chills and the Wedding Present, but I had not previously realized just how much turnover the Fall had experienced, the only constant being Mark E. Smith. The Guardian ran a piece, "Excuse me, weren't you in the Fall?" in which writer Dave Simpson attempted to track down more than 40 former band members, many of  whom told fascinating tales of being recruited and/or fired abruptly. It's the second time I've read recently that Smith constantly shakes up the line-up as an intended strategy to keep the music fresh, that it is not an inadvertent effect of his cantankerous personality. It also reaffirms my perception that there is no such thing as a mediocre Fall show: "'Smith doesn't do average,' says bassist Steve Hanley, who met me in a Manchester pub. 'He'd rather do 10 great gigs and 10 rubbish gigs than anything in the middle.'"

Make your own Fall Out Boy jokes.