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Mission of Burma From the Road: Italy & Croatia 2012

The further adventures of Mission of Burma:
Mon. Dec.10/Tues. Dec.11:

Back to those fucking Euro-skinny beds. My feet hung over the foot zone. I’m pretty sure Italians are the same basic type of homo sapien as myself, and probably reach

a height of six feet, possibly even more on occasion. No evidence of that in this bed. The width is about 1″ wider than my shoulders (and I am not a muscle-builder). None the less I had amusing dreams about some post-apocalypse with dinosaurs, preachers and what-not: I was trying to get our group to pull the curtains so they wouldn’t see us. A fun adventure.On the road to Zagreb, Neil Young and the Kinks, beautiful country. Croatia had a record snowfall (just in time for us). Not all that bad, though. We were stopped at the border, and thought we might have to cancel the show. But Alesh handled it w/dignity and we made it to the club, run by technical engineering students. Just tried a local beer: Belebitsko. Not bad, really – tastes like good Mexican beer. Met, one of the promoters, his family makes quite a nice wine, too, which some of us tried. He barely escaped being in Special Forces during the Bosnian war. Seems that when V.Suns and No Man played here (yep, there were a couple folks at the show who were there, 1989), well that was towards the end of “the good times”, before the war. The grayness is well-earned in Zagreb.Ready to go on, and there seems to be no electricity for our amps (this after the Vacu-Trem got fried and began emitting unusual sonic disturbances during sound-check). Finally things got powered up, but by the third song I realized the batteries were nearly drained in the Vacu-Fuzz. Got so weak that by the end of the set I quit using it. At any rate, by our first pacer (Ein. in this case), things felt OK and the set went fine from there, despite these issues. Large and very enthusiastic crowd. After the show talking to people you really sensed it meant a lot to them that we were there.

Tues., Dec.11:

Today, Electric Ladyland while we travel through the low Croatian mountains and into Slovenia, past Neanderthal remains in the hills. Jimi’s winding guitar solos suited the highways rounded turns and mountain passes.

The Arena club is one of those Euro-Art complexes. Unfortunately the PA ain’t up yet, so we’re sequestered in the “dressing room” which requires a goodly walk in the well below zero weather. Should be great after the show in sweat. At least the WiFi is pretty good.

Later:Well, another well-attended show. Very dark in the lighting department, but this is Austria after all. Vacu-Trem working again (must’ve been the odd Croatian electricity that shafted it last night). Very enthusiastic crowd. AOK.

Mission of Burma From the Road: Locomotiv, Bologna, IT 2012

The further adventures of Mission of Burma.
Sun., Dec.9: Bologna, IT

Listened to Louie C. K. shows in the van on numerous occasions – generally I can’t tolerate comics, but there is something in his over-the-toppity that seriously amuses us all.  Heard “Slip it In” (Black Flag) today.  Early punk singles.  Rolling Stones greatest hits (stopping mercifully by 1971).  Alesh hit some nice ambient tracks as we went over the Alps to Italy from Zurich.  Later audio included Buzzcocks w/Devoto.  Now Lemmy is singing (sic) – just the sound of his voice makes one happy.  The Alps are, indeed, amazing to view.

We arrive in Bologna, IT, at the Locomotiv Club (after some perambulations trying to find the entry to it).  Extremely nice guys, hospitality superb.  We’re the only band tonight.  They took us out to a classic Italian dinner.
But like all classic Italian dinners (in my understanding), it went on and on with new plates. etc.  We realized that we had less than an hour to be on stage and the last plate had just arrived.
We just finished the set list back at the club, and our hosts come in and ask “are you done digesting?”  Well, no, not really…..
This was one of those “so calm and relaxing” type of gigs that we had odd problems, never really got going in our opinion.  2 or 3 songs good, then lose it a bit.  Then 2 or 3 good, lose it a bit.  Etc.  Crowd wasn’t wild but they were all there to see us, which again, always takes us by surprise.
At any rate, we didn’t feel like we really got to where we were supposed to be, but back at the merch. table the crowd was wildly enthusiastic and in a purchasing mood.  So all in all, a pretty damn good night, especially for our first ever gig in Italy.  What a funny world…  who would’ve thought 15 years ago?

Mission of Burma From the Road: Kilbi Im Exil, Zurich 2012

The further adventures of Mission of Burma.
Sat., Dec.8: Zurich

 

Brings to mind the Volcano Suns/No Man European tour of Dec., 1990.  After we drove out of the second city, our driver drove an hour in the wrong direction – west when he should’ve gone east.  After that Bob (he was in V. Suns at that point) and I took over the map.

Festival in Zurich, with plenty of snow on the ground.  The hotel actually has room to move around, which is, after the Ibis Budget Hotels, quite a relief.  (water splashed from the sink would hit the pillow of one of those Ibis beds).

Well, we were pretty sure this was gonna be a No-Go gig: it was set up to be a disaster.  The opening bands were all very mellow and “emotional” in a way that we aren’t.  Just felt like this was gonna be like Utrecht in 2003.  But, no!  We opened with Fell into the Water and people were totally into it.  Despite the fact that almost no one there knew any of our songs.  As Clint pointed out, their reaction was the same to Comes Undone as it was to Revolver (it ain’t common that we play those opening Revolver chords and the audience just looks hopeful at us: “Gee, I hope this is a good song.”).  We had to come back and play two encores (in this case Fate and Class War) and we could’ve played more.  We were quite surprised really.  Perhaps it is a virtue of ours to expect nothing (they say pessimists are generally more accurate than optimists).

Later at the merch table a gal came up and said “I’d never heard of you guys before tonight – where have you been all my life?” and bought 2 CDs.  Well, the world has certainly changed over time.

Damn – the house manager even did our laundry while we sound-checked.  So we can live another week!  (this is the half-way point of the tour).  Yeah, talk about rock: I walk out of the club with a bag of laundry in my hand as Jimmy and I walk the few blocks to the hotel in the snow.

Mission of Burma From the Road: Channel Crossing & Reims, Fr. 2012

The further adventures of Mission of Burma.
Fri, Dec. 7th: Channel crossing + Reims, Fr.

Sat., Dec.8:
We drive to the Ferry in Dover and boat across to Calais, FR.  Drive some more.  After we checked into the hotel outside of Reims, we wisely decided to go into town for dinner and possible sight-seeing….

It’s France, after all, so we had a totally pleasant dinner with a bottle of wine (even if we were put upstairs to keep the American riff-raff away from the regular diners and Clint had to pester to get a garcon).

Afterwards we went downstairs to pay and that’s when things took a turn for the weird.  As I was pleasantly watching Jimmy hand over a credit card I felt a knock on my back and now there was a shattered egg on the floor by my feet that someone had clearly just thrown.  And what I took to be a waiter was suddenly in my face speaking very fast excessively chipper English.  I was certain I’d been assaulted, and this guy was yelling, and no one could figure out why an egg would come flying out of the kitchen at me.  As we tried to get out in the tumult, they unlocked the door for us – why was the door locked anyways?  I was last in line, with this crazy guy barking at me, and they locked and barred the door again!  Get me out of here!  They blocked the way for the guy, but I managed to squeeze out through a door-crack.  We deduced he must have stiffed ‘em on the bill, and one of the chefs chucked an egg at him, not aiming at me (it didn’t actually hit me, it was the guy who slammed my back at that moment).

But these concluding thoughts happened much later, because as soon as we walked out the door there was a 7.5/8.5 foot tall man/woman with a fiercely malicious gleam in his/her eye.  (I later thought the torso was normal so there must’ve been stilts involved, but it was pointed out that the knees bent at the correct place, posture-perfect).  She harassed Alesh (our driver) with some verbiage he chose not to respond to.  Somewhat below this demonic visage was a very very very small human dressed in a santa outfit, with white whiskers sticking out at all angles from his face, a garden gnome brought to life.  Clint, to distract himself from The Tall One, turns to Santa and says “Hey St. Nick!” to which St. Nick turns his face, sayeth not a word and scampers off in the opposite direction.  It’s midnight, and there is no one else on the street but us and this assortment of Fellini characters.  The Tall One follows us for a bit but we managed to disengage, and headed down a dark alley.

Around a corner appeared the stunning vision of the Reims Cathedral (begun in the late 1200′s).  Really stunning.  Tall, very.  Layer upon layer.  Even Bob was pretty impressed, and he is even more averse to organized religion than I am.  It made me think that before the Renaissance and the advent of science, this was all people had.  Just as Bob was ready to dismiss this collection of smoothed rock, demons, saints and madonnas, the light-show came on.  First they projected an exact photo of the cathedral onto the cathedral, which ramped up the layered effect many more notches, like some eye-ball hallucination variant from many years ago.  None of us could move, affixed to the scene.  Then the computer-graphics “painted” the arcs and pillars one by one, showing off the math of the construction.  Even Bob bought into this aspect, the Golden Mean and all that.  More image morphing until finally it became more of a modern art piece, and by then we were satiated.

All in all, a very needed and rather perfect night off from rock clubs.

Mission of Burma From the Road: Birthdays, London 2012

The further adventures of Mission of Burma.
Thur. Dec. 6th: London

Pete didn’t sleep much last night, so he climbed onto the ledge in the back and was gone for some hours on this long drive to London. Serious snow-storm south of Glasgow- couldn’t even see the hillsides. Calmer now – just the usual dreary rainy English day (mild irony….. i think…..).

This is totally insane: the London club (BIRTHDAYS) is a dead ringer for The Underground, where we were sort of a house band in 1979/early 1980 in BOS. Small room (we could’ve sold it out twice was the word around the club), and the “dressing room” is a corridor where two people can’t pass (just like The Underground). Nowhere to escape to. Fire Records (our pretty great new London label) people want to talk to us (do we want to talk w/anyone after 8 hours in the van with too little sleep?) and we’re all trying to find somewhere to escape to. Rick Harte is here, good talks, and after a pint I’m up for actual speech and everyone from Fire is totally cool.

While I was sitting in a far corner of the club sipping a beer (nowhere else to escape to), I noticed an unusually well-dressed couple leaning against the wall who finally sat down next to me. He says to me: “Are you into Mission of Burma?” Hmmm, how to answer? Finally, after some obvious time-consuming pondering, I say “Yes, I’m into Mission of Burma.” He says “How did you get into them?” I says “I know them pretty well.” He gets excited and asks more. I says “When I talk to the guitarist, it’s like I’m talking to myself.” HIs enthusiasm is not dimmed. Finally, as I haven’t managed to drive him off with my abstractions, I admit I’m me (whatever that is…..). He remains excited, and I have to talk rather than sit in quiet and sip my beer. We hear later that the singer from Franz Ferdinand was at the show, and Clint thought that person was so out of place in the club that it was probably he with whom i spoke. Beats me. He was a nice guy, whoever he was.

Set was a total ripper, in your face kinda thing (now that I’ve talked w/Pete and Clint, the sonic confusion of low-end roar onstage made them wonder how it really sounded). Ended with Youth of America (Wipers) which did the job (Rick H. singled it out as a highlight). Must’ve at least been OK, ‘cuz when the head of your label (in this case James of Fire Records) says “I could’ve watched you guys until 3 am!” (the show ended by 11pm) at least you know it’s unlikely you’ll get fired in a couple days… We are working, after all. This ain’t no picnic.

We’re all very very very very glad that we have a day off tomorrow: 5 gigs in a row with never enough sleep. Well fukit, we’re in a goddam rock band – what should we expect?

Just recalled that a gal at the end of the night in Leeds was totally enthusiastic after the show, looking slightly of out of place. She said she only likes Beyonce and the like, but now was a Burma fan as well. Ummmm, that makes sense?

Mission of Burma From the Road: The Fleece, Bristol 2012

The Further Adventures of Mission of Burma.
Days 3-5, Leeds, Bristol + Glasgow.

Monday Dec. 3:

On the road again.

Mission of Burma at Stonehenge.
Bona-fide rock set tonight at the Fleece in Bristol (the club used to be a wool warehouse). Future of the Left went on before us. Extremely great. If they come into your town, check them the fuck out. Unfortunately that’s the last gig w/them.Tuesday Dec. 4:Sleep good. Relaxed up-get. Coffee, food, walking around town. Definitely an interesting place, Bristol. They say it’s been around for a while. Even their 20th century architecture was interesting.

Driving north – they say it’s gonna get colder. Strange, even in Europe when you go north it gets colder. That isn’t just an American phenomena.

The club in Leeds, the Brudenell Social Club, was great. Sofas in the main room, outdoor picnic tables, etc. After I requested “some proper beer” instead of the COORS LIGHT they had in our fridge, things improved (A Scottish IPA called PUNK IPA). Bilge Pump was a very interesting classic Leeds’ sounding band. (though none of them had heard of the FAST compilation). Fun night, great people. Our set had some odd technical problems and it never really got going in our opinion, but the crowd enjoyed it. Drew Millward, who did the London poster based on a Burmese postage stamp, dropped some posters off for us. While I was selling merch. at the end of the night he brought me a shot of Laphroaig – a very nice way to smooth out the night’s end.

The hotel room at the Ibis was so small that one couldn’t close the door without moving a bed, not to mention the odd post-Man Who Fell to Earth bathrooms. But we all slept well and left a bit earlier to get to Glasgow, a def. interesting city. Bit of snow on the ground driving up – hell, you’d think it was VT or something…….

Listening to Cheap Trick and Czech bands (our driver, Alesh’s, home country) in the van and discussing, with much fervor, the quality of the sacks we each brought in from our road stop to serve as trash bags for the van. “How’d you get a clear sack?” Etc….. The excitement of the road, whew! Almost too much…..

Nice hills developing outside, dusted w/snow. Heading into Scotland.

Mono club in Glasgow. Great joint – one wing is a record store, another wing is nothing but fanzines (and an incredible variety at that). the main room is a vegan restaurant. They fed us and it was the best meal we’ve had so far (and none of us are vegetarian).
Excellent night. Two solid opening bands, the 2nd one ——- was an all-girl band straight out of 1977. Very charming. We were back on track tonight. The main thing seems to be to rip everything open in the first 4 or 5 songs – after that, if we do the correct ripping, anything can follow and it will work. We managed this quite well tonight.

Interesting hotel with spiral stairs in a rock tower. We all had little billets for sleeping, but at least in the room I was this night (with Jimmy’s “Wave Machine” roaring) we all got a good sleep.

Mission of Burma From the Road: ATP Nightmare Before Christmas 2012

The Further Adventures of Mission of Burma.
Day 1+2: Sat. + Sun 1st + 2nd December – ATP

Long flight with stop-over in Dublin. Hour long delay caused by London Fog. We were all pretty gonked by the time we got to Pontins Holiday Camp/ATP in Camber, southern UK. It really is a holiday camp: just like in Tommy.

We muscled our tired bodies up enough to catch some music: Buke and Gase was my first choice, a highly interesting duo of bass ukele and guitar/bass with the gal/Uke player singing in a semi-operatic style. They both played percussion w/their feet and they sounded totally full. The bassist seemed to be influenced by Rockette Morton from Capt. Beefheart’s band. Curious as fuck.

Later I saw 3 or 4 song by Wire, who seemed to be struggling with their sound. The issue at these kind of festivals is there are no sound-checks (if there were, the first band would end up going on at midnight), so every band I’ve seen struggled for the first few songs. Both Pete and Jimmy said that by the end of the set they were full throttle, but I split downstairs to catch Melt Banana, who I’ve seen less than Wire. Not a bad problem: more bands that you really want to see than you have time for.

Melt Banana – duo this time w/pre-recorded rhythm tracks, not full band. But they still managed to project that control vs. total mania that they excel at. Anyone who thinks Japanese girl singers are just cute and coy should check them out: half the time you couldn’t tell if it was her singing or their amazing guitarist getting feedback. Exceptional band. Really.

Shannon Wright:
I preferred her when she was doing kind of a free-jazz finger-tap thing w/a drummer (Boston some years ago). This was more centrified, but in an avant-blues manner, somewhere between Capt. Beefheart and PJ Harvey. She remains a very interesting guitarist, if not quite as interesting to me personally (see my salt comment later in this blurb/blog).

Sunday:

I slept from 11pm to 11am, and in case you’re curious, 12 hours of sleep is not my norm. After I paid for 2 lattes (my fave road coffee) I was pretty much awake. Doin’ SKYPE w/my gal Debra was very good.

1:30 pm: Rachel Grimes
Solo piano in the downstairs room. I’m friendly w/her, so I figured I’d go watch her with a few friends. Lo – 500/600 indie rockers in revered silence for the entire set. It was kind of amazing. And she played a Yamaha C3 grand that was surprisingly well in tune!
But fuck, how many hours can I take in clubs in a day? So I took a walk towards Rye (a quaint nearby town) and photographed sheep. Quite pleasant really. Room to breathe and think (sic).

6:30pm: Future Of The Left
Savage rock, and when they brought in melody they were seriously transcendent. Loved the sporadic keyboard use. How often does keyboard actually fit with ass-kicking rock band? Answer No.1: not often. Answer No.2: In Future of the Left. We are totally looking forward to playing with them in Bristol tomorrow. Their albums are faves of ours. One of the more “hey, they fit w/you guys” bands we’ve played with, though we don’t sound anything alike.

Burma:
Our set had some odd moments, but for a first set of a tour, was better than expected. My amp stopped working during the breakdown part of Mica, our 3rd song. Bummer. Pete and Clint continued making noise and just when I was giving them the signal to give up, Jimmy changed the plug where the amp was engaged with electricity and suddenly the amp turned back on. Audience members close to the stage yelled “It’s on!”. I turned around, hit the Vacu-Fuzz causing feedback, Pete hit the snare, and we were back into Mica (after a VERY extended breakdown, literally, section). A few songs later (in this case, Trem II) we hit our stride, and things for some reason went quite well from then on. Variety of old, Obliterati, and UNSOUND. Yo. Kinda wiped after the set, but allinall, didn’t suck.

The Ex:
The Ex w/horn section. Heavy funk-dance groove w/post-avant-garde horn overlay (how’s that for a one-sentence review?). I preferred them more some years ago in Boston with avant-cellist Tom Cora (RIP), when the guitarists did a lot of preparations to their guitars. But you have to take my personal opinions with an avant-garde grain of salt (is that another line to forget?).
The ghost of Gang of Four hangs over some of these bands (technically, Go4 is not dead, so their ghost is still attached to their body). The politico/funk groove of the Ex had strong Go4 underpinnings, and occasionally (though considerably less obviously) Future of the Left’s angst as well.

Shellac:
They pounded their groove in hi-pulverization form. Great as always. Fun to see Bob up there. He played as a main member in two bands (hey, isn’t that double-dipping?) as well as sitting in w/others.

Mission of Burma Announce Best of Compilation

Mission of Burma has just announced a best of compilation called Learn How: The Essential Mission of Burma. Learn How will contain two discs, and is set for release on CD and download via Fire Records on December 3rd . The first disc will cover the band’s material from 1979 – 1983, while the second will include the material they have made since their reunion in 2002. Listen to ‘That’s When I Reach for My Revolver” HERE, and preorder the compilation from Fire Records by clicking HERE.

Mission of Burma Announce Support for London, NYC + Boston Shows

Mission of Burma announced today that FUTURE OF THE LEFT, EXCLAMATION PONY (Ryan Jarman of The Cribs + Jen Turner of Here We Go Magic) and REPORTS have been added as support on their shows at The Fleece in Bristol, UK, The Bowery Ballroom in NYC and The Sinclair in Cambridge, MA, respectively.  Tickets for these and all of Mission of Burma’s shows are on sale now.  Details can be found HERE.

CyberChimps