August 25, 2004
The ballad of Brent Miles
Only a few people are at Modified to see the Brent Miles project The Ballad Of ... Some sit on the floor, others stand and a few clusters of people sit in chairs to watch Miles and company’s first show since he returned to town after a few months clearing his head. Before they took the stage the singer/songwriter and band mates were standing outside, talking with friends and maybe waiting for a few more bodies, when Miles says "Let’s just play," and he and the players filed in and set up, soon beginning a no-frills, minimal set of strung out Americana, firmly focused on Miles, his stories and his quiet electric guitar strumming that occasionally erupts into fireworks or discord.

The set is less alt-country than his work with his last project Juarez, Miles speak-singing most of the mid-tempo numbers with a gravelly, disengaged voice that contained elements of pre-experimental Tom Waits, Steve Earl and a young Boss. While I have no doubt that Miles is world-weary, I found the vocals a kind of a studious homage to those gravelly voiced folks I mentioned above, like a costume or a mask, a stylized emoting.


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The Ballad Of . . . at Modified

Ryan Kennedy sat and played subtle bass and keyboard, always minimal, complimenting whatever was coming from Miles. Longtime local drummer John Fogerty (not the guy from CCR) started out playing unusually subdued drums, arranging his bass drum upright without a kick and using brushes to accent the mood. Later in the more dynamic sections he bangs the shit out of his small experimental kit, using pan drumsticks and whatever else he can find to summon the musical storm. This night the features Tami Hugo on violin for a few numbers, a nice touch that I felt could have been used for the whole set.

The songs are reflective and heartbroken, culled from the downside of love and disappointment, while largely avoiding the clichés that riddle lesser songwriters. A little slow to start, with Miles shoe gazing or closing his eyes, a smoke permanently attached to his grill, after a couple of songs the musical landscape went from flatland to emotional hills and cliffs, his weary traveler narratives spoken with real weariness. He introduced the song yr wake by saying, without irony, “this is a song for everyone that’s died this year” and started another slow sad ballad.

Though there were four players, I think the live set would have benefited from another guitarist playing acoustically to fill in some of the silence, though I realize this is part of what Miles was going for, the shifts from just drums and soft bass to his loud erupting, falling down stairs guitar style might have benefited from softer transitions. At times the songs seemed like an alt version of the slow/fast-soft/loud recipe that the Pixies perfected and emo destroyed.

Miles has used many different line-ups for this project, and it’s clear that maybe with the exception of Fogerty that the band is backdrop for his emotional narratives and playing. While I caught about every fourth word I wanted to hear more, and the music is clearly designed for storytelling, but Miles slurred and joined words so the content was hard to divine, his recorded voice is much clearer.

The fate of The Ballad Of ... was in question recently when Miles left town suddenly. He experienced a cross-country nervous breakdown while driving to attend his aunt’s funeral in the Midwest, and stayed in the area for some time on the emotional mend.

In fact his most recent recorded offering, “Vox Clamantis in Deserto” - roughly translated from the Latin as ‘the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” proudly displays his a hospital wristband from his most recent visit to a psychiatric hospital as the CD art. The name is taken from Edward Abbey’s last offering written two weeks before he died. The self-produced recording is a brooding sad rumination, though the words and stories are more clearly understood than when I saw him live. It’s a good CD, spare and haunted, in fact one of the listed tracks “ bravo 20” is almost two minutes of silence. The disc showcases his longer form longing slow songs, and affirms he’s moved on from the alt country flavors that he favored in Juarez.

Back at the show, the Ballad Of ... played a song entitled “Goodbye Marie” that was arresting and sad, and the most effective section featured just violin and voice, later exploding into a huge emotional pile-up when all the instruments and Fogerty’s drums rose to a loud crescendo that dissolved into discord. The set consisted of 6 or 7 long songs; in fact “Goodbye Marie” was about 7 minutes long.


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'Let's just play.' Brent Miles @ Modified

The last song was another lost road map about hard life that also showcased the mechanism of quiet/loud, the deceptively smooth surface of the song torn by guitar outbursts and bombastic drums. At the end of the song Miles went over to his amp and got some feedback going, set down his guitar and left the stage, while the band was still roiling and churning in the musical storm. The band wound itself down, Fogerty turned off Miles’ guitar and that was the end, show over.

A minute or so later Brent stood toward the back of the room near the soundboard, and self deprecatingly announced, "We have CDs for sale, and don’t worry they don’t sound like that."

I wrote Miles some email questions about music and life and what’s been going on lately, and after another trip to the emergency room, some emergency surgery on his mouth and a bunch of pain pills later he answered my queries in a half humorous, half sad tone that seems to fit the man.

Here’s some of what I asked and he answered:


JB - Curious about the name for your recent 7 song CD called Vox Clamantis in deserto. Is the title after the Edward Abbey book written two weeks before he died? Either way what does the title mean to you?
BM - I’ve been a fan of Abbey’s since high school and I copped the title because it pertains to the way my life has been going the last couple of years. Sometimes I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness, reaching out for help but nobody is around to listen. Sometimes when I feel like I’m losing my mind, I’m not very direct in trying to ask for help, so my search for aid sometimes manifests itself in other, self destructive, ways.

JB - Other bands you were in before Juarez & the Ballad Of . . .
BM - First band I was in was Dogshow, a very noisy band very reflective of what I was listening to at the time, Dinosaur jr., Mudhoney, etc., which then turned into Nostalgia Drags, another noise project. During that time we opened for Green Day, The Wipers, Nation of Ulysses. Then there was the short-lived Senorita Bonfire, the Monte Verdict Stars, which is when I first started exploring roots music.

JB - Wanted to ask you about the CD art, is that a wristband from a hospital? Why did you include this? Do you want to talk about your hard times lately? Left Arizona and went where? Back now for good?
BM - It’s a wristband from a psychiatric hospital. I included it on the CD because it seemed like a good visual representation of the music. A lot of the songs on the Vox EP are results of events that have happened to me in the last couple of years which have led me to be locked up in the psych ward on a few occasions. Let’s just say that I’ve got enough wristbands for my next five albums. I went to Minnesota in June for my aunt’s funeral and ended up staying there for a couple of months because I met some really great musicians and played a few shows. I’m actually leaving this week for the Midwest again because I have shows booked through the end of September in Minneapolis, St. Paul and St. Cloud and possibly St. Louis and Chicago.

JB - What do you think your music sounds like?
BM - Minimalist, deconstructionist folk music.

JB - Are you a super bummed out guy? Do you write music as a therapeutic release?
BM - Yes, actually, I was thinking of legally changing my name to Super Bummed Out Guy™. I have my mood swings and sometimes they’re pretty severe. Music is definitely a therapeutic release. That’s probably the main reason I play music is to get all of my feelings out, because I can only get them out through music. I’m pretty closed off emotionally except when I’m singing.

JB - What’s the major difference between this project and your last long term band Juarez?
BM - Juarez was a bit more straight ahead, I was really into the country thing at the time. Now I’m more into integrating minimalism and noise into roots-based music.

JB - What are you trying to do with this project?
BM - Exorcise my demons.

JB - You named a band Juarez and a Juarez album was called Nashville, Have you spent a lot of time in Juarez or Nashville?
BM - I’ve never been to Juarez. I actually got the idea to name the band that from the Dylan lyric "when your lost in the rain in Juarez and it’s Easter time too." I spent a week in Nashville once, though I don’t remember much of it. But when I got home, I had Willie Nelson’s manager’s business card in my wallet.

Posted by jb at August 25, 2004 10:57 AM | TrackBack