Mission of Burma-ONoffON (2004)

 

Artist: Mission of Burma

Title: ONoffON

Label: Matador

Format: CD

Cat #: OLE-613-2

Year of Release: 2004

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 2004

Sold Price: $3.49

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+  (hole punch in UPC, sales sticker on jewel case)

Sell Date: 10/8/20

Discogs Last Sold: 9/6/20

Low: $1.00

Median: $3.53

High: $6.00

Current low price: $1.99 VG+/VG+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 15

Have/Want: 436/36

Where Sold: Bellingham, WA

Time it took to sell: 9 years

Where and When Bought: half.com used around 8 bucks

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A-

Sad To See It Go?: No

This was Mission of Burma's heroic return after tinnitus sidelined guitarist Roger Miller for a decade plus.  MoB were defunct I think even when I knew "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" as a local WBCN hit.  Yes, Virginia, there were such a thing as local commercial radio rock hits.

My radio years saw me buy the as-much-as-can-fit-on-this-80-minute-silver-disc Rykodisc retrospective release right when it came out, as well as the Taang Forget CD, but I had to make do with Volcano Suns and Birdsongs of the Mesozoic for live experience.  That is until the big reunion that kicked off another 15 year run that ended only recently.  I had old friends, Black Helicopter, that shared their rehearsal space with MoB and got to open some of their gigs,  so I made the journey to the Paradise from NYC for the initial reunion shows.  Initially MoB reunion gigs were so infrequent that I even took a trip to Philly after they finally played NYC.

ONoffON is an excellent return to form.  A couple of the songs like "Dirt" and "Playground" were reworked from "posthumous" first run releases.  Mostly, this is straight forward Boston guitar post-punk.  Very straightforward guitar-bass-drums, the way I like my indigenous Boston music played, plus a little tape loop subliminal sound here and there.  At 16 tracks it's not an ideal one-sitting headphones listen, which I did all the way through after an aborted first attempt the day before.  I know upon release in 2004 this was played heavily.  Some tracks are more memorable that others.  This doesn't mean the tracks I didn't recall were bad, but maybe 4 or 5 chopped out for an EP might have made a better listening experience for this material.  Remember, Signals, Calls and Marches was an EP, and Vs. was only a dozen tracks before Ryko jammed them all together for the CD age and I didn't really listen to that much as a start-to-finish experience.  Not that I really listened to my copy of Signals, Calls and Marches bought in it's time as a start to finish experience either.  I just played tracks on the radio, and had ones I gravitated to.  "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" probably was the one and I liked most  "Forget" also.  "Academy" when I pulled from the archive singles.  That 80's material still stands as their apex.  There are many tracks on ONoffON that stand with that material, but "Dirt" is probably the best to me.  "The Setup" and "The Enthusiast" are hits for me as well.

By this point  I was buying used CD's online so I think half.com or Amazon where this one came from, whatever was cheapest.   Maybe a used store on St. Marks.  I can't 100% remember, but I know I got it right upon release.  Perhaps as long as the band was on haitus.