Mission of Burma - Vs. poll

The Raincoats - s/t poll
Swell Maps - Jane from Occupied Europe poll
This Heat - Deceit poll

We needed an American band!

Great record, went for "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate"

Think THIEMCF will probably walk this, but there are no bad choices (13-16 are bonus tracks not on the original alb, might have been tempted to vote for 'Forget' otherwise).

“Mica” gets my vote, it’s always been my favourite.

One of the best album covers ever.

Trem Two

Trem Two is exquisite. Mica and Dead Pool are not far behind

last four songs aren't part of the original album release fwiw - imagine ending an album with THIEMCF.

Secrets, Trem Two, Mica, THIEMCF are the immediate hall of famers on first glance

Am I the only Weatherbox enjoyer? I love the way Mica transitions into it, the wonky bass line, the bizarre chirpy tones starting at 1:06, the oddball shape of the whole thing.

still, THIEMCF is a banger and I find it hard to resist.

you're definitely not the only weatherbox enjoyer

Glad to hear that! Having just given the album the first relisten in a while, I think Fun World is maybe the only skip.

It's interesting that for how influential this band is, I've never encountered any other band that sounds like them.

this is one of my favorite albums of all time. no skips for me! Fun World rocks, especially live.

i can hear snatches of other -later- bands in some of their songs. like 'dead pool' sounds like live skull's 'back in the earth' and 'mica' always makes me think of early period throwing muses. both bands with boston connections, coincidentally or not xp

"fun world" is my pick, if we aren't considering "progress" because it's a bonus track

i am also a weatherbox enjoyer

einstein's day

I'm also a Weatherbox enjoyer, I voted Trem Two this morning without thinking about it too much, but Einstein's Day would be in consideration now I have a bit

what a record

Weatherbox rules
Trem Two rules
Learn How rules
Secrets rules

etc

tracks 13-16 are bonus tracks btw

voted Weatherbox for the guitar that sounds like buildings being demolished

Einstein's Day is probably my favorite, but yeah, such a sweet album.

I remember a friend's band in college covering Trem Two and learning it they could not hear the coda lyric as anything other than "the buttery ball", eventually they somehow figured it out

*when* learning it

really hard, I'm a big "Mica" fan because it was the first MOB song I heard, was on some weird Ryko disc CD comp

my first Burma was 'Peking Spring' which is still right up there for me in their oeuvre

I was listening to this on earbuds - sounded great - and thinking about who they reminded me of, and in a funny sort of way it was The Who - exceptional rhythm section (melodic lead bass and explosive drumming) that freed up the wild guitarist from the obligation of simply playing the tune. Plus the tinnitus, and the drummer having to play behind a glass shield.

really hard, I'm a big "Mica" fan because it was the first MOB song I heard, was on some weird Ryko disc CD comp

me too! “steal this disc”

xp Ha good shout! not that many other rogers in rock either

Just a shame Roger Whittaker is no longer with us to join the Three Rogers tour.

waters and the bloke from supertramp still with us

(i wince at the thought of waters and daltrey having a chat about things)

xp Ha good shout! not that many other rogers in rock either

― Ash Ra Pimples (NickB), Thursday, June 25, 2026 12:45 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

pack up your tent, mcguinn!

really hard, I'm a big "Mica" fan because it was the first MOB song I heard, was on some weird Ryko disc CD comp
me too! “steal this disc”

― The Immortal Bird of Avon (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, June 25, 2026 12:44 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

thank you! i'd been searching and couldn't find it online and i swore i had it back then

xps The Who parallel is something I've never considered but it makes so much sense

Went for "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" also. I remember when this came out some were disappointed and felt it was a letdown after the Signals, Calls, and Marches ep and as they felt that there was nothing as straight ahead catchy as "Academy Fight Song" from the debut single or "That's When I Reach for My Revolver," from the Signals 12" ep. I was fine with what it offers

the lyrics to mica, i think a lot about them. good song, it was... holly anderson who did at least some of the lyrics?

https://slicingupeyeballs.com/2017/12/27/holly-anderson-misson-of-burma-lyrics/

Yes, never knew that. Anderson was later a 9/11 relief worker and got cancer from breathing in toxic air at Ground Zero and died young.

i had the rykodisc reissue of this but never really connected to it. but "mica" just blew me away right now so...

if you feel like a patient why not dress like one?

Feeling like maybe "Mica"? I should listen to this today. UMS played me the Ryko comp in the dorm and it was like <insert mind-blow.gif>

Went with "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate", which maybe is the obv answers but also "honesty's an actor's worst mistake" is one of all-time fave lines

I bought the Ryko comp at Red Pets in Northfield in the early 90s, and bought the Max Ernst single at Treehouse Records in MPLS.

i could've sworn i'd posted this in another thread but my introduction to MoB was the frontman from Electric Six saying "I cannot believe I get to say this: up next is Mission of Burma" at some Coney Island festival around the release of ONoffON

i had the rykodisc reissue of this but never really connected to it. but "mica" just blew me away right now so...

― shaking babies (map), Thursday, June 25, 2026 4:45 PM (yesterday)

yeah and it is... a lot of it is a gender thing for me. this is silly, but, haha, there were a couple of mission of burma songs on _rock band_, dlc in the _rock band_ video game, and i think that was one of them, "revolver", "certain fate", and "mica". and i mean i hear something enough, it starts to stick with me. i mean i like "academy fight song" a lot too, that's not on "vs." of course.

and it's not... i mean it's not something that's _limited_ by gender. and it does matter that anderson, "i was a girl (laugh)" she says in that video. it's kind of a little bit of a "girl, interrupted" vibe, which is also something i relate to. this idea of... there's this quote by a guy named robert walser, i like his writing a fair bit, robert walser. he said, after being placed in a... unsympathetic care facility, he said "I am not here to write, but to be mad." they treat him like a patient and he's gotta act like one, that kind of thing. as much as he'd rather be something else. it doesn't matter, when one wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and all they can give you for it are sedatives. feeling dead and still being awake, if they want to "cure" me that way why can't i just stop pretending to be there?

and it's not ok, when you're a girl, to dress like a patient. they worry about you. people worry about you so much. when people saw me as a guy they called me "eccentric" and worked around it, even though i wasn't doing any better. i didn't get _treated_ like a patient, like a _specimen_, like an _object of study_. which is, like, how it is, always. when you're a girl. and that girl - woman, girl, woman, girl - standing up in the audience with her hands over her face sobbing all through the song, i couldn't do that in public but yeah i do that, i've done that. and i've... i mean i see it from, i don't know, clint? is it clint?

i know how it is, when i'm like that, i've had friends, lovers, go through the same thing. there's nothing anyone else can _do_. no matter how much they care about me. no matter how much i want _someone_ to do _something_. sometimes it gets called a "cry for help". maybe? i just need to say it. i just need to put it into words, i know it sounds fucked up and wrong and scary, it stops the conversation dead, and it's just how i _feel_ sometimes. of course i know why they're scared because some of my friends who've said things like that, i mean, some of them are dead now. and that's the only thing anybody else has to say to that, to what she says. "don't die." "don't kill yourself." "we care about you." it's selfish and it's _right_ to be selfish and when i say it to other people, i know, i _know_ that it's not up to me. that i can only trust her.

i work hard, i've worked hard to find my own words for how i feel instead of borrowing other people's words, and her words are good words. they've helped me a lot.

not all questions need answers. he doesn't... he doesn't need to say anything to what she says. even if she wants him to. it's just about listening. it's just about that girl - girl, it's a compliment, girl - being able to stand up in the audience with her hands over her face and cry for 3 and a half minutes, to fill those unforgiving minutes with approximately 214 seconds' worth of distance run. that's not what the song says. those are my words, those are the words i'm finding today.

I spent probably 6 months to a year being totally obsessed with this album around 1988-89, honestly every song is a winner

Hope things are going well these days for you Jate.

This album rocks so hard, it blows away so many hair metal bands from the era. I'm so impressed with this collection of songs and the added four songs are good too.

simply one of the greatest American rock bands that ever existed

I meant Kate obviously

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6f1VaQigtw

Wow

Basically a perfect band in their original carnation, and the reunion was of course no slouch either. Gotta vote “Trem Two,” love it when a tremolo sets the tempo.

pretty sure every band would be better if they had a secret weapon peter prescott type of member that would scream in the background of songs.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I like this whole thing, more or less, but the less accessible half of the songs have something distant and mildly off-putting about them. It's like wandering around a town made for people who are twenty feet tall, you're made to feel you don't belong. Sometimes they seem more committed to the theoretical song or arrangement idea than listenability.
Still this always struck me as the conduit from Wire to a lot of the 80s American indie rock, and the unsmiling intensity has its own artistic integrity.
I'll vote for "Mica" though "Laugh the World Away" from the bonus tracks is very close.
"OK/No Way" was a b-side but what's the story behind the other three bonus tracks here? There's not much information in the CD booklet. I assume they were outtakes from the sessions. As far as I can tell, these versions of "Forget" and "Laugh the World Away" were first released on the 1988 Rykodisc Mission of Burma collection, and "Progress" was on an Ace of Hearts multi-artist compilation called The Wasted Years.

As far as I can tell, these versions of "Forget" and "Laugh the World Away" were first released on the 1988 Rykodisc Mission of Burma collection, and "Progress" was on an Ace of Hearts multi-artist compilation called The Wasted Years.

― Halfway there but for you, Monday, June 29, 2026 11:54 AM (thirty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

i can't remember what versions but there was an excellent Taang! records MoB comp called Forget that was a great odds n sods comp, which is the first time I heard Forget the song

yeah that record is very cool, search also "Eyes Of Men" from that

Ended up voting for "Learn How," a song not mentioned yet. That just over "Dead Pool," "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" and "OK/No Way." Great album.

"Learn How" owns, as do all of Prescott's tunes

Some old old school history from Miller's past will be coming out per Mission of Burma's Facebook page-

On July 17, there will be a "new" album by Sproton Layer.(1969-1971) featuring Roger Miller on bass, brother Benjamin Miller on guitar, brother Laurence Miller on drums, and Harold Kirchen on Trumpet. This new album "Press Your Hand and the Whole Room Fluctuates" has two sides: Side I is from 1969, a precursor to their 1970 album "With Magnetic Fields Disrupted", and Side II is free-form rock improvisations from 1971. Not much else like it. A further digital only EP from 2013, when they reformed briefly with Steve Smith on trumpet, will be released to accompany the album. Thanks to Gerard and 12XU Records!

"Learn How" owns, as do all of Prescott's tunes

Volcano Suns rule

Think i've owned 5 different Volcano Suns albums in my time (Lotus Party, Bumper Crop, Farced, Thing of Beauty, Career In Rock) but i always found them a bit stodgy without the Conley and Miller songs. Not sure why i persisted for so long tbh but used promo copies were always cheap in Record & Tape Exchange

Hope things are going well these days for you Kate.

― Bee OK, Friday, June 26, 2026 4:50 PM (three days ago)

thanks! i don't feel like a patient these days. i'll say that. which is nice. sometimes i dissociate and depersonalize to get through - sometimes i pretend i'm a ball of mica inside a rock or something. i don't like it and that's just how things are these days. it can't be helped. the whistles, the radio, the screams, don't bother me like they used to. they're just noises. the world is full of noises. things will get better. things _are_ getting better, in ways that aren't obvious to me right now. i remind myself of that regularly.

very cool to hear about the new sproton layer album! i liked the "magnetic fields disrupted" LP a lot.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Great to see Trem Two at pole position. One of those songs that’s in yr head for hours/days after close listening.

i like new nails tho

no wrong choices here

Fair and a good turnout. No poll this week but will come back with the last two to close it out.

Will definitely be checking out Volcano Suns.

the first two Volcano Suns albums are the essential ones

I’d say first three. It was weird to go from volcano suns to Rykodisc MOB. All rewarding in their own ways.

Saw Peter Prescott recently with his current band in a small room and they had moments of greatness and other songs that were just ok

Thanks for the Sproton Layer news! The one that New Alliance did in the early ’90s is really good, years-ahead-of-its-time stuff.

re Volcano Suns, the earlier ones are best but I do like Thing Of Beauty a lot more than the albums either side of it

Saw Peter Prescott recently with his current band in a small room and they had moments of greatness and other songs that were just ok

what’s the band name again? they were at Rhizome, right?

re Volcano Suns, the earlier ones are best but I do like Thing Of Beauty a lot more than the albums either side of it

agreed. Deeply Moved is a great song.

both the Consonant albums, Clint's band from the 00s are really great

100%, it's too bad that they're not on Bandcamp. They're on streaming (at least YT Music), though.

Minibeast is Peter Prescott’s current band that I saw in 40-50 person capacity Rhizome in DC. It’s a living room in a house converted to a music space. Alas, the band was kinda uneven but definitely had some strong moments.

Volcano Suns and Roger Miller both used to play at a club in my college town, it was great. saw them both at least twice in the late 80s. VS covered Pere Ubu's "Non-Alignment Pact" one time.

I saw Miller a year or so ago at that same small Rhizome place. He opened with a more avante-garde set but came back and did some Mission of Burma songs in the encore.