Book Review: Rob Miller “The Hours Are Long But The Pay Is Low: A Curious Life in Independent Music”

A hugely entertaining account of Chicago’s Bloodshot Records. An independent label that was “too rock for country, and too country for punk.”

Bloodshot Records was one of the pioneering labels when Alt/Insurgent Country became a thing in the 1990s. Based in Chicago, the label was initially run on a shoestring budget by its three founders, Nan Warshaw, Eric Babcock and Rob Miller. “The Hours Are Long But The Pay Is Low” is Miller’s immersive account of his 25-year involvement with the label, alongside snippets of biography and his eminently readable thoughts on all matters pertaining to the music he grew to love.

A Detroit native, by his account, Miller was out of sorts as a kid, bullied at school and failing to find any succour in the current music scene so trendily embraced by his peers (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd – when news of their aeroplane crash flew around his school, Miller was ostracised for asking “who?”). With racist teachers and bullying jocks all around him, Miller was being groomed for a lifetime of drudgery as he saw it, but a spark ignited when he caught Talking Heads performing ‘Take Me To The River’ on “Saturday Night Live”. Soon he was enthusiastically watching the show for glimpses of Devo, The B-52s or The Specials amidst the preponderance of acts such as Boz Scaggs and Chicago. By his late teens, he had dived headfirst into the post-punk Detroit music scene, deejaying on college radio and promoting/managing live shows. The latter burned him out eventually – the long hours, the scams, occasional shootings. Well jaded, he moved to Chicago in 1991.

This was a fresh start. Working as a house painter and carpenter, Miller fell in love with Chicago, not only its bars and live music clubs but also the vast array of exotic foodstuffs from just about every corner of the world (throughout the book Miller is keen to mention favourite food stops in just about every town he visits or passes through). The idea for Bloodshot Records was hatched in a bar one night when he and his two fellow conspirators decide to put some money together to release a CD compilation of their favourite local acts, a list written on a paper napkin. Robbie Fulks, Jon Langford, The Handsome Family and others were happy to participate, and so “For a Life Of Sin: A Compilation of Insurgent Chicago Country” (the CD title lifted from a line in Hank Williams’ ‘Lost Highway’) became the first Bloodshot release. The label’s name was inspired by an old Wynonie Harris song.

Miller’s account of his 25 years with Bloodshot is brilliantly written with a frenetic, almost gonzo flavour to it. He avoids a chronological blow-by-blow retelling, preferring to alight on instances, happenstances, highs and lows and the grim reality of organising recordings, tours and events, and he does so in a highly entertaining style. In between these recollections he offers several chapters where he explores his thoughts on a variety of topics including the history of authentic country music, his loathing of hide bound record executives, occasional deep dives into favourite songs (he’s particularly good on The Cramps’ ‘Human Fly’) and in general all of the flotsam and jetsam which came his way as Bloodshot became more successful, flying the flag for Insurgent Country. There are way too many acts who flitted through the Bloodshot roster to mention here, but suffice to say that most should be familiar (and revered even) by any AUK reader.

If there’s one criticism, it’s that Miller somewhat glosses over the unhappy demise of the original Bloodshot Records (the name lives on under new owners). Miller refers to Nan Warshaw’s departure but does not go into any details (she left under a cloud, her partner accused of sexual impropriety while acts complained about missing royalties), instead, he blames spiralling losses due to Covid as a reason for selling up. Given that he’s been remarkably candid on earlier ups and downs, it seems he’s avoiding any muck-slinging, and perhaps he finds the end of his baby just too painful to contemplate. He also avoids any mention of Ryan Adams in the book, odd as Adams’ first solo album, “Heartbreaker”, is generally considered to have been the release which helped Bloodshot become a viable entity.