[kj] Fire Dances

[jpwhkj at aol.com]

It was the first album to come out after I fell in love with the Joke, and my first-ever Joke gig (indeed my second-ever gig) was on the Fire Dances tour.  Me and my best mate played the album to death that summer, and soon enough I had a pair of bleached jeans with KILLING written down the front of one leg in bleach, and JOKE down the back - in the Fire Dances font (thank you, mum).  They're still in a bag upstairs somewhere.


So, listening to it now courtesy of youtube, I can't hear those drums crashing in without being transported back to the summer of 1983.  At the time (as far as I can recall) I thought it was Jaz imagining some post-nuclear world, or maybe some distant past... so the total silliness of it the lyrics didn't really register on teenage-me.  But yes, they are silly.


That said, they're better than what-I-did-on-my-holidays-by-Jeremy-Coleman-aged-9 aka Outside The Gate.  And to be honest, most Joke lyrics from the mid or late eighties onwards have been some shade of silly.  For what it's worth, I suspect that the departure of Big Paul in 1987 or 1988 removed a key component of KJ's creative base, and we had a couple of decades of conspiracy-theory lyrics combined with chugging guitars as a result.


Musically (and lyrically) it did have a striking unity of character though.  You can't listen to a Fire Dances track and think it's from any other album.  Admittedly most KJ albums have quite a distinctive character of their own - each one very Killing Joke, but also different from the others - but I think Fire Dances has it more than most.  I'm listening to Feast of Blaze at the moment, which on the vinyl was the opening track of side 2, and once again I'm back in 1983, watching the needle drop onto the vinyl, the red and yellow centre spinning round...









-----Original Message-----
From: HG <hgrey1935 at gmail.com>
To: gathering <gathering at misera.net>
Sent: Sun, 12 Aug 2018 6:23
Subject: [kj] Fire Dances



Been listening to this album tonight and have such a love/hate relationship with it. The first album post-Jaz Iceland meltdown and the first new songs without Youth. Some great riffs by Geordie and great drumming by Paul, but the lyrics and song titles leave me flat and seem juvenile. Fun and Games? Song and Dance? Let's All Go to the Fire Dances?? Who were they trying to appeal to with this album? Lust Almighty gets the award for best tune with worst lyrics. Still looking forward to seeing them in SF in Sept...


Harold
San Jose, CA

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