Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself

Hello! I'm Shambles Miller, singer-songwriter or singer/songwriter, depending on your personal punctuation preference, and this week I am taking over Scottish Fiction! I am taking it the fuck over. I hope to furnish your minds and eyeballs with some interesting features over the next few days, but first things first, let's get to know each other a little better shall we? By which I obviously mean, let's get to know ME a little better.

I've been performing around Scotland and releasing music (and having a good laugh doing it) for around four years now. I played my first ever gig in Kilmarnock's Fanny by Gaslight to about six people (maybe eight, if you count the barman and a bloke who left right after I started) and haven't stopped since. Since then I've played in King Tut's, Cabaret Voltaire, on the top deck of a bus in Edinburgh, in a place called Failford, for a group of protesters occupying a university building, at festivals, in a tea room, in someone's kitchen, and I still miss the Captain's Rest.

I'm not shy about using humour in my lyrics, something which is evident in my last two singles, Confessions and Deadpool. Humour is so important that it would seem strange not to use it to express myself, especially in music. More about that later in the week though...


I also have a tendency to write about things that make me angry. That's how I came up with the inspired song title "Things That Make Me Angry". I recently did an interview and session for the guys at Occupy Sound, which I think gets both of these sides across pretty well. Plus I'm wearing sunglasses during the interview, so you can tell I'm cool.

So what else is there to know about me? Well, I'm a big fan of Internetty things like Twitter, and Vine. For example, I came up with a wee Twitter game where I watch a film, tweet about it in a very vague way, and see if anyone can guess what the film is. It has the admittedly-slightly-creepy-sounding title of Shambles is watching (or #shamblesiswatching). There is a prize if you win: you get badly photoshopped into a scene from the film. Like this photo of previous winner Colin as the rock from 127 Hours.

This might be the best thing I've ever done.

Play along the next time you see me using the hashtag #shamblesiswatching! As for Vine, I'm particularly proud of my impression of a fish laughing.

Wait, no, that's the best thing I've ever done.

When it comes to music, I'm really focused on the lyrics. I find it hard to enjoy a song with bad lyrics, and I'm always surprised when some people tell me they don't really pay attention to them. This means that I find myself listening to a lot of hip-hop and a lot of songwriters. At the moment I'm listening to quite a bit of Jay-Z (I always am), Chance the Rapper, Randolph's Leap, and RM Hubbert. Yes, I know RM Hubbert doesn't quite fit my lyric-heavy music taste, but have you heard him? Jings he makes that guitar sing. I also recommend checking out Randolph's Leap's latest album. It's a corker.

(this isn't Randolph's Leap, it's Chance the Rapper, but it's brilliant)

"All this music-based stuff is all well and good" I can hear you say, "but what about YOU, Shambles. What are YOU into? Who is the REAL Shambles?" You're quite right of course, but what else is there to say? When it comes to the real Shambles, I took the title of "Shambles" after I killed the previous Shambles in a fight to the death. I plan to hold it forever. Come at me bro.

What else is there...let's see...I'm a big fan of the wrestling. I'm very fond of my beard. I'm quite open about my support for independence. One of my most prized possessions is a small piece of paper. I'm a big fan of comics, and I even write now and then. I like links. I'll be your host on Scottish Fiction for the next week.

I think that'll do for now, don't you? Pop back tomorrow for...whatever I have planned for tomorrow. I've totally planned it out way in advance. Honest. It won't just be me talking about myself though, don't worry. That's today only. Unless you live with me. In which case it's probably a lot.

In the meantime, here's my favourite ever photograph.

You know.

See you tomorrow!

Shambles

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