Jeffrey Miller's Blog: Jeffrey Miller Writes, page 9
June 16, 2014
Welcome Home, Sgt. Paul M. Gordon
Another service member from the Korean War will soon be coming home:
Sgt. Paul M. Gordon was a farm boy from Dry Ridge, a top-notch basketball player who dreamed of one day going to Alaska to pan for gold.
He graduated from Crittenden High School when he was 16 and joined the Army soon after, in January 1949.
Gordon was 20 and serving in the Korean War when he died in June 1951 in a prisoner of war camp.
For decades, his family wondered about his fate.
“None of us really knew what happened to him,” said nephew Tony Gayhart of Burlington.
Now they do, and on Tuesday, Gordon’s remains will be brought to the United States, and he will be buried Friday at Kentucky Veterans Cemetery North in Williamstown.
You can read the rest of the story here.
These articles always choke me up because of their connection to my Korean War novel, War Remains. However, this one hits a little closer to home because he was with the 38th Infantry Regiment of the US Second Infantry Division, the same division and regiment that Bobby Washkowiak was with.
Welcome Home, Sgt. Gordon.
May 17, 2014
Classic Album Cover Art: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Starting in the 1970s, when I started buying albums, there were many albums which were defined by the artwork which graced the front and back. Much of the album art was spectacular, intriguing, surreal, visionary, breathtaking and in many instances, simply gorgeous.
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
By condensing the sonic explorations of Meddle to actual songs and adding a lush, immaculate production to their trippiest instrumental sections, Pink Floyd inadvertently designed their commercial breakthrough with Dark Side of the Moon. The primary revelation of Dark Side of the Moon is what a little focus does for the band. Roger Waters wrote a series of songs about mundane, everyday details which aren’t that impressive by themselves, but when given the sonic backdrop of Floyd’s slow, atmospheric soundscapes and carefully placed sound effects, they achieve an emotional resonance. But what gives the album true power is the subtly textured music, which evolves from ponderous, neo-psychedelic art rock to jazz fusion and blues-rock before turning back to psychedelia. It’s dense with detail, but leisurely paced, creating its own dark, haunting world. Pink Floyd may have better albums than Dark Side of the Moon, but no other record defines them quite as well as this one.
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music
There are some albums which define the 70s better than other ones. This is one of those albums.
May 16, 2014
City on Fire
Nearing the end of my novel about Panama and the exciting conclusion which takes place during Operation Just Cause.
Will Kevin Rooney save the friend who betrayed him by the stealing Inez, the girl of his dreams, away from him ten years earlier?
Will Buck Smith, the CIA agent, allow his Panamanian friend, who he saved in the 1964 riots, escape?
With US forces invading Panama City in search of Manuel Noriega, the lives of five people intertwine. Before the night is over only a few will survive.
Classic Album Covers: David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Starting in the 1970s, when I started buying albums, there were many albums which were defined by the artwork which graced the front and back. Much of the album art was spectacular, intriguing, surreal, visionary, breathtaking and in many instances, simply gorgeous.
David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Borrowing heavily from Marc Bolan’s glam rock and the future shock of A Clockwork Orange, David Bowie reached back to the heavy rock of The Man Who Sold the World for The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Constructed as a loose concept album about an androgynous alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust, the story falls apart quickly, yet Bowie’s fractured, paranoid lyrics are evocative of a decadent, decaying future, and the music echoes an apocalyptic, nuclear dread. Fleshing out the off-kilter metallic mix with fatter guitars, genuine pop songs, string sections, keyboards, and a cinematic flourish, Ziggy Stardust is a glitzy array of riffs, hooks, melodrama, and style and the logical culmination of glam. Mick Ronson plays with a maverick flair that invigorates rockers like “Suffragette City,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “Hang Onto Yourself,” while “Lady Stardust,” “Five Years,” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” have a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll. And that self-conscious sense of theater is part of the reason why Ziggy Stardust sounds so foreign. Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them, and Ziggy Stardust — familiar in structure, but alien in performance — is the first time his vision and execution met in such a grand, sweeping fashion.
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music
Not only is that a classic album cover, it is classic album, and Bowie’s best.
Are you noticing a trend here: some of the more classic album covers surround a concept album?
May 15, 2014
Classic Album Art: Klaatu’s 3:47 EST (1976)
Starting in the 1970s, when I started buying albums, there were many albums which were defined by the artwork which graced the front and back. Much of the album art was spectacular, intriguing, surreal, visionary, breathtaking and in many instances, simply gorgeous.
Klaatu’s 3:47 EST:
Once all of the hype about Klaatu being The Beatles is disregarded, 3:47 EST (aka Klaatu) surfaces as an entertaining debut album made up of light, harmonic pop songs which harbor a little bit of a progressive rock feel in a few spots. Because the album revealed no information about the band whatsoever, this fueled accusations by newspaper reporter Steve Smith that the band was actually the Beatles’ pseudo group, and there’s no denying that the similarities are bewildering. But Klaatu was actually three studio musicians from Toronto, fronted by drummer and singer Terry Draper. Klaatu’s “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” became a Top 40 hit for the Carpenters in 1977, but the other tracks from the band’s debut are just as congenial if not more compelling.
Composed of poppy horn work and inventive instrumentation, tracks like “California Jam” and the quaint- sounding “Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby” (which sounds like an early Genesis title) offer up a unique blend of bright, glistening strings and placid vocals. The lengthy and progressively cosmic “Little Neutrino” is a an entertaining instrumental stew that beautifully wanders about in almost free-formed style, while “Anus of Uranus” and the most commercial-sounding track, “Sub Rosa Subway,” revealDraper’s songwriting prowess. While 3:47 EST is Klaatu’s strongest release from nearly every aspect, their second album, entitled Hope, contains less of a pop-infused recipe but has greater progressive depth and leans toward more of an experimental sound, especially where the instruments are concerned.
Review by Mike Degagne, All Music
Remember when we all thought that Klaatu might be The Beatles resurrected?
May 14, 2014
Classic Album Art: Electric Light Orchestra’s Eldorado (1974)
Starting in the 1970s, when I started buying albums, there were many albums which were defined by the artwork which graced the front and back. Much of the album art was spectacular, intriguing, surreal, visionary, breathtaking and in many instances, simply gorgeous.
ELO’s Eldorado (1974)
This is the album where Jeff Lynne finally found the sound he’d wanted since co-founding Electric Light Orchestra three years earlier. Up to this point, most of the group’s music had been self-contained — Lynne, Richard Tandy, et al., providing whatever was needed, vocally or instrumentally, even if it meant overdubbing their work layer upon layer. Lynne saw the limitations of this process, however, and opted for the presence of an orchestra — it was only 30 pieces, but the result was a much richer musical palette than the group had ever had to work with, and their most ambitious and successful record up to that time. Indeed, Eldorado was strongly reminiscent in some ways of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not that it could ever have the same impact or be as distinctive, but it had its feet planted in so many richly melodic and varied musical traditions, yet made it all work in a rock context, that it did recall the Beatles classic.
It was a very romantic work, especially on the opening “Eldorado Overture,” which was steeped in a wistful 1920s/1930s notion of popular fantasy (embodied in movies and novels like James Hilton’s Lost Horizon and Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge) about disillusioned seekers. It boasted Lynne’s best single up to that time, “Can’t Get It Out of My Head,” which most radio listeners could never get out of their respective heads, either. The integration of the orchestra would become even more thorough on future albums, but Eldorado was notable for mixing the band and orchestra (and a choir) in ways that did no violence to the best elements of both.
I first started listening to ELO in 1976 right before I went into the Air Force. Their album Face the Music had just come out and Evil Woman was getting a lot of airplay. From that moment, I became a huge ELO fan. It would be another year before I bought Eldorado and I couldn’t get enough of it. I still can’t get it out of my mind. The album art is brilliant. Of course, anyone who grew up during this time was treated every year to the annual showing of the Wizard of Oz, which is represented in the album’s artwork.
Classic Album Art: Electric Light Orchestra’s “Eldorado” (1974)
Starting in the 1970s, when I started buying albums, there were many albums which were defined by the artwork which graced the front and back. Much of the album art was spectacular, intriguing, surreal, visionary, breathtaking and in many instances, simply gorgeous.
ELO’s Eldorado (1974)
This is the album where Jeff Lynne finally found the sound he’d wanted since co-founding Electric Light Orchestra three years earlier. Up to this point, most of the group’s music had been self-contained — Lynne, Richard Tandy, et al., providing whatever was needed, vocally or instrumentally, even if it meant overdubbing their work layer upon layer. Lynne saw the limitations of this process, however, and opted for the presence of an orchestra — it was only 30 pieces, but the result was a much richer musical palette than the group had ever had to work with, and their most ambitious and successful record up to that time. Indeed, Eldorado was strongly reminiscent in some ways of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not that it could ever have the same impact or be as distinctive, but it had its feet planted in so many richly melodic and varied musical traditions, yet made it all work in a rock context, that it did recall the Beatles classic.
It was a very romantic work, especially on the opening “Eldorado Overture,” which was steeped in a wistful 1920s/1930s notion of popular fantasy (embodied in movies and novels like James Hilton’s Lost Horizon and Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge) about disillusioned seekers. It boasted Lynne’s best single up to that time, “Can’t Get It Out of My Head,” which most radio listeners could never get out of their respective heads, either. The integration of the orchestra would become even more thorough on future albums, but Eldorado was notable for mixing the band and orchestra (and a choir) in ways that did no violence to the best elements of both.
I first started listening to ELO in 1976 right before I went into the Air Force. Their album Face the Music had just come out and Evil Woman was getting a lot of airplay. From that moment, I became a huge ELO fan. It would be another year before I bought Eldorado and I couldn’t get enough of it. I still can’t get it out of my mind. The album art is brilliant. Of course, anyone who grew up during this time was treated every year to the annual showing of the Wizard of Oz, which is represented in the album’s artwork.
May 13, 2014
Room With a View
Looking out my 12th floor apartment in Daejeon. Of all the places and apartments I have lived in the 24 plus years I’ve worked and lived in Korea, I’ve finally moved up to a room with a view.
The building in the middle is the KORAIL (Korean Railroad) headquarters. Daejeon station is to the right. I’m pretty lucky where I live. In fact, I have always lived close to where I have worked in Korea and as well as close to public transportation. I live only ten minutes (on foot) away from SolBridge and the train station; about fifteen minutes (on foot) away from the bus terminal and two hyper markets
In the distance is Bomun Mountain. On the mountain is a monument dedicated to the 25th Infantry Division which fought here during the Korean War (Daejeon, then Taejon, fell on July 28, 1950). There is also a statue of General William Dean, the top military commander in Korea at the outbreak of the Korean War. His driver took a wrong turn as they fled the city with North Korean forces advancing. Dean was captured and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.
I love these kinds of days in Korea: cool, gray, and rainy. I wish I could bottle up these days and open that bottle whenever I wanted.
May 10, 2014
The Panama Novel eclipses 60,000 words and counting
Today I reached another milestone: 60,000 words completed for the Panama novel. Realistically speaking, this novel will most likely end up being around 65,000-70,000 words depending on the final chapters.
This photograph was taken right around the same time I was stationed at Howard Air Force Base. On the left is the hangar that I worked of from 1977 to 1978 when I worked in the Repair Cycle Support Unit. That was a pretty awesome job: I went around Howard as well as Albrook picking up items which could be repaired at stateside depots. After I processed them, I had to take them to Packing and Crating for shipment back to the States or pick up repaired items on base and return them to supply.
In the background in the center is the base gym and beyond it, the parade field. My barracks was located on the right next to the first three-story building which was where one of the chow halls was located.
May 7, 2014
Book Marketing Strategies: How Much Should You Charge?
I’ve read a number of articles and blog posts about how much to charge for an eBook. Most of these articles suggest setting the price between 1.99 to 3.99 and I would have to agree, though I think the 2.99-3.99 range is most appropriate for most self-published authors.
Of course, no one wants to sell their book too low and face the stigma that the reason the price is too low is because the book is not good enough. And of course on the other end, selling the book at a higher price means that you deserve to make as much as you can for all the hard work you put into your literary achievement.
When I wrote my first novel, War Remains, A Korean War Novel, I set the price at 5.99. I thought that was a fair price for all the work, energy, and time, I put into writing it. However, sales were dismal despite everyone who bought it telling me that it was a good book. When I lowered the price to .99 cents for a promotional campaign, suddenly my sales rocketed and continue to do quite well, when I decided to sell the book at 3.99.
I do believe that more people will buy a book for a lower price and take a chance with an unknown author than spending over 5.00 for a book with an author they are not too familiar with.
Now I set the price for all my books at 3.99 and sales have been quite good. I’ve also experienced a halo effect. Whenever I sell any of my books for .99 cents, days and in the case of When A Hard Rain Falls, two months after the book promotion, I continue to sell a couple of books a day.
Although selling your book at .99 cents means a profit of .35 cents per book, I believe the exposure the book outweighs the profits made. However, because of this halo effect, I do make up the difference immediately.
