A Return, and a Report of Roger Clark Miller's Return to Town

Two months is a long time, even for me, to let things go dormant. Things got precariously close to abandonment of the blog. But only because there were writing assignments for other places going on, in addition to family stuff (cleaning out a house, getting a kid off to college, albeit one in the same city as me). Plus travels to an amazing music festival.

So maybe it's time to catch on things. In reverse order...

Roger Clark Miller, once and forever the guitarist of Mission of Burma, was in town last Saturday (October 18) at Government Center. In a matter of speaking, this is probably the re-scheduled visit for him, since he was slated to play here in early 2020, right as the world was starting to shut down. He and I did a phone interview at that time, but, going back through my folders, I don't know if I even got as far as transcribing it. 

One thing I do remember from that conversation is how he mentioned in passing that Mission of Burma was broken up at that point. No one had really come out from the band and said it yet. In fact, I think that an online article appeared a few months later talking about it, and how the band was so much the sum of its parts that no one was going to do an interview just about that topic without the other two (or three) members. Suffice to say, in talking to Roger, it seemed like nothing bad had happened. The group simply felt they had done what they set out to do and everyone was ready to move on.

Last week, Miller, as the photos show, set up onstage with a battery of equipment: a guitar, two lap steel guitars (though his albums credit him with three, this was all I could see), a pedalboard and a few other pedals to boot. This looping-and-playing-along-with-it thing was something that he has been doing since the late 1980s with his Maximum Electric Piano. Twice I saw him generating percussion parts by putting a brick or comb on the piano strings and looping that, before playing a "bass" line that also got looped, topped off by a melody and vocals. 

Last week, it was all instrumental, with music inspired by his Dream Interpretation projects. The music ranged from raucous and noisy to steady and controlled, almost reaching a bit of either surf tone or noirish twang in a piece like "Russian Spy Cannisters" which appears on his latest album Curiousity for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble. (The word "ensemble" refers to the way he can create the swell of a full band with the equipment at hand.)

Throughout the set, Miller kept looking back at the music stand to his left, which made it seem like each piece had a score which he was following. To add to that, the music itself flowed as pieces, not merely looped riffs that he jammed on until he switched to another. When he switched from his six-string to run a slide up one of the lap steels, it all connected to the dynamic and structure. These were extensive ideas that took time to unfold. The most notable example of this came in the final performance of the night, "Curiosity On Mars," a five-part piece inspired by the shapes of rocks and mineral caught in photographs by the Mars Rover. It was wild listening to him play and envisioning the way the photos shaped the sound. 

Back at the end of August, I drove up to Catskill, New York for Dromfest '25. Miller kicked off the event and he was the one act I missed, due to my late arrival. (Goddam that New York State Thruway.) I bought the Curiousity CD that night and was glad that he came to Pittsburgh. He's still creating new, bold music with the same level of commitment he had four decades ago.

The evening began with two local acts adding to the edgy, experimental mood of the night. Satryr/Elfheim was a solid guitar player whose left-hand vibrato made his songs stand out. His technical problems almost derailed the focus of the set at first, but when he got into it, he sounded solid. Full disclosure, Business Jazz features one of my bandmates, guitarist Erik Cirelli, with Chris Cannon, a longtime fixture of the local scene, dating back to his time in bands like the Johnsons (Big Band) and Raw Blow. Their set was a swirling mass of sampled lectures, bossa nova samples and a little bit of skronk.