Many have passed through my clutches (as it were). Most have made it out alive. I've been involved in so many different groups that it is not possible to list all band members here. However, here are the current groups: MISSION OF BURMA: Clint, Pete, Bob. I think I play guitar and sing. the ALLOY ORCHESTRA: Ken Winokur, drums, clarinet; Terence Donahue, drums, accordion. I play keybored. the BINARY SYSTEM: Lawrence Dersch, drums. I play keybored or guitar and sing (or not). M3: (and variations like M2, depending which two M's) Benjamin Miller , guitar, sax, etc.; Laurence Miller, guitar, drums, etc. I play bass, keybored.
Influences
John Cage, Max Ernst, Syd Barrett, Jimi Hendrix, Athena, Marcel Duchamp, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, John Lennon, Benjamin Miller, Laurence Miller, Clint, Pete, and so forth.
Who I'd like to meet: hopefully I'll know when I'm in presence of....
Personality Traits (current):
Status: Unattached.
Age: 3.14159
Here for: Networking.
Hometown: Ann Arbor, MI
Body Type: Human (sic)
Religion: Uninvolved
Zodiac Sign: Pisces
Smoke/Drink: No/Yes
Children: One - the perfect amount.
Occupation: Fluctuating with a vengeance
Schools:
1974-1975: Thomas Jefferson College, MI. Learned about Surrealism, the specifics of 20th Century "serious" music, and the "free" side of jazz.
1976 (first half): Composition Major, CALARTS, CA. Pretty interesting experience. Possibly should have stayed on there, but who knows?
1976 (last half): Piano Major, Univ.of Michigan. Sucked big time.
1978-1979: Was accepted into the School of Punk Rock in Boston as a guitar and songwriting major (with a minor in singing).
The frottage drawings in my "pictures folders" are for sale. If interested, send me a message.
Music (recent):
LIVE::
Alloy hooked up with guitarist RICH GILBERT in Nashville - he was a main mover in Human Sexual Response (Burma used to open up for them in round one....) The Zulus, and The Concussion Ensemble (he also played in Roger Miller's Exquisite Corpse). He has, justifiably, gotten the nickname "The Legendary Rich Gilbert." He always had great heavy riffs, but he "went country" and I do believe it has done him a world of good! We went out after our show and saw him play with a crack band at The Full Moon Saloon, and his use of pedal steel technique on the electric guitar was, at times, nothing short of astounding to our ears. When Rich broke a string the bass player played a few rounds of Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun by early Pink Floyd, which kind of put it all in prespective. Then Rich took us across the street to Roberts Bar where a country swing band was rippin' it up - espec. the pedal steel player. I am not a big country fan, but the group was so good we just stood around grinning like idiots. When pedal steel guitar is played well - in this case by an illegitimate son of Earl Scruggs - it borders on intergalactic the way chords melt and wobble off into the distance. What a fun time!
MEGA CHURCH, in Cleveland (when Burma played there in Sept.). 2 bassists and a drummer. A touch of metal and/or "prog", but all crushed wisely through a veil of Lightning Bolt. No singers, only pre-recorded preachers or evangelists going off the deep-end (all three guys grew up Catholic). Really great live. Everyone in Burma was big-time impressed. Shit, I was nervous about going on after them!
Movies (recently scene):
INGLORIOUS BASTERDS.
I thought this film was great. Funny, deconstructed, pertinent. Sometimes the "big" films don't suck.
Short films by LAURENCE MILLER.
Films by Laurence Miller on youtube
I first saw IN/OUTSIDE at the Kansas City International Film Festival when Alloy was there. A very disturbed short film about split personality, it's my favorite of these films. LIGHTS OUT covers similar territory in a more chaotic, internal fashion.
The other films are all interesting as well. Laurence, one of my brothers, is also a hi-quality musician. His current performance is doing children's music (see Mr. Laurence in "friends", below), but he was a member of Destroy All Monsters in early US Punk days, and played drums in Sproton Layer with me in 1969/1970.
Saw Dr. STRANGELOVE in a hotel in St. Louis after Alloy played MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA at Webster College. Earlier I turned the TV on and I saw Buster Keaton's STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. - hey, I know this film! It was the storm scene. Oh right, that's the Alloy playing the score: that's a scene I never usually get to watch because I'm reading music at that point. Mr. Keaton is definitely a master.
Then I tried to watch ON THE WATERFRONT which followed, but I just have zero interest in mafia films. Don't know why - they just do nothing for me.
Then came DR. STRANGELOVE (1964, UK), which strikes me as a bit of a masterpiece. "Gentlemen, you can't fight here, this is the war room!" Pretty early for a savage anti-cold-war film. The film is structured and organized very tightly, and to maximum absurdist impact. Not much waste in that film. Peter Sellers as the post-Nazi officer working for the US Govt. was great - struggling to keep his arm from doing the "Seig Heil!" was a definite point-earner.
Actually I don't watch that many movies. I've considered this possibility as to why: I remember, and often write down, my dreams. The plots are generally more interesting than most movies, and since I am usually the main character, I find them easy to relate to (for example, recently I was working on some art project when a river washed everything away and I was attacked by a gigantic primordial crab). I certainly consider TV to be vastly inferior to dreaming, although recently when I'm on tour I have enjoyed South Park quite a bit, and the Cobert Report oft cracks me up. Even better, when Alloy was at a pub in Detroit, a sports channel "closed caption" writer must've been tired as hell or toasted as hell - most words barely resembled English diction, and new words were coined every second. Needless to say, I watched the typing much more than the game....)
Books (recent):
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, by Hunter S. Thompson.
I'd seen the movie, and it was so overthetop I didn't like it. Pete convinced me that the book would clarify things. It did, if clarification can be considered w/this charming "travel ogue" book. Seems like one of the few writings that can be considered a valid follow-up to William Burroughs. Funny and seriously fuckt up. Just like America in the early '70's. Right. It's a historical novel.
ahh, 1969. 'dizzy', 'sugar, sugar', 'love (can make you happy)', 'time of the season'... apollo 11... i thought, 'this is going to be cool'. it was a long wait to 1978. i should've known when they canceled 'star trek'. (yes, i thought the movie was alright, too, but was disappointed that everyone was fleshed out more as a character except... Scotty again as usual!, whom they gave a fake alien monkey of all things.)
'peyote sun song' is also cool. i love pump organs, wow that is some fast playing, my tiny pump organ won't go that fast; it's too old. thanks for putting up these 'old' recordings.
hey roger, we have no drums for this show, man. our drummer's going to be in sf. psyched to see the old birdsongs line-up, though. i missed the boat the first time around.
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