Neil Cooper on new compilation Chrome Dawns: 'If this really is the last word on Fire Engines, their currency knows no bounds'
Fire Engines shone briefly but brightly on Edinburgh’s music scene in the early 80s. Neil Cooper has written an extensive essay and interviewed the band for the CD booklet of Chrome Dawns, a just-released compilation that gathers their recorded history together in one place for the first time. Here, he takes a look back over their fleeting time in the limelight
As one of Edinburgh’s original punk-inspired bands, Fire Engines may not have been around for long, but the band’s urgent angular howl left its mark. Over their breathless 18-month lifespan between 1980 and 1981, the mercurial teenage quartet of Davy Henderson (vocals/guitar), Murray Slade (guitar), Graham Main (bass) and Russell Burn (drums) released a mere three singles and a mini album before imploding.
These can be heard on Chrome Dawns, a double-vinyl/2CD compilation that brings together all of Fire Engines’ studio releases. It opens with the band’s frenetic debut single, 'Get Up And Use Me'/'Everything's Roses', released on manager Angus Groovy’s Codex Communications label. This is followed by high-concept mini opus, ‘Lubricate Your Living Room’, and subsequent singles, ‘Candyskin’/‘Meat Whiplash’, and the band’s swansong, ‘Big Gold Dream’. All of these appeared on Bob Last and Hilary Morrison’s post-Fast Product imprint, Pop: Aural.
Fire Engines’ small and imperfectly formed studio back catalogue is supplemented on the vinyl edition of Chrome Dawns by the group’s two John Peel sessions, plus the band’s cover of Franz Ferdinand’s song, ‘Jacqueline’. The latter is taken from a split single with the younger band, who performed a version of ‘Get Up And Use Me’ on the flipside. This was released in 2004 after Fire Engines regrouped for a selection of shows with fellow travellers The Magic Band and Sun Ra’s Arkestra, before going on to open for Franz Ferdinand at Glasgow’s SECC.
The CD set of Chrome Dawns also features rare live material, including a recording of the first ever Fire Engines show at Leith Community Centre in 1980, as well as a 1981 gig at the capital's Valentino’s club. There is also a live soundtrack to an Edinburgh Festival Fringe play, Why Does The Pope Not Come To Glasgow?
Chrome Dawns is the latest contribution to an ever-expanding historicisation of Scotland’s below-radar grassroots music scene. On record, this has included Cherry Red Records’ Big Gold Dreams box set, and various archival releases by Fire Engines’ fellow Auld Reekie travellers Scars, Boots For Dancing, Josef K, and post-Fire Engines pop fabulists, Win.
While much of the material on Chrome Dawns has appeared on earlier compilations, this will be the first time everything is available in the same place, and might be regarded as definitive. If this really is the last word on Fire Engines, their currency knows no bounds. Just check out their frenetic Peel session cover of Heaven 17’s ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’, recorded before the Sheffield electronic popsters released their debut single. As grand gestures go, Fire Engines and Chrome Dawns remain an incendiary proposition.
Chrome Dawns is out now on Cherry Red Records.