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Fire Party

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Fire Party

Fire Party was an alternative rock band from Washington, D.C. They were together from the autumn of 1986 to the spring of 1990. The band members were Amy Pickering (vocals), Natalie Avery (guitar), Kate Samworth (bass), and Nicky Thomas (drums).

Pickering joined with Avery, Samworth, and Thomas to form Fire Party which, according to Avery, "grew out of this really tight-knit group of people very much shaped by a very small music scene". The band made their debut on February of 1987 at d.c. space and their set was dedicated to the recently deceased Toni Young, a former member of the bands Red C and Dove, as well as one of the few women of color in the D.C. punk scene at the time.

Fire Party released a six-song self-titled mini-LP, an eight-song album (New Orleans Opera) while together. They played some Midwest shows with Scream, and in early 1988, they toured Europe with them and also supported That Petrol Emotion. While in Europe, they recorded a session for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show. File 13, a punk fanzine from Massachusetts, referred to Fire Party as "one of the most powerful groups around today" in a review of New Orleans Opera, which the zine also cited as one of its favorite releases of 1989.

A self-titled compilation of the tracks from their two albums plus their Peel session and "Pilate" from the State of the Unioncompilation was released by Dischord in 1996.

Despite their small discography, Fire Party, along with related "Revolution Summer" bands like Embrace and Rites Of Spring, had a lasting influence on the artistic direction of American punk. Apart from being an all-female band, a rarity in punk music at the time, drummer Nicky Thomas was also one of the few African American women involved in the punk music scene. Jenny Toomey, musician and co-founder of the Simple Machines record label, described Fire Party as "the world's first female-fronted emo band."

Links to Peel[]

Peel first played tracks of their debut single in the summer of 1989 and impressed by their material, he invited the group to do a session for his show, where they performed four tracks in October of that year. After the band split in 1990, Peel never revisited the group and did not play any tracks from their compilation of their complete existing recording in 1996 called 'Fire Party'.

Sessions[]

Fire_Party_-_Peel_Session_1989

Fire Party - Peel Session 1989

1. Recording: 1989-10-17. First Broadcast: 31 October 1989. Repeated: 30 November 1989

  • Basis / How To / Are You On? / Stray Bullet

Other Shows Played[]

1989
1990

External Links[]

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