fire engines

[miss buenos aires]

I saw them being mentioned as contemporaries of Orange Juice and Josef K, so I thought I'd toodle on over here and see what you guys had to say about them. Um...take it away, Otis...

[Who Shot Sam?]

I've never heard of them, but this is the funniest fire engine-related thing I've seen in while:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41917

[Richard]

The Fire Engines! It is 2005 & somebody is curious about the Fire Engines! That Franz Ferdinand guy really is having an impact.

MissB.A if you have taken the time to delve into the world of Orange Juice or Josef K you really will enjoy the brief but delightful career of the Fire Engines.

One official album, mostly instrumental (billed as Background Music For Active People), called Lubricate Your Living Room. Mostly instrumental because the tracks were punctuated with Davy Henderson's mono-syllabic grunts, yelps & indecipherable words.
Apart from this unique album they released two singles. The immaculate Candy Skin! 25 years after release & I still have no clue to the lyrics, but I have no trouble singing along!
The last single was Big Gold Dream.

They refused to sign with Postcard Records, the home of Orange Juice, Josef K & Aztec Camera. They were outsiders even amongst these outsiders. Feeling more at home on the Fast label, & their sound is more in line with Gang Of Four or the Mekons.

I have a CD from the early 90s called Fond that includes the album & the singles. If you think the 1960s were great for producing The Velvet Underground & Captain Beefheart and the 1970s for bringing us the debuts of The Modern Lovers & Patti Smith, then you need the Fire Engines!

What was going on in Scotland in 1980/81? Orange Juice, Josef K, The Associates, Aztec Camera and Fire Engines!

[miss buenos aires]

Richard, you should hear about this:

In the wake of the recent Orange Juice retrospective, Domino continues to resurrect the lost Scottish pop classics in the form of a much needed Fire Engines reissue. Where Orange Juice and Aztec Camera were perfect pop, and Josef K churned out a glorious Television/Magazine influenced racket, the Fire Engines existed in altogether different universe. Although Codex Teenage Premonition doesn't include any of the original singles and albums (legal issues?), it serves as a perfect introduction to Scotland's most irreverent pop band. The CD compiles early takes of songs that would end up on the first 45 and album, two raw (but great sounding) and suitably short live sets from 1980-81, and a couple of Peel Session tracks. Davy Henderson spits and yelps like James Chance, over guitars that spit out shards of broken glass and a rhythm section that often tries to outpace each other and everyone else in the band. Fire Engines definitely had more in common with the New York no wave scene than with its jangly Scottish contemporaries, but they possessed a pop sensibility that the Contortions and Mars, perhaps purposely, lacked. Check out "Discord" and "Candyskin" from the Peel Session, and if you can show me pop music as urgent, I'm all ears.


Fire Engines reformed briefly last year for a stint of shows, and released a split single with Franz Ferdinand where the two bands cover each other. Fire Engines' version of "Jacqueline," tacked on at the end of this CD, predictably outshines the original. Lastly, the one gripe I have, where's the booklet with the pictures and the backstory? Still, you need this. [AK]

[Richard]

Thank you. I shall look this up!

[Emotional Toothpaste]

Not familiar with Fire Engine, but FireHOSE was a band I was really into there for a while. Not to be confused with FireHOUSE.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Richard is much more of a specialist than I am! My mate had Lubricate Your Living Room, I liked it, and he loved it. I've never got the opening track out of my head. It might be Get Up and Use It, or it might not. Candy Skin was glorious. Shame this new release doesn't include it and a few other singles. I had read about it with interest, and thought that the time was ripe for interest in them given the angular guitar boys parallels. I love richard's description of them as outsiders among outsiders.

Richard: do you know The Scars? The same friend had their single All About You and loved it. Really bright tuneful pop, something like 'It was another day and I had nothing to do, so I thought about you, all about you'. thanks to the internet, I've tracked down the LP it was from, Author! Author!, with the help of this handy site:

http://www.nwoutpost.com/mfv_detail.asp?mfv_id=98

Ever heard of them? They seem pretty obscure, and yet they were on Charisma/Stiff.

[Richard]

Otis, I am sure my swift reply has caught you off-guard.
I have to admit I have never heard the Scars. In fact have never heard of the Scars. Your description has me intrigued, so thank you.

As intrigued as your description of me as a specialist. In Fire engines? Or in all things obscure & forgotten from the 80s? I feel like Seymour in Ghost World. Living in the 1990s wishing it were an earlier simpler time with his obsession of early blues recordings etc. I sure hope I am not that sad. But I do enjoy the way things get mentioned on this board & bring a flood of rememberences for me. I have tried to watch things like 'I Love The 80s' on TV & sometimes wonder if anybody remembers the really great things from that decade. That show is a list of everything that made me cringe during the 1980s let alone looking back on it now!

[noiseradio]

If you like Orange Juice and the Fire Engines, may I highly recommend the debut album by Del Amitri. They're a Scottish band who had one really brilliant record in 1985, and then a series of mediocre to good (IMO) records to follow after altering their sound dramatically. And that's an important point. if you have ever heard of the Dels, it's probably tunes like "Kiss This Thing Goodbye," "Roll to Me," or "Last to Know." And while I very much like some of their output from the second album on, it's Del Amitri, the 1985 debut that continues to blow me away. I think it's a perfect record.

[laughingcrow]

Hey...the Fire Engines were great...I only really gave Josef K a proper listen this year, but have always been a fan of most of the postcard stuff...
Have you heard Candyskin? Brilliant track.

Aztec Camera (on Postcard) would be a great band to listen to, if you haven't already, MissBA, cos Roddy Frame drew EC comparisons, great songwriter. Also, the Go-Betweens...

[Otis Westinghouse]

Shame the Aztec early stuff ain't on CD. I almost never got my 45s out these days. Astonishing stuff for a 16 year old.

I must get out and play The Associates first LP The Affectionate Punch. I went right off them when they got too overboard with Country Club and Party Fears Two, though those were great pop, I admit, but I loved the more spartan ealry stuff. A favourite song from the era was the gorgeous Logan Time. A real acher.

Have heard you mention Del Amitri, Noise. I was never too impressed with what I saw, but I'll follow your recommendation and check out that first LP.