Julia Miller (spoon river demo)

A collection of demos found in the attic:

            The life of this project began in a Death Valley motel week in 1995 with a four-track cassette recorder & a book: Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. The tape was forgotten in a pickup truck glove compartment, then dug out & reexamined in a shuttered medical complex dental office-turned-artist-studio in Edmonton AB with an eight-track minidisc recorder in 1998. I drove the machine carrying the demos to Tucson AZ in 1999 to undergo reconstruction at Wavelab recording studio with the help of musicians John Convertino & Joey Burns, engineer Craig Schumacher & producer JD Foster. After a little over a week there, the outcome was a final mix leading to the 2000 release of The Hill.

            Some ultimate tracks used for the album were from my original minidisc sketches.  Others were rerecorded at the studio — one of which was a song utilizing Masters' poem Julia Miller.

The rough drafts I uncovered are a mix of references that I'd brought along to work from once I arrived in Tucson. A few of the songs were repeated in the form of working variations. Over the next few months, I'll be posting some of those other demos, as well. For Julia Miller, there are three versions. Here’s one.

The album version of Julia Miller is pared down to just two guitars & a voice. I imagine I moved on past the demos because I just wanted the poem represented simply & with a reconsidered performance. The renditions I brought with me were interwoven at a faster tempo with additional layers of guitars. I probably felt that the jangly mood didn't fit with the lean, heavy story.

            Presently, the key word of this poem is "betrayal." Whether published originally in 1915 as words or recommitted in 2022 as an unjustifiable judicial act, Julia Miller's story still lives as an unfortunate eternal flame — especially in light of a seemingly ever-ongoing shockwave of betrayals whose effects will be felt by all for decades &, by some, for lifetimes, however endured within individual resolutions . . .

Julia Miller (spoon river demo):