Craig Scanlon is a British guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

ist, best known as a member of The Fall between 1979 and 1995. During this period he co-wrote over 120 of the group's songs; Mark E. Smith

Mark E. Smith

Mark Edward Smith is the lead singer, lyricist, frontman, and only constant member of the English post-punk band The Fall.-Early life:...

 excepted, this tally is unmatched by any other musician to have passed through the group.

Career

Scanlon joined the band following the departure of previous guitarist Martin Bramah. He and guitarist Marc Riley

Marc Riley

Marc Riley is a British musician, alternative rock critic and radio DJ on BBC 6 Music. Formerly a member of The Fall, he had his own record label, In-Tape, and also worked as a record plugger...

 had previously played together in The Sirens before Riley joined The Fall. Scanlon and bassist Steve Hanley

Steve Hanley (musician)

Steve Hanley is an Irish-born English musician, based in Manchester. He is best known for playing bass guitar in The Fall from 1979 to 1998, and afterwards in The Lovers....

 then formed Staff 9 who supported The Fall several times. Whilst Riley was dismissed by Smith in early 1983, Scanlon and Hanley would form The Fall's musical backbone throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s with Scanlon occasionally adding vocals and keyboards to his role as well as being a strong songwriting presence. In 1992, in an interview with Volume magazine

Volume magazine

Volume was a magazine in the form of a series of compact disc compilation albums that were published in the UK in the early to mid 1990s. The albums typically contained exclusive tracks and remixes from a diverse range of indie artists. Each album was packaged with a 192-page booklet that contained...

 (issue 4), Mark E. Smith described Scanlon and Hanley as "fuckin' hard as nails...very super-intelligent fellows, but they're really reticent...I just love them to death. Jesuit lads, you know...Steve and Craig are brilliant". A supporter of Manchester City, Scanlon appeared on John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

's radio programme in 1993 to discuss the club's form after attending a game he described as "grim" - an excerpt of this can be heard on the group's 1994 album Middle Class Revolt

Middle Class Revolt

Middle Class Revolt is an album by The Fall, released in 1994 on Permanent Records. It spent one week on the UK album chart at number 48, a marked contrast to the top 10 debut of their preceding album The Infotainment Scan. The album's full title is Middle Class Revolt A/K/A The Vapourisation Of...

.

In the mid 90s, Scanlon's relationship with Smith deteriorated, culminating in Smith wiping his contributions from the group's 1995 single "The Chiselers". He was sacked shortly afterwards, though there are differing opinions as to how this came about. Steve Hanley told Simon Ford that Smith sacked the whole group, informing them that if they wanted their jobs back, they would have to ask him; Scanlon refused. In 1996, Smith told Sunday Times journalist Stewart Lee

Stewart Lee

Stewart Lee is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director known for being one half of the 1990s comedy duo Lee and Herring, and for co-writing and directing the critically acclaimed and controversial stage show Jerry Springer - The Opera...

, that Scanlon had been "trying to play jazz or Sonic Youth-style stuff over good simple songs that he'd written himself." Smith gave a different version of events in his 2008 autobiography Renegade, stating "He was a bit of a sacrificial lamb. The group was getting a little too big and nobody was actually doing anything...he may have burnt himself out". He also admits that "it was a big mistake getting rid of him" Smith had previously publicly regretted dismissing Scanlon, telling Q

Q (magazine)

Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...

 "it was a bad decision...I do miss him". On this occasion, Smith continued "one thing I don't do is have people back. I've done it before and it's a real mistake." However, it was long rumoured that Smith had invited Scanlon to return in 2001; a story confirmed by Scanlon in his only known interview since leaving the group, conducted by Dave Simpson for The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 in 2006. However, no reunion was forthcoming, with Scanlon commenting "after three hours in the pub with him I realised I was better out of it".

Scanlon was widely believed not to have played music since leaving the band with rumours that he had been invited to join Elastica

Elastica

Elastica were an English alternative rock band that played punk rock-influenced music. They were best known for their 1995 album Elastica, which produced singles that charted in the US and the UK.-History:...

never properly substantiated. Whilst he is not known to have undertaken any professional engagement as a musician since his departure from The Fall, he confirmed to Simpson that he has continued to write music in his own time.
Craig has now started writing again and is working on new projects

As Dave Simpson notes in his Guardian article, Scanlon remains a firm favourite with the group's fan base.