From: leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart)
Newsgroups: rec.music.reviews,rec.music.misc
Subject: Kronto Review: fIREHOUSE - "Flying The Flannel"
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 92 19:34:43 GMT
Reply-To: leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl
Followup-To: rec.music.misc
Organization: Delft University of Technology


fIREHOUSE - "Flying The Flannel" (1991)
Columbia 468422-2
42:43 min, 16 tracks
Produced by: Paul Q. Kolderie and fIREHOUSE

For some reason or the other I could have *sworn* that fIREHOUSE was 
a west coast party rock band in the Bon Jovi tradition. As people 
familiar with fIREHOUSE can imagine, I had quite a surprise coming 
to me when I put the CD into the player. Because fIREHOUSE is, dig 
this kids, an 'alternative' band. Definitely *not* Bon Jovi. I just 
can't understand where I got that idea from in the first place.

Now I feel a bit foolish admitting this, but the simple fact is that 
I am completely lacking in musical knowledge that will allow me to 
place this music in a specific context. I am sure that someone like 
soren or Eli or R o d will immediately know dozens of other bands 
and styles and influences that could be used to describe fIREHOUSE 
adequately. But I am simply at a loss: this music is like nothing I 
have ever heard before, and I find it almost impossible to describe.

Let me try anyway :-)
fIREHOUSE is a trio (bass, drums, guitar/vocals), who, judging by 
the booklet photograph, look like three Al Bundy's: lumberjack 
shirt, middle aged, and with receding hairlines. The music is not 
very alternative by nature - no inaccessible noise or "weird things" 
attack your ears. Basic song structures are still discernible. The 
bass is really the main instrument here. Mike Watt does things with 
his instrument you have to hear to believe. Listen to the opening 
number 'Down With The Bass' for instance. Great song, great bass.

As best as I can put it, the music strikes me as vaguely jazzy in 
style and tone. This is firstly because of the pronounced bass, 
floating fairly free-format in and out of the songs; secondly 
because of the relaxed atmosphere this album has -- not laid back or 
easy listening, but just ... relaxed, controlled; thirdly because of 
the very sparse production: the album sounds as if it was recorded 
live and put directly to disk. Don't ask me why I would associate 
all that with 'jazz' -- I know even less about jazz then I do about 
alternative music, and by now I am quite frankly wishing I had never 
begun writing this horribly awkward review, help!

Other than the jazzy aspect, there are a few songs with Caribian or 
African (can't quite place it, sounds a bit steelband-like) 
influences ('Epoxy, For Example'), and even some downright melodious 
songs ('Can't believe'). 

Two things are keeping me from truly *liking* this music. One is the 
vocals: they are mostly mediocre, and often quite bad indeed, 
bordering on the out of key. I am not saying that I always want Otis 
Redding like voice quality in my music (hey, I like Ozzie Ozbourne) 
but in this case it just rubs me entirely the wrong way. Many of the 
songs would sound so much better to me if only they had been sung 
decently. The second reason is the songs themselves: while they are 
fairly easy on the ears, they are again not exactly the summum of 
melody -- I have nothing against a little atonal music now and 
again, but having to listen to it for the entire album is a bit too 
much for me. So you will understand that my favourite songs are also 
the most melodious ones: 'Down With The Bass', the already mentioned 
'Can't Believe', 'Too Long' and 'Toolin' (I obviously like the songs 
written by Crawford best). 

Concluding, I can only say that the music on this album is 
'interesting'. Some of it good, some of it boring (to me). In all 
honesty I must add however, that this album *does* grow on you -- I 
like it now overall much better than I did the first three or four 
tries.

I want to end with a completely irrelevant and personal complaint 
against Mike Watt, the bass player for fIREHOUSE. After I had 
started listening to this CD, somebody posted an interview with him 
on alt.music.alternative. It turns out that fIREHOUSE used to be on 
an independent label (surprise surprise), but for this last album 
they made the change to a major label (SONY/Columbia). In the 
interview, Mike Watt had great fun barfing all over his more 
mainstream colleagues on that label: "I despise all my label mates" 
and more words to that effect. I *hate* it when artists do this. It 
is so extremely childish, and my experience is that for every artist 
who looks down on a fellow artist, there is somebody else who looks 
down on *him*. Sorta like the situation with the artists' fans on 
Usenet. I suppose if Mike Watt had net access, he would not want to 
read Michael Bolton articles, and he would consider himself to be 
possessed of "higher than average musical intelligence". Leo says: 
"Feh".


-- 
Leo Breebaart  (leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl)