When I first started playing shows acoustically in 2001, the only piece of merchandise I had was a 6-song cassette I labeled, Chris Miller tape #1. I don’t recall how many I sold. I think I ended up giving most of them away. When I ran out, I went without any merchandise at all.

Then I arrived for a show one night and a friend had put together a CD of my songs for me. He painted the discs green and created CD inserts with a blurry black & white photo of me playing guitar. He made about a dozen copies with songs from tape #1 as well as other recordings that were floating around. It was awesome. Travis Day, that was a cool thing to do.

It was also a good thing, because I realized this week that I don’t have most of those old songs on my computer anymore. Travis must have known that in 8 years, I’d be frantically reliving the nostalgia of my younger days by uploading musical recordings of myself to the Internet. Good foresight, Travis, I’m impressed.

I found my copy today and was surprised to hear songs I’d completely forgotten about.

To start with, I’ve uploaded one that highlights several of the qualities that truly defined my early acoustic recordings:

-Singing at the peak of my range, even though it hurt.
-Recording a song without tuning my guitar.
-Overdubbing a second instrument and then making it sound annoying by fading it in and out.

I hope you’ll enjoy!

Nothing in Your Eyes (2001)

*additional note* The sticker in the photo above was made for me by Daniel Wolden. I found it in the CD insert. He deserves cool-credit along with Travis Day.

*additional additional note* The above song has the same chord progression and guitar riff as another song I used to play, Crowded and Cold, which I included on my 2005 CD. It’s something I do a lot. I get a musical idea and will write several similar songs that include that idea. I generally stick with the one I feel the best about and phase the others out. Crowded and Cold was kept, Nothing in Your Eyes was phased out.