During an era of peak corporate control on popular music, when guitars were in the closet, improvisation was in retreat, and the flames of fire music were dimming, Dredd Foole and the Din emerged as part of a new underground kicking against the pricks, holding the line with the firmly clenched spirit of The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, and the newfound freedoms of the DIY post-punk landscape. Dredd’s approach was radical even by the underground standards of the day: only the chords and some lyrics were predetermined, yet the songs were recorded in one take, without rehearsal. He sought to engineer maniacal and spiritually frenzied bursts of raw aliveness. That this was achieved with such rock action is testament to the power of those involved.
Dredd entered the studio with Mission of Burma in February of 1982, stepping off a remarkable decade of post-punk activity that drew comparisons to The Stooges, Tim Buckley, and various outsider musicians. They would never tour and lacked ambition, so their powers were largely witnessed by a cloistered Boston scene. Their role as the Din was Mission of Burma’s sole collaboration during their initial incarnation, and this release documents their second year together –– uncovering that their activities extended well beyond Burma’s demise as a proper band.
Mastered for the first time from the original tapes, with the full cooperation of Dredd Foole and Mission of Burma, We Will Fall is comprised of entirely previously unreleased material, including a complete concert performance. Live-mixed at the soundboard direct to reel by the band’s longtime producer, the performance captures the lineup at peak glory. An additional live track from another performance serves as a blistering encore to the set, and Dredd’s only surviving home recordings from the era round out the picture of this critical but lost period of activity.
After an exhaustive approach in which hundreds of live, studio, home, and private performances have been located and reviewed over several years, this second archival effort is the closest we will ever get to the planned but never recorded Dredd Foole and Burma-Din album, presenting the collaborations most realized performances.
