The first time Jello Biafra witnessed Mike Conley fronting M.I.A.—at Pinollas in December 1983—he offered the Las Vegas band a record deal on the spot.
“I was aware of their reputation, but they completely blew me away that night,” the onetime Dead Kennedys leader remembers. “The minute they started playing it was obvious [Conley] had real stage presence and a voice that was instantly recognizable.”
Local punk rocker Rob Ruckus, who was among the hordes crammed into the converted warehouse off Industrial Road that night, considers Conley “Las Vegas’ punk godfather. He put this town on the map as far as punk and hardcore goes,” Ruckus says. “M.I.A. was the most successful Vegas punk band ever, the only band to get out of here and fucking make it. What Mike did for this town should never be forgotten.”
In the early morning hours of February 27, the 48-year-old Conley was found dead outside a hotel in Chicago, where he had been working on a construction project. Though autopsy results were still pending at press time, his head injuries were believed to be the result of an accident, despite initial reports of possible foul play.
“I’m devastated,” says local musician Dirk Vermin, whose book-in-progress about Vegas’ 1980s punk scene, Boredom Was the Reason, takes its name from the M.I.A. song “Boredom Is the Reason.” “The news hit me like a ton of bricks. I talked to him just two weeks ago.”
Born in Colorado, Conley moved to Las Vegas at an early age and spent his formative years in the city, graduating from Western High School and serving as bass player for local punk band The Swell throughout 1980. That band changed its name to M.I.A. for an outdoor New Year’s Eve performance atop a flatbed truck, and the name stuck. The following year, the group relocated to Newport Beach, California, with one significant adjustment.
“I was 16, so my parents wouldn’t let me go with them,” recalls Las Vegan Todd Sampson, original singer for The Swell and M.I.A. So Conley took over vocal duties, with bassist Paul Schwartz coming onboard to join holdovers Nick Adams (guitar) and Chris Moon (drums). That lineup recorded a nine-song demo, most of which was released on the Last Rites split EP with Genocide in 1982.
During an M.I.A. hiatus, Conley returned to Las Vegas to reunite with Sampson in the latter’s band, Self Abuse, before returning to California to relaunch M.I.A. with new member Larry Pearson on drums. “Mike stole everything I did [as a singer],” Sampson laughs. “He was very energetic. He prowled the stage like a leopard. He was very interesting to watch.”
After releasing 1984’s Murder in a Foreign Place EP on Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label, M.I.A. embarked on its most significant touring stretch, reaching New York’s legendary CBGB club in March 1985. Soon after recording the full-length album Notes From the Underground that same year, M.I.A. split up. Conley later re-formed the group with new members and continued on through 1987. In 2002, Alternative Tentacles released Lost Boys, a definitive M.I.A. collection supplemented by in-depth, historical liner notes.
“Had they started in Orange County, California, instead of LV,” Biafra offers, “they probably would be held up in a higher bracket today along with the other pioneers for the classic melodic OC hardcore sound, like TSOL and Agent Orange and The Adolescents. They played that style as well as the big names and better than most people who copy it today.”
Ruckus will remember M.I.A. as “a people’s band. Mike was political [as a songwriter], but he didn’t make it a drag,” he says. “He informed people but didn’t tell them what to believe. Losing him is like losing a brother.”
Conley returned to the stage for a Self Abuse Las Vegas reunion concert at the Junkyard in 2002, but mostly spent the last two decades of his life away from the music scene, operating the bar he owned, Avalon, in Costa Mesa, California. “He was a good motocross rider, a surfer, and I’m proud to say he was one of the biggest influences on my life,” Sampson says.
Conley is survived by longtime girlfriend Shelly “Syd” Leonard and three daughters, Alex, 18, Zoe, 9, and Ava, 5. Donations to the girls’ college fund can be placed through website mikeconleyfamilyfund.com.