Rocky & Bullwinkle Theme - Birdsongs of the Mesozoic (1984)

A little manic energy to get you through the rest of your day.

1987

7/4/22.

Substisnoop posting while our man is on vacay...On Independence Days past I've had a custom of only listening to music made in America. Current feeling of being an American citizen though colored today's listening choices - Glenn Branca, Nina Simone, Talking Heads, and Mission of Burma, which leads me to Trinary System - Roger Miller's new post-Burma trio. They released Lights in the Center of Your Head on Feeding Tube in 2019. It's a little more psychedelic and perhaps proggy than Burma, but it still rocks with Miller's signature vocal and guitar playing.

Insert from the 1981 Mission Of Burma EP Signals, Calls And Marches - Peter Prescott, Clint Conley, Martin Swope and Roger Miller.

Excited to open for Roger Clark Miller from Mission of Burma with a solo set as part of the Oak Cliff Film Festival at The Wild Detectives in Dallas next Friday June 23 ❤️ -Eric

More info here

ERRRDAY_LIKE_SUNDAY…

// Sometimes you strike gold right off the fucking bat… which is exactly what MISSION OF BURMA did on “THAT’S WHEN I REACH FOR MY REVOLVER,” the opening track from their 1981 debut EP titled ‘Signals, Calls, and Marches’ (Ace of Hearts). The Boston based group, consisting of Roger Miller (guitar), Clint Conley (bass), Peter Prescott (drums) & Martin Swope (tape manipulator/sound engineer) were/are/will forever remain wholly their own… the purveyors of a devastatingly noisy live show whose actual studio recordings would capture a more nuanced take of their chaotic post-punk, a sound that would go on to influence a legion of bands ranging from R.E.M. to Nirvana (& pretty much anyone featured on this here blog) For yours truly, that sound/influence culminates on “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” a track that means more to me now than it did upon my initial listen as its influential relevance broadened the further I dug into the American Underground of the 80s. The endless wake that MoB would create is on full display: the verse section’s rangy guitars, propulsive low-ends & the patiently measured vocal that idly cruise & build until we’re face to face w/ that massively singable chorus & it’s bashed out percussion… it sounds fucking huge because it is… a cathartic gut punch of an anthem.

////

No Man is Roger Miller, best known for his work with Mission of Burma. A bunch of these songs would be resurrected for the Burma come back record ONoffON.

AllMusic Staff Pick: Roger Miller Elemental Guitar 1995 Experimental

Miller's Mission of Burma had a weirder side, one that utilized tape loops and experimented with odd sound collages. Elemental Guitar makes much use of such loops and most of all his fractured guitar sound (and even some vocals, bass, and drums) to form a unique and challenging record that, for all its aggression, is also pleasant to the ear. Covers of Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced" and Eno & Cluster's "Broken Head" are particularly provocative, but all the material here is pretty stimulating.

- Jack Rabid

Mission Of Burma - 'Signals, Calls, And Marches'

CD - 1997 Rykodisc (originally 1981 Ace Of Hearts Records)

Trinary System — Lights in the Center of Your Head (Feeding Tube)

Lights in the Center of Your Head by Trinary System

Roger Miller, of the much loved, double-lived post-punk outfit Mission of Burma, had been out of the frame for decades when that band reunited. The reunion shows were pure love of the game—for fans and band members alike—and evidently Miller wasn’t ready to retire again when Burma’s second run drew to a close in the early teens. His new project, Trinary System, continues in the elegant, abstract, agitated firestorm tradition of Miller’s Burma’s songs, with an unmistakable swagger.

Miller’s new band adheres to the same basic configuration as the old one. He takes up center stage on guitar and vocals. Larry Dersch of Binary System and AKACOD plays drums and Andrew Willis of The Web and Crappy Nightmareville holds down on bass. There’s a great deal of Miller in the band’s basic DNA—which makes a few of the songs sound very Burma-like—but the new band delves much further into kraut rock, classic rock, even funk and blues than the previous one.

Thus opener “When the Dust Settles,” sports a very familiar austere and jagged rumble, oblique lyrics and sudden flights into falsettoed tunefulness, its clatter and jutting, intersecting rhythms very much in line with prior Miller songs (“Spider’s Web,” comes to mind). Things fall apart in Miller songs. Elaborate constructions come crashing down. Rube Goldberg contraptions of rhythm, incantation, athletic guitar scrabble and tune take wiry shape and then shake apart into pieces. As Miller sings in this opening song, “I love chaos cos you get to see what new forms show up when the dust settles.”

“Infinity in a Box,” then, takes a rattling, propulsive kraut-ish shape. Its extended reverie works first without vocals—a skeletal walking bass underpinning warm washes of guitar—and then with them, in spatters of verbiage studded with hidden rhythms and internal rhymes. It’s a Rubik’s Cube of a song, full of sharp, shiny, colorful edges that align in abrupt, unexpected ways and then, just as suddenly, go out of joint.  

“Modular Life” along with “Work It” take on a more physical, body-centric heft with simple, repetitive chants (“I need a modular life” and “I love to work, when I’m working on what I love,” respectively) shouted out over music that damn near boogies. “Modular Life” leans into syncopated, funk rhythms and blues-tinged, vibrating bent notes, while “Work It” punches out a blocky, straightforward beat, but both proceed with undiluted enthusiasm. No interlocking puzzles here, but much of the sweaty joy of rocking and rolling.  

Lights in the Center of Your Head is a surprising amount of fun, intricate when it needs to be, but solidly anchored in rock-hard foundations of rock, funk and blues.  

Jennifer Kelly

Flyer for calendar listings at Cambridge, MA rock club T.T. the Bear’s Place, October 1990.

I likely picked up this flyer either when buying tickets at T.T.’s box office for the Steve Kilbey show on the 15th (already documented here and here). If only I’d been a little hipper in my musical tastes at that point, because there are at least three other shows I absolutely would have gone to.

That Pylon gig on the 6th is the I most regret missing. (Pylon!) And I don’t even have ignorance as an excuse, as I’d been introduced to their music via a dB’s Orgy on WHRB that Record Hospital had broadcast the prior spring.

It is possible I actually did attend that Blake Babies show on the 19th, as it was on a Friday. But as I was still dependent on the commuter rail to whisk me back to the suburbs on the midnight train, I may not have risked the journey only to have to miss most of their set.

And that Christmas gig on the 20th with Roger Miller of Mission of Burma opening? Another winner of a show, missed. But I did get a tiny bit of redemption almost thirty years later.

In 2019 I was in New York for five of the eight nights of Yo La Tengo’s Hanukkah shows, which happened to coincide with Christmas week that year. Showing up at the Bowery Ballroom for the Christmas Day show I check out the lineup posted by the door, only to find that the opening band is... Christmas! That’s right, Yo La Tengo got Christmas to reform for that one-off gig, complete with former member and current YLT bassist James McNew. A most excellent Christmas surprise.

4/14/21.

Through all these years, I’ve never owned or posted anything from Don Giovanni Records (New Jersey).  Both are changing tonight.  Vitamin were a band of young Boston teenage musicians who were heavily influenced by no-wave.  Once they added a violinist and a drummer, the band apparently took shape...for a short time.

“Recordings 1981″ collects some of the early recordings of Vitamin.  The only song available on Bandcamp (or anywhere for all I can tell) is “Black Sheep”.  It’s a winner. 

Mission of Burma’s Roger Miller said, “Vitamin was imbued with the type of self-belief that allows one to ignore all walls. I was a total fan the first time I saw them."

I can’t help but think of the sound of Y Pants and Young Marble Giants or the youthful experimentation of Tangled Shoelaces. 

Signals, Calls, and Marches (1981) Vs. (1982), Mission of Burma

At first, Mission of Burma’s sound doesn’t seem particularly spectacular. It’s unshackled and raw post-punk, of seemingly similar genes to Gang of Four without an overly distinctive vocalist or any obvious instrumentation unique-to-them.

But, in repeated listening of their debut EP Signals, Calls, and Marches and debut album Vs., one finds two records that are, as a whole, as a set, and as collections of individual pieces, masterpieces. What anchors both of these two releases isn’t just the intrigue of their back-story, nor the ferocity they produce played at the volumes that they were known for.

Put simply, both are anchored by some of the most incredible performances in post-punk history. Though apparently simple, those performances amount to electrifying energy throughout, whereby even the lower-key tracks are pacey, rich and gripping.

The EP opens strongly with, if listening on streaming, four bonus tracks. ‘Academy Fight Song’ and ‘Max Ernst’ were both singles, electrifying and catchy and, while the next two are outtakes, both are decent. All four tracks are, contrary to the usual with bonus tracks, essential to the listening experience. Signals, Calls, and Marches is one of few instances where bonus tracks cements one’s image of the band’s sound and history.

Signals, Calls, and Marches only properly begins with ‘That’s When I Reach For My Revolver’, an iconic piece of American post-punk, welcoming an EP that crosses bases with so many of post-punk’s most recognisable features. Theoretically danceable, anxiously manic, punkishly energetic: Mission of Burma’s debut ran with it all, defining the next several decades of American indie and alternative rock in the process.

Vs., however, is Mission of Burma’s most essential work. Building upon Signals, Calls, and Marches with elements of noise rock and wider bouts of experimentation, it carries their energy over a full-length work. Often both more meditated and more of a ruckus (often at the same time – see ‘Dead Pool’ and ‘Mica’), Vs. has guitar that scrawl all over the mix, a dextrous bass equally thunderous as light and percussion in its own virtuosic league, improvising with remarkable skill and longevity.

And, despite first impressions that neither record has much unique instrumentation or nonconformity, on repeated listens (and at brutal volumes), both have their own idiosyncrasies. There’s tape decking on ‘Max Ernst’, ‘Secrets’ ‘Weatherbox’ and, most prominently, on ‘Trem Two’. ‘New Nails’ might have harmonica, ‘Execution’ some droning guitar. Behind the songwriting and performances, Mission of Burma certainly weren’t meat-and-veg.

As for conformity, the fact that both are so rear-heavy is just as much of an affront to expectations. My favourite tracks lie near the end of both, especially the rollicking ‘That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate’, a two minute wave of mayhem.

The result of all this is two hugely influential records. It’s difficult to imagine Fugazi or Sonic Youth’s accessible abrasiveness, the rich noise of Dinosaur Jr. or so much of ‘90s American cult and mainstream indie without it. Signals, Calls, and Marches and Vs. are rightly two of the most adored records in American post-punk, indie and alternative rock - just remember, in spite of whatever Roger Miller’s tinnitus says, play them loud.

Pick: ‘All World Cowboy Romance’, ‘That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate’

I need an ENTIRE afternoon wall of noise. 4/3 music library on shuffle until I hit a killdozer song.

the thermals - “god and country” reset - "double cross" nirvana - "polly" (1986-88 home recording) nirvana - "radio friendly unit shifter" (2013 mix) peterbuilt - "sateliteyes" the dickies - "got it at the store" apocalypse hoboken - "box of pills" fiona apple - "slow like honey" tex & the horseheads - "big boss man" everclear - "the drama king" anti-flag - "america got it right" neil young - "tonight's the night, pt. ii" everclear - "brown-eyed girl" noooooooooo oh my god no please millencolin - “israelites" listen you know that i'm p tolerant when it comes to this subject but why specifically did you boys do this. specifically you useless id - "note" never accuse me of pop punk nationalism again! that's three of global pop punk the selecter - "selling out your future" built to spill - "some things last a long time" holidays - "proof" let's wrestle - "bad mammaries" radhos - "one breath" ween - "boing" bracket - "g-vibe" local h - "'cha!' said the kitty" sublime - "40oz to freedom" failure - "saturday saviour" blink-182 - "don't leave me" (tmtts live take) why did they make this live album, they were so bad live shrimp boat - "melon song" interpol - "not even jail" the ataris - "angry nerd rock" 50 million - "superhero" skankin pickle - "violent love" the breeders - "put on a side" all - "honey peeps" the commandos (suicide commandos) - "weekend warrior" suicide machines - "friends are hard to find" the eclectics - "laura" good ska block! love this band pansy division - "jack u off" rocket from the tombs - "ain't it fun" dynamite boy - "devoted" young pioneers - "downtown tragedy" the breeders - "so sad about us" fenix tx - "jean claude trans am" fuck i love this song nofx - "bob" hickey - "happily ever after" bob dylan - "tangled up in blue" (bootlegs vol. 2) gas huffer - "king of hubcaps" tullycraft - "crush this town" atom and his package - "goalie" faith no more - "the real thing" carly rae jepsen - "tell me" bis - "listen up" one direction - "still the one" mtx - "she's no rocket scientist" eugene chadbourne - "roger miller medley" grouvie ghoulies - "carly simon" white town - "thursday at the blue note" gas huffer - "moon mission" rx bandits - "sleepy tyme" everclear - "rocket for the girl" failure - "kindred" blood on the saddle - "johnny's at the fair" the distillers - "red carpet and rebellion" cruiserweight - "dearest drew" stp - "plush" everclear - "wonderful" (live, from the closure ep) (don't hate it) new found glory - "sonny" everclear - "otis redding" (impure white evil demo) (BEST song) stp - "adhesive" incubus - "have you ever" cub - "tell me now" everclear - "short blonde hair" i simply do not hate it letters to cleo - "happy ever after" amazing transparent man - “the ocean is a fuck of a long way to swim” nerf herder - “(stand by your) manatee” kitty kitty - “ab tokeless” osker - “the mistakes you made” perfume genius - “hood” radhos - “shut up & deal” (welcome to the jungle take) osker - “the body”  gas huffer - “the sin of sloth” the fall - “bombast” excuse 17 - “code red” mad season - “lifeless dead” unwritten law - “differences” hanson - “two tears” the eyeliners - “anywhere but here” moby grape - “lazy me” brian wilson - “wonderful” 88 fingers louie - “something i don’t know” sicko - “wisdom tooth weekend” the replacements - “love you till friday” suicide machines - “green world” midtown - “another boy” hickey - “cool kids attacked by flying monkeys” the roman invasion suite - “carnations” the beat - “tears of a clown” local h - “24 hour break up session” okay i’m awake i want to end this now toots & the maytals - “funky kingston” local h - “strict-9″ his name is alive - “her eyes were huge things” nirvana - “frances farmer will have her revenge on seattle” slapstick - “almost punk enough” urge overkill - “bionic revolution” janet jackson - “you want this” piebald - “long nights” small brown bike - “now i’m a shadow” the story so far - “left unsaid” crj - “more than a memory” tracy + the plastics - “my friends end parties” liz phair - “6′1″“ fastbacks - “555, pt. 1″ this mix is feminist now swindle - “one track” shockabilly - “burma shave” temple of the dog - “say hello to heaven” amazing transparent man - “shove” cool soul asylum cover from dekalb illinois :)) the vindictives “eating me alive” midwests only!! the judys - “radiation squirm” gulfs only!! frogpond - “sleep” flipp - “rock-n-roll star” throwing muses - “red shoes” everclear - “santa monica” throwing muses on summerland??? mekons - “atone & forsaken” holidays - “take me home country roads” this is a good tone to lead up to killdozer... true believers - “all mixed up again” prince - “adore” beulah - “queen of the populists” eveclear - “rocky mountain high” (99x live acoustic--I don’t have a date for this actually) of montreal - “dustin hoffman thinks about eating the soap” heatmiser - “stray” rickie lee jones - “woody and dutch on the slow train to peking” tar - “viaduct removal” common rider - “carry on” the frogs - “u bastards” mudhoney - “this gift” hammerbox - “outside” fuck my mom would have loved this song if it had gotten the airplay it deserved in 1993... hammerbox on summerland!!!! letters to cleo - “little rosa” kay hanley on summerland!! nine pound hammer “wrongside of the road” hanson - “with you in your dreams” (3cg demo) hamson on summerland!!! fastbacks - “555, pt. 1″ again... fastbacks on summerland!!! face to face - “sensible” soul asylum - “happy” soul asylum on summerland!!!! television - “see no evil” pinq - “careful not to mention the obvious” the dickies - “nights in white satin” tar - “mel’s” truly - “chlorine” babes in toyland - “deep song” hole - “berry” hellbender - “half driven” hammerhead  - “new york? ...alone?” everclear - “malevolent” guzzard - “last”  archers of loaf - “tatyana” hum - “stars” hum on summerland die kreuzen - “don’t say please” this is not fair joanna newsom - “sadie” down by law - “peace, love and understanding” nirvana - “aneurysm” (1990 demo) hovercraft - “endoradiosonde” modest mouse - “cowboy dan” rage against the machine - “born of a broken man” skatalites - “scandal ska” pylon - “driving school” the vindictives - “babysitter” jimmy eat world - “ten” the get up kids - “lowercase west thomas” oh we’re doing this now? hot rod circuit - “knees” fine triple fast action - “the rescue” FINE  full disclosure i do skip emo diaries tracks at my discretion the amps - “bragging party” everclear - “am radio” this is not fair mxpx - “middlename” MXPX ON SUMMERLAND chokebore - “your let down” bob dylan - “you’re a big girl now” helmet - “primitive” pond - “filterless” blink-182 - “all the small things” local h - “ralph” tar - “over and out” pearl jam - “black” the gits - “sniveling little rat faced git” local h - “eddie vedder” >:) tar - “flow plow” i always misremember this as a subpop single so i’m like “i’m not amphetamine reptile biased?” but it was an a/r release, lol. brad wood produced it. lake michigan as hell  unicorns - “jellybones” this song makes me sad ever since i didn’t get to adopt the jellybones cat oblivion - “clark” desmond dekker - “jeserene” veruca salt - “one last time” veruca salt on summerland!!!! dead moon - “dead moon night” extremely dead moon on summerland fishbone - “i like to hide behind my glasses” dead moon - “on my own” paw - “sleeping bag” tar - “goethe” doc dart - “casket with flowers” smashing pumpkins - “zero” i don’t want billy corgan on summerland and i am sorry for that kicking giant - “&” kicking giant on summerland lmao shockabilly - “pile up all architecture” ween - “sorry charlie” sublime - “april 29, 1992 (miami)” heatmiser - “blackout” the clash - “pressure drop” hellbender - “pissant’s retrospective” the queers - “i won’t be” the vindictives - “circles” the beat farmers - “selfish heart” screaming trees - “end of the universe” 7 year bitch - “second hand” bourgeois filth - “above” nirvana - “scoff” the breeders - “cannonball” saturday looks good to me - “save my life” cara beth satalino - “good ones” communique - “dagger version” soul asylum - “sometime to return” sublime - “jailhouse” tullycraft - “twee” nuns - “wild” beyonce - “countdown” the replacements - “sixteen blue” living colour - “what’s your favorite color” britney - “why should i be sad” mdc - “church and state” alice in chains - “junkhead” rage against the machine - “mic check” everclear - “nervous and weird” soundgarden - “fresh tendrils” helmet - “army of me” the gits - “it all dies anyway” pansy division - “smells like queer spirit” mtx - “i’d do anything for you” 5 year sentence - “just a punk” pennywise - “nothing” mudhoney - “thirteenth floor opening” yesterday’s kids - “eighteen” mxpx - “punk rawk show” small brown bike - “zerosum” incubus - “trouble in 421″ hanson - “speechless” incubus - “circles” dead moon - “my time has come” (!!!!) first of all is this killdozer blink-182 - “here’s your letter” everclear - “electra made me blind” (nervous & weird take) saves the day - “through being cool” groovie ghoulies - “don’t go out into the rain (you’re gonna melt)” babes in toyland - “never” husker du - “target” guzzard - “biro” fairweather - “next day flight” mcr - “house of wolves” broadcast - “until then” liz phair - “never said” the dicks - “rich daddy” quasi - “the iron worm” mustard plug - “not again” janitor joe - “boyfriend” snapcase - “new academy” neil young - “someday” blindsided - “spaceman” placebo - “without you i’m nothing” the creeps - “lakeside cabin” solomon grundy - “time is not your own” the clash - “the card cheat” silversun pickups - “common reactor” lagwagon - “leave the light on” denali - “where i landed” system of a down - “highway song” sprinkler - “personality doll” the vindictives - “structure and function” unplugged” the queers - “ursula finally has tits” we’re entering no repeats territory  buffalo springfield - “expecting to fly” hit squad - “pictures of matchstick men” cows - “almost a god” hop along - “young and happy” pixies - “i’ve been tired” the fall - “spoilt victorian child” camper van chadbourne - “knock on the door” queens of the stone age - “tension head” choking victim - “war story” cool that we have gotten to drop by the greatest song ever recorded :) guttermount - “happy loving couples” audio karate - “nintendo 89″ tad - “pork chop” the kelley deal 6000 - “where did the home team go” colorfinger - “hateful” :} man or astroman - “evil plans of planet spectra” pere ubu - “arabian nights” accepting repeats for  new found glory - “my friends over you” cool moving on american steel - “optimist” tom petty & the heartbreakers - “even the losers” meat puppets - “another moon” black cat music - “wine in a box” wallside - “ready” crucifucks - “pig in a blanket” the bananas - “my charmed life”

KILLDOZER - “EARL SCHEIB,” UNCOMPROMISING WAR ON ART UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT, 1994. KILLDOZER ON SUMMERLAND

“King of the Road” — ROGER MILLER

I was probably in grade school the first time I heard this, and it’s one of a handful of songs recorded before I was born that grabbed me on first listen and never let go.

Figuring out why is probably impossible, as the story couldn’t have meant anything to eight-year-old me, and as much as I now love the fact that the primary instrument is finger snaps, I doubt that’s something I would have noticed back then. I assume some combination of the killer melody and the hard-won authority of the singer were what I found most appealing, because that’s still the case today.

It’s possible there were dozens of songs just like this one the year it was released. But it’s the only one I liked as a kid, and today it sounds impossibly unique. The piano comes in and out randomly, the bass is barely in the mix, and the acoustic guitar keeps trying to lend the arrangement some respectability, then giving up, And through it all Roger Miller’s voice is in complete command, alternately speaking, crooning, or whispering as the moment demands.

(A different Roger Miller, the one who fronted post-punk legends Mission of Burma, did an amazing, synth-driven cover of this song in the ‘80s. It’s almost as good, although it was probably heard by 1/1,000,000th of the people.)

Roger Miller, as I'm sure you know was in the amazing band Mission of Burma. He recorded 4 solo albums for SST under his own name and a couple more under the name No Man. The albums pictured here were CD only releases. Pretty experimental stuff.