For a rock band to still be alive, let alone functional, 25 years after beginning is astounding. For the rare band that makes it to remain just as relevant and exciting as it originally sounded is practically unheard of. But Mission of Burma, after emerging from a 20-year hiatus, has spent the last two years proving to the world of indie rock-one of the most pretentious, critical fan bases in existence-that it is just as potent a force as it was during their brief but influential run in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.
It takes a lot for a band to stay relevant long after time has beaten down their contemporaries. In a sense, the members themselves don’t even know how the band’s resurrection has worked out so well.
“We’re in denial that we’re a rock band at all,” bassist Clint Conley said.
After forming in 1979, Mission of Burma released a handful of groundbreaking singles, a legendary EP and one powerful full-length album. The band broke up in 1983 due to guitarist Roger Miller’s tinnitus, or chronic ringing in the ears, which resulted from Burma’s intense live shows.
“If I didn’t stop, I wouldn’t be able to hear when I was 50,” Miller said.
“Now I’m 53, and I can hear.”
Despite their limited output, the band’s fusion of visionary sonic experimentation with fist-pumping punk anthems had a huge influence on bands from their contemporaries, like Sonic Youth, to the hip young underground rockers of today, like Interpol. A growing awareness of the degree to which they’ve been remembered and revered inspired Conley, Miller and drummer Peter Prescott to play a few concerts in New York City in 2002, all of which sold out.
“Even at the very first, when we started playing, people said it sounded like we picked up where we left off, and the energy was just as natural and organic,” Miller said. “Whatever accident we stumbled into, it seems to have worked.”
Ultimately, it is Miller’s incredible, irreproducible guitar sound that makes the band what it is.
“You just pick up a guitar and work with whatever sound comes out of it,” Miller said. “I kind of came from a slightly different standpoint than most rock musicians. At the period I was really into free jazz-Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra-and I studied composition,” he added. “I mixed that with my interest in Jimi Hendrix and Syd Barrett and the post-punk aesthetic, and it’s bound to come out kind of oddly.”
Not content to simply rehash their past material, the newly reunited Mission of Burma immediately began to work on writing and recording new songs, the process of which culminated in the album ONoffON this spring.
“We decided to record the album after a year and a half of accumulating new songs, because that was one of our mandates to ourselves: to write music,” Conley said.
“There’s too many people that get back together, not usually after 20 years, but after some period of time, and trot out these dead nuggets, and we thought we could reinvigorate the old ones if we had new ones next to them,” Prescott added.
The new album is a testament to the importance of originality in rock. ONoffON isn’t as consistently excellent as the band’s early work, but it retains the spirit of innovation and the sheer love of playing that writes great bands into history. Tracks like “Wounded World” display Miller’s skillful, imaginative guitar acrobatics and Conley’s ear for fiery, sing-along melodies, fusing the two tendencies into bursts of noisy-but-catchy post-punk fury.
The true accomplishment, though, is only evident when the album is viewed in the context of this year’s contemporaries. Mission of Burma is old enough to have fathered most of today’s angsty rockers, but its album is both more original and more listenable than the output of most of those bands. Even those who name the band as an underground-trendy influence rarely manage to compare to the pure creativity that Burma still thrives on.
“I’m thrilled to death that 20 years later, we still mean something to people, but I don’t really hear the influence,” Conley said.
