The Fall made their national TV debut on The Tube thanks to John Peel – five years after I first saw them play in London.

I still vividly remember the first time I saw The Fall because they were unlike anyone I had seen or heard before. They still were when they made their national TV debut five years later on The Tube.

The gig was t the Electric Ballroom just after Christmas in 1978 and punk bands had a look. Various looks. The look had several variations but hnone included old full length leather coatand the kind of tank top his mum might have knitted.

Of course they also sounded like no one else, though there were certain similarities with their support band, Subway Sect, who I’d seen several times before on The Clash’s White Riot tour; but none at all with the opening band, The Monochrome Set.

I had become immediately entranced by The Fall earlier that year, jolted into life when John Peel played the first of what would become 24 sessions in May 1978. I couldn’t get songs like Rebellious Jukebox and Industrial Estate out of my head, and I went out and bought their single Rowche Rumble.

I believe the band consisted of Mark E. Smith (vocals), Martin Bramah (guitar), Marc Riley (guitar), either Eric McGann or Rick Goldstraw (bass), and Karl Burns (drums) and they played songs including the great Bingo Master’s Break Out and Psycho Mafia, and ended with their debut single Futures And Pasts.

It would be another five years before The Fall made it on to national TV, when Jools Holland invited Peel to present his favourite band on The Tube, this time with Craig Scanlon on guitar, Steve Hanley on bass and either Burns or Paul Hanley on drums.

They performed Smile, which I can only describe as one of their most extreme songs, with Smith’s stream-of-consciousness ranting reaching a surreal peak, opening with the memorable: “Tight faded male arse / Decadence and anarchy.”