Mission of Burma
| Mission of Burma | |
|---|---|
 Mission of Burma, 2004 |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Post-punk , art-punk |
| founding | 1979, 2002 |
| resolution | 1983 |
| Website | http://www.missionofburma.com |
| Founding members | |
| Roger Miller | |
Bass , vocals |
Clint Conley |
Drums , percussion , vocals |
Peter Prescott |
Tape manipulator, sound engineer
|
Martin Swope |
| Current occupation | |
Guitar, vocals |
Roger Miller |
Bass, vocals |
Clint Conley |
Drums, percussion, vocals |
Peter Prescott |
Tape manipulator, sound engineer |
Bob Weston |
Mission of Burma is an American band from Boston ( Massachusetts ). In spite of their short first phase of effectiveness from 1979 to 1983, they had a great influence on the development of the alternative and post-punk directions . In 2002 the reunion took place after almost 20 years.
The band consists of guitarist Roger Miller, bassist Clint Conley and drummer Peter Prescott, with Bob Weston (initially Martin Swope) as tape manipulator and sound engineer . The three musicians share the work of songwriting and singing . Roger Miller, who is sometimes also considered the head of the band, mostly stands out as the composer of the more experimental pieces, while Conley's talent lies more in writing catchy and sometimes anthemic songs (he was even referred to as a " hook machine " in one review ). The song That's When I Reach For My Revolver , which is probably the most successful and best-known piece of the band, was written by Clint Conley.
Like many of their post-punk and no-wave contemporaries, Mission of Burma endeavored to expand and transform the original thought of punk rock without losing its basic rebellious spirit. The specialty of this approach to Mission of Burma is their good musical education (Miller piano , tuba and composition at the College studies) and their love to a lesser extent to late 60s - and early 70s - Protopunk -Bands like MC5 and The Stooges , both of which are from Michigan like Miller and Swope .
In the period after the band split up, their reputation took on almost legendary dimensions. Today's music critics highlight the work of Mission of Burma as a crucial turning point in North American independent music. A variety of bands have cited Mission of Burma as inspiration for their work: Nirvana , Creed , REM (who played Academy Fight Song on their Green tour), Sonic Youth , Yo La Tengo , Soul Asylum , Pixies , Sugar , Graham Coxon and Moby - the last two covers That's When I Reach For My Revolver .
The music
With rapid dynamic changes , unconventional time signatures and chord progressions for punk and together with striking tape effects, they questioned the prevailing modes of expression of punk without losing their power and directness. On a purely intellectual level, Mission of Burma's approach is similar to that of Glenn Branca (an early contemporary of Burma) and later that of Branca's students, Sonic Youth .
Lyrics
Lyrically, the band made use of Dadaist techniques ( This Is Not A Photograph , Nu Disco , Go Fun Burn Man ), punk rock rage ( Fun World , New Nails , 1970 ), alienation ( Mica , That's When I Reach For My Revolver , Trem Two , Academy Fight Song ), art ( Max Ernst ) and short stories ( That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate ).
Live performances
Their live performances were known to be in a fairly relaxed setting and mostly a lot rougher than the recordings; the title of their live album ( The Horrible Truth About Burma ) refers to these peculiarities of the band when performing live. The Boston critic and scene connoisseur Tristam Lozaw used a nursery rhyme to describe 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 a ball of incomprehensible noise. "(Azerrad, 106) (German:" If they were good, were they were very, very good, but when they were bad they were horrific ... but that's the devil's quirk ... you took a risk because you never knew if you were going to have one of the most sensational experiences of your life make, or whether it's just a lot of incomprehensible noise. ”) When the band lives out their improvisational side , the unpredictable chaos of Swope's tape effects added something to the incongruous jumble that was the main criticism (according to Lozaw) of the live sound and the dynamics and timing of their pieces. If you were confronted with a venue where the system or room acoustics could not clearly reproduce the sound typical of Mission of Burma , Swope did not compromise and decided to implement it anyway. The band's setlist (which was discussed shortly before the gig) ranged from well-matched to apparently random, and (apart from Secrets as the opener and All World Cowboy Romance or a cover as an encore ) there was a reluctance to an order which turned out to be had proven successful to repeat. The already almost random viewer effect could collapse completely if they had decided on an inconvenient sequence. In contrast, if all the transitions worked, the band could use the songs' dynamic differences as an exciting and unforeseen effect.
Swopes tape manipulations and sound engineering techniques
Prescott described Swope's technique 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. "(German:" What Martin was doing ... was recording something and what was happening live, editing it and using the mixer as a new one Mix in instrument . You could never predict exactly how it would sound, which was a very funny thing that we really liked. We wanted to play that pounding booming noise stuff , but we also wanted to sound different. ") Swope's work ranged from subtle and almost imperceptible , until striking and even jarring. In Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life it is reported that “a lot of people didn't know anything about Swope's contribution and were confused how the musicians on stage were able to get such amazing phantom sounds from their instruments.” Although Swope's work was like that was an integral part of the sound, he hardly appeared on stage, occasionally he appeared to play the second guitar during encores.
Band history
The beginnings
Mission of Burma has its roots in a short-lived Boston rock band called Moving Parts . The cast consisted of Roger Miller, who recently returned from Ann Arbor ( Michigan is consulted), Clint Conley (originally from Darien (Connecticut) , after visiting the University of Rochester in New York ), keyboardist Erik Lindgren and drummer Bobby Bear. Though the members all got on well, Miller and Conley's ideas were a different direction from Lindgren's. When they broke up in December 1978, Miller and Conley began trying out new drummers and opted for the Boston native Prescott, who previously played in the art rock band The Molls .
The name Mission of Burma was inspired by a plaque that Conley discovered at a diplomatic embassy ; he thought the name had a "dark and troubling" effect (Michael Azerrad, 97). Mission of Burma first appeared as a trio in April 1979, but later that month Miller wrote a song ( New Disco ) which he thought could be improved upon with a tape loop . Miller got in touch with Martin Swope, who had also moved from Ann Arbor and with whom he had previously written a few pieces for piano and tape inspired by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen . Swope was immediately employed as a live audio engineer and occasional tape effects artist (and thus inducted into the band as an auxiliary member). His last role grew steadily (both live and in the studio , as documented on The Horrible Truth About Burma ) until he added tape effects to all songs in 1981 and was seen as a permanent member of the band, both on the Band photos as well as in the credits of the records.
Mission of Burma were well known in and around their hometown, and made regular tours to New York and Washington DC . They did some small-scale national tours that were actually well received ( Jello Biafra was a fan) but didn't expand their audience significantly, perhaps for the reason that independent networks were using both live and Record distribution at the time wasn't nearly as developed as it should be a few years later.
The resolution
After releasing their first studio album Vs. the band broke up, the reason was a tinnitus at Miller, as a result of the known loud performances of the band. Vs. has since received a lot of praise; In a record review it says: “very few American bands from the 1980s released an album as ambitious or as powerful as Vs., and it still sounds like a classic.” (German: “Very few American bands from the 1980s have a record like Vs . which is as challenging as it is powerful , and it still sounds like a classic . ”) New Nails seems to lay the groundwork for Sonic Youth , with rugged guitars and“ shouted ” vocals influenced by the novel VALIS by Philip K Dick (who is considered anti-religious), for example: "The Roman Empire never died / It just changed into the Catholic Church" (German: "The Roman Empire never fell / It became the Catholic Church ").
After Mission of Burma
Miller and Swope then turned their attention to their somewhat quieter side project Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic (with their former colleague Lindgren), which they then left in the 90s , Miller around several solo projects and films (with the Alloy Orchestra he accompanied silent films musically ) to dedicate, Swope was drawn to the solitude of Hawaii . Prescott remained active in the Boston music scene, founding Volcano Suns and later Kustomized and The Peer Group . With the exception of the production of a record by Yo La Tengo , Conley retired from music and worked as a producer for a Boston television station until he resumed his musical career with Consonant in 2001 .
In 2001 Michael Azerrad's collection of essays ( Our Band Could Be Your Life ) appeared on a handful of influential American bands of the post-punk era, including Mission of Burma. The publication of the book introduced the band to a large audience who had never heard of the band before.
The reunion
In 2002 the band got back together and began performing with Shellac's Bob Weston (and formerly Prescott's Volcano Suns band member), Weston replacing Swope at the mixer and as a tape manipulator. In an interview , Miller explains: “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. "(German:" When we introduced Bob Weston to Martin's position, we told him that he could use today's digital technology , which Martin's grotesque work can do with ease . However, in order to get the original sound, Bob chose a band deck . ")
A new album called ONoffON was produced in 2004 by Bob Weston in collaboration with Rick Harte and the band, and released on May 4th on Matador Records . The record landed at number 90 in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop Critic Poll . The live record Snapshot of the re-established Mission of Burma was released exclusively for iTunes .
In September 2005 Mission of Burma began recording their third studio album with the preliminary title (among others) Aluminum Washcloth . Bob Weston took on the role of producer. On May 23, 2006, the album was then released with the title The Obliterati at Matador . On October 23, 2009, The Sound, the Speed, the Light was the third post-reunion album.
Discography
original
- 1980 - Academy Fight Song b / w Max Ernst (Single)
- 1981 - Signals, Calls and Marches (EP)
- 1982 - Trem Two b / w OK / No Way (Single)
- 1982 - Vs. (LP)
- 1985 - The Horrible Truth About Burma (LP; Live)
- 1988 - Mission of Burma (EP / LP; Taang !; a / k / a Peking Spring ; Rarities)
- 1988 - Forget (LP; Rarities)
- 1989 - Live at the Bradford (VHS)
Reunion
- 2004 - ONoffON (LP)
- 2004 - Snapshot (Live; iTunes exclusive)
- 2004 - Dirt b / w Falling (Single)
- 2004 - Four Hands EP (EP)
- 2006 - The Obliterati (LP, previously announced as Aluminum Washcloth )
- 2009 - The Sound, the Speed, the Light (LP)
- 2012 - Unsound (LP)
Compilations
- 1988 - Mission of Burma (double LP; Rykodisk)
- 1990 - Let There Be Burma (double LP)
- 2004 - Accomplished: The Best of Mission of Burma (LP; Promotional Release)
- 2004 - A Gun to the Head: A Selection from the Ace of Hearts Era (LP)
literature
- Michael Azerrad: Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 . Little, Brown, 2001, ISBN 0-316-06379-7
Web links
- Official website
- Mission of Burma at laut.de
- Tape entry in the Internet Archive
- Article about Mission of Burma at intro.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Music: Twenty-Two Years Later ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Published in Seattle Weekly .
- ↑ Mark Woodlief: The story behind the legend of a seminal Boston band ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (The Worcester Phoenix)
- ^ Mark Deming: Review VS. All Music Guide , accessed May 6, 2008 .
- ↑ fenwayrecordings.com: Martin Swope, tape loops ( memento of the original from March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
