YUKON NEWS ARTICLE

Musician Mikel Miller had two options : He could either cut an album or die a slow death in the smokey bars of Western Canada. He cut an album."I had to get out of the bars after all those years there. It's not a healthy lifestyle but you have to do it because you have to stay alive." "Musicians have a tendency to be survivors. But enough was enough.I pulled out of the bars in 1991 and I thought, "Lets get the health back." I went to just playing concerts. But to make a living at that, he knew he had to produce something to sell. So, he got to work in the studio and came out with THE KEY. He describes his music as folk/country/alternative roots/gospel. "Let's be be politically correct and cover the whole spectrum," he quips.The album was produced completely in the Yukon, with recording, mixing, mastering and engineering done at Bob Hamilton's Old Crow Studios. Local musicians like Dave Haddock, Rusty May, Andrea McColeman, Deb and Bruce Bergman, Annie Avery, Marc Paradis, George McConkey, Sarah Flanagan, Don Armitage and Roland Mitton also appear on the album. "How can you get better musicians than that?" asks Miller. "I can go down south and hire these people but I can get people just as good up here." Miller has been playing guitar since 1971. His love affair with the instrument started as "one of those teenaged things" and escalated. He left his home in Ontario to cruise across the country, living in six provinces before settling in the Yukon in 1979. He travelled with a four-piece band for a couple of years. But he did most of his work with one other guitar player. He's been a fixture on the local bar scene for decades. Now, he's getting in on the folk circuit and doing some opening acts. He'll be out all summer promoting the new album - taking it to radio stations and record companies in the west. Most of the songs were written in the last few years. But, Miller admits he's not a die-hard writer. "Sometimes I go through periods where I don't write. I'm what I term as a lazy songwriter. I don't sit down every day and work at my craft. I can't do that. It's too much like having a job." Sometimes I understand what I write and sometimes I look at it and say, 'Where did that come from?' Then all of a sudden, it comes to me." He was torn when he sat down to think about the album, not knowing whether he should write for the masses or do his own thing. "On this project, I didn't know whether to go with the commercial aspect and go for top-40 airplay or do what I've always done - go for the singer/songwriter side. I sat down and argued with myself and went with the singer/songwriter. I tossed aside all the commercial aspects of it. If it does well commercially, that's just a bonus." Miller isn't bothered by the fact he has only two fingers on his strumming hand. He was born that way, and figures five fingers "would probably just get in the way," he says." It's not something you notice. In fact, my public school principal, at the small school with the same bunch of kids, didn't even notice until June of my graduating year. I even got the strap a few times." "When people hide something like this, that's when you notice." And, "My parents have never stopped me from doing anything - not that they could if they wanted to!

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