Mission Of Burma at Pitchfork Music Fest, Union Park, Chicago, July 18, 2008
By DEVIN KING | July 22, 2008
HUMBLED: Burma seemed at once excited and dazed by Chicago’s recognition of their album. |
A public-transit fiasco had me worried I’d be late for Mission of Burma’s opening set at the increasingly better Pitchfork Music Festival, but I made it just in time for “Secrets,” the opener off of 1982’s Vs. — which the band would be playing in its entirety, as an installment of the Pitchfork/All Tomorrow’s Parties “Don’t Look Back” series. A couple of songs in, however, Clint Conley announced (smirk casually affixed) that the songs they’d played to start the set — warm-ups that I’d missed — were there because the band knew we’d “settle for nothing less than the definitive edition.” Well, shit. Thanks a lot, “L.”The band, as always, sounded fantastic, especially if you’d been listening to the record all week in preparation. Live, Roger Miller’s guitar tone has a shrieking, wallish quality; on mid-tempo numbers like “Dead Pool” and “Einstein’s Dream,” it creates such an odd harmonic atmosphere that the simplest chord changes — easily ignored on a record that captures more of the band’s low-end grunt — are punched up and revelatory.
The trio seemed at once excited and dazed by the night’s recognition of their album, and the energy spilled over into their vocal deliveries, all of which were animated with what sounded like jitters. Peter Prescott had the most humorous song of the night, shouting through “Learn How” (which he described as “the song they used to let me ‘sing’ ”), ramping up the slightly dated punk diatribe and screaming overdramatically: “I want a Pepsi, I want a Pepsi, learn how!” Afterward, Conley quipped, “That was very well expressed, Mr. Prescott.”
Miller in “New Nails” shouting “Don’t make an idol of me” was an odd and beautiful moment. But Conley’s “That’s how I escaped my certain fate” redirected any guilty idolatry back to the well-deserving trio.
Related:
In with the new, Legendary restarts, Remasters of the universe, More 
- In with the new
Mission of Burma left the building last Sunday without playing the “hits.”
- Legendary restarts
If back in 2001 you’d told me or just about any other right-minded music fan that the legendary Mission of Burma would have two new studio albums to their name within five years, the polite response would have been, “Yeah, right.”
- Remasters of the universe
The adage “All things come to those who wait” tends not to find too many useful applications in rock and roll.
- The old is new
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic bring back Roger
- Not a Photograph: The Mission of Burma Story
This music documentary from David Kleiler Jr. and Jeff Iwanicki about three (sometimes four) self-depreciating Boston guys who never in a million years expected to be making music in 2002, to say nothing of 2006, is a great story with a real arc.
- Mission statements
You can tell a lot by a man’s record collection, and even more by his DJ set. And if not? Well, you still got to hear the new Burma record The Obliterati at the Enormous Room.
- The ignorami
Mission of Burma formed in Boston 30 years ago — the year Joy Division, Gang of Four, and the Pop Group released notorious post-punk releases in the UK.
- Post-punk prophet excerpt
An Excerpt from Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 by Simon Reynolds
- Mission Of Burma
This well-done documentary traces the beatific arc of Mission of Burma’s evolution from a clutch of scrappy punk outfits to one highly creative scrappy art-punk outfit to ashes to current resurrection.
- Mission completed
This article originally appeared in the January 18, 1983 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
- Off the record?
Pity the album. After a half-century of embarrassingly public body issues, our essential rock unit has not entered the new millennium looking very healthy. EPs are way more in vogue, MP3s have intangibility on their side, and 12-inches just sound impressive.
- Less
Topics:
Live Reviews
, Roger Miller, Mission of Burma, Mission of Burma, More
, Roger Miller, Mission of Burma, Mission of Burma, Mission of Burma, Clint Conley, Peter Prescott, Devin King, Less
