by Dave Miller

I was playing classical guitar for years while I was at school as well as being in a band for a few years, but I think when I was about 16 I started writing some solo electric guitar pieces; basically all experiments with delays and playing around with manipulating guitar recordings on computers.

I bought my first steel string acoustic guitar when I was 18, though before that I had strung up an old classical guitar I was given with steel strings; the strings were about an inch off the fretboard; you had to use all the strength in your fingers to hold down just one note, so it basically forced you to play in open tunings!

Around the same time I started writing those solo guitar pieces I was listening to Sonic Youth, The Fall and Animal Collective a lot and discovering some of those bigger noise groups like Wolf Eyes, I guess I have my sister to owe for the introductions to these groups. I also found John Fahey around the same time, but I must admit, I didn’t click with it straight away... Apart from one piece; I Am The Ressurection from The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death, I loved that part where it all comes together towards the end.

I’m not sure if I have a fixed musical vision, many people have many different perceptions of what music should be, I don’t think any one is right on it’s own, at least not for me. I find it best to just try to keep an open mind to new influences and ideas and to see where they take the music.

My Guitar Is Alive and It’s Singing is definitely the release I’ve been most happy with so far, that first side, I think, is my highest standard of playing and composition so far, but it was also my first release on vinyl, which was meant a lot to me.

There is no particular direction I plan to take, but there are all sorts of experiments I’d like to do. I’ve got a few experiments planned to do alongside the guitar pieces, from acoustic experiments to some more extended computer based compositions, I guess the outcomes of these will shape the things to come.

I’m planning on getting my next release recorded and finished within the next few weeks, it should be out as some kind of cassette boxset, depending on it’s final length and CD on Blackest Rainbow Records sometime after, I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a private press on vinyl as well, but we’ll see about that one… It’s a kind of extension of the improvisations on the 7” I recently did for The Great Pop Supplement; Untitled Blues Part I & II. It might also feature some of the acoustic experiments I mentioned before; we’ll have to see how they go!

For every release I try to focus on one idea or interest in particular. I listen to a lot of different music so I don’t want to completely attach myself to one particular branch of music quite yet…

It seems quite unlikely, sorry if you were hoping for one... That CDr version of My Guitar Is Alive and It’s Singing was only really made for mine and Spoono’s tour of Europe this Spring, because I was out of all other CDr releases, there were a few copies left over, but they’re gone now…

There’s probably not much of a need to telling your readers; I expect they know more people to watch for than I do. But I guess I could give a couple… One from the acoustic guitar end of things is Spoono. As I mentioned, we toured Europe together in Spring and did a split LP, his side was fantastic! At the more psychedelic techno end, the Sheffield duo Forest Creature completely blew me away, along with everyone else I spoke to, at a gig recently, hopefully they’ll have a record out soon.

I listened to the first 6 discs of the Albert Ayler Holy Ghost box on Revenant in one sitting a couple days ago, my brain was pretty fried after that. Also this week I’ve been enjoying the new Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers LP, those two recent Moondog reissues on Honest Jons, Steffen Basho-Junghans’ 7 Books and The Monks – Black Time.

Definitely! I’ve never been to the US before and can’t wait to go. Hopefully sometime soon, I want to make it a full 3 month trip so I can see as much as possible.

Yes, hopefully some collaborations will occur in the future, there’s nothing planned though. I did recently record some electric guitar on a track also featuring Natural Snow Buildings for Ben Nash’s next album on Important, maybe there will be some more extensive collaborations in the future, but there is nothing planned.

I play a Breedlove 12 string and that’s pretty much it currently. On the computer I use Max MSP and Pure Data. I do have a bunch of other equipment laying around, but it’s mostly gathering dust nowadays… I hardly ever touch my electric guitar anymore, although I plan on using it as part of a release I’ve been planning in my head this past week…

Also on the art side of things, I was very interested in photography for a while, but as I took less and less photo’s, I became more and more interested with other photographers which soon led to an interest in avant-garde film and more recently, a greater interest in painting and visual art of various sorts.

Politics; I’m not very involved, I could go off on one about problems in this country but I think it’s best that I don’t.

Religion; I’m far from being religious myself, but I think it’s one of the biggest inspirations in all of art, if not the biggest, from both the side of the believer and the nonbeliever. From the free jazz spirituals of Albert Ayler to the blood splattering performances of Hermann Nitsch, to the journalistic photography of Leonard Freed to the large scale paintings of Anselm Kiefer, it all has religion at the heart of it, incidentally, everyone drawing inspiration from these is also drawing inspiration from religion.

Beer; You can’t beat a good beer. I had the best off-license ever about 2 minutes walk from my house I lived in until last month in Sheffield, thankfully I’ve only moved less than a 5 minute walk the other side. Unfortunately I do not have enough money to drink the luxurious beers they stock all the time. On the up side, I did just find a Paulaner Weiss bier in the car, forgot about that one, shame it’s about as warm as my blood.