Fred Mills
Fred Mills lives in the western mountains of North Carolina in Asheville - home to numerous arts and music festivals as well as a healthy helping of independent musicians of all stylistic persuasions - where he sincerely hopes that his 4 - year old son will pick up the music bug. "He's already memorizing Beatles lyrics," Mills says, "and to be honest, I don't care if he gets into bluegrass, rock, pop or heavy metal - just as long as he doesn't turn out to be a Republican."
Mills entered the world of journalism in modest enough fashion, helming a punk fanzine called Biohazard Informae in the late '70s and early '80s and being active on the Chapel Hill music scene during that time. Later, after moving to Charlotte, he became the first Music Editor for that city's alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing, a position he held from 1987-92. After that he lived for a decade in Tucson, Ariz., where in addition to writing on a freelance basis for Spin, Magnet, The Bob, Option and other publications he served as senior buyer for a regional CD store chain. In 2001 he moved back to his home state of NC because, in his words, "You just can't get decent barbeque in Arizona."
Reflecting on over a quarter-century of misadventures in the world of rock journalism, Mills notes that his first "professional" interview went so astoundingly poor he almost chucked the career before it ever got started. "It was John Cale on the 'Mercenaries' tour," he recalls, "and I'm ushered into the dressing room of this towering guy who's clad in army fatigues, smoking a cigar and scowling at me. I'm so intimidated that I forget all my questions and wind up asking him why his solo career hasn't been as successful as Lou Reed's. The batteries on my tape recorder started dying, too." (Nowadays Mills makes sure he brings to interviews extra batteries and a pint of whisky to calm his nerves.)
In addition to contributing to this website, he writes for Magnet, Harp, Stereophile, No Depression, ICE, Detroit Metro Times, Stomp & Stammer and others, additionally contributing liner notes to numerous records and CDs over the years. His favorite band of all time is The Who, his favorite solo artist is Neil Young, and his favorite song is 'Shake Some Action' by the Flamin' Groovies - his family is under strict instructions to play that at his funeral when his time finally comes.
Contact info: PO Box 8789, Asheville NC 28814 USA
53 articles
List of articles in the library
Captain Beefheart: 55 Years Of Goin’ To The Toilet: Captain Beefheart
Interview by Fred Mills, Zia Zine, 1 April 1996
NOTE TO THE PURIST OF HEART: Please take the date of publication into account as you peruse this piece. And no, Don Van Vliet did ...
Vic Chesnutt and Mr & Mrs Keneipp: Merriment
Review by Fred Mills, No Depression, September 2000
EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE Georgia-based Paralympian once deadpanned to a Spin interviewer that "Vic Chesnutt is an autodidactically pretentious writer of pseudo-symbolic, text-centred dirge-ballads…singing in a distinctive ...
Grand Funk Railroad: Train in Vain?
Report and Interview by Fred Mills, Seattle Weekly, 14 August 2002
APRIL 26, 1996, the State Theatre, Detroit: Grand Funk Railroad are onstage together for the first time in two decades, accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Detroit Metro Times, 14 August 2002
IT'S A SUNNY spring morning in the Motor City but the wind whipping across the Detroit River makes it feel a lot more like winter. ...
The Clash, Joe Strummer: Up In Heaven: Joe Strummer, 1952-2002
Obituary by Fred Mills, Seattle Weekly, 8 January 2003
Why should we assume people get worse [with age]? I think you should just get on with it. Look at Paul Newman. And the Sufis ...
Rank and File: Western Union: Rank And File
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Seattle Weekly, 7 May 2003
A new archival set revisits Chip and Tony Kinman’s pioneering alt-country outfit Rank And File, as the brothers continue to expand their Cowboy Nation. ...
The Dream Syndicate, Steve Wynn: The Defiant One: Steve Wynn
Report and Interview by Fred Mills, Seattle Weekly, 28 May 2003
After ushering in a double disc of Miracles with his last album, underground icon Steve Wynn explores his troubled soul on the new Static Transmission. ...
Report and Interview by Fred Mills, Detroit Metro Times, 25 June 2003
SOME MIGHT SEE it as a generational passing of the torch: an established music icon sharing the stage with a younger rising star, and there’s ...
Spacemen 3: Medicine Show: The Spacemen 3 fill out another Perfect Prescription
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Seattle Weekly, 25 June 2003
RUGBY, ENGLAND, SPRING ’87: Four scruffy twentysomethings are sprawled across secondhand bed mattresses arranged at asymmetrical angles on the floor of VHF Studios. The ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, August 2003
IN THE early ’80s, some called Rank and File "cowpunks" – others called them just plain revolutionary. ...
Let's Active, Mitch Easter: Let's Active: Re-Activated
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, October 2003
Along with R.E.M., Athens based Let's Active ruled the college-radio airwaves in the mid-80s. ...
Interview by Fred Mills, Detroit Metro Times, 22 October 2003
"'JAM PUNKS'?!? Uh-oh..." Is the guttural noise coming over the phone line a mock groan or the sound of genuine exasperation? I honestly can't tell, ...
Television: Richard Lloyd: TV Personalities
Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, December 2003
RICHARD LLOYD entertains no illusions regarding the estimable legacy he, fellow guitarist Tom Verlaine, drummer Billy Ficca and bassist Fred Smith forged in Television, both ...
The Beat Farmers: The Beat Goes on
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, April 2004
It was a small but ultimately influential early ’80s scene: the back-to-roots movement spearheaded by the Blasters, Rank and File, Jason and the Scorchers, Long ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, July 2004
THEY CALLED it rock, and boy, did Britain’s Rockpile rock-brashly, boozily, and in one regard, too, belatedly. ...
Review by Fred Mills, No Depression, September 2004
IF YOU HAVE no tolerance for revolving-door "recovering" addicts who feel compelled to chronicle, on record after record, every opium-drenched near-death vision and every groveling ...
The Three Johns: Three Johns: Dada for now
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, September 2004
NOWADAYS, The Three Johns are often recalled as a side project of Mekons/Waco Brothers instigator Jon Langford. But during their 1982–91 tenure, the hard-rocking 3Js ...
Report and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, November 2004
THE VANILLA material is clearly aimed at Clash collectors who routinely snap up underground recordings of the band. As Simonon himself freely volunteered, he’s not ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Detroit Metro Times, 1 December 2004
DETROIT, CIRCA 1969: The house lights of the packed Casino Royale dim. The club's vibe is electric, the fog of cigarette and reefer smoke thicker ...
The Gun Club: Gun Club: Members Only
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, January 2005
AAHHRRROOOOUUUUU!!! All heads in a Chapel Hill, N.C. club jerk stageward as the frontman for L.A.'s latest punk export summons up an ear-splitting howl. Part ...
Andrew Bird: The Mysterious Production Of Eggs (Righteous Babe)
Review by Fred Mills, No Depression, March 2005
VIOLIN VIRTUOSO (and whistler extraordinaire) Andrew Bird never really goes easy on you, but on a purely musical level, The Mysterious Production Of Eggs is ...
The Slits: Girls Together Outrageously
Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, March 2005
"You haven't said yet how good I look on my Web site!" ...
The Go-Betweens: Their Back Pages
Profile and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, June 2005
IS ROCK 'N' ROLL just a fairy tale? Once upon a time there was a magical group called the Beatles. We thought they'd last forever, ...
Profile and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, July 2005
TWO SPOTLIGHTS of solar-white intensity arc downward, one aiming stage left, the other to the right. A sudden jerk of the guitar from the illuminated ...
Iggy Pop, The Stooges: The Stooges: Raw Power Revisited
Interview by Fred Mills, Detroit Metro Times, 10 August 2005
Warning: The following article does not constitute an endorsement of current phonographic products. – Editor ...
Report and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, September 2005
DECEMBER 13, 1985: I'm backstage at the Park Center in Charlotte, N.C., where, about an hour ago, the final concert of R.E.M.'s Fables of the ...
Retrospective by Fred Mills, Harp, September 2005
"MUDDY, BRUTAL, ecstatic music that grabbed anyone in its path roughly by the scruff of the neck and hurled them headlong into the very wilderness ...
Profile and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, November 2005
MEMPHIS, TENN., April 2004: Inside Ardent Studios a band assembles in the control room, where the engineer has just cued up a playback. It's a ...
Black Merda: It's a Detroit Rock Thing
Retrospective by Fred Mills, Harp, November 2005
THEY RUBBED shoulders with the cream of the Motor City, including Funkadelic, the Temptations, Edwin Starr, Bob Seger and the MC5. They recorded for the ...
Sinead O'Connor: Sinead O’Connor: Saint Sinead
Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, November 2005
SINEAD O'CONNOR'S career to date has included at least two major artistic peaks separated, significantly, by 12 years: 1990's I Do Not Want What I ...
The Flamin' Groovies: Flame On
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, December 2005
July 4, 1976: America is knee-deep in Bicentennial festivities, but across the pond in London a celebration of a different sort is underway. ...
Robert Pollard's Art of Confusion
Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, January 2006
IN MID-2004 Robert Pollard announced he'd be shutting down his band of 21 years, Guided By Voices, following the release of the group's fifteenth full-length, ...
Profile and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, March 2006
WHILE THREE-gal/two-guy outfit Delta 5 didn't exactly fly under the radar, its relatively brief tenure (1979-'81) meant the Leeds, England, band never got its proper ...
Terrastock Festival: Providence, Rhode Island
Report and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, March 2006
THE SIXTH Terrastock Festival--that bastion of psychedelia, nu-folk and experimental music that grew out of Britain's revered Ptolemaic Terrascope magazine--will take place April 21-23 in ...
Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham: The Grey Eagle, Asheville, NC
Live Review by Fred Mills, Harp, 30 April 2006
"THIS IS rock 'n' roll for the older set – we're all sitting down, reading the lyrics..." ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, May 2006
Among the great German bands of the '60s and '70s – kosmiche avatars Amon Düül and Ash Ra Tempel, motorik pioneer Neu!, synth wunderkind Tangerine ...
The dB's: Spies In The House Of Pop: The dB's and their star-crossed third album, Like This
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, June 2006
BY THE SUMMER of 1982 things were looking a bit grim for the dB's. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, June 2006
APRIL 1, 1977, LONDON: Onstage at punk venue the Roxy is a young quartet nearing the end of its 17-song set – which, in a ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Album Retrospective: Tom Petty
Retrospective by Fred Mills, Harp, July 2006
...
Retrospective by Fred Mills, Harp, July 2006
IT'S SOMETIME in late '77 or early '78 and yours truly is toiling away at the distribution center for North Carolina record store chain the ...
Tom Waits: Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Asheville, NC
Report and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, 2 August 2006
HE CAME, he saw, he conquered. Meanwhile, he hoisted that rag, he got behind the mule, and he tangoed until we were just about sore. ...
The Hoodoo Gurus: Be My Guru: Back to Bedrock with Stoneage Romeos the Hoodoo Gurus
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, January 2007
THANKSGIVING EVE, 1984: Your future Harp correspondent is front and center at a packed Charlotte, NC, punk club, literally hanging on to the monitor of ...
The Ettes: Joli Rouge, Asheville
Live Review by Fred Mills, Harp, January 2007
L.A.-BASED three-piece the Ettes surfaced last year with their official full-length debut Shake the Dust, issued by the ever-reliably maverick label Sympathy For the Record ...
Arcade Fire: Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Asheville, NC
Live Review by Fred Mills, Harp, May 2007
WHAT A difference a couple of years makes. Or do they? ...
Joe Boyd discusses his book, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s
Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, May 2007
AMERICAN-BORN, England-based producer Joe Boyd, who discovered Nick Drake, Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band, oversaw key recordings by Pink Floyd, R.E.M. and others ...
Robert Gordon: (Still) Red Hot
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, September 2007
IN 1977 a skinny young man with a gravity defying pompadour and a room-filling, Elvis-worthy voice kicked off his solo career with the old Billy ...
Rainer Ptacek 1951 - 1997: A Remembrance
Retrospective by Fred Mills, harpmagazine.com, 11 November 2007
HUMANS SEEM to have a genetic predisposition towards the marking of anniversaries, either on formal, outward terms (celebrations, vigils, family gatherings, etc.) or on subtler, ...
Pylon: Everything Is Cool: Form Followed Function For Athens Postpunk Legends Pylon
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, December 2007
CARRBORO, N.C., 1980: An enthusiastic new wave crowd, including your future Harp correspondent, jams into a tiny club in Carrboro (near Chapel Hill) called The ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, unpublished, Summer 2007
NOTE: This is a vastly expanded version of the Mitch Easter feature, "Perfect Sound Forever," written for issue #76, of Magnet, published summer 2007. Interviews ...
Cowboy Junkies: The Cowboy Junkies: A Holy Ghost Feeling
Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, March 2008
CHARLOTTE, NC, 1990: The Cowboy Junkies have just taken the stage of Spirit Square, an old church renovated into a performance venue. ...
Miracle Legion, Mark Mulcahy: Heart Still Attached: Mark Mulcahy & Miracle Legion
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Blurt, 24 June 2013
The erstwhile Miracle Legion vocalist crafts a fresh solo masterpiece. Meanwhile, Blurt presents a Mulcahy interview from the deep archives. ...
Review by Fred Mills, Blurt, 1 October 2013
TRUTH-IN-TITLING: Blur The Line is the operative term here, with the Nashville combo literally evolving before our eyes (ears). It's like watching a fish slip ...
The Economics of Rock Criticism
Comment by Fred Mills, Blurt, September 2016
Ever wonder why reviewers do what they do when they are actually LOSING money on the deal? (First in a series, collect them all.) ...
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