By the end of that year, the EP had sold out its initial pressing of 10,000 copies. Their debut release, the EP Signals, Calls, and Marches, was released in 1981. However, the first pressing of the single sold out quickly, and the band thereafter trusted Harte's judgement. Rick Harte's layered production was far more refined than the band's ragged live performances, and the band initially objected to the single. Their debut recording was a single of Conley's "Academy Fight Song" backed with Miller's " Max Ernst" (titled after the dada artist). Signals and Vs.īy 1981, the band signed a record deal with the Boston-based record label Ace of Hearts. Mission of Burma wanted to release the song as a single, but by the time they had found a label, they felt the song had run its course. The station played Conley's "Peking Spring" repeatedly, and it became the station's most-played song of 1979. His latter role grew gradually, until by 1981 he was adding tape work to most of the group's songs, and was regarded as an integral part of the group, appearing in group photographs and receiving equal credit on recordings.įrom the start, Mission of Burma received support from local music magazine Boston Rock, which printed a lengthy interview with the band before they released their first record, and Boston college radio station WMBR. Swope was immediately enlisted as the group's live audio engineer and occasional tape-effects artist. Miller then contacted Martin Swope, with whom he had earlier written some John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen-inspired pieces for piano and tape. Later that month Miller wrote a song, "Nu Disco", that he felt would be improved by a tape loop. Mission of Burma made their debut on Apas a trio, performing at The Modern Theater. They took their name from a " Mission of Burma" plaque Conley saw on a New York City diplomatic building he thought the phrase had a "sort of murky and disturbing" quality. Auditioning new drummers was accomplished, as Michael Azzerad puts it, "by playing 'out' music, such as Sun Ra and James Brown, until the applicant left." They eventually recruited ex-Molls drummer Peter Prescott, who had admired the music of Moving Parts. When Moving Parts broke up amicably in December 1978, Miller and Conley began practicing. The band included Roger Miller, who had moved to Boston from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Clint Conley, who came from Darien, Connecticut. Mission of Burma's history began with a short-lived Boston rock group called Moving Parts. Mission of Burma reformed in 2002, with Bob Weston replacing Swope, and has since recorded three more albums, ONoffON, The Obliterati, and The Sound The Speed The Light.
The band released only one album in its original lineup, Vs. Despite initial success, Mission of Burma disbanded in 1983 due to Miller's development of tinnitus caused by the volume of the band's live performances. In early years the band's recordings were all released on the small Boston-based record label Ace of Hearts. Miller, Conley and Prescott share singing and songwriting duties. The band was formed by Roger Miller ( guitar), Clint Conley ( bass), Peter Prescott ( drums) and Martin Swope (tape manipulator/sound engineer). Mission of Burma is an American post-punk band formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1979.