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Mission of Burma
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"I was pretty apprehensive about embarrassing ourselves, or diminishing people’s thoughts about us, diminishing our stature, but that doesn’t seem to have happened."
"I think we’ve benefited by that- people being open to what it was about that era [the 80's] that made it so exciting."
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2.26.03
"Walk Into My Room, Ask Me Jerky Questions": 20 Minutes with Clint Conley from Mission of Burma
by Mike Powell
Musictoday: What’s the occasion for getting back together at this point in time?
Clint Conley: Well, there’s no real good answer to that, I guess. I think we all had different reasons for agreeing to do it, and my own personal reasons are that I was out of music for many many years, and when offers would come up for us to play again, I never really seriously considered them, just because I was out of it. But that doesn’t mean that in any way I ever disavowed music or the Burma stuff—I still paid attention to the scene and everything. It just felt artificial to, you know, jump back in, and that’s they way it seemed to me for years. But then, about 2 years ago, I started writing music again, out of the blue, and that really is the primary engine for me. When I started writing music, that led to me starting a new band called Consonant. So I was in the middle of all that- a really intense creative explosion- when the idea of Burma getting together came up again. This time I was really into it, you know, the music was flowing again, and part of it was thinking "well, maybe in 5 years, nobody will give a shit." So maybe we should revisit this music we made a long time ago, and see what happens. You know, in my mind, the music stood up over the course of time. Most of it didn’t feel dated to me- of course, most of the music I didn’t listen to in a bunch of years. Also, I would have to say the [Michael] Azzerrad book, Our Band Could Be Your Life and our inclusion in that... I was super-psyched that we were included in that with all those great bands. I was thinking "holy smokes... do we really belong with these great bands, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, the Minutemen, and all of that?" And it made me want to sort of go back and feel the music again, see what it felt like. So that was part of what psyched me up too, I was motivated. And it seems to have turned out all right. I was pretty apprehensive about embarrassing ourselves, or diminishing people’s thoughts about us, diminishing our stature, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. These gigs have been really exciting, really fun to play, and people seem to have been pleased. We’ve just been digging in and playing super-intense- it’s great, it’s fun.
Mt: In terms of people’s response to your music now, it seems like the indie-rock community is rediscovering, or at least more geared towards the sound of bands like Mission of Burma or your peers of that time. It seems like a lot of these bands have had a renewed interest of bands like Wire or Pere Ubu for instance. Do you feel like any of this has made a difference in your return?
CC: There’s definitely something going on with people being interested by the music of the late 70’s-early 80’s. There’s a lot of copycat-sounding bands out there that I have mixed feelings about. I think we’ve benefited by that- people being open to what it was about that era that made it so exciting. It didn’t really figure into our, you know, "we should move now." I think people are curious curious about "what was that all about?" And it was a very exciting time when people were making new things, forging new paths, exploring new territory. And it’s becoming harder and harder to do that. Most of the buzz bands this year are, well, nostalgia sort of things. Impersonations of earlier styles of earlier eras. I happen to like some of those bands, but I have to admit that I am concerned for the health of indie music when the dominant aesthetic is nostalgic or appropriationism..
Mt: Does Burma have any plans to go back into the studio? I know you’re playing new material...
CC: Yeah, we’ve got some new material. I would say it’s possible. It’s not inconceivable. We don’t have any hard plans right now. We’re just stumbling one foot at a time.
Mt: I guess just playing it by ear. I know the show you played in D.C. was a part of a cluster of shows. Are you guys going to go back on the road anytime soon?
CC: The pattern has been just long weekends every couple of months. We were out in the Midwest in November, and then we did this Eastern seaboard swing. We’ve sort of taken a lap around the track in terms of the big cities. I really don’t know what we’re doing next, we really don’t know. The only thing on slate is September in New York they’re having All Tomorrow’s Parties, and we signed on to do that, but that’s a festival situation.
Mt: You were mentioning before, your expectations versus the positive feedback for these shows. Do you feel like it’s comfortable, do you feel like you have a place? At the D.C. show, it seemed like there were people of all ages in the audience. How do you feel history is treated you in this context?
CC: Well, I’m really pleased. If it were only the people that saw us the first time around, there wouldn’t be very many people at these gigs (he chuckles). So I’m very pleased to see younger people as well. You know, I’m very gratified that 20 years down the road people think well of us. It’s a great thing, and I wouldn’t have predicted that. It’s been wonderful, it’s been awesome.
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