Sunday, November 8, 2009

Posted by jav |

In the mid 90's, the Southern California hardcore scene was dominated by baggy jeans, basketball jerseys, open E chugs, and lots and lots of boys.
Then, PALEFIRE popped out of nowhere and helped meld the chug of hardcore with the beauty of the "emo" scene. Equal parts Dahlia Seed, Snapcase, and Copper, Palefire was something different in a scene full of cookie-cutter/cookie-monster bands.
The band was just as comfortable playing at Koo's Arts cafe with bands like Whirlpool and Far as they were playing at Showcase Theater with 1134 and Earth Crisis. Seeming not to fit in anywhere, they actually fit in everywhere.
In their time they released a demo cassette, played on KUCI radio show, and a cdep on Ammunition Records. The ep was supposedly pressed onto a 7", but that never saw the light of day. They also had one song on the Indecision Records compilation Guilty By Association.
The band folded around 1996, playing a last show at Zed Records. Members went on to be in various bands... Sean Brummel and Dan Sena went on to play in Stickfigurecarousel. Dan also played in the last incarnation of Adamantium, before riding Steve Aoki's coat tails to become the "Dim Mak bassline destroyer".

Brett Cutts played in the punk band FM Bats and released some beautiful solo music before tragically dying in 2006. He was an amazing person, and his impact is still felt to this day by the people who's lives he touched. R.I.P.
Christine Doan can now be seen fronting the Misfits/ Danzig tribute band Dirty Black Summer. Members of Death By Stereo and Mean Season round out this awesome tribute.
Justin transferred my copy of the demo, and its presented here digitally for the first time ever.

Palefire- demo

also check out
www.myspace.com/dirtyblacksummertribute
www.myspace.com/brettcutts

EDIT: It was brought to our attention that Palefire's EP "Last Breath" is still available through RevHQ. I have taken it down as a request so please check this link to order the records.

Palefire at RevHQ

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice post. I hung out with Christine quite a bit in the mid '90s and her commitment to hardcore was second to none. I was at Palefire's first show (?) at Koo's Arts Cafe in '94 and even though it was their public debut, they brought the house down. Great band.

Christine also did a really good zine called Streamline. We should try to get that up on the blog sometime.

Anonymous said...

hahaha.

sweet, thanks!

jav said...

i have Streamline. has an interview with Mandel. maybe we should do an all zine blog.

Unknown said...

Jav, in what years these records (Demo and Last Breath + Stain) were released/recorded? Oh, and of course thank you so much for this post!

jav said...

i would say the demo was 1994? justin has the cover right now. the EP was probably 1995, and Stain was release on the Guilty By Association comp, 1995.

Unknown said...

thank you for the info my friend! when you could scan and upload Streamline zine? i'm waiting impatiently and with great interest for this zine!

Anonymous said...

My Dirty Black Summer post on here - http://xstuckinthepastx.blogspot.com/2009/08/dirty-black-summer-90s-hardcore-kids.html

ericxedge said...

Can you re-upload the demo?

Anonymous said...

Hey can someone upload the Guilty By Association comp? Haven't heard it in years. Cheers!