The Bigger Picture

It Lives! The Kustomized Story

by Bob Moses

After once and future Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott disbanded the long-running, multi-version Volcano Suns, he joined a group of like-minded friends to try something different. New songs, new instruments, a new approach. No ambition beyond exploration. Except that the exploration led to a four-year relationship and three releases on Matador Records.

Mission of Burma released a definitive re-issue series on Matador early in 2008, followed by national and international appearances. Merge recently re-issued the landmark first two Volcano Suns recordings. Now you can explore what came next.

It Lives! presents the Kustomized story with an exclusive, streaming best-of collection, the Kustomized music video, an additional playlist of cover songs, notes on recording and critical reviews.

Get it all here.

The Songs They Carried: Music at War

by Bob Moses

I once followed Metallica through a coliseum's fluorescent underground maze to a pitch-black stage.... more

Five Gears in Reverse

by Bob Moses

Though they were the books of the summer, Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad share the dying-light c... more

Flip Your Wig: The BAM Opera Festival

by Bob Moses

Those anticipating a prim evening of courtly amusements at the opening night of BAM's inaugural Opera Festival had their powdered wigs blown back. ... more

Why Do People Sing? Alan Lomax and His Science of Song

by Bob Moses

Though it produced a body of work kaleidoscopic in its variety and intersecting interests, the search for answers to deceptively simple questions drove more

Peg Simone's Haunting Secrets

by Bob Moses

Spend any summertime in the lowland South and it won’t be long until some Cracker Barrel Confucius allows as how it ain’t the heat, it’s the humidity, yessir, it surely is.... more

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Kustomized At the Vanishing Point Kustomized Battle for Space