1) Burning Rome is an electronic project of Mark Kolmar. Experimental music somewhere between IDM, Techno and Noise, Electroacoustic & Ambient.



2) The short-lived but creatively fruitful Burning Rome rose from the smoldering ashes of two cult NYC dark rock bands, Chop Shop and The Naked and the Dead, both bands having fractured in late 1985. Before the new year, a new band had been formed with two ex-singers in new, unfamiliar positions. Former Chop Shop vocalist Joe Truck (he had also had prior stints as a member of 1983 projects Tea for None and Twelfthnight, and guitarist in Scarecrow from 1983 to 1984) found himself fulfilling a wish to pound the drumkit. The Naked and the Dead's occult chanteuse Lorianne Oakley laid down the microphone and picked up a bass guitar. Meanwhile, guitarist Greg Fasolino (also formerly with The Naked and the Dead, as well as The Cave/Outcry/The Oppressed) recruited a new, more theatrical vocalist: an acclaimed DJ on WSIA and nascent diva named Robert Conroy, blessed with a unique set of pipes and a predilection for Lovecraftian poesy. The foursome, soon dubbed Burning Rome, eschewed both the tribal gothicisms of The Naked and the Dead, and the raw trashabilly of Chop Shop, instead evoking a more generalized classic post-punk sound, full of mystery and melody, and harkening back to seminal artists from Bauhaus to Roxy, Joy Division to Iggy.

However, the band's substantial promise and songwriting chemistry was never fully realized, as Burning Rome flamed out in their relative infancy. Only the slightly ragged but exciting rehearsal takes remain of their legacy, from "Long Black Coat," with its poetic wit and throat-grabbing moonlit guitar riff, to the haunting, emotional requiem of blood and bone "Beneath the Park," to the gutter-crawling slog through the mind of a murderous madman that is "Butcher Stomp."


Robert Conroy - vocals
Greg Fasolino - guitar
Lorianne Oakley - bass
Joe Truck - drums Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.