By Eleni P. Austin
“This song is just a metaphor for every song you’ve heard before, it’s a symbol of mankind’s search for meaning, the melody is counterfeit, I cannot find the shape of it, it’s just an empty currency on which this song is leaning, and it’s all for you, it’s all for you…” That’s Milo Binder tilting toward self-deprecation on “It’s All For You,” a song off his new album, that apparently, he wrote just for me. (Okay, maybe he wrote them for you too.)
Back in 1988, when I was a nubile, Bitch Goddess in-training, my newest musical obsession was a quirky L.A. four-piece called The Balancing Act. The first time I saw them play (at The Roxy, in a room full of hipper-than-thou music industry weasels), they were sublime. They also introduced me to two new favorites, their opening acts, Victoria Williams and Milo Binder.
I quickly backtracked and bought Vic’s two albums, but Milo was more elusive. It would be a couple of years before his hugely satisfying self-titled debut would arrive, via Alias Records. It would be 34 years before I would hear him again.
Milo (ne’ Todd Lawrence) grew up in Encino. A child of the ‘70s, his earliest musical inspirations came from the radio during the era when the singer-songwriter movement era took hold. He regularly raided his (divorced) parents’ record collections digging into Isaac Hayes, Rufus & Chaka Khan, Pink Floyd, Dory Previn and Elton John. A Cat Stevens record rested on the mantle in his father’s divorced-dad pad. He took it all in.
By age 10, he began taking guitar lessons, apparently locking himself in a room and practicing until he became proficient. He joined and quit a few bands during adolescence until he connected with a few like-minded guys, including John Schillaci on guitar and trumpet, and they formed Blue Morning. He had already begun writing his own songs, and the band played around L.A. before amicably parting ways.
It was John who encouraged Milo to go solo, offering to manage him. At some point they both connected with Cindy Lamb, a writer from the L.A. Reader, who insisted they HAD TO go see The Balancing Act. At the show, he met Willie and soon became acquainted with the other guys in the band. Gigging around town under the nom de Rock, Milo Binder, he quickly cultivated a passionate fan base.
Milo signed with respected San Francisco indie label, Alias, recorded and released his debut and hit the road. His music displayed a quicksilver wit, and he knew his way around a hook. His sound was decidedly acoustic, but never laid-back, hewing more closely to Peter Case than James Taylor.
Just as he began working on his second album and had met Julie, his soulmate, he was dealt a couple of deadly blows. Inexplicably, he was dropped by his label, (at the dawn of the Grunge era, perhaps they were looking for their own version of Nirvana). More devastating, Milo’s friend, mentor, champion and manager, John Schillaci was killed in a car wreck, leaving behind friends, and family, including a six-week-old infant.
Completely bereft following this personal and professional (the masters for his new album were in John’s car and were never recovered) tragedy, Milo put his music career on the backburner. Newly married, Julie was determined to leave L.A. and start a family, so the couple relocated in 1994. When their older daughter was born with profound disabilities, it felt as though the universe had signaled that the peripatetic life of a working musician was no longer in the cards. He fully embraced family life and seldom looked back.
In the ensuing decades, he rarely picked up a guitar. In the early days of social networking, people would find him and ask him to play a show every once and awhile, but it seemed as though songwriting was in the rearview. Five years ago, he felt inspired to create a song-cycle for kids and adults, along the lines of Harry Nilsson’s The Point or the Disney story records he listened to as a child. Collaborating with old compadre Willie Aron, Milo created the story and they wrote the music and lyrics together for what became Paisley & The Firefly.
Completing that project, convinced Milo that -to paraphrase Kiki Dee- he still had the music in him. Not long after, Covid hit and he began writing songs in earnest. He played his new stuff for Willie, who insisted on producing his sophomore effort, The Unspeakable Milo Binder.
The record opens with the one-two punch of “I Should Be Your Man” and “Skywriters.” On the former, sun dappled acoustic guitars lattice willowy piano notes. Droll lyrics spin a yarn that weaves Old Testament wisdom with some pragmatic dating advice: “Well, Moses he came down the mountain his beard as gray as sand, gave me 10 good reasons why I should be your man…In dreams I walked the desert, I sailed the salted sea, I came upon a burning bush, it spoke these words to me, it said ‘only one thing certain about God’s majestic plan,’ and baby, I should be your man.”
The latter dips back into childhood reveries recalling an era before Helicopter Moms had over-scheduled kids taking practice SAT tests in kindergarten. As rippling guitars connect with pliant piano, thrumming bass and a chunky beat, Milo unspools a scene that sharply captures those pre-adolescent moments when we allowed our minds to wander: “It was the middle of summer, not to much to do, but the grass was green and the sky was blue, so you lie with your sweatshirt stuck under your head, and the whole backyard was just a four-poster bed/Just as sure as skywriting would fade from the sky, August was plotting to murder July, I was pulling the needles out of my mama’s cactus, just wondering where do skywriters’ practice.” 12-string guitar riffs ascend with a chiming jingle-jangle, dovetailing lush piano and a groovy bongo beat on the break. A sly meditation on aging, our shifting priorities and the whimsical obsessions that remain a throughline: “Now I was never that big on ambition, I was wired like a car with a faulty ignition, always running in circles moving round and round, that’s how I lost every job that I ever found, but I never did understand anyway why we trade so much time for so little pay, when I’d trade all the money I have in my mattress if you could just tell me where skywriters practice.”
At least three tracks were written in the early ‘90s, designated for his ill-fated second album. “Tipped-Over Night” is bare-bones, but potent, as shimmery accordion shadows splintery guitars. Milo’s mien is conversational as he tries to unpack an evening of sybaritic excess: “The Aquarius moon descended too soon, with hilarious resolve we tried to un-sing the tune, and now a song of regret in the day’s minuet, you’d think we learned, but we haven’t learned yet.” As the song winds down, it’s confirmed that reckless behavior comes at a cost: “Oh, what a terrible night, one more thing I can never make right, when love spilled out all over and hardened to spite, on a sad, tipped over night, on a sad, tipped-over dead drunk and tripped over, splattered, slipped over night.” Even as the Buddha And The Chocolate Box album was a touchstone from his childhood, “Don’t Fly Away” shares some musical DNA with “Sad Lisa” a Cat Stevens deep cut from his Tea For The Tillerman. Acoustic guitars coalesce around bass, piano and percussion. Lyrics sketch out a sad-sack saga of an insecure guy trying to prevent his lover from flying the not-so friendly skies: “When you touch down only time will tell, who’ll be there to meet you at the baggage carousel, at the carousel you might be heard to say ‘I’ve made a big mistake,’ please don’t fly away.”
“Unspeakable” is equally stripped-down, anchored by strumming see-saw guitars. Lyrics drill down on the notion that what we say and what we think are often times completely antithetical: “Well, sometimes it seems like it’s just ‘neath the surface, and sometimes it feels like it’s miles away, still I always felt there was some hidden purpose, that was hiding behind all the things that we say that spring from our mind, stick in our throat, sometimes they can set us to chokin’ and we will ever breathe easy again should the unspeakable be spoken.” Social hypocrisy is the uneasy compact we make, but at what cost: “The pleasures of flesh, finance and folklore, the endless attempts made to jimmy the heart, these are the things we think we live for, but these are the things that kept us apart/They’ve distracted our eyes to the giant that lies beside us and must be awoken, will you walk with me into the light, with the truth of it out in plain sight, knowing there’s no turning back if tonight the unspeakable is spoken.”
The action slows on a couple tracks allowing Milo to get close-up and personal. Atop pensive acoustic guitars and keening keys, “Our Little War” examines the breakdown of a marriage. It was inspired, in part, by his parents, relationship before and after their divorce. With just a few deft turns of phrase, lyrics paint a vivid portrait of a couple at odds: “In our little war, there are battles we fight and battles we choose to ignore, then we turn out the light, put ‘em away in the nightstand drawer/We just go along to get along, till we can’t ignore something’s wrong, then we’re kneeling on the killing floor, and each night is the longest day in our little war.”
“Green Coin Purse” feels like a companion piece of sorts. A Country-flavored lament, the instrumentation is a graceful blend of chugging guitar, lilting harpsichord and piano, wily bass lines and ticklish percussion. Bittersweet lyrics offer a brutal post-mortem sans remorse: “Search through your mind, what did you find hidden in there, what kind of clue told on you and your latest affair, what tiny detail did you fail to destroy or conceal look in your green purse for tonight’s big reveal.”
The best songs here stack back-to-back in the middle of the record. “Mine” is a mordant meditation powered by spare acoustic and electric guitars, plus a bit of sturdy bass. Alone with his thoughts, Milo compartmentalizes all other commitments and concentrates on himself: “The clock was unwinding, the moon arched it’s back and the stars were rubbing their eyes, somewhere the sun was getting his beauty sleep/I circled the party and made my goodbyes, out in the street, just me and a billboard tried to sell me a bottle of wine, and tomorrow I’ll be a man of good taste, tonight, I’m nobody’s man but mine.”
The aforementioned “It’s All For You” is a shaggy Rocker that fuses ragged acoustic strumming with jaggy electric riffs, fluid bass lines, tart organ runs and a springy backbeat. Meta-modern lyrics get down to the nuts and bolts of songwriting: “And now here comes the second verse, stalking like the mummy’s curse, it’s threatening to lose its way completely…. it’s not about the money, who would pay it? And I’m hoping dear that you’ll see through the song and dance I do, I sing it so I don’t have to say it, and it’s all for you, it’s all for you dear, and it’s all for you, it’s all for you.”
Meanwhile, if the Beach Boys ever wrote a Doo-Wop song, it might sound like “I Asked The World.” Stacked harmonies lattice shivery synths, plush keys, pastoral guitars and lithe bass lines. Lyrics start out questioning our place in the universe, before determining “all the questions would fade and the answer would be you.”
The album’s final couple of songs offer tender benedictions to his daughters. On “You And Your Boyfriend,” slinky guitars wrap around ethereal celeste, buoyant ukulele and hushed organ notes. Watching their fledging leave the nest, Milo puts irony on pause and merely speaks from the heart: “Now I and your mother, we’ll both miss you so, we’re proud of your new life, but it’s hard to let go, and I guess it’s just nature or something like that, sends you off with your boyfriend and your brand-new cat, you and your boyfriend and your brand-new cat, may sweetness surround you wherever you’re at.”
Finally, on “You Must Break The Heart” feathery guitars are matched by airy organ notes and plaintive piano. Sagacious lyrics take some of the sting out of that inevitable rite of passage by likening it to the practice of breaking horses: “And you must understand nobody is immune, from its first faint beat, it’s sure that hurt will follow soon, and a heart untried will die inside a little bit each afternoon, no you can’t shield the heart, because life won’t yield the heart, you must break the heart.” Finger-picked guitar lines up with plangent piano on the break, nearly camouflaging the ache. It’s a quiescent finish to a record that’s been a long time coming.
More than 30 years ago, Milo set aside his musical ambitions to concentrate on family life, and all the glorious highs and lows that accompany those commitments. Now he has returned, all of his protean gifts intact. Thanks, in part, to Willie’s adroit production and stellar musicianship, he’s come up with The Unspeakable Milo Binder. A 12-song set that is richer and more nuanced than all that came before. There’s something kind of beautiful about that.
