You Don't Want to Tell Your Children You Missed Scott Miller pt. 2

Well, Game Theory put out a series of brilliant albums on Enigma, outstanding among them Real Nighttime, The Big Shot Chronicles and Lolita Nation. And then there was their farewell to the label and the album that was supposed to break them (I mean that in the good sense)--Two Steps from the Middle Ages. Two Steps has everything people want in a rock and roll record. Melodies to break your heart, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of ingenious hooks, tunes and insouciant energy, great big colorful guitars with sharply pointed tasteful solos smartly set just where they do the most good, just like on Revolver; heady lyrics just cryptic enough to allow you to identify from wherever you're at without closing off interpretation; intellectual firepower harnessed to raw power, a composer intimate enough with classic pop song conventions to write his way into and out of, around and over them. By any standards one of the handful of albums of the decade, able to stand tall in the company of the Replacements and REM.

Well, break them it did, in the bad sense. A half a dozen albums that they knew damn well were as good and accessible as anything on the marketplace, even the rather restricted market of college/indie radio, that ended as detritus washed up against the seawall of popular acceptance. The failure of Two Steps was too much for Scott and the band, for whom this was their last album. But Scott was back in a year or two with The Loud Family. And he did something remarkable. After the disillusion of Game Theory, he put together a debut for the Loud Family that was a bookend to Two Steps. For any other pop artist Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things would have been a greatest hits album--instead it's merely more testimony to the fecundity of Scott's songwriter's imagination and craft. Since then, Scott revitalizes various version of the Loud Family whenever he's got enough songs stored up, and even releases albums on various micro-labels, but he has made the devastating decision that even his degree of talent doesn't guarantee even a significant cult following, and that his music is now just a hobby. He now has a family with kids and an online column where he answers questions from Game Theory/Loud Family fans about almost anything with his formidable intelligence and his always humane instinct. Read it.

It's an instructive American story, not a little tragic, that you could have an artist possessed of every tool and talent for enormous influence and popularity, who through a few bad breaks (some undoubdtedly self inflicted but what rocker hasn't absorbed self inflicted wounds?) falls even below the Velvet Undergound's status (You know, "Not many people bought their records, but everyone who did went out and formed a band.")

Here's where you can buy Scott Miller Records:

Game Theory
Real Nightime
Big Shot Chronicles
Lolita Nation
Two Steps from the Middle Ages

Loud Family
Plants and Birds and Rock and Things

Alot of these are rarities and are priced accordingly, which is to say beyond most people's budget (an encouraging development for Scott, at least). But used copies of Two Steps and Plants and Birds can be had for reasonable prices. For the rest, I suggest a thorough search of online used cd services, going through interlibrary loan at your public library, or contacting the Loud Family Website.

But by all means make some effort. You'll be doing yourself a favor, opening up a source of delight and pleasure and stimulation that you'll listen to for years. And when your kids are playing all their Scott Miller-influenced music, you can establish your cred as the hippest mom or dad around.