[kj] Fire Dances

Wed Aug 15 18:36:21 EDT 2018

LOL.  Either they've shrunk or I've put on some weight in quite strange places - it took about 5 mins to get my heels through the bottom of the legs just now!  That said, they were properly skintight on Jamie-aged-17 though, so no, I can't do them up.

Anyway, for your delectation, the photos follow (5 in all).  As you'll see, years of abuse (and the progressive rotting from the bleach) have turned the lettering on the front into ILLING (handy for when I got into the Beastie Boys), and actually it was only the JOKE that was in the FD font.

You'll also see a Dead Kennedys emblem on the bum, and also that typical patching-from-within with black cloth.

Those were the days, eh?

Jamie

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Whitehead <bawhitehead at gmail.com>
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!) <gathering at misera.net>
CC: jpwhkj <jpwhkj at aol.com>
Sent: Mon, 13 Aug 2018 13:56
Subject: Re: [kj] Fire Dances

"Photos of the jeans to follow later ;-)"

Can you still get in them?

Brian.

On 13 August 2018 at 13:49, jpwhkj--- via Gathering <gathering at misera.net> wrote:

I know you'll kill me for saying this, but - Dominator has never really done it for me.  It's grown on me as the years have passed, but it's not in my top-5-Fire-Dances tracks.

Agreed, though - KJ live in 83 were full of menace.

Yes, Wilful Days was *released* after the album (as an extra track on Me Or You), but it featured in the Fire Dances Peel session, and surely must have been written at the same time as the other FD material.

Photos of the jeans to follow later ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Perry <65snoopy at gmail.com>
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!) <gathering at misera.net>
Sent: Sun, 12 Aug 2018 21:51
Subject: Re: [kj] Fire Dances

I was still missing the thunder of WTF! when Fire Dances came out - it and Revelations sounded so thin in comparison.
But I thought it was a big improvement on Revelations, more cohesive, and it contained Harlequin, which to me was and still
is the - or at least a - quintessential KJ song. I remember me and mates clustered around the TV at the student halls where I was living to
watch them on The Tube, and Dominator blew my tiny mind (plus Raven in his flat cap and Jaz at the keyboards in full paint job).
I still love Dominator, Harlequin and Song & Dance - Geordie's sound is so sharp it'll have your head off.
As for silliness, well, yeah it was there but the vibe and threat was still enough to counter it.
Wilful Days should have been on it though - or did that come out after the LP?

N
PS photos of the jeans please Jamie

On 12 August 2018 at 15:53, jpwhkj--- via Gathering <gathering at misera.net> wrote:

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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