On Halloween, Juneau singer-songwriter Andy Miller released an album of 15 songs about Juneau and Southeast Alaska for free on Bandcamp. The songs, usually averaging a minute and half in play time, range in subject matter from Breeze In, life in Douglas, and Rep. Justin Parish\u2019s beard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Justin Parish one I like a lot,\u201d Miller said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a nice song but it\u2019s also sort of funny. At Folk Fest actually Justin Parish got up front in the front row and (stroked his beard), so I think he was more pleased with it than I was. I didn\u2019t really know him before that but I wrote the song and knew people who were mutual friends and said, \u2018Hey do you know Justin\u2019s text number?\u2019 I think it surprised him to get this song from someone he didn\u2019t know like, \u2018I wrote this song about your beard,\u2019 but he was quite pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is Miller\u2019s second album, the first of which he released in college; he described it as being more of the standard acoustic, singer-songwriter fare. Back then half the guys had a guitar and Dave Matthews Band could be heard in the halls, he said. He didn\u2019t set out to write funny songs, but the few he played were well received, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you go to open mic and no one is paying attention and then you play a funny song, everyone is looking at you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Miller used to have a band in Sitka when he lived there, but didn\u2019t become serious about writing until this past winter, when the cold and dark provided him with a significant amount of time to get creative, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for (\u201cJustin Parish\u2019s Beard\u201d) I probably wouldn\u2019t have written any others, so when you have something that is good, you can feel a lot more confident writing things that aren\u2019t so good,\u201d Miller said about the album layout, stating his favorites are towards the front.<\/p>\n
Miller wrote and performed several of the songs on the album for the 2016 and 2017 Folk Fest, like \u201cKetchikan,\u201d \u201cIf You Lived in Douglas,\u201d \u201cWoman in the Valley,\u201d \u201cJuneau Hasn\u2019t Changed, It\u2019s You That\u2019s Changed,\u201d and of course, \u201cJustin Parish\u2019s Beard.\u201d \u201cIf You Live in Douglas\u201d is the most \u201cgenuine, sincere song\u201d from the album, Miller said, since his girlfriend does not live in town, but the song imagines what she\u2019d experience if she did; the other songs are a bit more playful and general about life in Southeast.<\/p>\n
Miller hadn\u2019t initially planned to release his funny songs but he wanted to experiment with recording for a future album, and because people at past Folk Fests had asked him if they could find his music online. Now they can either stream or download the songs for free at: https:\/\/andymiller.bandcamp.com\/releases.<\/p>\n
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\u2022 Clara Miller is the Capital City Weekly\u2019s staff writer. She can be reached at clara.miller@capweek.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
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On Halloween, Juneau singer-songwriter Andy Miller released an album of 15 songs about Juneau and Southeast Alaska for free on Bandcamp. The songs, usually averaging a minute and half in play time, range in subject matter from Breeze In, life in Douglas, and Rep. Justin Parish\u2019s beard. \u201cI think the Justin Parish one I like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":23380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23379"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}