There’s no questioning the far-reaching influence of Mission of Burma’s “poppier” post-punk anthems “Academy Fight Song,” (butchered by bands like REM and Miracle Legion) and “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver.” But it’s on their 1982 masterwork Vs. that you really begin to hear the foundations of ’90s indie-rock being built. College darlings Versus not only swiped their name from the album’s title, but their sound was greatly indebted to the moody ebb and flow of “Einstein’s Day.”
Elsewhere on Vs. are hints of Six Finger Satellite, Pixies, Shellac, Drive Like Jehu, Silkworm and Yo La Tengo’s most Burma-influenced albums May I Sing With Me and Electro-Pura. (Actually, MOB bassist Clint Conley produced YLT’s first album, Ride the Tiger—then went on to produce television shows, naturally.) Curiously, MOB’s acolytes couldn’t equal the controlled chaos of leader Roger Miller’s guitar style: mixing jagged altered chords with ringing harmonics, slow-burning feedback solos and squealing atonal breaks. And there are zero contemporary indie/punk bands that can match the blistering Wire-like art-damage of “The Ballad of Johnny Burma.”
Riding the wave of publicity from their much-deserved consecration in Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, Mission of Burma’s NYC reunion shows in 2002 were thrilling in the sense that they happened at all. Unfortunately, the performance I witnessed was more of an uninspired Branson, Mo., oldies showcase than a fiery continuation of where they’d left off in 1983. With legendary tinnitus-sufferer Miller donning his oversized earmuffs, the band gave a formal, lecture-hall presentation of their distinguished musical history, overly faithful to the recordings that made the MOB myth. Then the night ended with a hokey all-star guitar-jam on “All World,” an instrumental so structurally minimal that even Moby got the chords.
This just wasn’t the kind of kick-ass punk-rock show that makes you feel like knocking over a suburban convenience store (although a bad-drunk VIP acquaintance of mine knocked over a snack table backstage). In all fairness, it must have been a bizarre trip for MOB; they’d gone from playing for 10-15 slobbering drunks in the ’80s to suddenly experiencing hundreds of well-bred indie kids collectively mouthing the words to “This Is Not a Photograph.”
Now, with the 2006 release of the undeniably powerful The Obliterati, they’re doing the usual touring-behind-an-album business. Let’s just hope Miller and company show up a little more pissed off this year.
July 14. Warsaw, 261 Driggs Ave. (at Eckford St.), Brooklyn,
718-387-0505; 8, $20.
