Coming soon.

“I've said it before and I'll say it again - Miller's collection of hard country sounds is as good as you'll get anywhere in the world.” (Craig Baguley - Editor, Country Music People)

1. One Excuse Too Many
2. Leave My Darling Alone
3. All Alone
4. I Close My Eyes
5. Another Sweethearts On Your Mind
6. The Water Of Life
7. Acting Like A Stranger
8. A Real Ghost Town
9. Just Let Me Know
10. The Last Thing I Want To Do
11. Two into Three Won't Go
12. Butt Out

"John Miller is one hell of a country singer"

(Country Music Round-Up)

(Click to buy for £9.99)

John Miller & His Country Casuals "One Excuse Too Many": nominated for Album Of The Year at the UK Country Radio Awards 2003)

"Classic country, Glasgow-style - excellent" (Mojo) ****
"Mixes strong elements of classic honky-tonk and hillbilly twang - he looks back and ahead with nary a misstep" (Maverick) ****
"Country through and through" (Country Music Round-Up) ****
"A fine album full of energy and committment" (Country Music People) ***1/2
"The best British album of the year so far" (BCMA)

"One of the finest country albums ever released by a UK act; indeed, by any independent artist,
whether out of Austin, Nashville or Australia (5/5)" - Country Music People

1. One Of Them Old Country Songs
2. Don't Forget To Tell Him (mp3 clip)
3. The Dream I Had Last Night
4. Down Mexico Way (mp3 clip)
5. Taking The Long Walk To Freedom
6. We Don't Care Anymore
7. Everybody Knows (mp3 clip)
8. This Pain Inside
9. Popping Pills
10. I'm A Loser Again
11. We've Fought Once Too Often Now

(Click to buy for £9.99)

Jumpin' Johnny Miller, head honcho of Glaswegian honky-tonkers Radio Sweethearts, branches out with a solo release. Mr. Miller wraps his beautfiful baritone around self-penned country shuffles, Tex-Mex waltzes and tearsome ballads.

If your idea of hell is some guy from Lanarkshire singing country influenced songs about drifting into dusty cantinas down Mexico way then you probably shouldn’t read any further. However, if eleven beautiful, heartfelt and melancholic songs about the healing power of music and love, the ups and downs of relationships and paeans to drinking and drugs floats your metaphoric boat then read on as this album is a real treat.
I’ll place my own cards straight down on the bar-top and confess that the concept didn’t thrill me at first. Sure, I’d liked the snippets of Miller’s band the Radio Sweethearts that I’d previously heard but wasn’t this the one genre of music that our American cousins could genuinely beat us at hands down? It took only one verse and half a chorus into John Miller’s solo set supporting the excellent Paul Burch (Lambchop) at Glasgow’s Tron to dispel my fears and have me singing from an entirely different hymn sheet. A brief but thoroughly enjoyable set had me truly converted and while the album features a full band augmented by a variety of guests and instruments it doesn’t disappoint nor does it detract from the sparse simplicity of the songs but instead, aided by a lush and punchy production allows the songs and arrangements to shine brightly.
Opening with the plaintive One Of These Old Country Songs Miller sets his own cards on the bar-top as he explores his own relationship to the restless, rootless music he clearly loves. This theme is revisited in the title track Popping Pills which is simultaneously a tribute and a warning as it tells the tale of the singer George Jones, one of a number of original country hell-raisers and proto-rock ‘n’ rollers. The introduction to This Pain Inside alone is gorgeous and is possibly my favourite track, a real slow-burner with it’s lyric about loss and pain which never lapses into self-indulgence. An expansive, yet understated song of beauty.
Taking The Long Road To Freedom sounds like a hymn with its sparse instrumentation and gospel tinged vocals telling the tale of a prisoner who dreams of finding freedom and forgiveness in death. We’ve Fought Once To Often and the sweeping duet We Don’t Care Anymore dissect romance after the fire has burnt out and the recriminations have begun. Don’t Forget To Tell Him and Down Mexico Way are glorious, unabashed love songs. Everybody Knows is as sweet a song as you’ll hear all year with its elegant, restrained lead guitar while The Dream I Had Last Night is a really uplifting sing-a-long number. Every song on Popping Pills is an exercise in conciseness and precision. No lyric or instrumental break is dwelt upon or too long, the vast array of instruments never swamp the songs and the playing and production is as sharp as the songs themselves.
Popping Pills isn’t Americana or alt-country, it’s country pure ‘n’ simple. If this makes you think of Garth ‘n’ Billy – all silly hats, too tight jeans and achy, breaky hearts then you really need to open your ears, hearts and minds. If on the other hand you’re thinking Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, George Jones et al then Popping Pills is the real deal. I could lapse into clichés and suggest that Popping Pills is best suited to late nights with a bottle of (rye) whisky and an overflowing ashtray but there are such a wide range of emotions, moods and tempos contained within these eleven songs – love, elation, longing, disappointment, heartbreak – that it transcends closing time.
(somethinggoingon.co.uk)