| Society Burning | |
| Alias: | The Watchmen |
| Landscape: | yes |
| Origin: | Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S. |
| Years Active: | 1991–present |
| Current Members: |
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| Past Members: |
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Society Burning is an American coldwave industrial rock band composed of Daveoramma (born Dave Mansfield, Dave Creadeau), Twitch, and Boom chr Paige (born Boom Fernandez). The group was founded in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1991 and was originally named The Watchmen (a tribute to the Alan Moore graphic novel).
Daveoramma (born Dave Mansfield) began recording music in 1991 under the name Watchmen with one other person while at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM. As an instructor of recording arts at the university, Mansfield had unfettered access to the university's 16-track recording studio, where he met Boom chr Paige (born Boom Fernandez), who was recording for a band called Your Mother. Boom provided guitar work and other musical support during the production of Watchmen's first release, Is God in Showbusiness Too?.[1]
After completing work on the Showbusiness cassette, Chase of If It Moves... records (later Cargo/Re-constriction records) found out about the band via a New Mexico college radio station. Soon after, Chase include their track "Merciful Release" on the compilation Cyberflesh Conspiracy.
After the other member of Watchmen left, Dave asked Boom to officially join the band.[2] The duo released a second self-produced work, Plague, in January 1992, gaining further attention from Chase, as well as from German label Kugelblitz. Both labels released compilations featuring the band, but the band changed its name upon discovering at least two other bands vying to use the name Watchmen.[3] The resulting name change to Society Burning (ripped from a quote from a Denver, Colorado newscast) was chosen in time for both record labels to use the name on separate compilation appearances.
During this time the band relocated to Denver, Colorado, where they met and enlisted, for a time, Michael Smith of Fiction 8 for assistance with keyboards on-stage. The move to Denver turned out to be difficult financially, and the duo found that they spent more time working to make ends meet than creating, a situation which contributed a turn towards writing "really mean music".
In 1993, the band met Steven Seibold of Hate Dept., who would go on to produce/re-engineer the song "Human Waste" for the Re-Constriction compilation Thugs 'n' Kisses. This would be the beginning of an odd precedent set by Re-Con and the band for 'premixing', or releasing the remixed material before releasing the original versions of their work.
In the first years of the 1990s, the band utilized emerging technologies alongside their music, from promotion via Usenet and via internet as early as 1991, to being one of the first bands with a website as the World Wide Web emerged in 1994. In 1993, before the Web, Boom programmed and distributed 3.5" floppy discs containing multimedia samples of the band's work in packages they called "noise letters." The band's multimedia expressions continued beyond the nineties with Dave's own company, Prescient Thought Productions.
In 1994, Twitch (a.k.a. DJ Twitch) – an industrial DJ in Denver – met Boom while he was working at a local software retailer and they immediately connected. Soon after, Twitch took his place as guitar player for the band while Boom switched to keyboards. Also in 1994, the band brought on Tracey – Boom's wife, a once Miss Teen Colorado and classically trained pianist – for live keyboard support. Despite the band having additional personnel for live support, they never had the financial support to justify a tour, but did play many one-off shows.
In 1995, Society Burning signed to Re-Constriction. The band had already begun work on an album, spending time and money on a professional studio in Golden, Colorado. At the same time, the band released older tracks to other artists for remixing. Due to a series of delays, Chase at Re-Constriction decided to release the remixes before the debut album was complete. The following year, the label issued the "premix" CD EP, Entropy Lingua. By October 1996 the band had re-worked their original material and had the album Tactiq ready for release, but logistical concerns at Re-Constriction pushed its release into 1997.
Over the next two years, the musicians worked mostly independently: Mansfield worked with a cast of voices to bridge songs for the parody/tribute album Cyberpunk Fiction while Fernandez worked as remixer for artists including Leæther Strip, Purr Machine, THD, Urania, Hexedene, and Battery.
In 1998, the band provided six tracks for the Re-Constriction satire soundtrack CyberPunk Fiction – A Synthcore "Soundtrack" alongside other bands such as Tinfed, Killing Floor, Christ Analogue, Collide, Purr Machine, 16 Volt and Hexedene.[4] The band also created the mock dialogue filler in the style of the film between the compilation tracks.[5]
The band parted ways in 1999, following the closure of Re-Constriction. After completing a degree at the Colorado Institute of Art, Dave relocated to Los Angeles, California, while Twitch remained in Denver, Colorado, and Boom relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The band regrouped in 2007, writing material for a new release on their own Audiocomm International Publishing label in addition to finalizing and releasing their previously unreleased 1994 album State of Decay in late 2009. October 2010 saw the release of their sixth album, Internal Combustion.
Mansfield has frequently teamed-up with other bands and producers to lend both vocal and production support. In 2017, he provided vocals for Gross National Produkt's track "Faceless."[6] In 2020, Mansfield joined Gabriel Wilkinson of Microwaved to co-produce the track "The Enemy God" for the latter's EP release Phantom Whisper.[7]