Want to melt even the most jaded indie music fan into an unironically effusive puddle of enthusiasm? Just mention the name of iconic Mission of Burma bassist/singer/songwriter Clint Conley. Even better: If you're one of the 20-some students in Ex College Lecturer Mike Fournier's "History of Punk Rock" class, mention that last night, Conley paid a visit to your classroom.
Conley's visit came on the heels of Saturday's Somerville Theatre premiere of "Not a Photograph: The Mission of Burma Story," a documentary on the Boston-based band's original run, breakup and reunion that was screened as part of the Independent Film Festival of Boston.
At the documentary's premiere, one of the students in "History of Punk Rock," senior Jackson Hewlett, sat directly in front of Conley and his family. (Full disclosure alert: This writer is also in Fournier's class, and was at the premiere with Hewlett.) After the credits rolled, Hewlett turned around, introduced himself to Conley and asked him, "Did you know that you're being taught in a class at Tufts?"
"You're kidding!" said Conley, looking surprised and flattered.
"Yeah, we studied Burma in 'History of Punk Rock,'" explained Hewlett, who has contributed to the Daily.
"Well, if you ever need a guest lecturer, I'm at Channel Five [where he works as a producer for newsmagazine show 'Chronicle']," Conley said.
After checking with Fournier, Hewlett took Conley up on the offer, leaving a message for him at Channel Five on Sunday. Monday morning, Hewlett's phone rang. It was a delighted-sounding Conley, who told Hewlett he'd love to visit the class. Conley also told Hewlett that a ways back, he'd had a girlfriend who was a Tufts student, and had sat in on several of her classes with renowned English Professor and novelist Jay Cantor.
For Conley's visit to Tufts yesterday, though, the tables were turned: He was the main attraction. And despite his characterization of himself as "someone who's not comfortable in front of lots of people unless I've got monstrous amps behind me," Conley shone in the spotlight. Equally self-deprecating and articulate, he gamely fielded questions from Fournier and the awestruck students - who, prior to Conley's entrance to Olin 110, had only been told to expect a "surprise guest."
Before Burma's 2001 reunion, that "special guest" had basically dropped out of music for two decades. (The notoriously "loud" Burma - Conley, Roger Miller, Peter Prescott and Martin Swope - broke up in 1983 because of Miller's severe tinnitus, and Miller went on to form several "quieter" groups.)
"Around 2000, Peter asked me to play a one-off gig in New York with his group, the Peter Group, and our friends in Shellac, [Big Black singer and Nirvana producer] Steve Albini's band," Conley said. "It must've rekindled something, because I came home and thought, 'Hmm, I wonder where my guitar is?' I brushed off the cobwebs, and things sort of caught fire."
"I went to my closet and said, 'Where are my old leather pants?'" Conley says, laughing. "When they fit, I said, 'It's a sign from God!' It was like my musical gene had been switched back on - there was this explosion of writing."
Conley, who said he's "always felt more like a fan of music than a 'rock star,'" originally channeled that "explosion" into a new band, Consonant. But once he was playing again, the possibility of a Burma reunion naturally arose, and the possibility soon became a reality: "Those guys were up for it," Conley said simply, "and it worked out."
"Those guys" included everyone but Swope, who, before Burma's breakup, did the live offstage tape looping that helped to give the group's music its characteristic mysteriousness. Swope - "a dear, unusual person," according to Conley - now lives in Hawaii and didn't want to uproot himself. Looking for a new looper, Conley, Miller and Prescott turned to Bob Weston of Shellac. Burma was reborn - and the band's fans couldn't have been more thrilled.
"When we decided to come back, our friend and manager told us he was booking Irving Plaza," Conley recalled. "I said, 'Oh no! This is going to be a catastrophe! Irving is way too big! There's no way we'll fill it!' But to my surprise, it sold out. They added another night, and that sold out, too."
Conley shook his head, smiling slightly at the memory. "It was remarkable to us that all these people came to see us. People flew in from all over," he said. "It was an incredible experience for us all."
So incredible that the band decided to record a new album, 2001's aptly titled "OnOffOn."
"Agitation, aggression, melody... it felt like the next record we would have made, if we had made another one 20 years ago," said Conley, whose latest Mission of Burma album, "The Obliterati," is due out May 23.
Conley said he's "really pleased" with the upcoming album - and that, despite some initial apprehension, he's also very pleased with the just-released documentary.
"They started shooting when we decided to get back together, and I had my doubts about it," he said. Prior to Saturday's premiere, Conley "had seen an earlier trailer that [he] had thought was awfully close to 'Spinal Tap' - lots of talk about 'the importance' and 'the meaning,'" he says, making a face. "It was in the red zone on the Cringe-O-Meter."
But thankfully, the end product isn't. It's reverent, but it's also a warm and funny look at a band that means an awful lot to an awful lot of people - including Fournier, who was present at Burma's reunion show at Boston's Avalon.
"The thing that resonated so deeply with me about Burma's work is that their music is so uniquely theirs - there's never been anything like them before or since," Fournier said. "I've lived in Boston pretty much my whole adult life - whatever that means - and the thought that these guys who played what I think of as some of the most original, vital and lasting music of the past however many years living in the same neighborhoods and walking up and down the same streets as me makes me feel so connected to the city," he added. "It happened - no, happens - here, where I live, you know? History isn't something that happens in books. It's something that happens all around us. Knowing that something so resonant was local makes me look at my own situation differently."
For Fournier, that "link to the immediate geographical past" was reinforced after the class, when Conley signed his copy of Forced Exposure #9, a1986 issue of Byron Coley's seminal punk zine with Burma on the cover.
"That guy rules," Fournier said of Conley. "He was easy to talk to, easygoing and way into sharing his experiences."
"Watching everyone's faces light up," Fournier added of Conley's class visit, "was pretty awesome."
