The Fire Dept was a British punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 group. The main core of the band over the years comprised Neil Palmer on guitar and vocals, Neale Richardson on bass and Robin Taylor on drums. Johnny Johnson of Thee Headcoats

Thee Headcoats

Thee Headcoats 1989 - 2000, was a band comprising Billy Childish, Bruce Brand, and Johnny Johnson. Childish was featured on guitar and vocals, Brand on drums and backing vocals, and Johnson on bass. The band was the most prolific of Childish's many musical projects, releasing fourteen full...

 (and also of The Cannibals

The Cannibals (British band)

The Cannibals are a British rock band formed in 1976 by Mike Spenser, after his former band, the Flying Tigers, had split up. They have released seven full length albums, numerous singles, EP's, split LP's, and appeared on several compilations...

) played bass on stage from 1995 to 1997, and on the Fire Dept's Elpee for Another Time (1996).

History

The Fire Dept was a punk rock group started in 1987 in Cambridge, England, that played in the same garage rock

Garage rock

Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...

 or garage punk

Garage punk

Garage punk is a fusion of garage rock and punk rock. It is fast-paced lo-fi music characterized by a dirty, choppy guitar sound—usually played by bands who are on independent record labels or who are unsigned...

 genre (also known at that time as 60s punk) as many other bands in the British Isles during the late 1980s and early 90s, most notably Thee Headcoats

Thee Headcoats

Thee Headcoats 1989 - 2000, was a band comprising Billy Childish, Bruce Brand, and Johnny Johnson. Childish was featured on guitar and vocals, Brand on drums and backing vocals, and Johnson on bass. The band was the most prolific of Childish's many musical projects, releasing fourteen full...

 and The Thanes.

In 1988, the Fire Dept moved to Brighton and mainly performed locally and in London, where they played most often at the Wild Western Rooms, in the back room of the St John's Tavern, Archway, which was the monthly home of Thee Headcoats throughout the 1990s. It was there that they supported many 1960s Beat groups rediscovered and encouraged to reform by the promoter, Slim Chance.

Billy Childish

Billy Childish

Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...

 released the Fire Dept's second single, "Last One There" b/w "She Saw Me" on his Hangman's Daughter label in 1995. Later that year, Childish produced a Fire Dept LP called L'Oeuf d'Or, all the material on which was recorded by Liam Watson

Liam Watson

Liam Watson is a Grammy Award-winning British record producer and owner of Toe Rag Studios. Watson is perhaps best known for his work engineering and mixing the White Stripes' Elephant, receiving the 2004 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album...

 during various sessions at Toe Rag Studios

Toe Rag Studios

Toe Rag Studios is an analogue recording studio located in Hackney, London, UK.-History:The studio was founded in 1991 by Liam Watson and Josh Collins in the Shoreditch area of London. In 1997, the business relocated to Hackney due to rising overheads...

, in its original location in Shoreditch, from 1991 to 1995. Their second long-player, a punk rock concept album, Elpee for Another Time, was released through Yep! Records of Hove in 1996. This LP was accompanied by an explanatory booklet including a foreword by writer, subcultural pamphleteer, underground art historian, and activist, Stewart Home

Stewart Home

Stewart Home is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. He is best known for his novels such as the non-narrative 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess , his re-imagining of the 1960s in Tainted Love , and earlier parodistic pulp fictions Pure Mania, Red...

, and an essay by underground novelist, Simon Strong. Liam Watson included the Fire Dept's version of "Mental Block" (originally written by Sean Thomas and performed by the early-1980s Bristol mod band, The Reaction) as one of his favourite tracks on The Sympathetic Sounds Of Toe-Rag Studios, London, issued in 2002 by Sympathy for the Record Industry. A retrospective album of previously unreleased material, The History of Fen Punk, Vol. III, was issued by Cormorant Recordings of Brighton in 2003.

In 2004, the Fire Dept played for the last time with the Buff Medways at the Dirty Water Club in Tufnell Park

Tufnell Park

Tufnell Park is an area of north London, England which straddles the border of the London Borough of Islington and the London Borough of Camden.-Origins:...

, London. Neil Palmer formed The Vermin Poets with Billy Childish and Julie Hamper in early 2007.

Singles

• "Girl, Girl, Girl, Girl" b/w "Witch Girl" "Girl and a Hotrod", 7", Kave-In, KI-0001, 1988
• "Where D'You Keep Your Heart?" b/w "Baby I Got News For You", 7", Yep!, YEP01, 1993
• "Last One There" b/w "She Saw Me", 7", Hangman's Daughter, KETCH 1 UP, 1994

Albums

• L'Oeuf d'Or, LP, Hangman's Daughter, SCRAG 6 LP, 1995 Click here to listen to and download L'Oeuf d'Or for free
• Elpee for Another Time, CD/LP, YEP 3, 1996 Click here to listen to and download "Elpee for Another Time" for free
• The History of Fen Punk, Vol. III, CD, Cormorant Recordings, Cormorant LP 1, 2003 Click here to listen to and download "The History of Fen Punk, Vol. III" for free
• A Flame from the Fen, CD, Damaged Goods, 2010

Compilation albums

• "Girl, Girl, Girl, Girl" on Strange Fish: The Cambridge Album, LP, Raven Records, SRT8KL 1550, 1988
• "Witch Girl" on Graveyard Stomp, LP, Anagram Records, GRAM 39, 1988
• "Your Touch On Me" on Hey Mom, the Garage Is on My Foot, CD/LP, Damaged Goods, 1996
• "The Group Templar" on The Thing From Another World: Supernerdmobile!, Free CD with the 18th issue of The Thing magazine (Greece), THR 006, 1997
• "Mental Block" on The Sympathetic Sounds Of Toe-Rag Vol. 1, LP/CD, Sympathy for the Record Industry, SFTRI 695, 2002

Songs recorded by others

• "She Saw Me", by 7 & 7 Is on Cheat Death, CD, 2003
• "Last One There", by The A-Lines on You Can Touch, CD/LP, Sympathy for the Record Industry, 2005

Recordings played on by Fire Dept members

• Vibrasonic, "Vibrasonic", CD/LP, Yep! Records, 1995 (Neil Palmer, bass on one track)
• Vibrasonic, "Instrumental Vibrations", CD/LP, Yep! Records, 1997 (Neil Palmer, bass on a couple of tracks)
• Stewart Home Comes In Your Face (on a split CD with Dolphins, PUNKROCKDRUNK LIVE), Sabotage Editions, 1998, HNTSAB 001 (see Stewart Home#Spoken word and music CDs) (Rob Taylor, drums, and Neil Palmer, bass — credited under pseudonyms)
• Long Bone Trio, "Oscar flies in the face of reason/Fat Head", 7" Vinyl, Productus, 2008] (Rob Taylor, guitar)
• Long Bone Trio, "Chainey Pieces", CD Album, Lap Records, 2009 (Rob Taylor, guitar)

External links

• Interview with the Fire Dept shortly after the release of Elpee for Another Time (this same interview text is also used by Damaged Goods records in their current description of L'Oeuf d'Or
• 2005 interview with Billy Childish in The Independent, in which he speaks about the Fire Dept.
• Billy Childish's website