Burning Image
| Burning Image | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Bakersfield, California, United States |
| Genres | Deathrock, gothic rock, post-punk, punk rock |
| Years active | 1982-1987 2004-present |
| Website | Official Website |
| Members | Moe Adame Tony Bonanno Anthony Leyva Michael Bonanno |
| Past members |
Joe Sparks Paul Burch |
Burning Image are an American deathrock band formed in Bakersfield, California in 1982. Burning Image first released a 7" single with the songs "The Final Conflict" and "Burning Image, Burning" in the summer of 1984. The compilation 1983-1987 in 2004 and album Fantasma (2009) were both released on Alternative Tentacles, record label owned by former Dead Kennedys singer, Jello Biafra, with album Oleander (2011) being self-published. Burning Image celebrates 36 years as a band, in 2018, with a new album and a tour.
Burning Image is one of the original bands of the early 1980s California Deathrock scene, along with 45 Grave and Christian Death, playing shows with bands including Specimen, Dead Kennedys, Butthole Surfers, and Timothy Leary.
The first incarnation of what became Burning Image was The Pictures, which played their first shows in Bakersfield in early 1982, and featured Moe Adame (guitar,vocals) Tony Bonanno (guitar,vocals) Brad Higgins (bass) and a host of drummers. After the departure of Higgins, Adame and Bonanno decided to look for a bassist and a drummer. Joe Sparks and Paul Burch were playing in the band Public Art at a backyard party, when Adame and Bonanno, who were at the party, decided that night that both Burch and Sparks needed to be in The Pictures. Burch and Sparks joined shortly thereafter with Bonanno switching to bass. The band immediately started writing songs and playing shows, with "Time Is Running Out", "The Lower Walks" and "You've Changed" being the first batch of songs written as a new band. After playing a few shows, the band decided that The Pictures was no longer fitting as a band name, as the direction of the band began to be more inspired by darker themes in the music of Bauhaus, The Cure, Christian Death and the California hardcore punk scene.
In 1983, Burning Image recorded a 7" single with the songs "The Final Conflict" and "Burning Image, Burning" which was recorded at Casbah Recording Studio in Fullerton, California, by Chaz Ramirez, producer and engineer of Mommy's Little Monster by Social Distortion. The artwork for the 7" single was done by Art Morales, creator of the artwork for Mommy's Little Monster. After the release of the single, Burch and Sparks went to Berkeley, California to promote the record on the local college radio station. Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys was in the radio station doing his own show when he heard the song "The Final Conflict" and asked who the band was playing the song and liked the song so much that he invited Burning Image to open a show for them in San Francisco.
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