New Mix

One Sunday afternoon late this past summer, my wife, Sara and I were driving down a lightly-populated country road that on one side was separated from the Long Island Sound by a thin barrier of marsh grass and bordered on the other by modest summer homes. As we rounded a curve, we passed two young women walking against the traffic, both holding small, terrier-like dogs. Glimpsed quickly as our car passed, the women, wearing high heels, short dresses and full make up, seemd oddly out of place.
"Trashy girls and their trashy dogs," my wife said, and then we were past them, and we continued our discussion of school clothes and babysitters and whether Walker was old enought to see "Where the Wild Things Are."
The playlist:
1. Helium Dreams - Manuel Da Costa (The Ghost of Summer Last)
2. VCR - The xx (xx)
3. Tessio (Butch Sunrise Mix) - Luomo (Tessio (Remixes))
4. Yummy, Yummy, Yummy - Julie London (Yummy, Yummy, Yummy)
5. Never Forget You - The Noisettes (Wild Young Hearts)
6. Bang - The Raveonettes (In and Out of Control)
7. Say When - Lene Lovich (Stateless)
8. Agneta - Villa
9. Out of the Box (Ulrich Schnauss Remix) - Chilled by Nature (Musical Box EP)
10. Chrystal Visions - The Big Pink (A Brief History of Love)
11. Rainwater Cassette Exchange - Deerhunter (Rainwater Cassette Exchange)
12. Dreams Come True Girl - Cass McCombs (Catacombs)
13. Kaufman's Ballad - Megafaun (Gather, Form & Fly)
14. The End of Things - Bachelorette (The End of Things)
15. Tessio (Acapella) - Luomo (Tessio (Remixes))

The Mix:
Trashy Girls and Their Trashy Dogs Mix

Mister Loveless Update

Periodically, my nephew, Rob Miller, sends me an update on Mister Loveless, the up-and-coming Bay Area band he fronts. His emails are always interesting since they provide a great deal of incite into the rewards and frustrations of trying to find your way in a popular music environment in which the rules are either disappearing or being rewritten every day.

Dear Robby
How’s it going? How’s the family? I apologize for not writing sooner. It’s been rather chaotic here in Loveless country. Which, for the most part, is a good thing.
We just returned from a brief trip down South where we played two shows in Los Angeles and one in San Diego. Though we are truly in love with San Francisco, Los Angeles has an unbelievable power over us. It’s never predictable, always vibrant and strange, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, packed with great bands. It makes us question everything to such an extent that we even toy with the idea of relocating there. However, I believe most of it’s allure comes from the fact that we don’t actually live in LA. Which leads me to believe all four of us have some sort of condition that can only obtained through touring. Like a “touring bug” or something.

Every time we go on the road we fantasize about a life where that is all we do, travel from place to place playing shows, meeting different people and sleeping on their floor. No shitty job to come back home to, no real problems. Touring enables you to live life one day at a time. Your daily objectives are reduced to simply making sure you get to the venue on time, turn some heads at the bar, and make enough money to get a meal afterward. What’s great about Mister Loveless is is all four of us want to tour…

As you may have heard, earlier this summer, we parted ways with our drummer. We couldn't be happier with who has joined the band. Our good friend, Nick Clark is now the drummer of Mister Loveless and has been exactly what the group has always needed - a pocket drummer.

Pocket drumming is a playing style that consists of a simple, solid beat that lacks the flair of flamboyant fills. A drummer sets a groove so deep that he/she never lets the tempo waver (I took that from Wikipedia). Old songs have never sounded so tight and the new ones we are writing with Nick are incredibly rhythmic and dynamic. Nick has a very disciplined style, which I attribute to his father being both the drummer that inspired him to play as well as a police officer. Yet, at the same time, he has the ability to break away from convention and add enough flair to a drum pattern that it sounds interesting and bombastic without the obnoxious overuse of cymbals and fills.

After taking a break from recording our upcoming EP, Three Words to get Nick comfortable with all the material and playing live, we are ready to resume the project. On October 17th we will head back into Different Fur Studios in San Francisco to re-track material in addition to recording the new material we’ve written with Nick. We are extremely excited about this, as we are both very proud of the new material and are anxious to introduce people to Nick.

In addition to working on Three Words, we are developing a set specifically for our next show at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill on Saturday, November 7th. This is our first time headlining a Saturday night at Bottom of the Hill and we couldn’t be happier. We intend to bring back some old songs, debut some new ones, play all the hits, and a cover that I MUST keep a surprise.

Before, I go, here is a live recording of “The Old Pain”, a song we’ve reworked a lot since it’s inception that will be the opening track of the Three Words EP once we finish the studio version.

Give the family my best!

Sincerely,
rob

From L to R: Nick Clark (drums) Charlie Koliha (bass guitar) Rob Miller (vocals, guitars) Sean Gaffney (guitars)

Attached is an .mp3 of a live recording of a song called "The Old Pain"
We are recording the studio version in a few weeks that will be the opening track of our next EP, Three Words

The Old Pain (Live) - Mister Loveless

(Drummer on this version of "The Old Pain" is Rachel Travers)

Check out Mister Loveless on Myspace