The Fire Engines – ‘(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’

When Bob Last played his label’s next single (Heaven 17’s ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’) to another of ‘his’ bands, the high-concept studio gloss and anti-fascist sentiment of the song didn’t go unnoticed. It was 1981, and with Margaret Thatcher forming an unholy alliance with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, slap-bass driven anthem sounded very necessary. Last, who ran the Pop Aural label, probably had no idea that the Fire Engines would end up covering the track before the Heaven 17 version had even hit the shops however. Especially as the raw, rudimentary and highly-charged angularity of Fire Engines was as far away from Heaven 17's studied construction of style and substance as it could be. When Fire Engines ran out of time recording their first John Peel session, however, and opted to record a final track in a manic two hour stint back in Edinburgh, that's exactly what happened. The end result was scratchier, scrappier and more urgent than Heaven 17's glossy slice of Nu-funk entryism, as if the song was on the run from forces unknown and threatening to collapse any second. And the fact that the ‘original’ was already being trailed by the time the Fire Engines session was broadcast gave both recordings a frisson of subversive zeal. When Radio 1 went on to ban Heaven 17's single due to its political content, 'Fascist Groove Thang' stalled at number 45 in the singles chart. If the BBC's draconian censoriousness gave the record a sheen of underground cool, Fire Engines' deconstruction was even more samizdat, and was only officially released in 1992 on Creation Records' Fire Engines compilation, Fond. As the 1980s ushered in a new era of pop protest, however, it was just what Thatcher's children needed.
Neil Cooper