Something to listen to when you have to eat fast – a set from Mission Of Burma at the 2010 Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona on May 28, 2010.
Mission of Burma was an American post-punk band from Boston, Massachusetts. The group formed in 1979 with Roger Miller on guitar, Clint Conley on bass, Peter Prescott on drums, and Martin Swope contributing audiotape manipulation and acting as the band’s sound engineer. In this initial lineup, Miller, Conley, and Prescott all shared singing and songwriting duties.
In their early years the band’s recordings were all released on the small Boston-based record label Ace of Hearts. Despite their initial success in the growing independent music circuit, Mission of Burma disbanded in 1983 due to Miller’s development of tinnitus caused by the loud volume of the band’s live performances. In its original lineup, the band released only two singles, an EP, and one LP, titled Vs.
In 1983, after the release of Vs., the group disbanded due to Miller’s worsening tinnitus, 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. In 1988, Rykodisc released a compilation album, Mission of Burma, the first compact disc to exceed 80 minutes of playing time.
Miller and Swope then turned their attention to their side project, the quieter Birdsongs of the Mesozoic (co-founded with their old friend Erik Lindgren, who had played with Miller and Conley in Moving Parts), which they both left in the 1990s, 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. He is currently playing in Minibeast.[15] 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 until he formed the band Consonant in 2001.[citation needed]
Mission of Burma reformed in 2002, with Bob Weston replacing Swope. The band released four more albums—ONoffON, The Obliterati, The Sound the Speed the Light, and Unsound—before it was revealed in June 2020 that they had amicably disbanded.
So now you know – Press Play and jack up the sound – goes well with bolting your food down and getting back to work on time.
You can thank me later.
