MILLER CAMPBELL
I am starting to understand this music now. These twenty-something girls have the maturity of people in their fifties. The attraction of this music is the disparity between the image and the deep wisdom. Young people in England almost never wish they had been born in 1963.
It was Spotify that pushed Runaway Arms down my ear canals. It is a rock and roll classic, bit of country, and what a voice, what an edge. Before we go any further, I am not going to pretend I want to marry M I L L E R. We don't joke about these things. It is beyond childish.
Perhaps we should also mention that yes, she is from that musical family. This is not a drawback. It means she went into music with her eyes open, like Lilly Winwood and Lola Kirke, and not like some addled teenager who has been mainlining the Haribo all night.
You have to see Runaway Arms live to really understand it properly. You can find some YouTube links at the bottom. The video shows just how many guitars it takes to make sound as amazing as this. After watching, YouTube bumped me right onto Silver Springs by Stevie Nicks. No coincidence?
Miller, or her persona, struggles to sleep, worrying about yesterday and staring at a 2am ceiling. We have all been there. In fact insomnia brought me into this mad and crazy show in cold dark February. She talks a lot about sleep and waking up like we used to.
Now she's singing about taking her heart from the freezer. What is going on? It is her man who has the runaway arms of course, it had to be. Why are these Country men always so weak? Cowboys with enormous horses yet tiny balls.
Miller is based in LA now but oozes Montana better than Tom McGuane's Missouri Breaks. This is cowboy country and no mistake: I'm learning that cowboys and Country are a far bigger part of America than just Tennessee. It is perhaps the case that most of America is this way.
To an English ear, Miller and friends seem like such lads. They drink, they shoot and fight and cuss and yell. A lot. All at once. But they look like butter would not melt. It is a lethal cocktail.
I will write some more when I have digested and cogitated. The thrill of something new is too fresh.
I decided to write this up now because Miller promised to share the article. I hope she likes it. She has an enormous future and her present is doing okay. After her US tour you can catch Miller in September in The Netherlands and Germany. Miller is avoiding me in London. No idea why!
