History
The band formed in 1994, around the time the Dead Milkmen announced their plans to disband the following year after a final tour and album. Taking their name from the 1962 horror film of the same name, Burn Witch Burn was composed of Linderman, his wife Vienna and a cast of additional instrumentalists. They crafted a distinct sound drawing from several forms of folk music (including Irish and Americana styles) and a "Pogues-esque" punk rock sensibility, with a dark element sufficient to frequently earn them "goth" and "gypsy" tags. This dark edge, reflected in songs of murder, misery, alcoholism, pestilence and the occult, was a sharp left turn from the Dead Milkmen's comedic lyrical motifs, although Burn Witch Burn lyrics were not without their own sense of black humor (notable in such songs as "Treetop Flotilla", which includes an anecdote about an abusive, Led Zeppelin-listening "fake biker".) The band also utilized an array of unique instrumentation, including the tin whistle, violin, mandolin, banjolin, bouzouki, melodeon, and hurdy-gurdy, in addition to the standard guitar, bass and drums.
The band's first release was a six song demo tape in 1995. 1997 saw a seven-song self-released CD-ep, The Burning Times, which included a cover of The Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties".
In 2000, Burn Witch Burn recorded a full-length, self-titled album, released on the Philadelphia-based Razler Records imprint (which was also the home to Butterfly Joe, a group featuring half of the Dead Milkmen). The album included re-recordings of much of the band's first two minor releases, some new original material, and a Rolling Stones cover, "Citadel".
The group disbanded in 2001. Fergusson and Rodney Linderman later formed the group 25 Cromwell Street, playing in the style of Burn Witch Burn and incorporating several of the latter group's songs into its set.
Read more about this topic: Burn Witch Burn
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)