BURNING FIGHT

Saturday night I may the trip down to Pomona to catch the West Coast book release show for Burning Fight. Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound is a book focusing on 90's hardcore written by a hardcore kid turned school teacher, Brian Peterson. The book draws upon the memories of many who played influential roles in the scene and understand what made this era of hardcore so unique, and it includes lengthy interviews from a ton of bands including Undertow, Unbroken, Strife (my Band), Mouthpiece, Integrity, Shelter, Endpoint, and many more.
This show featured sets by 3 very influential bands from the 90's: Unbroken from San Diego, Undertow from Seattle, and Threadbare from Minnesota. All proceeds from the sold out show went to charity, and as you can see from the photos below, a good time was had by all.



I first met Unbroken in the early 90's. We played a basement show together out in Chula Vista back when they had Brian "Iron Jaw" on vocals. Our guitar player at the time owned New Age Records, and he quickly signed Unbroken and released their first 7" You Won't be Back.



Unbroken released their first album, Ritual, in 1993, but it was their second album Life, Love. Regret that would really define Unbroken as a band.



Undertow was a Straight Edge hardcore band from Seattle. To be honest, I can't even remember the first time that I met these guys. We played with Undertow a bunch of different times, and even borrowed their van for a cross country tour. Everyone from Undertow except for John came in the van with us (Their were over 12 of us in that van), and we all became close friends.





Unfortunately I missed Threadbare's set. I got to the show at 8:30 only to find out that they played at 7:15. They should have played much higher on the bill if only for the fact the they came all the way from Minnesota and they never once made it to California when they were an active band. Threadbare's album Feeling Older Faster is one of my favorite records from the 90's and still hold up to this day.





I chilled with Ryan from Chain Of Strength (far left) for a good portion of the night. We talked about the possibility of a Chain reunion, their official collab tee with The Hundreds, as well as a ton of other stuff. I have known Ryan forever, and it's always good to see him. On the far right is my homey Mitch from Chula Vista. He booked shows in his basement, which he called "Club Mitch." He booked our first show with Unbroken and House of Suffering (which may have been our first SD show ever) in his basement (Photos from that show made it on the insert to our 7" My Fire Burns On)



Here's a photo of me and Dave Mandel. Dave used to do Indecision Fanzine, and continues to release records on his label also called Indecision. He's also the man behind the extremely limited 3 album Unbroken discography that is already selling for a ton on Ebay. Indecision is already almost up to it's 90th release, and Dave has something special planned for number 100!


Last but not least is Burning Fight author Brian Peterson with Scott Beiben (Bloodlink Records, Retrieval Inc.). I've known Scott forever, and it's always go to see him doing his thing. You can order Burning Fight from Revelation Records. You can check out more photos from the show here.

All photos by Dan Rawe