Earth Dies Burning

Formed in 1981 in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, Earth Dies Burning was a group of (extremely) young punks who inadvertently pioneered synth punk just by eschewing guitars in favor of cheaper Casio keyboards. All between the ages of ten and 14 when the band started, EDB's initial lineup was made up of brothers Guy and Ron Nachmann, Brad Laner, and another set of brothers, Matt and Jeff Karlsen, though over their few short years the band's lineup often shifted. Auxiliary members included Josh Laner, Spencer Savage, Wendy Stone, Jim Goodall, and Roger Silverware. The incredibly open-armed scenesters of the L.A. punk scene welcomed the ridiculously underaged kids into their ranks, and over their three-year run, Earth Dies Burning played about 15 gigs with the likes of the Minutemen, Phranc, and Dead Hippie. Their absurd and hyperactive synth punk sound screamed of youthful exuberance and the nuclear paranoia of the Reagan era, and though they practiced often, gigged out on occasion, and even recorded in a proper studio once or twice, there were no official releases in the band's lifetime. Brad Laner would go on to spend a life in music, beginning the guitar-driven indie band Medicine in 1991, and he worked with Brooklyn label Captured Tracks for the 2013 release of Songs from the Valley of the Bored Teenager, a 23-track archival collection of most of the available Earth Dies Burning material.