Artist bio

For a band with one studio album and a couple EPs to its name, Boston's Mission Of Burma was a tower of inspiration to the American post-punk scene, due to its unique, fiery compositions and unequalled ability to blend feedback and sonic experimentalism with shouting, anthemic rock.

Formed in 1980 by bassist Clint Conley, guitarist Roger Miller, drummer Peter Prescott, and tapehead Martin Swope, MOB blasted onto the scene with an incendiary debut single, "Academy Fight Song" b/w "Max Ernst," and proceeded to take its sizzling, adventurous pop/punk style a step further on the excellent Signals, Calls, and Marches EP. The full-length Vs. revealed a deeper incarnation of MOB, but it also proved to be the band's last studio recording.

The group's furious live performances left Miller nursing tinnitus and he soon moved on to less volume-extreme musical projects, such as the Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic. But Burma's short lifespan belied its true influence, with bands as disparate as R.E.M., Fugazi, and Sonic Youth venturing off in new sonic directions first hinted at by Mission Of Burma.

A 1985 live album tied together some loose ends, and the band actually reunited briefly in 2001, when some of NATN's writers had the privilege to see them perform in New York. With a host of new songs and a fresh appreciation of the old, MOB reminded everyone in attendance why music sometimes really makes a difference.

Albums by this artist

The Horrible Truth About Burma (1985)

Signals, Calls, and Marches (Recommended) (1981)

Mission Of Burma

The Horrible Truth About Burma

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» TROY CARPENTER | CO-DIRECTOR

Mission Of Burma The Horrible Truth About Burma Rykodisc, 1985 RiYL: The Fall, Pere Ubu, Hüsker Dü

One of the tightest and most exciting of the American post-punk bands, Mission Of Burma's recorded output -- the Signals, Calls, and Marches EP and the full-length Vs. -- is consistently engaging but tragically scant. This live record was scraped together after a farewell tour in 1983, and while not neccesarily a great introduction to the band, it is definitely the next place to go after you have duly absorbed the two aforementioned studio efforts.

The lion's share of The Horrible Truth consists of previously unreleased material, with only two songs each from Signals and Vs.. Strangely, this is simultaneously the album's principal point of attractiveness and, ultimately, its sore spot.

It's a smart gesture, since the band would not make another album, and The Horrible Truth is pretty much the only official record of intriguing originals such as "Peking Spring" and "He Is, She Is." But as raw as Mission Of Burma's stage sound was, some of the deliberate punctuation and measured precision of the group's studio work gets abandoned in the rushing fury of its live attack, thus somewhat blurring the impact of the tunes with no studio counterpart. Furthermore, the band was hailed as one of the great live bands of its era, but since this disc concentrates on new material, it doesn't feature what must have been some of its most powerful songs, like "Outlaw" or "Einstein's Day."

That said, the record does prove a worthy addition to Mission Of Burma's catalog, capturing the primitive sonic splendour of the group's shows. Certainly, the band's ability to wrench emotion from cacaphony is evident on the caustic "Dumbells" and a drawn-out cover of Pere Ubu's "Heart Of Darkness." In the end, the passion with which the group threw itself into its performances quickened its own death, as principal Roger Miller developed hearing problems (he is even seen wearing shooting-range-style protective headphones on stage in The Horrible Truth's liner notes), and disbanded the group following this tour.

Despite their short lifespan, however, Mission Of Burma created a wealth of affecting music that is still inspiring almost twenty years on. Your next mission: get to know this band.

TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.