Mission of Burma is one of my favorite bands.

[July 12th, 2006] Mission of Burma is one of my favorite bands. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get anyone in my cab to agree with me.

Playing them is the quickest way to ensure I pick up a sweet old lady, or a country-lovin' redneck. If I get someone who might not hear them as inchoate noise, inevitably I'm listening to something like Brian Eno. And Burma definitely means noise. If you love the Stooges, Wire, the Velvet Underground, you will probably love this band.

I was too young to catch them the first time around, but the memory of them hung in the air. People were still talking about them, how their rafter-rattling volume had finally killed them, felling the singer with severe tinnitus. Eventually Michael Azerrad dedicated a chapter of his excellent book Our Band Could Be Your Life to them, and Burma realized there were still people that cared about them. They came out of retirement and rekindled the same blaze they ignited the first time around.

The singer must now wear shotgun ear protectors with his amp directly beside him rather than behind, the drummer must play behind soundproof glass, but god it was good to finally see them play.

And now, I am listening to the peerless Signals, Calls and Marches when I finally get a kid who might like it. Nope. I switch discs and he bops happily along to the Ramones—who I love, too. But they never wrote a song like "Academy Fight Song."