[Wicked-liz] Scott Miller-Tomorrow Night-Bettendorf, IA

[Bob Kelly]

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Want a glimpse of Scott Miller's show today?

Watch WQAD tonight at 6:30.  Or, and better yet, watch them on-line at
http://www.wqad.com
Jason Fechner will be discussing the show with Miller, and asking him to
play a couple songs.  On-Line they will continue their discussion when the
station goes to commercial.

Details of the Show:

Who:

Scott Miller with opener Joe Karsten
http://www.thescottmiller.com

Where:
Uptown Neighborhood Bar & Grille
2340 Spruce Hills Drive
Bettendorf, IA 52722-3225
(563) 359-1015

When:
Tuesday Night (Tomorrow)
March 30th, 2010.
Doors open at 7p.m.  Show starts at 8p.m.

Tickets:
$10 available at Co-Op in Moline, on-line at http://www.wicked-liz.com
or at the door.

Other info:
Wicked Liz's birthday is Tuesday, and people are joining her to celebrate.
 Feel free to bring gifts!

There have been some great stories in the local papers! In case you've
missed them here they are:

There are plenty of videos on youtube, and you can learn more about Scott
here: http://www.thescottmiller.com

Scott Miller satisfied being 'top of the middle' as singer-songwriter
By: David Burke-Quad City Times
Scott Miller’s drummer once told the singer-songwriter he was at the “top
of the middle” in showbiz.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Miller said from his home in Knoxville,
Tenn. “You can live there. It’s like your parents see you in the news
every once in awhile, but you’re not a crossword name.
“That’s my ultimate goal.”
But 16-Across, two words, 11 letters could be the answer to any number of
clues, including “country singer-songwriter,” “collaborator with Jack
Ingram and Patty Griffin” and “Band leader on ‘Blue Collar TV.’ ”
Miller also is scheduled to perform next week at the Uptown Neighborhood
Bar & Grill in Bettendorf, brought to town by one of his fans, Bob Kelly
of the Quad-City band Wicked Liz and the Bellyswirls.
A Virginia native, Miller said he always knew he wanted to make music a
career after leaving William & Mary College in the early 1990s.
But his songwriting and performing have changed since then.
“In the early ‘90s, I was writing very timely (stuff). I had weekly gigs
in bars and it had to be something different every week,” he recalled.
And then he listened closely to an album of songs by Roger Miller, no
relation.
“Just like Hank Williams, they can be funny but they can also make you
cry,” he said. “They can be timeless, not so much timely.”
He grew up in a rural area fueled by country and bluegrass music, as well
as his older brothers’ classic rock. By the time he began writing songs,
he was looking at an array of composers such as Woody Guthrie, John Prine,
Paul Simon and Steve Earle as idols.
Miller, who formed the band the V-Roys in the ‘90s, still plays about half
his dates with the Commonwealth, a band he formed around 10 years ago. The
other half, like the show Tuesday in Bettendorf, are solo acoustic dates.
“It’s like any other job, I swear,” he said of life on the road. “It has a
rhythm to it. Once you go, it takes 24 or 36 hours, you don’t care what’s
in your mailbox.
“I was the last guy I’d ever think who’d like to travel, but it comes
natural.”
At work on his first Christmas album, Miller said he wants to write only
songs that he knows he’ll like to perform.
“I have to write songs I can sing every night and enjoy. Nobody wants to
see you up there miserable,” he added.
While not selling millions of albums and having millions of dollars,
Miller said he’s happy doing what he loves while out on the road.
“I was lucky I wasn’t raised to crave things,” he said. “I certainly
wasn’t raised to crave money in this business.”


Scott Miller
Jeff Ignatious- RCREADER

It would be incorrect to say that Scott Miller gloated, but he sounded
genuinely pleased with his good fortune. He decided to self-release his
2009 album For Crying Out Loud, and that allowed the Tennessee-based
singer/songwriter to do the proverbial more with less.

"It's not about making more money; it's about keeping your money," Miller
said in a phone interview last week. "Before, you're making these records,
and you're making 12 percent on the dollar on those. And now I make it
all. I can sell half as much and make twice as much, as dumb as that
sounds."
And here's that which borders on gloating: "I'm sorry it was such a hard
year for everybody else; it was a good year for Scott Miller."

The 42-year-old Miller -- a respected roots singer, songwriter, and
guitarist who also fronted the similarly respected V-Roys (championed and
signed by Steve Earle)-- will be performing a solo acoustic show on
Tuesday, March 30, at the Uptown Neighborhood Bar & Grill in Bettendorf.
And he seems comfortable in his "top of the middle" status -- a phrase he
borrowed from drummer Jimmy Lester that means "you're
not selling millions, but you're not selling paltry amounts. And you can
live here."

For Miller, that meant tapping into his fan base when he decided to go
independent after four albums on the Sugar Hill label. He said he raised
the money to make For Crying Out Loud by selling 1,000 guitar-and-vocal
demos with handmade covers for $20
apiece.

That process is one example of the extra work involved in being an indie
artist. "I took over the dining-room table for about three months, and I
could do about 50 [covers] a day," he said. "Clip things out of magazines,
or stuff from the road, or tour passes. Anything I could tape on the front
of these things to make them individual and different."

I asked him about capitalizing on fans' love -- technically exactly what
he did -- and Milller halfheartedly objected. "That sounds mean," he said
with a laugh.
"'Capitalizing on their love.' I was a Russian major. I can debate this
shit."

That mock offense aside, Miller said he was confident that his fans would
snatch up the demos. "They want to see you win," he said.

And the $20,000 he raised got him through the recording, pressing, and
promotion of the album, making every copy he sold pure profit.
"For a farm boy who grew up in Virginia -- which means we live in the past
-- I'm trying to look as forward as I can," he said.
Miller said he wishes he'd left the world of record labels sooner. "I can
put emphasis on that record whenever I want," he said. And "I don't have
to get in line with other artists."
He added that running his own label isn't much more work than what he did
with Sugar Hill. He's doing some new things -- such as stuffing envelopes
to send a single to radio stations -- but he said it's a small burden.
"What's a day? ... Eventually there's going to be basketball on, and you
can spend the day and be glad to."
Talking about music as a business ignores the songs, and neglects that For
Crying Out Loud is a solid vehicle for Miller's talents. His local paper
said the album "rattles and hums with confidence, dry wit, and tenderness
in all the right places."
No Depression said that the album features his trademark "no-nonsense
rootsy rock and roll ... and ... a way with words that few other Americana
songwriters can match."
That wordplay is rarely showy. On "Let You Down," it's simply a phrase with
contradictory meanings when used in different contexts: "But I will let
you down, believe me / I will let you down / I will let you down real easy
/ I will let you down."
And on "Claire Marie," Miller's cleverness is nearly invisible, using
mostly one-syllable words.
That was the goal in writing that song, but Miller said he doesn't have a
particular method.
"I've tried, I think consciously, to not develop a pattern, because songs
are everywhere," he said.
For his two most recent albums, Miller said he rented a one-bedroom
apartment in Knoxville.
"I put a table and typewriter in there and a guitar," he said. "No phone.
No computer. And I go in there every day for about a month or two. And
write."
He's been a collector of antique typewriters since he found and cleaned up
his great-grandfather's 1898 Underwood, which he took to college. "I like
the sound, and I like the commitment" of a typewriter, he said. "When you
decide on a word and you plack it out on a big ol' antique typewriter,
[it's] like bacon and eggs: The chicken's involved but the pig's
committed."
That's not to say he knocks out finished songs. Miller is a big believer
in editing-- paraphrasing Earle, he said, "You use your eraser more than
you use the pointy end of your pencil" -- and the songwriting day starts
by typing a single-spaced page. "Then you go back and start looking for
thoughts and patterns and stuff in there," he said. "Hopefully you've got
melodies already. Those are always in your head. And you start figurin'
out how to put these things together."
At the end of the process, he staples together the different versions of
the songs.
"I've got a file per song," he said.
And he doesn't stick to one particular typewriter, he said: "It's like
guitars sometimes. One says, 'I got a song in me.'"
Miller said he's written a lot of songs based on history, but For Crying
Out Loud features his first attempt at a song based on a movie: "Double
Indemnity."
"Those are difficult to do," he said. "You're hemmed in with your details."
But the biggest restriction Miller puts on his songwriting is adding to
his catalog songs that he can feel.
"Nobody wants to see you up there miserable," he said. "I've got to be
able to sing something every night. And mean it. And like it. I've seen
Van Morrison breeze through 'Moondance.' I didn't pay my money for that.
And nobody wants to pay their money for that. That's the constraint. The
rest is just trying to rhyme 'rain' and 'pain.'"

Scott Miller will perform a solo acoustic show on Tuesday, March 30, at
Uptown Neighborhood Bar & Grill (2340 Spruce Hills Drive in Bettendorf).
Tickets are $10, and the show starts at 8 p.m.


 from QC Times...

Concert date becomes a labor of love


David Burke | Posted: Sunday, March 14, 2010 1:00 am | No Comments Posted



There are several reasons why Bob Kelly decided to go outside his comfort
zone and become a concert promoter for alt-country singer Scott Miller’s
March 30 date at the Uptown Neighborhood Bar in Bettendorf.
Kelly — the bass player for Wicked Liz & the Bellyswirls as well as
Superfly Samurai — first heard Miller and his band, the Commonwealth,
seven or eight years ago at Schuba’s in Chicago, where he and Bellyswirls
lead singer Liz Treiber were looking for clubs at which the band could
play.
“We were both blown away,” Kelly recalled in an e-mail. “Excellent lyrics,
great music and excellent showmanship. The full band experience was like
watching Tom Petty/John Mellencamp and The Stones. Needless to say, we
bought all of their CDs that night.”
Three years later, the band was playing a Miller song, “Won’t Go With
Her,” at Milwaukee’s Summerfest, with Kelly on lead vocals. It caught the
attention of a woman in the crowd named Kasey Lussier, who stayed around
and talked to Kelly for the rest of the night.
Last summer, the two were married.
For their honeymoon, the two went to Brooklyn, N.Y., to see Miller play
with Reckless Kelly.
“After the show, he humored me and flattered my wife,” Kelly said. “His
solo performances are intimate, he draws you in and makes you feel like
you are a part of a special, secretive family.”
Kelly’s even made a point of learning at least one song off every Miller
album. One of his songs, “8 Miles a Gallon,” is a favorite among
Bellyswirls fans and is posted on YouTube, he said.
And it’s that connection with both the musician and the woman who became
his wife that got Kelly to bring Miller to town in a few weeks. One of the
nicest people among Quad-City musicians — with bandmates Treiber, Greg
Hipskind and Bob’s brother Leo Kelly — he’s helped book and promote his
own band for years, so doing the same for someone else should be a piece
of cake, right?
He’s nervous about the show — a Tuesday night gig, such as this one, is
always a risk no matter how big the name — but Kelly’s taking a chance on
this labor of love.
Miller, who regularly plays with country star Jack Ingram and has recorded
two duets with Patty Griffin, will play at 8 p.m. at the Uptown, 2430
Spruce Hills Drive, Bettendorf. Tickets are $10.
David Burke can be contacted at dburke at qctimes.com. He blogs at
Quadsville.com and
can be followed at Twitter.com/entguy1.