Talk:Dan Miller

Dan versus

He's definitely a better guitar player than Flansburgh, and arguably a better keyboardist than Linnell. -Fan Of Dan

That second part: HEY HEY HEY HEY. --Self Called Nowhere 16:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Quinn! -Apollo (oh no!) 17:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Plus he's taller.

So? No matter how good a guitarist or cool guy he is, he's still just a ringer. (I think I even remember Them calling his that on a radio show) He does not have the songwriting talent and energy that makes Them Them.

I've always wondered what it's like to be a not-John in TMBG. Must get frustrating sometimes. At the shows I've seen/heard/been to, though, the Johns really make an effort to display the talents of the other band members. And they are talented, too. For the second encore at the show I went to, Dan Miller came out alone with an acoustic guitar and I could've sworn it was Tommy Emmanuel on stage. Weinkauf's a beast, as well. 68.114.69.217 03:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Miller gets to put his chops on display when Fingertips is played live. When the corridors are dark, it's time for bright Dan to shine! --Nehushtan (talk) 21:20, 3 October 2019 (EDT)

I dunno, Linnell is so effing talented. Whereas Flans brings a lot of stage presence, melody licks, voice and what-have-you but there's no denying Dan has faster fingers. He just knows the fretboard better than Flans. But flans knows the songs and the soul of the music they make better than anybody else, so in that sense he's superior. He does more with less in the context of a TMBG record or show. Nawmean? --Homestar Golfer 09:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Sucker

Had anyone else noticed that the first song on Dan Miller's old band Lincoln's album is called "Sucker"? This happens to correspond with the fact that:

I noticed that; in fact I was the one who pointed it out to you. However, Lincoln was Chris Temple's band, not Dan's. -TDK 06:33, 1 Apr 2006 (CST)

(I wasn't using the possessive to mean that Dan OWNED the band, just that he had been a member. Also, we did talk about the "Sucker" thing, but I had already noticed it in my exploration of the Dan Miller page here and the link to Lincoln's [www.mp3.com] page. Don't worry, I always give credit where credit's due! ~Drew)

• Two Free Tunes MP3s--E Eats Everything (Live At Amoeba Records) and Flying V (Live At Amoeba Records)--had Dan Miller listed as the artist and "Sucker" listed as the song title in their MP3 information (but not the file name).

• One of the free sample MP3s found on the shows page at theymightbegiants.com, which Dan Miller happens to run--a complete MP3 of Asbury Park (The Stone Pony) from the 5/13/05 show at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ, which you can download here--is also called "Sucker" in its MP3 info.

Coincidence? I think not.

And, as an added bonus for anyone who happens to be reading this, there are three other complete or almost complete MP3s on the theymightbegiants.com shows page:

• Most of Wearing A Raincoat and part of Clap Your Hands from the 8/20/04 show at City Limits in Tucson, AZ, which you can download here.

• A complete MP3 of an unreleased venue song! Avalon, from the 9/18/04 show at the Avalon in Boston, MA, which you can download [here]!

• Another live version of Asbury Park (The Stone Pony), this one from the 7/9/05 show at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, CO, which you can download [here]. (I'm not sure why the file is called "boulder7-10-sample.mp3," since it's from the 7/9/05 show; the MP3 from the next day's show at the same venue, a clip of In The Middle, In The Middle, In The Middle, is similarly named: "boulder7-11-sample.mp3".)

Enjoy! ~Drew

Solder

Listed in the credits in The Else's liner notes as DAN SOLDER MILLER. Seems to be an official credit now. I wonder why though. — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 06:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The band members have an infinite supply of middle names. -j2

According to this his real middle name is Adam. Do we want to mention it somewhere on the page? Just add it to the bolded part? — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 05:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

And according to this his production company is "DJ Solder Productions". So there you go. — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 05:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

EHX Spokesperson

Interesting thing for you guitar players out there. Went looking for some new toys and found this...

http://www.ehx.com/products/stereo-polyphase

Check out the video. Looks like Dan is a big fan of Electro-Harmonix pedals. I wonder if he gets/ got paid to demo these.

Yeah, a bunch of famous guitarists are on this. Check out all of Dan's videos that they put up on YouTube: link.

I would go with this [1]...

Dan is awesome but...

Whenever they're on a radio show and he's referred to as "lead guitar player" I sob a little. I know it's true. But. SO SAD. A friend of mine went to a show once where he was gone for some reason and Flans wouldn't even TRY to play solos, apparently. BUM. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR TEN YEARS FLANS. --Self Called Nowhere 16:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Flans still writes and sings awesome songs! His rhythm guitar is also key in many songs, think about the chorus right after the solo in Boss Of Me, there was one TV appearance where Flans stopped playing, and it sounded really empty. Plus, Flans still solos in songs like Birdhouse, and Your Racist Friend. He also provides the main riff for The Guitar and Withered Hope. Flans is still awesome. And don't worry, I love Dan Miller too. ;) -- Jason DeLima - ♥! - 20:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

No no no Flans is totally awesome that's my point! That's why it upsets me to have him "demoted" like that. And I definitely wish he would solo more, BECAUSE he can. --Self Called Nowhere 20:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

It's been a while since these comments, but Flans does the crazy end solo on Cloisonné (Live) and Can't Keep Johnny Down live. Not forgetting the songs mentioned earlier. If it were my way, neither would get the "Lead Guitar" credit, as they share it. --nascarbean_97

^^To add to this, Flansy also takes the solos for Marty Beller Mask and for a lot of the Lincoln songs in their recent Lincoln shows :3 -- Jason DeLima - ♥! - 00:23, 15 December 2011 (EST)

Also, it's not a demotion. 'lead guitar' has a very specific meaning, and it's not the same thing as saying he's the 'main guitar player'. Lead guitarists do play solos, because that's their job, and before they hired a second guitar player in 1995, Flans had to play rhythm and the occasional lead guitar, which led to a lot of interesting arrangements, and made the keyboards incredibly important as a pad (really, Linnell's keyboard playing rarely includes much more than simple chords, so he's not a 'lead', either).

In a rock song, in general, you need some kind of rhythm instrument backing up guitar solos. A guitar solo over just a bass line will sound kind of empty (though it can work, just not usually in rock). And for the most part, early TMBG songs didn't have guitar solos, or even that many instrumental guitar parts with no lyrics over them. I can think of only 12 songs on ALL of their pre-full band albums that have anything that could even be considered a guitar solo, and they're pretty much all intros or outros (there are exactly four songs that contain actual internal guitar solos: Pencil Rain, The World's Address, Your Racist Friend and Dig My Grave). And at least one of those, Absolutely Bill's Mood isn't played by Flans. Even John Henry doesn't really have a LOT of guitar solos (and again, the more complicated solos in Sleeping In The Flowers and No One Knows My Plan are played by other guitarists). It wasn't until Factory Showroom, with a full time lead guitarist, that more of their songs started to more resemble 'standard' rock songs - [chorus]-verse-chorus-[verse-chorus]-guitar solo-[verse]-chorus.

Most of the time, Dan Miller is just a second rhythm guitarist, or playing the acoustic guitar (still rhythm!) along with Flans's electric (Where Your Eyes Don't Go, They'll Need A Crane, The End Of The Tour, and others) but his presence certainly allows them to do fuller arrangements of songs they could never have done before. I used those three songs as examples because I have seen them played with a four piece band, and they definitely sound different. They work, but Dan Miller definitely adds a lot to them, and not because Flans is somehow inferior, just because he can't play two guitars at once.

while there are perhaps no technical issues with your argument, i think the most important thing to consider is that this was more a playful discussion and not a serious evaluation of tmbg's music/style of arrangement/whatever else. as such, there wasn't any need for anyone to use proper terminology to begin with: the intended meaning was understood, and i think that that was enough. although you may disagree, i think it is perfectly fair for one to have the opinion that dan miller takes more of the difficult guitar-work, and since this is a talk page for an article about dan miller and not really a professional sort of exchange, i think it's ok to misuse the jargon here and there when you're trying to get that opinion across. i don't think anyone had trouble understanding what anyone else meant. -Apollo (colloquia!) 15:57, 15 December 2011 (EST)

Wikipedia page

Hey, the Wikipedia page needs some love. Specifically, it needs a picture at File:Dan miller.jpg. --Oldpinebox 20:07, 10 February 2012 (EST)

any relation to joel miller?

is Dan related to Joel Miller? They look a lot alike. - HotelDetectiveInTheFuture🪗 talk 🎸