Ghosts in the Machine

No Man—Wounded World (1991 / Noise Rock)

Hello internet pals of music. Today we’re listening to the Mission of Burma guitarist’s solo project.

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Mission of Burma is one of indie-America’s greatest unheralded bands. I say “unheralded” only in reference to how often you hear their name pop up in any conversation with practically anyone about guitar-based music, post-punk, or even the great wide landscape of 1980s underground, college radio music. Critics may love them, but I only know about three people who even listen to them.

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To me, they were another one of those bands that was too smart, too weird and too ahead of the pack. They were arty but not obnoxious. A salt of the earth kind of intellectualism that feels particularly American Midwest, even though they were from Boston. They roared, but not at you—more like into you, if that makes sense. They were an incredible, risky band. That they broke up before they could ride the musical wave they certainly influenced (mainly because guitarist Roger Miller’s tinnitus was getting to him) is so humble and practical. The image of them onstage, bassist-singer Clint Conley in standard blue jeans and tucked-in flannel shirt, Miller wearing his green protective headphones, is so uninterested in cool that it becomes extremely cool. Add the experimentation of invisible member Martin Swopes’ weird tape loops weaving in and out of Miller’s loud, wiry guitar during their live show and it’s easy to think about how influential they would be, not just on American rock music, but also in burgeoning sounds like shoegaze or “College Rock”, even if it were unrecognized (no Mission of Burma, no Dinosaur Jr—no Dinosaur Jr, well god, could you imagine?). In the 90s, I indefinitely borrowed from my then-roommate (who I’ve talked about here) a VHS copy of their last show, Live at The Bradford and watched it near daily. They had always been a band whose name fascinated me, but I’d never actually heard them and I recognized even then all the sounds and tricks I had come to love in music I was currently engorging my ears and head with.

But I also remembered the name Roger Miller was associated with this song I had loved when I was round seventeen and had first recorded off of MTV’s 120 Minutes. Like other music-obsessives my age, I always had a tape in the VCR, cued on REC / Pause to capture any sound that seized my attention and which I’d then subsequently obsess over for the next few weeks until I could track down a copy at Houston’s Sound Exchange or Cactus. The influence of 120 Minutes + a town’s local college radio station are immeasurable, really.

I eventually found a copy of this album on vinyl in the late 90s or early 2000s for $5, but I was way too deep in my non-rock music stage then and I know none of the other songs grabbed me like Wounded World had and I held on to it for that nostalgia alone. I may have even traded it in at some point, although I currently have a few boxes of records in storage I haven’t gone through in a while and it may be tucked away still in there.

I should probably listen to this whole thing again. My ears have matured, my body’s grown older, my bones carry a more tired weight that hadn’t experienced enough actual life to appreciate music like this then. You know, real life, the life that exists between moments, the moments you think you’re living for when you’re young and energetic and want to take on the world.

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