Mission of Burma

I used to listen to Mission of Burma a lot. But I wasn't cool enough to listen to the band back when I should have. Instead I had to wait until a friend of a friend left a cassette copy in my car. The tape had most of the songs form "signals, calls and marches" on it, but I'm sure it also had "Academy Fight Song", so either that song was added to a release of the EP back in the days before CDs, or else this was tape that someone had put together themselves. I vaguely remember audience sounds at some point so it may have been a boot leg. Given the vagueries of memory, and the fact that this was an audio cassette played in a pretty crappy automobile sound system its tough to say exactly what I was listening to, but it really made mornings on the Mass Pike more bearable.

I was sad when that tape broke, and I didn't have much opportunity to listen to MoB much until recently. Yes, of course, I was surprised by their brilliance, but by much else as well. I was surprised by the extent to "post-punk" actually meant something.

The music I've been reading about has been praised so much for its "Pop constructions" and the sonic nature of the music. Think about any "Beastie Boys*" album, the most sophmoric lyrics can be ignored because they're tossed in front of interesting noise.

MoB, aren't old school punk, at least in the sense that everyone has learned to play their instruments and the sounds are carefully constructed. There's still a raw quality, but that's been carefully constructed.

(I once covered a specialty Punk radio show for a friend of mine who was passed out. I knew he took pride in running a good show so I kept a careful log of everything I played, and I constructed the show out of samples of his old play lists. Turns out the log was worthless since the track lists on the album sleeves didn't correspond to the track list on the albums. In any case, it was a good thing no one from the FCC tuned in.)

"New Nails" for instance, "There once was a special book it got changed by fascist creeps". All your Marilyn Manson nihilist posturing, or even Beastie Boys new age political awareness style fades in comparison to the anger that fuels MoB rebellion. There's more to be said here, but I'm not going to say because I lack the bands courage.

*legal disclaimer: nothing in this post should be taken as evidence that I own any Beastie Boy's music, despite my obvious committment to "kicking it old school".