Before the Internet. Before the Algorithm. Before the Hype.

Long before streaming stats, social media follows, or viral videos meant anything, there was a band of lifelong friends making noise the only way it could be made—on stage, night after night, song after song.

Pure Dirt began in the late ’80s and early ’90s as a group of friends who had known each other since childhood—Jeff Denney, Nick Sisario, Mark Rose, Mike McNamara, and Maureen Angers. They went to school together, grew up together, and eventually found themselves writing songs together. Their first live shows happened during the summer before their senior years of college, playing originals and crowd-pleasing covers from artists like Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Prince, R.E.M., and more.

For the rest of the decade, Pure Dirt became a fixture of the Albany, NY music scene, performing live several nights a week, building a following the old-fashioned way: packed rooms, word of mouth, and relentless dedication. No Instagram. No YouTube. No Spotify playlists. Just music, sweat, and sound systems.

And it worked.

During the 1990s—before the internet became mainstream—Pure Dirt racked up achievements that most independent bands still chase today. The band wrote and recorded over 70 original songs, released two full-length albums, and produced countless demos. Along the way, they earned recognition from Billboard Magazine, ASCAP, DiscMakers, and more—real industry validation in an era when exposure was hard to come by.

In 1995, Pure Dirt reached the finals of the Labatt Ice Beer Local Band Showdown, sponsored by I.R.S. Records, performing via satellite in a national battle of the bands against winners from Cleveland, Seattle, and Boston—a rare opportunity at a time when “going national” usually meant loading up a van.

In 1996, Musician Magazine named Pure Dirt a semi-finalist for Best Unsigned Band, placing them in front of a judging panel that included Steve Winwood, Adrian Belew, Pat Metheny, Matthew Sweet, and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam. The following year, the band was again recognized as a semi-finalist in the Independent Music World Series.

All of this happened without social media, without streaming, and without the internet doing the heavy lifting. The web was just beginning to enter everyday life when Pure Dirt played their final shows in the late ’90s.

Then… silence.

30 Years Later

Nearly three decades passed.

Until one day, band member Mark Rose opened a forgotten box—untouched for a quarter century. Inside were old cassette demos, handwritten notes, and yellowed newspaper clippings documenting a chapter of music history that had never truly ended… just paused.

“The songs are too good to disappear,” says Rose. “Back when we were writing, we never could have imagined people listening to music on personal phones they keep in their pockets. Phones hung on a wall. Music came from the radio or a record store. We assumed most of what we wrote—recorded on a 4-track cassette—would never be shared beyond the worn-out mixtapes we passed around. Professional studio time cost money we didn’t have, so we had to choose which few songs were worth recording, while the rest stayed on cassette. We never imagined there would come a day when we could bring all of our songs to life and put them in front of the entire world.”

Today, with streaming platforms and modern tools—and even the help of AI to finally bring unfinished demos to life—Pure Dirt is back, reconnecting, re-releasing, and reimagining music that was decades ahead of its time.

There’s a strange excitement in the air. Group emails buzzing. Old songs sounding new again. A future being discussed by people who haven’t all stood in the same room in over 30 years.

This isn’t a reunion tour.
This isn’t nostalgia.

This is unfinished business.

Beginning in 2026, newly restored tracks, unheard songs, and reimagined recordings from the original Pure Dirt archives (just a cardboard box) will be released every few months. Some of these songs have never existed beyond cassette tape—until now.

Follow Pure Dirt on Facebook and on your favorite streaming platforms to be notified when more music is released.

Thirty years later, the music finally has the time—and the audience—it always deserved.

🎧 Press play. Stay Connected. Discover what almost disappeared.