Time For A Little Hero Worship at Jukebox Heart…
Arriving in the mail Friday from Netflix was the “Not A Photograph” DVD, the story of the legendary Boston band Mission of Burma. I have to say, it’s a pretty fantastic document of the band from their inception to their completely upsetting disbanding in 1983 and then to their reunion in 2002.
I arrived in Boston in 1978, shortly before Burma formed. I never had the chance to see the pre-Burma band Moving Parts perform, but, given that I lived in Kenmore Square for the better part of four years, I did get to see MoB play many times, as well as the earliest performances by the co- and post-Burma band, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. The video omits all of the side projects and post-Burma bands, such as the Volcano Suns, Kustomized, or No Man, sort of giving the uninitiated the idea that they went off to oblivion between incarnations of MoB.
But that’s a minor issue, the DVD itself is pretty great, especially where it shows the band in its infancy performing at various locations. While Burma would have been a perfectly fab main act, the best shows were where Mission of Burma opened for other amazing bands – setting the standard for the main act to meet. Such examples: with Pere Ubu at the Main Act, and with Gang of Four at the Paradise. Of course, Sundays at the Rat… cheap beer, and walking distance from my BU dorm.
Anyway, the arrival of this DVD spurred a weekend of listening to Mission of Burma. I dug out the singles and all the vinyl I have and punched up the volume until the windows rattled like the studio at Fort Apache. One of the high points of the weekend was the discovery by my son and his girlfriend that Moby’s was not the original version of “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver.”
This was followed by a trip to Newbury Comics in search of copy of The Obliterati, which I found, used on the cheap for $5.99, and which, to my squealing delight, came completely unmarked with an accompanying DVD of moments from the 2004 show at the Tsongas arena. Their performance of Revolver, on that DVD, is embedded below.
Peter Prescott is just one of the best fucking drummers to ever have lived. If no one has said it yet, then, goddammit, let it be said now. I’ve always thought so, and Rick Harte, producer of their earliest recordings, understood that too. The drum sounds he captured and knob-twirled into eternity, only prove it.
Everyone has a favorite Burma song, and here’s mine. The band’s second single, from 1982. The drums are only a part of it…
My thoughts are reborn…