Task of Myanmar.

Let's get down to business here. If you like sound fashioned into some sort of rhythmic/tonal/melodic form of communication and stimulation, and you've got the good fortune to know anything about underground rock music, you already know Mission of Burma in passing at least. If you are not already intimately familiar with their work, I am sorry to say that though they are one of the greatest rock and roll bands since rock and roll itself existed, they are not easy, palatable, accessible, instantly catchy or even great at everything they do. However, they are better when they suck than most bands on their best day, simply by virtue of their inimitable form and function. They're a thinking man's rock band, or a thug's art rock outfit, or maybe a poppy kid's secret punk weapon.Whatever the hell you want to call them, they're not simple or easily imitated. Not just anyone can get a handle on their style, because of its highly individualistic nature. No other band really replicates their chemistry and wholly unique dynamics and songwriting. This isn't to say they're perfect. Their singing style is pretty amateurish, their songs can be excessively conceptual in nature, and because of their three songwriters, they can be quite scattershot in both their style of songwriting and the overall quality of their output. However, even admitting they have such (admittedly minor) faults, I would have to characterize them more as pleasant eccentricities than true marks of failure. Even at their conceptual nadir, they still make better music than most bands can on their best day.

No band so wholly unlike the mainstream can appeal to everyone, but MoB's highly singular style and the sheer talent of the band members has endeared them to thousands.

Take, for instance, our man on the skins, Peter Prescott. A future bandleader himself before the Mission of Burma reunion, drummer Peter Prescott is a perennial fan favorite, possessing a high energy post-punk attack of both highly complex beats and jarring screams and proclamations from behind the kit. One can only imagine the difficulty of singing and drumming in differing rhythms simultaneously, but Mr. Prescott accomplishes this with great discipline. His scorched-earth punk anti-anthems kick up a bratty, discontented storm of equal parts intellectual scorn and contrarian tantrum, with some honest-to-goodness pop hooks thrown in just for shits. Since he even switched to guitar for his band Kustomized, he contributes guitar arrangements for some Mission of Burma songs as well, such as the slashing and spasmodic riff to his own "Let Yourself Go" from their 2006 album The Obliterati.

Pete's the one in the back engulfed in bliss. Bliss, I tells ya!

The most popular Mission of Burma songs are usually the creation of their bassist, Clint Conley. Our hero Clint is lavishly gifted with pop-song prowess and razor wit, and his high barking and keening delivery lends a biting emotional edge to his damaged military marches and penetrating political and personal manifestos. What really sets apart his bass style from most other second fiddle twiddlers is that he isn't content to be 'just' a bassist. He doesn't play some watered-down guitar lines, or slavishly imitate some vanilla funk groove or scrub out boring indie rock simplicity. Like Peter Hook of Joy Division, he uses the bass as an instrument should be used, carving out unique sonic territory; he packs each song with an array of double-stops, chords, and fantastic riffs occasionally supplemented by effects pedal usage. His driving and muscular hooks really propel most Mission of Burma compositions from extremely interesting guitar rock music to divine and sublime realms of body and mind-shaking grooves.

At Brown University, Clint wields his legendary white Fender.

So we've covered the drummer and the bassist. But, wouldn't most people be wondering by now, what about the guitarist? In most bands, the guitarist is the De facto leader and lead songwriter, and would be a priority in most band biographies. Interestingly, Mission of Burma is different, but at the same time, really isn't. Roger Miller is the lead songwriter for Mission of Burma, contributing most of the band's output, handling most of the singing duties, and has the most formal musical training, having studied piano and tuba in music school and coming from a background of 'serious' music rather than pure punk rock or new wave. However, the band is a very collaborative enterprise, and having three singers and songwriters, the title of 'leader' is not bandied about much.

That said, Mr. Miller still commands quite a bit of stage presence. His angular and bizarre compositions form the bulk of Mission of Burma output, and his highly rhythmic guitar style and unconventional solos place him at the forefront of post-punk guitarists. Back in the first phase of Mission of Burma, he began experiencing tinnitus, and his rifle range earphones served as both a safety measure to prevent his tinnitus from worsening and an inadvertent fashion icon. Tinnitus, a disease characterized by a constant and often painful ringing in the ears, is a clear hazard to those musicians who do not take preventative steps to protect their hearing and who utilize massive amounts of volume in their stage performances. Roger's tinnitus was a clear factor in the original breakup of MoB in 1983, but after 19 years, the time seemed right to reunite, and he took steps from the outset to avoid damaging his ears further. He now wears ear protection and is separated from the drums by a Plexiglas wall, but boasts no less energy or passion from the years intervening the breakup and the reunion.

So he's no Aretha. I don't hear anyone complaining.

So, who's this fourth guy, here? We've got the bassist, guitarist, drummer... but there's another element to their sound, if you know what you're listening for. Some hooks, some sounds, just aren't instruments. They are, in fact, tape loops, provided in Burma Mk. I by Martin Swope. When the whole reunion business went down, Swope was in Hawaii, and so Bob Weston, bassist and producer, he of Shellac fame, was offered the job of providing tape loops and sound engineering for one of his favorite all-time bands. Lucky bastard...

Swope, far left. Few photos are floating around, he's pretty enigmatic. (Spooky ghost noise)

Bob Weston, first a bassist, now a producer and tape guy too! Yay!

I've been talking about these guys in the present tense, but you may wonder, just what is the deal with the breakup and reformation? Well, if a little history lesson would do ya good, sit down on old Altron2095's knee, and he'll tell ya a story.

Let's journey back to 1979, to when Mission of Burma became a band. First we've got the Moving Parts, Clint's in the band. Roger, sensing that Ann Arbor is a dead end, moves to Boston and answers and ad for a bassist for the Moving Parts, but, they say they need a guitarist. So, he switches to guitar after being a bassist back in his hometown, and after a little while, tensions begin to arise in the Parts. Erik Lindgren, their leader, is a keyboardist that writes more fractured and arty pop songs, while Roger writes more rocking and unconventional compositions. After an amicable split, Roger and Clint decide to audition drummers for their new band. After trying out a few times, Peter Prescott is drafted to hammer down their crazy beats. After less than three shows as a trio, Roger feels that a song he's written, New Disco, would benefit from tape loops. Martin Swope, who was sort of hovering around in the background by this time, was good with tape loops, and so the last piece of the puzzle fell in place.

Buncha dour motherfuckers, weren't they?

After getting early support from local radio stations and zines, Burma hit a wall when it came to going national. There just wasn't an infrastructure there for them to get the word out and tour successfully. So, after their Academy Fight Song single, the Signals, Calls and Marches EP, and one very promising and powerful debut album, Vs., they called it quits due to Roger's tinnitus and their lack of success.

Their story was nearly a tragic one: a truly great band making exciting music derailed by hearing loss and public indifference. But something changed in the 19 years afterward. Maybe it was the grunge explosion, the rise of college radio, maybe it was the rise of major labels and indie rock, maybe the Internet's capability for information sharing began making it easier for smaller bands to become more well-known. Michael Azzerad's book on the underground rock scene, Our Band Could Be Your Life was also certainly a factor, putting Mission of Burma in a historical context alongside their contemporaries like Black Flag, Husker Du, Minutemen, and the Replacements.

Whatever the combination of reasons, the reunion happened. When the band decided to reunite for two shows, they went over well enough that they booked more shows, and then more. Things went so naturally and smoothly that sometime later, they were no longer reunited, but were simply united. After enough material accumulated from their new rehearsals and shows, in 2004 Burma put out Onoffon, only their second album in 22 years. It was widely hailed as an excellent return to form that boasted both solid new compositions and excellent reworkings of older material, both from MoB and from Roger's solo outings in the years between.

The band didn't wait another 22 years to record a follow-up. Their 2006 album The Obliterati contains some of their very best pop music, and that's no slight. The hooks are golden. The choruses sparkle when they need to and explode with abandon. Just from one listen to "Nancy Reagan's Head" it's clear that the same zany brains are at work behind the twisted arrangements and goofy breakdowns that pervade this behemoth.

The Obliterati- crazy stupid awesome title, crazy stupid awesome music.

Since then, they've been touring intermittently, finding an audience of both old and new faces. As the old fans dropped off, a generation of indie rock fans has risen up to meet the band who they owe everything to. In some crazy stunt that isn't likely to ever happen again, Mission of Burma have managed to outlast their first incarnation in terms of time and in output, with seven years going strong in the reunion and the two aforementioned albums under their belt. Such a fluke has been warmly appreciated by fans, and they are doing great as of this writing, having re-released their back catalog and with another album expected. Hell, they even made it into my personal favorite fake music game, Rock Band. So what's next for the Burma cats? No one can say for sure, but rest assured, this Mission is as accomplished as it gets.