“Everybody Is Kind Of A Dick. This Whole Industry Sucks” Dept.

Retina-frying art from Victor Moscoso

Steve Miller doesn't much like Jann Wenner and his Famous Hall Of Fame. “Everybody is kind of a dick. This whole industry fucking sucks. It's a bunch of jackasses and jerks and fucking gangsters and crooks who've fucking stolen everything from a fucking artist," he said graciously after getting inducted in 2016. The Rock (and indeed Roll) Hall Of Fame is one of those lost-in-translation American rites which get a great big shrug/eye-roll combo from the rest of the world, like half-time Superbowl shows, the "World Series" and Thanksgiving. Miller was sneered at back in the day for not being a real hippie and saying rock musicians couldn't play for shit, and later for becoming a hugely successful AOR act, but it's impossible not to warm to the guy when he gets up on his hind legs and sticks it to Wenner. 

Inner gatefold. Many hippies, to this day, can't read the words without chemical assistance

Yeah but, those first two Steve Miller Band albums are exceptional, ain't they? There's much to like in his later catalog, but these are les couilles de chien [canine testicles - Ed.]. Children Of The Future, incredibly, lives up to the promise of that blisteringly wonderful cover, it's that great so great is it. Recorded 1968 in London and produced by Glyn Johns, there's nothing fish n' chips about it - this is as pure Left Coast psych as it gets. Boz Scaggs makes his presence felt to advantage, and Ben Sidran sits in on harpsichord. Wenner's simpering eulogy in Rolling Stone - "one would not characterize the record as being 'far out' or revolutionary, but rather as being excellent" - makes you wonder how their sweetheart relationship could turn so very sour. Wonder, not care.

For Sailor, their *sophomore effort* [rockspeak advisory - Ed.], Glyn Johns was flown over to LA. It's nearly, but not, as good, sounding suspiciously like they rocked up to Wally Heider's with only a couple of tunes in their pocket, which is what they did. The album starts strongly with four songs from Miller, including the gorgeous Song For Our Ancestors and the hit Living In The USA, but fizzles out with a couple of formulaic Scaggs efforts. From Miller to filler.

The uncredited sleeve design is another stunner, an epic scissors-and-paste montage using band photography by Thomas Weir ["not Bob's bro" - Babs]. And look! In an IoF© exclusive, I can reveal if you join the top of the back sleeve to the bottom of the front - an impossibility unless you own two copies - the sea at the bottom of the front cover turns into the clouds at the top of the back cover! [left - Ed.] OH WOW! I just discovered this and I'm, like, OH WOW, man! It's like, the sea is the sky, man! And we're all floating, like sailors ...

Backing up a little before we go forward, here's the gorgeously-covered Chuck Berry With The Miller Band Live At Fillmore Auditorium, from '67 ...

... and th' AF-F© OST to Revolution, with pre-first album cuts (great album, no filler!)

... and here's a cover for SteveShark's Matrix boot linked in th' comments. This is the kind of Team Commitment to Excellence in Deliverables you just don't get anywhere else on the internet.