FIRE ENGINES
chrome dawns
(Cherry Red Records)
Fire Engines burst onto the music scene in late 1980 and checked out in late '81 but what a year! Three singles, a mini-album, two Peel Sessions, legendary over in a flash but WOW gigs, and they left a beautiful legacy all of which is encompassed in this wonderful new compilation from Cherry Red Records, Fire Engines: chrome dawns.
The first CD in the double compilation includes all the official releases plus Peel Sessions, moving from the scratchy ear shredding first single Get Up And Use Me, although the B-Side, Everything's Roses is the one that grabbed my initial attention. So many peaks, right through to the lugubrious lope of Produced To Seduce To with their characteristic no cymbals and no barre chords groove.
The whole thing is great and if you buy the double vinyl this will be enough to make you very happy indeed.
However the CD version has a whole cornucopia of additional delights to explore. Basically it's an odds and sods as you'd expect from a band that flew so high so quickly and disappeared again just as quickly... Or so I thought at the time.
There's a recording of their first gig in the spring of 1980, a live radio session recorded at the Edinburgh Fringe in August of the same year; an entire live set recorded when they were in their pomp in the Summer of 81... And my goodness, how it all flies... I used to read about them doing 20 minute sets but flipping heck they packed so much energy into what they were doing I can only imagine the state of both them and the audience by the end of their performance.
With those levels of energy and excitement it wasn't to last and they stopped in December 1980. If you want to know what happened next, check out Win, and Nectarine No.9—you wont be disappointed.
Essential Information
Main image by Kevin Low,
2nd image from top by Kevin Low
Lower image by Neil Cooper
It's Fire Engines Week in Outsideleft
It's Fire Engines Week in Outsideleft
Getting to Know the Fire Engines
A Dayglo Mohair Jumper - An interview with Davy Henderson
Everything Happens So Fast
Cheekbones and Speed
chrome dawns
