I was someone who had never heard the Mission of Burma when I first heard the Volcano Suns.  There probably was a small window in time for that to happen, and I was in it- an un-hip late ‘80s college DJ with more concern for listening to records in the back corner of the radio station than actually studying. Popular music was going through a real bullshit phase, with MIDI making it possible for one man to precisely play soul-less myopic riffs born of electric devices with no natural musical foundation. A drum machine or synthesizer doesn’t naturally radiate with melody- it spits out its sounds from tiny chips dealing with electrons. Although the waveforms could be proven to be perfect in a sense, the sounds didn’t give you the impression that someone had put them there with purpose or emotion. It was all created by some “maximized placement” algorithm.

That wasn’t what I got from “White Elephant”, the Suns contribution to the essential Homestead Records Compilation CD “The Wailing Ultimate”. I didn’t even have a CD player in 1987, but WSBF did, and I was dying to try it out. That purchase is one of those magical times where you plunk down a measly seven bucks on something without expectation, but it ends up smacking you in the face like a frying pan and changes your life. I picked it up for the Big Dipper, Naked Raygun, and Big Black cuts but fell much harder for Dinosaur, Death of Samantha, and the greatest surprise of them all, The Volcano Suns. “White Elephant” opens with a wail, a shriek, a squeal, and then a sputtering eighth-note riff that demands attention. The song chugs about for a few minutes, a rollicking beer-hall sing-along with some great hoots and hollers. It wasn’t precise, it wasn’t measured, but it sure was powerful. They were so sure of what they were doing, and that blew me away.

The radio station had the two existing Volcano Suns records, and I loved them so much I actually bought my own copies, instead of just taping them. I loved the clanging, open chords- I loved the relentless drive of the bass and then drums, but it was the scream that tied it all together. Peter Prescott has one of the great Rock n’ Roll screams. It’s a real guttural Howitzer-blast of a yell that I’ll bet really tested the electronics of a studio. It has the kind of force that you expect from the meanest drill sergeant as he’s making you do another forty push-ups in the mud and rain. Somehow, he managed to find the perfect setting for his voice: a three-piece power trio. Chunklet needing a glorification piece is a nice excuse to bug the early members and ask about the formative period.

The first lineup of the band was Prescott with two youngsters, Gary Waleik and Steve Michener. Steve recalls, “We answered his ad in the local paper looking for musicians. Gary and I were fishing around for a real band and liked the idea of playing with one of our idols. I had never met him before but we became friends through the band due to a shared love of music and movies.”

“There was a sense that it was Pete’s band but Gary and I were encouraged to contribute songs right from the start,” Steve says, explaining the balance between total democracy and Prescott as the leader. “The first stuff I wrote was because of Pete’s urging and encouragement. In fact our first radio tape (speaking of the good old days–no CDs) was a song I wrote the music to and he did the words called ‘Bright Orange’. It never made it to record but became the title of the first LP.”

Since names like “Waleik” and “Michener” pop up now and then on Suns releases, it seems that there weren’t any bitter feelings about their time in the band, despite the change in lineup before the first album. “Pete was a difficult person to be in a band with because he was so intense. Of course, that is what made him such a great artist and performer! Gary left first so he could focus on college and I kind of hemmed and hawed but ultimately quit. At the time Pete and I were both working at Copy Cop so I still had to see him every day. It was awkward, like any breakup, but eventually we got back on good terms. I thought it was really a nice gesture for him to use another collaboration, ‘Balancing Act’, on the first LP and thank me. Jon and Jeff were great, but Gary and I had a lot to do with shaping the sound of the band and especially Gary deserved that shout out.”

Jeff Weigand was a teenager in Newport, RI, when his band opened for Mission of Burma. “(They) were incredibly nice, and I remember that Clint was sorta dumbfounded that we had done a New Order cover, ‘Ceremony’, right after it came out.”

As timing would have it, Jeff moved to Boston for college right as Steve was exiting. He explains, “(I) saw an ad Pete had hanging around, looking for a bass player. He remembered me and I went and met him and Jon. I showed up with no bass or amp. I asked Jon later why they had ever asked me to be in the band. Jon told me that I played two notes if the song called for two notes, unlike some of the Berkloid freaks whom had shown up for auditions.

“We used to rehearse under a record store and pizza place on Boylston. I think it used to be Burma’s. We shared the place with the Del Fuegos. I will never forget when they got their Miller beer ad thing- Jon and I came down for rehearsal and could barely push the door open because of all their new equipment. Sitting over in the corner was this fucking Miller beer bottle guitar.”

The Bright Orange Years was recorded for $800, which didn’t leave any room for second guessing. The studio was called Radiobeat, a Pizzeria Uno stands there now. “Jon’s work on the records is incredible. He wasn’t just a player, he was an incredibly creative guitarist. If anything, I think Jon is the one who makes those two records what they are via his style and way of playing the guitar. I think he is underrated as a guitarist.” Jeff likens Jon to Andy Gill, “I think that even now twenty five years later as a listener. He did some pretty interesting things people overlook. Jon was amazing in the studio as well…those records sound the way they do largely because of Jon.”

I have to agree with Jeff over Steve here. I am a huge, huge Dipper fan, and I love Gary’s playing in that band, but his sound on the early Big Dipper records doesn’t have near the ferocity that Jon laid out. I would offer that Gary is the best match for Big Dipper fellow members Bill Goffrier and Steve Michener, but Jon and Jeff laid the classic support for Peter on those first two records.

“The only thing I grafted upon was to not do the traditional bass thing of playing along with Pete’s kick. I never tried playing along with his kick, which is what most do bass players with drummers. I would always try to play ahead of him, lead him on a bit.  He is a more interesting drummer when you lead him.  I like Burma a lot, but always found the cymbal thing a bit too much. One of the things I love about the re-masters is losing some of the cymbal stuff. Because of the tape and how Bob re-mastered it, there is not so much of that sheesh-ing. I never understood why drummers use cymbals as much as they do. Drummers should just be issued with a high-hat, that’s it!”

Touring for the record sounded interesting, “I was going to U/Mass at Boston while in the band.  I got lucky in the sense I was a philosophy major and had a few cool professors who would just let me read all the books on my own and send papers in.

“I remember one very bizarre gig we did at Princeton. It was in this campus dorm house where the kids lived, but had what was called an ‘Eating Club’. They were paying us like a grand to play their party/ banquet. So we walk in and there are all of these rich kids dressed in medieval garb- they are having this medieval banquet- and gnawing on chicken legs, throwing food while the wait staff serve them at these big tables and clean up after them. Outside there were kids riding around on golf carts and I thought, ‘So this is the rich, huh?’ [They were] just total spoilt fuck ups. So we set up and all three of us are in a bad mood. We have been arguing and we don’t know why the fuck we are in this place- we pretty much hate everything about it. We had three hours until our time to play, so they put us in this big conference room with a long board table and Paul Klee watercolors on the wall and we have to wait while these kids party downstairs. And we start getting more and more worked up. [As we played] we just started antagonizing these kids and they hated us. I remember Jon walking out into the crowd while plugged in and knocking baseball hats off these jocks heads while I am playing and just waiting for Hell to break loose and having to dive in.”

All-Night Lotus Party was recorded for a grand at a more proper studio, White Dog. And while there was a growing buzz about the band- there was a general feeling that it wasn’t going to work right for them. Prescott had been through the wringer before with Burma, and he wasn’t entertaining any stardom hopes. Remember, this was all before “Grunge” hit and cracked the “rock” market wide open for a signing glut and eventual watering down. Cue Candlebox cut here.

“Jon and I just saw this with a chance to fuck around with stuff… it’s amazing the bullshit you can get away with and the access you have in a rock band if it’s got some hype behind it, and that ended up causing a lot of tension between us and Pete. Jon and I started sort of ganging up on Pete. If anything the breakup had more to do with us than Pete- that’s certain and it was unfair. Pete was actually a good guy to work with and a good friend of mine- he still is. But I never saw myself as being a musician forever anyhow…” He then recounts a story about removing an EMI A&R man’s name from the guest list and telling the bouncer to ditch the guy.  Apparently the fellow showed up with an arm-candy girlfriend in tow and was bounced- HARD.

So Jeff quit the band to pursue his PhD and he moved to Belgium in the process, but he has no regrets, “[I have ] no profound thoughts about it. It was a great thing to be involved in and something you look back upon, listen to…whatever. It was done right, you feel proud of the work…you do it and then move on to other stuff. I think everything has its own ‘run time’ whether that be a rock band, or a love relationship or whatever. When it is done, it is done and I think we ended it when we needed to. I have no regrets at all on that level.” (Damn Philosophy PhDs- ed.)

Obviously, this shakeup didn’t slow Prescott down one bit, because before another year was over, he had a new lineup and released another awesome record, Bumper Crop. But that’s another article.