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Mission of Burma

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Formed in Boston in 1979, Mission of Burma helped to define an era of post-punk rock music. Considered by many music critics to be the best punk band to come out of Boston in the late 1970s to early 1980s, the group lasted only four years and through two singles, an EP, and one studio album before calling it quits in 1983. After a hiatus of almost 20 years, during which its influence continued to be felt through the covers of acts such as R.E.M. and Moby, the band reformed in 2001 and released its second studio album, ONoffON, to critical acclaim in 2004.

Mission of Burma was known in the early 1980s for its ability to play tuneful yet raucous punk at a time when that seemed like an oxymoron. With sophisticated lyrics about physicists and other unlikely subjects, the band pulled away from the then-popular flavor of post-punk music called new wave. The group also set itself apart with an innovation that was ahead of its time: the inclusion of a live DJ, Martin Swope, who added sonic effects from a soundboard.

At the end of 2001, three of the band's members came together for the first time in 19 years to play a concert in New York. As 2002 opened, they played two more concerts, one in New York and one in Boston. These gigs went so well that they booked more around the country. In 2003, Mission of Burma recorded its first studio album since Vs. was released in 1982.

Mission of Burma formed in 1979 when Bostonians Roger Miller (guitar), Clint Conley (bass), Peter Prescott (drums), and Martin Swope (soundboard) began playing in local clubs. The group quickly gained a devoted following, which expanded its range throughout the Northeastern United States. Two singles, an EP, and one full-length album, Vs., followed. The group was perhaps best known for the singles "Academy Fight Song" and "That's When I Reach for My Revolver."

On the verge of national success, the band split up in 1983 largely because Miller had developed tinnitus, a painful condition characterized by a ringing in the years and caused by frequent exposure to loud noises. The members of the group went their separate ways, but managed stayed in touch.

Conely went on to earn a master's degree in broadcast journalism, eventually finding work as a producer for Boston's ABC affiliate TV station. He largely dropped out of music, focusing on his career in television and on his new family. Miller stayed in the music business, composing for documentary and industrial films. In later years he became the keyboardist for a band called the Alloy Orchestra, which accompanied silent films at film festivals around the country. Of the three, Prescott stay closest to his punk roots, founding a succession of bands: Volcano Suns, Kustomized, and, most recently, Peer Group.

In the meantime, the group's impact on music continued to be felt. The single "Academy Fight Song" found new life in covers by the band R.E.M., and popular experimental rocker Moby's cover of "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" became a hit in 1996. Mission of Burma's legacy lived on in other bands, too. Groups like Husker Du, the Replacements, and the Pixies turned to the music of Mission of Burma for inspiration for their own compositions.

The reunion was set in motion in 2001 when Prescott invited Conley and Miller to sit in on a concert given by Prescott's band, Peer Group, at a New York club called the Knitting Factory. Conley found that he enjoyed getting back on stage after so many years away, and he began writing and performing music again as part of a band called Consonant. Later in 2001, Mission of Burma played its first concert in nineteen years, at New York's prestigious Lincoln Center. Concerts followed at the beginning of 2002, both in New York and in Boston. Offers began rolling in to play around the country, and what started as a lark turned into a full-blown resurrection of the band.

The members of the group were hard-pressed to explain why now, after all this time, they had decided to get together again. "Suddenly, it just seemed to make sense for whatever reason," bassist Clint Conley told the Providence Journal's Rick Massimo.

In fact, a number of factors contributed to the group's reunion. One of these was the publication of a book by music critic Michael Azerrad called Our Band Could Be Your Life, which documented the post-punk era in the early 1980s. The members of the band were flattered and surprised to find themselves included in the book along side such era-defining bands as the Minutemen, Black Flag, and Dinosaur Jr. "Perhaps," Miller told the Providence Journal's Massimo of the publication of the book, "it gave us a little extra courage."

Then too, the post-punk sound the group had helped to popularize in the early 1980s was making a comeback, ensuring that Mission of Burma would find a receptive audience among young listeners as well as those who were fans of the group the first time around.

At the time of the group's reforming, DJ/soundboardist Swope was living in Hawaii and was reluctant to uproot himself. In his place, in the band tapped Bob Weston, a former member of the Volcano Suns, to work the soundboard for their shows.

The revived band has proven even more popular than it was the first time around, and, according to Azerrad, writing in the New York Times, reentered the public eye at the top of its form. The band has also been helped the second time around by having friends in high places—many of the band's fans had grown into major positions in the music business. For instance, Gerard Cosloy, editor of a fanzine that lionized the group in the early days, and whom the band would often let in to its shows for free, became one of the heads of Matador, which became Mission of Burma's new label.

The group has consciously kept its touring schedule to just a weekend every three months, both to preserve Miller's hearing and to avoid undue strain on their other careers and their families. "I love my work, I love my family," Conley explained to Azerrad in the New York Times. "Once you start making it into real tours and stuff, I think a lot of the fun can go out of it."

In 2004, Mission of Burma released a new album, ONoffON, only its second full-length studio album, and the first since 1982's Vs. Critics lauded the group's new work, saying that the band had lost none of the fire of youth and had only gained a deeper resonance. The Daily Record of Glasgow's Barry Gordon, for instance, called the album's tracks "real fist-in-the-air works of genius."

Selected discography
Signals, Calls and Marches (EP), Ace of Hearts; reissued by Rykodisc, 1981.
Vs., Ace of Hearts; reissued by Rykodisc, 1982.
The Horrible Truth About Burma (live), Rykodisc, 1985.
ONoffON, Matador, 2004.

Sources
Periodicals
Boston Globe, May 2, 2004, p. N1.
Daily Record, July 9, 2004, p. 56.
Morning Call (Allentown, PA), May 8, 2004, p. D5.
Providence Journal, October 3, 2003, p. E6.
New York Times, May 2, 2004, p. 2.41.

Online
"Mission of Burma," All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (August 25, 2004).
Mission of Burma Official Website, http://www.missionofburma.com (August 25, 2004).
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Artists:

Mission of Burma

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  • Genres: Rock

Biography

Of all the punk-inspired bands that came out of Boston in the early '80s, none were better than Mission of Burma. Arty without being too pretentious, capable of writing gripping songs and playing with ferocious intensity, guitarist Roger Miller, bassist Clint Conley, drummer Peter Prescott, and tape head Martin Swope galvanized the city's alternative rock scene, and despite a too-short existence, set a standard for excellence that has rarely been equalled -- a standard the band upheld when they unexpectedly reunited in 2002.

Burma's music is vintage early-'80s post-punk: jittery rhythms, odd shifts in time, declamatory vocals, an aural assault similarly employed by bands such as Gang of Four, Mekons, and Pere Ubu -- Burma's peers as well as their influences. Also conspicuously present in the mix was the proto-punk of the Stooges and Velvet Underground (with just a dash of Led Zeppelin and Roxy Music), bands that inspired Burma's darker songwriting impulses and tendencies toward longish, repetitive jams capable of boring holes into your skull. What Burma added was a sonic texture through the use of extreme volume. Roger Miller's guitar enveloped the band in thick, distorted cascading chords, erupting into squealing solos and (intentional) squalls of feedback. With Prescott and Conley furiously bashing in support, the band's sound was extremely physical (ask anyone who saw them live) to the point of leaving the audience feeling slightly bruised, battered, but extremely happy.

After releasing an explosive single ("Academy Fight Song," still one of punk rock's greatest songs) on Boston's then-hippest indie label, Ace of Hearts, Burma released two excellent records in just over a year: the Signals, Calls and Marches EP and their only full-length studio album, Vs. The former was poppier, but in a breathtakingly intense way; the latter dark and ominous, lacking in riff-heavy punch, but still delivering a wicked blast of aural chaos. Unbeknown to fans, this was the beginning of the end. The massive volume, a key element in Burma's sound, had taken its toll on the bandmembers, especially Miller, who developed a severe case of tinnitus that hastened the band's demise. (Always the trooper, Miller played the band's final tour wearing a protective headset used on shooting ranges to prevent his ears from absorbing more punishment.) After a bittersweet farewell tour in 1983, the shows were released as a live LP entitled The Horrible Truth About Burma, an occasionally thrilling example of their considerable stage prowess. Miller since went on to a career as a solo artist and with his non-touring band Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. Prescott formed the wonderful Volcano Suns, who released a half-dozen records all worth checking out, before starting Kustomized with ex-Bullet la Volta singer Yukki Gipe. Clint Conley produced the first Yo La Tengo record and then left the music business. He went on to work as a producer at Boston television station WCVB.

In 2001, Prescott's short-lived band the Peer Group played a show opening for reunited British art punks Wire, and Miller and Conley tagged along to play an encore with Prescott, marking the first time the three had appeared on-stage together since 1983. Later that year, Mission of Burma was featured prominently in Michael Azerrad's book on the indie rock scene of the 1980s, Our Band Could Be Your Life, and Conley began writing and performing music again with the band Consonant. After the Peer Group folded, the three performing members of Mission of Burma decided to stage a pair of reunion shows in early 2002. (Martin Swope opted not to participate; live sound and tape loops were instead handled by Shellac's Bob Weston, formerly of Volcano Suns.) One concert in New York became two sold-out nights at the Irving Plaza, and a single night in Boston became four shows at three venues (including an "open rehearsal" under the name Myanmar); the group also joined the lineup for the 2002 All Tomorrow's Parties festival in England, followed by short tours of the West Coast and Midwest. Along with playing a handful of live dates in 2003 (including the American edition of All Tomorrow's Parties), Mission of Burma returned to the studio for their first recording project since Vs. Onoffon (along with the greatest-hits collection Gun to the Head: A Selection from the Ace of Hearts Era) was released by Matador Records in the spring of 2004. In a press release the label said of the album, "This isn't just a hot new release, it's a goddamn cultural event." It was followed by The Obliterati (2006) and The Sound the Speed the Light (2009). ~ John Dougan, Rovi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Mission of Burma

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Mission of Burma
Background information
Origin Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Genres Post-punk, indie rock
Years active 1979–1983
2002–present
Labels Ace of Hearts
Matador
Fire
Website missionofburma.com
Members
Roger Miller
Clint Conley
Peter Prescott
Bob Weston
Past members
Martin Swope

Mission of Burma is an American post-punk band formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1979. The band was formed by Roger Miller (guitar), Clint Conley (bass), Peter Prescott (drums) and Martin Swope (tape manipulator/sound engineer). Miller, Conley and Prescott share singing and songwriting duties.

In early years the band's recordings were all released on the small Boston-based record label Ace of Hearts. Despite initial success, Mission of Burma disbanded in 1983 due to Miller's development of tinnitus caused by the volume of the band's live performances. The band released only one album in its original lineup, Vs. Mission of Burma reformed in 2002, with Bob Weston replacing Swope, and has since recorded four more albums, ONoffON, The Obliterati, The Sound The Speed The Light and Unsound.

Contents

History

Formation and early history

Mission of Burma's history began with a short-lived Boston rock group called Moving Parts. The band included Roger Miller, who had moved to Boston from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Clint Conley, who came from Darien, Connecticut.[1] When Moving Parts broke up amicably in December 1978, Miller and Conley began practicing. Auditioning new drummers was accomplished, as Michael Azzerad puts it, "by playing 'out' music, such as Sun Ra and James Brown, until the applicant left."[2] They eventually recruited ex-Molls drummer Peter Prescott, who had admired the music of Moving Parts.[3]

They took their name from a "Mission of Burma" plaque Conley saw on a New York City diplomatic building; he thought the phrase had a "sort of murky and disturbing" quality.[3] Mission of Burma made their debut on April 1, 1979 as a trio, performing at The Modern Theater. Later that month Miller wrote a song, "Nu Disco", that he felt would be improved by a tape loop.[4] Miller then contacted Martin Swope, with whom he had earlier written some John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen-inspired pieces for piano and tape. Swope was immediately enlisted as the group's live audio engineer and occasional tape-effects artist. His latter role grew gradually, until by 1981 he was adding tape work to most of the group's songs, and was regarded as an integral part of the group, appearing in group photographs and receiving equal credit on recordings.

From the start, Mission of Burma received support from local music magazine Boston Rock, which printed a lengthy interview with the band before they released their first record, and Boston college radio station WMBR. The station played Conley's "Peking Spring" repeatedly, and it became the station's most-played song of 1979. Mission of Burma wanted to release the song as a single, but by the time they had found a label, they felt the song had run its course.[5]

Signals and Vs.

By 1981, the band signed a record deal with the Boston-based record label Ace of Hearts. Their debut recording was a single of Conley's "Academy Fight Song" backed with Miller's "Max Ernst" (titled after the dada artist). Rick Harte's layered production was far more refined than the band's ragged live performances, and the band initially objected to the single. However, the first pressing of the single sold out quickly, and the band thereafter trusted Harte's judgement.

Their debut release, the EP Signals, Calls, and Marches, was released in 1981. By the end of that year, the EP had sold out its initial pressing of 10,000 copies.[6]

In 1982, Mission of Burma released their first studio album Vs.. The album has since seen wide praise; one review notes "very few American bands from the 1980s released an album as ambitious or as powerful as Vs., and it still sounds like a classic."[7] "New Nails" seems to set the stage for Sonic Youth, with jagged guitar and shouted lyrics like "The Roman Empire never died / Just changed it to the Catholic Church;" Roger Miller has stated that line "derives" from Philip K. Dick's VALIS.

Breakup and aftermath

In 1983, after the release of Vs., the group disbanded due to Miller's worsening tinnitus, attributed in large part to their notoriously loud live performances—during their farewell tour, Miller took to augmenting his usual small foam earplugs with rifle-range earphones onstage. A live compilation, The Horrible Truth About Burma, was assembled of recordings from the farewell tour and released on Ace of Hearts in 1985.

Miller and Swope then turned their attention to their side project, the quieter Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic (cofounded with their old friend Erik Lindgren, who had played with Miller and Conley in Moving Parts), which they both left in the '90s, Miller to produce several solo efforts and film scores, and Swope to semi-reclusion in Hawaii. Prescott remained active in the Boston music scene, forming Volcano Suns and later Kustomized and The Peer Group. Other than producing Yo La Tengo's debut record, Conley dropped out of music (working as a producer for Boston television station WCVB's newsmagazine Chronicle); in 2001 he returned with Consonant.

Reunion

In 2002, Mission of Burma reunited and began playing reunion shows with Bob Weston of Shellac (and formerly Prescott's Volcano Suns bandmate) replacing Swope at the mixing board and tape manipulation. In an interview Miller relates that "when we approached Bob Weston to fill Martin's position, we told him he could use current digital technology which accomplishes Martin's antics in an easier fashion. However, Bob opted for maintaining the original integrity, and uses a tape deck." Weston began using a digital looping box from Electro-Harmonix in 2007 during live performances, but still uses actual tape loops in the studio. Weston regularly joins the band onstage during encores, playing bass while Conley plays second guitar.

A new album, ONoffON, was produced in 2004 by Bob Weston in conjunction with Rick Harte and the band, and released on Matador Records on May 4. The album finished 90th in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critic's poll. They also released Snapshot, a live recording of the reunited lineup, through online digital channels.

In September 2005, the band began recording their third studio album, tentatively titled (among other names) Aluminum Washcloth. Production duties this time were again handled by Bob Weston. Rechristened The Obliterati, the new album was released on Matador on May 23, 2006 and was named as the 33rd best record of 2006 by Pitchfork Media and placed 50th in the Pazz & Jop poll.

On March 18, 2008, Matador Records re-released remastered versions of Signals, Calls, and Marches, Vs., and The Horrible Truth About Burma.

In a September 2008 interview with L.A. RECORD, Prescott explained that the sheer physical exertion involved in performing Mission of Burma songs meant that the band could only play together for a "couple more years at most."[8]

In March 2009 the band recorded 14 tracks for their fourth studio album entitled The Sound The Speed The Light,[9][10] released October 6, 2009.[11] Titles recorded include "1, 2, 3, Partyy!," "Possession," "Blunder," "Forget Yourself", "After the Rain," "One Day We Will Live There," "Good Cheer," "Slow Faucet," "Comes Undone, "SSL 83" (previously titled "The Sound, The Speed, The Light"), "Feed," and "So Fuck It". On August 18, Matador released a pre-album 7″ containing two non-LP tracks: “Innermost” and “Here It Comes” (previously titled "Monkey Boy").[12]

On January 23, 2012, Mission of Burma parted ways with Matador Records.

The band's fifth album, Unsound is to be released on Fire Records on July 9, 2012, preceded by the single "Dust Devil"[13]

Musical style

Miller's songs were typically more unorthodox, both lyrically and structurally. Conley's were somewhat more conventional and even anthemic: critic Franklin Bruno described Conley as a "hook machine",[14] and his songs have probably been most widely covered by other artists. Though Miller and Conley handled most of the singing and songwriting, Prescott contributes a few songs per record as well; he usually sings in a tuneful, drill sergeant's bellow.

Live performances

Prescott explained Swope's methods in a 1997 interview: "What Martin did ... was tape something that was going on live, manipulate it, and send it back in (via the soundboard) as a sort of new instrument. You couldn't predict exactly how it would sound, and that got to be the really fun thing I think we all liked. We wanted to play this hammer-down drony noise stuff, but we also wanted another sound in there."[6] Swope's tapework ranged from subtle and nearly subaural (such as the quiet shifting feedback sounds in Conley's "That's When I Reach For My Revolver"), to prominent and even jarring (such as the high-pitched two-note squeal in Miller's "Red"). Journalist Michael Azerrad later wrote: "A lot of people never knew about Swope's contribution and were mystified by how the musicians onstage could wring such amazing phantom sounds from their instruments." Though his contribution is widely considered an integral part of Burma's sound, Swope very rarely appeared onstage, only occasionally appearing to play second guitar during encores.

Their live performances were notoriously hit-or-miss, and were usually far more rough-edged than their recordings; the Horrible Truth of their live album (The Horrible Truth About Burma) being an in-joke about their inconsistency. Boston critic Tristam Lozaw described Mission of Burma live: "When they were good, they were very very good, but when they were bad they were horrid ... But that was the nature of the beast ... Because they took chances, you never knew whether you were going to get one of the most spectacular experiences of your life or if it was going to be a ball of incomprehensible noise." [15] While the band's improvisational side and the unpredictable chaos of Swope's tape work contributed a little to this inconsistency, the two main factors were (as Lozaw implies) the live sound and the pacing and timing of their sets. When faced with a venue where the sound system or room acoustics weren't up to the task of conveying clarity along with the band's trademark volume, Swope always refused to compromise, and opted for volume. The band's set lists (composed by committee a few minutes before going on stage) could range from well-constructed to seemingly picked at random, and (aside from "Secrets" as a frequent opener and "All World Cowboy Romance" or a cover as an encore) there was a general reluctance to repeat any song placement or sequence that had worked in the past.

Legacy

In the decades following their demise, Burma's reputation grew to nearly legendary proportions. Contemporary music critics point to their work as a pivotal turning point in North American independent music. Many bands have cited Burma as an inspiration, including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Superchunk, Jawbox, The Grifters, R.E.M. (who regularly covered "Academy Fight Song" on their Green tour), Sonic Youth, Drive Like Jehu, Throwing Muses, Yo La Tengo, Fugazi, Pixies, Sugar, Guided by Voices, Catherine Wheel, Graham Coxon, Pegboy and Moby - the last four of which have covered Conley's "That's When I Reach for My Revolver". In 2009 the city of Boston declared October 4 to be "Mission of Burma Day" in honor of the band's work in a ceremony held at the MIT East Campus Courtyard.

Discography

Main article: Mission of Burma discography

Notes

  1. ^ Azerrad, 2001. p. 96
  2. ^ Azerrad, 2001.
  3. ^ a b Azerrad, 2001. p. 97
  4. ^ Azerrad, 2001. p. 98
  5. ^ Azerrad, 2001. p. 99
  6. ^ a b Mission impossible: The story behind the legend of a seminal Boston band
  7. ^ allmusic {{{ Vs. > Review }}}
  8. ^ "Mission of Burma: When The World Is Insane"
  9. ^ http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Waterfront-Flyer.jpg
  10. ^ www.missionofburma.com
  11. ^ Fenway Recordings Press Release, May 4
  12. ^ http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2009/07/13/mission-of-burma-1-2-3-partyy-new-album-7-and-mp3/
  13. ^ http://www.pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/13351-dust-devil/
  14. ^ Music: Twenty-Two Years Later. Published in Seattle Weekly.
  15. ^ Azerrad, 2001. p. 106

References

External links

Mission of Burma
Albums
EPs
Compilations
Live albums
Singles
  • "Academy Fight Song" / "Max Ernst"
  • "Trem Two" / "OK/No Way"
  • "Active in the Yard"
  • "Dirt" / "Falling"
  • "Innermost" / "...And Here It Comes"
  • "Dust Devil"
Videos
Related articles
Related bands

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