imomus | Franz Fireenginand

Legendary Edinburgh band The Fire Engines played last night at The Liquid Rooms. The support act was Sons and Daughters, a band who've been touring with Franz Ferdinand, and Alex Kapranos (tall and quiffed, like a young Edwyn Collins) stood at the side of the stage nodding along enthusiastically as Davy Henderson and the boys clanged, bumped and soloed through Beefheartian numbers they composed in the early 80s. Songs I'd last heard live in 1981 up at the art college flashed by, sirens wailing. (They didn't do 'Candy Skin', unfortunately. No violins.) Although it was exciting to see the band again twenty years later, it couldn't help being a little sad too, like seeing the Sex Pistols or the Velvet Underground decades after their radical days. The Fire Engines had joined cruise liner karaoke glitz culture, parroting their own early repertoire. In between songs Davy Henderson referred repeatedly to Franz Ferdinand, subjecting the angular guitar pop band to a caustic kind of boosterism ('Glasgow's best new band... or so they think'), as if the younger band's big success were the only reason the Fire Engines were back up on the stage.

Anyway, here's a track from the show.

The Fire Engines (Live) Get Up And Use Me (mono WAV file, 1.35 MB)

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Any thoughts on Franz Ferdinand yourself? One of the better new bands to come up this year, to my mind.

They're good at what they do, but I'm just not very interested. I love the mysterious, arty, experimental guitar pop of Josef K, Wire, etc (I just bought the Wire DVD 'On The Box 1979') or what people like Lightning Bolt are doing now. I'm not interested when people take guitar pop mainstream, make it more extraverted, more commercial, more 'efficient'. I wasn't even a paricularly big Smiths fan.

what did you think of sons & daughters?

Incredibly boring, I'm afraid. Lots going on, but none of it interesting. Out of a 45 minute set I only liked one little piece of music, about ten seconds long, when all the instruments dropped out and the bass and guitar played a riff in counterpoint. I wished that, like Can, they'd take that riff and play it for ten minutes with some weird electronic squooshing noises and a mantra about bananas.

sounds a little bit like their album then, i think i know which song you mean, it is an awesome riff, but whenever i hear it i just want more out of it, somehow.

That actually reminded me of when I read Cintra Wilson's account of Lou Reed being overstretched in a New York yoga studio, and the reaction of aging hipsters to the audacity of the woman forcibly stretching him. Anyway, that's about the time I decided to classify certain celebrities as being exactly like Lou Reed... it's just a damned shame they didn't overdose in their heyday, rather than go on and on, slowly debasing their past glory with every passing, embarrasing year.

People grow up. A fact of life I've heard.

I don't like Franz Ferdinand. I didn't like that kind of music the first time round - funk and disco crudely adapted and grafted on to scratchy rock - but the fact that FF are so derivative makes them even less appealing. Plus I'm old and automatically hate most things anyway.

To be fair to the Fire Engines.. I say good luck to them. That the wheel has turned and given them the opportunity to re-emerge and do something they enjoy I think is nice. But then I'm old and increasingly sentimental. Having said that, I might well have a different opinion if I had to listen to what they were doing.

But God, they were so good, the Fire Engines. Before, I mean.

I think there's still some potential for surprise left in rock'n'roll, but hardly anyone seems to tap into it.

I have a copy of the Franz Ferdinand album. I have listened to it and enjoyed it, but I find that, rather than growing on me, it has done the opposite, whatever that might be. (Sloughed off me?) I suppose I just can't relate to it. 'Find me and follow me' (or whatever the title is) has hints of the sort of impressionistic evocation of, say, 'Life on Mars?', but on the whole I get the feeling this impressionism is lazy and perfunctory on most of the album. Perhaps this kind of impressionism is something that has become entirely derivative in rock. It seems to have lost most of its power to surprise and evoke.

Still, since I have the album I'm sure I'll listen to it again and my opinion may change.

There seems to be one album each year that gets everywhere, every house party you go to, clubs, bars. There's nothing terrible about it, it won't offend anyone, sometimes it is very good, whoever puts it on hopes it pleases all but reveals a common cool. It's been Cornershop, 'Debut', 'Odelay'. This year it seemed to be Franz Ferdinand.

franz ferdinand are OK, but the yummy fur + all of slampt records was so much better. franz ferdinand really just come off like a tribute to the whole "young sound of scotland" ... orange juice, josef k., fire engines, etc. why do bands insist on reuniting lately? i guess just because postpunk is IN they all feel the need to cash in on it? although im sure the fire engines weren't that bad at all.

I thought the Fire Engines split in 81?

Also, do you know where I could get a hold of some of their stuff? I downloaded the Peel Sessions, but haven't been able to find anything else. The only thing I've found available is this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000006CG9/qid=1104513818/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/202-5635537-4964611), and it seems like there's something wrong there because that looks like an awful lot of tracks for a 7".

There was a pretty good Fire Engines compilation, Fond (http://www.awrc.com/review/f/fond.html), on Creation's retro Revola label, but now Creation no longer exists, perhaps it's unobtainable.

I like Franz Ferdinand but I'll take Orange Juice over them anyday.

Edwyn's line 'just like the Four Tops - I can't help myself!' always leaves a smile on my face.

I've always found the Fire Engines to be a bit too abrasive, but I'm happy to read about this. Josef K beat Fire Engines and OJ hands down.

Also, it makes me sad to think Fire Engines should even feel the need to mention Franz Ferdinand onstage. Franz Ferdinand are okay, but I think they probably make a lot more sense for someone young enough to have little memory of 80's music, particularly people who have never heard of Gang Of Four.

Also glad you reminded me about that Wire DVD, it's about time I got that.

Heres a link to why the fire engines
name checked F/F "once" at there
gig at the liquid rooms in Edinburgh
check.............. "MEDIA-audio"
F/F live in Amsterdam......... Get Up And Use Me .

www.franzferdinand.8k.com

Franz Fireenginand

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But the song is a saddening bore, for I've heard it ten times or more

Party Pleasers

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rip it up and start again

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the fire engines