F.U.K. (Fucked Up Kids, 1977)
Release date: March 21, 2018, on Hozac Records.
A nice review in Raven sings the Blues.
One can order from Hozac or purchase from Miller at shows…
“Here’s this chugging 2-chord riff coming at you, and then it bursts into a guitar solo that sounds like a wet robot frying in a vat of acid.”
It was Oct. 1977, and Miller had long decided not to join the Ann Arbor band Destroy All Monsters. But his band Red Ants had already bottomed out in four completely different incarnations. So he decided to put one last band together before he moved to Boston. He named it F.U.K. (Fucked Up Kids) in a quasi-parody of D.A.M. (Destroy All Monsters). In a quasi-parody of punk rock, most members of this one-off band could barely play their instruments. They played one show, on Halloween, at The Cube in Ann Arbor, MI. It was a very fun mess. The song Road Kill was performed extremely sloppily at that show, and Miller recorded this version with Sue Rynski in Dec. of that year. The B-side, I Got A Head, was one of 5 or 6 songs which he wrote as fast as possible whilst listening to the first Ramones album three times in a row in the summer 1977.
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Trinary System
All overdubs are done for their first full-length album: only mixing remains. They will likely release their version of King Crimson’s 1974 classic “Red” as a pre-release freebie.
—–Spring shows:
June 8, Fri: The Root Cellar, Greenfield, MA
June 9, Sat: On the Ground, Townsend, VT
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Alloy Orchestra
—–Spring shows:
April 15: Beverly, MA
April 21: Ebertfest, Champaign, IL
May 4: AFI Silver Theater, Silver Spring, MD
May 6: Maryland Film Festival, Baltimore, MD
June 19: Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC
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Mission of Burma
*** “Vs.” was recently listed as one of the 10 best post-punk albums to own in vinyl.
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Other:
Miller will be performing solo (guitar/voice) for an Amnesty International benefit on Sun., Mar.25, at the Aeronaut Brewery, Somerville. Miller will perform songs he’s written starting in 1967 (2 years before Sproton layer) and ending in 2018. That should be “quite a trip.”
Miller will be sitting in on keyboards (as he has happily done many times before) with the venerable improv. group Club d’Elf at Lizard Lounge on Fri., Mar.31.
Anecdote
Ryles, a club I didn’t frequent much, is closing in Cambridge. Still, they promoted local musicians and gave non-rock bands a place to play. One more club gone.
Some years ago I was scouting for vocalists at Ryles for a film I was scoring, “You Don’t Know Dick”. It was around Halloween and costumes were requested, so I went as “death”: completely robed in black with a very white “The Scream” face mask. I sat in the back of the room, and as I knew no one there I just listened. People started to get very uneasy about my presence – death just sitting in the back of the room, saying nothing. Towards the end of the night a couple guys, after more than a few beers, came up and started provoking me. I had nothing to say really, but they got more and more worked up. Finally I realized there was a possibility of violence and that maybe it was time to act more “alive”, so I perked up and managed to defuse the rising adrenalin in my corner of the room. Close…
The other time I was at Ryles was a great show by Lookie-Lookie where Deb and I danced the whole night.
