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Bar Italia Forum -> Bar Italia Forum -> How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
Post Info TOPIC: How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
greezer47


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Obviously they went on to host some pretty legendary artists like NMH and Pere Ubu, but how small were they when Pulp were signed? Local scale? Any media traction>



-- Edited by greezer47 on Sunday 27th of April 2025 05:41:08 PM

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Eamonn


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Depends what you mean by local. They weren't based in Sheffield or Yorkshire, they were in London but very much a start-up company when they took Pulp on and presumably not swamped in cash for recording, marketing and distribution as Pulp soon discovered...

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Ian


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Yes, the label started in 1985 so Pulp would have been one of the first bands they signed.

Fire also released Teenage Fanclub's debut album through a subsidiary in 1990. I'm not sure how many copies that sold but their next couple of albums reached the top 40.

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lipglossed


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Teenage Fanclub! Great band. Bought a CD of theirs (Grand Prix) from the station bookshop at Wemyss Bay the day I went to Mark's signing. It was a beautiful sunny day on the Clyde too, so it felt like the platonic ideal of a place where you'd buy a second-hand TFC CD.

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Sturdy


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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I guess Fire's biggest band in the 80s were The Blue Aeroplanes. Like Pulp they got bigger later on but they were a Peel airplay / NME band around 1986. There was Rose of Avalanche too, a minor league goth band who supported the Mission on tour and did well in the indie charts. I don't get the sense they were a Factory / Creation / Rough Trade kind of deal though.

Up the Fannies!

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Sturdy


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RE: How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Eamonn wrote:

Depends what you mean by local. They weren't based in Sheffield or Yorkshire, they were in London but very much a start-up company when they took Pulp on and presumably not swamped in cash for recording, marketing and distribution as Pulp soon discovered...

On the budget thing, it's interesting listening to that Great Fire Of London compilation, which has tracks on from most of their bands from the mid '80s. Most of them are way more professionally produced than anything Pulp did in the mid '80s! Not super-glossy major-label-sounding, but well within the bounds of indie-rock acceptability from the time. Makes me wonder whether the unvarnished sound of Freaks/Dogs/Little Girl was governed by other factors too - a mixture of limited musicianship and aesthetic choice maybe. They obviously didn't want to sound too slick in that period - after all, It was done on a similar budget/timescale and isn't anything like as raw.



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Ian


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RE: How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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lipglossed wrote:

Teenage Fanclub! Great band. Bought a CD of theirs (Grand Prix) from the station bookshop at Wemyss Bay the day I went to Mark's signing. It was a beautiful sunny day on the Clyde too, so it felt like the platonic ideal of a place where you'd buy a second-hand TFC CD.

I can actually remember how I discovered them. I was sat in a Doctors' waiting room in 1999 reading a music magazine that had been there for years. There was a review of the Teenage Fanclub album "Thirteen" and I remembered the title because Blur had just released an album called "13". I went to the library a few days later to borrow some CDs, I noticed "Thirteen" and thought I may as well see what it was like. Despite it being one of their least popular albums, I loved it. "Howdy" remains my favourite though. 



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nrb602


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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I don't know much before or around the time Pulp were signed, but I know they released one of Spacemen 3's records that topped the indie chart in 1989 (aptly titled Playing with Fire!), around the time Pulp was to record Separations, and then the already-mentioned Teenage Fanclub.



-- Edited by nrb602 on Wednesday 30th of April 2025 01:54:41 AM

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Sturdy


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Yeah, Fire's most successful period (relatively speaking) was possibly in the gap between Freaks and Separations! By the early 90s they seemed to run into a few problems, largely stemming from Rough Trade distribution collapsing. Hindsight's a wonderful thing, but if they'd stayed with them after Freaks and done Separations a year or two earlier, maybe they wouldn't have struggled like they did.

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inspirit


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RE: How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Slight digression, but I took this screenshot from a French documentary 'Blur / Oasis: The Britpop Years' (2014). It shows a Pulp (demo?) tape on Alan McGee's desk at Creation. The documentary had a lot of undated archive footage, some clearly not from the Britpop era. In the period between Freaks and re-signing with Fire for Separations, I guess they tried a lot of labels without success. The logo could be pre- or post- Separations, so could possibly be from after Separations and before Warp/Gift, but I would guess the Jarvis image on the tape dates it to pre-Separations. 

Anyone here have any ideas what material Pulp were sending around for demos - anyone seen / heard any copies - and what labels they tried and were rejected by?



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Sturdy


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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I think I've seen a copy of that tape before - it would be Death Comes to Town and Rattlesnake if it's the same thing.

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inspirit


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RE: How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Rattlesnake? Jeez, as much as I love Pulp, that's a tough sell. No wonder they had to go back to Fire. Surely 'Don't You Want Me Anymore' would have been a better choice, if they could only use FON recordings. Maybe the rationale was to show variety, as Death & Don't are both ballads.

Thanks for answering. 



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Eamonn


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How big were Fire when Pulp signed with them?
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Rattlesnake is genius! But yeah, unlikely to trouble the hit parade in the late 80s, west of Bucharest.

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