From the grimy underbelly of Pittsburgh’s music scene emerges Mirakler, a harsh sonic concoction of sweet, steamrolling riffs and pain-exuding vocals. With a sound landing somewhere between the edginess of Today Is The Day and the rawness of Nirvana, they’re on the cusp of unveiling their debut full-length album, “How I Became the Devil“, set for release on June 23rd via Reptilian Records.
The music of Mirakler paints a picture steeped in grim tones, a musical panorama born out of the richly dark and weird niches of Pittsburgh, a city teeming with diverse soundscapes. Mirakler has managed to distill these myriad influences into a uniquely challenging and yet undeniably engaging body of work. Today, we’re stoked to give you their new track “Kenny”, a haunting ode to a lost friend. The track offers a heart-rending insight into the mental toll of grief.
Frontman Daniel Gene candidly discloses the song’s genesis, painting a somber picture of coping with loss and the searing absence of closure. “Are we simply ghosts haunting ghosts, like the song suggests?” he ponders, reflecting the song’s visceral exploration of sorrow.
The new track follows in the wake of their previous offering, premiered by Invisible Oranges, who lauded the band’s ability to evoke “the crushing sense of anguish that accompanies sludge and perhaps the sounds of primordial grunge from the late ‘80s into a pained concoction that attacks the senses beyond the ears.”
Mirakler is not a band confined to the studio. Their Northeast tour in July, which includes dates with Cherubs, testifies to their drive to bring their music directly to their fans, face-to-face. This tour will culminate in their performance at the No Coast Fest in Texas in October, where their grimy tones and steamrolling riffs are set to set the stage alight.
Despite the band’s relentless schedule, Mirakler’s frontman, Daniel Gene, has found the time to put together a unique and engaging top five list, not of songs or albums, but of moves in the classic game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. These move rankings, presented below, not only give a peek into the playful side of the frontman but also offer up anecdotes and stories that hint at the experiences and influences that shape Mirakler’s music.
From memories of teenage angst and discovering his songwriting abilities, to his first concert experience that merged chaos with the sheer joy of live music, Gene takes us on a fascinating journey. Much like Mirakler’s music, Gene’s stories resist convention, offering up a perspective that is as unique as it is enthralling.
As you delve into Gene’s quirky rankings and stories below, you’re not only getting a glimpse into the mind behind Mirakler’s raw sound, but also gaining an understanding of the life experiences that help to shape it.
So without further ado, here are the Top 5 Moves in Rock/Paper/Scissors according to Daniel Gene of Mirakler…
Daniel Gene’s Top 5 Moves in Rock/Paper/Scissors
5. PAPER
Paper is a fairly bullshit play because most people ultimately just turn it into a fist and make a rock anyhow, depending on what they see thrown out against them. Never use paper. Anyhow, it kind of reminds me of my childhood best friend’s paper route. We would grab his Valterra skateboards and head out around the neighborhood, whipping papers around with reckless abandon. The boards were crazy wide loads: too fat assed to to any tricks on, or at least that’s what I told myself. I couldn’t even ollie on a normal deck. I sucked. But I could balance well enough and cruise down big hills and that made me feel cool. He would bring his walkman around and we’d listen to the CD’s he’d dubbed down to cassette. There was always a certain portion of his route where he’d relinquish his headphones over to me. I don’t recall why. All I remember is the one day he brought Suicidal Tendencies and I was geeked, and I was listening and thinking “What the fuck is this shit?”, and I popped the tape out and sure enough it said “Suicidal Tendencies” on it. What bizarro world was I in?! Turns out he fucked up with dubbing and it was Infectious Grooves on the one side. Fucker didn’t bother to label it correctly. What the hell did he think that little sticker label was there for? To be fair, I wouldn’t let anyone know I took the time to dub fucking Infectious Grooves either, so.
Similarly, there was also the time I got to rock some Danzig, and “I Am The Wolf” was on, and let’s just say I’d gladly listen to a wolf attempt to sing or play music than be forced to listen to that goddamn song. I’d say FIGHT ME, but we are civilized here, and clearly settle our scores with Rock/Paper/Scissors.
4. SCISSORS
This is a surprising play to some. What will first catch many as a simple peace sign, is actually a symbol for a device made to cut their heart out and take an early lead in the game. It also reminds me of Eddie Vedder… although it shouldn’t. Growing up I was always under the assumption that his leg tattoo was that of a pair of scissors, and thirteen year old me was willing and ready to convince all my classmates that I too had the brilliant idea of always wanting scissors tattooed on my inner calf. Why? Who knows! Maybe so when I was standing in the lunch line I could skip the mundane “What do scissors do?” joke and instead just point to my leg and, upon the acknowledgment of the unfortunate person standing in front of me, jump ahead in line and be one step closer to some burnt beef-a-roni. It was only a few years later that I found out that Ed-Ved’s tattoo was actually a crossed wrench and a tomahawk. Could’ve got the scissors after all…
This in itself, reminds me of how, just a few years later, I’d find myself in my first band, writing lyrics, struggling of course as a fourteen year old with teenage angst and all that shit. And I remember finally penning this song that just hit home and felt right. There was this one lyric I remember well: “I can see the end is near, I won’t rest, my head’s not clear.” Classic fourteen year old nonsense. Then Alice in Chains dropped Dirt, and Sickman came out and there was a lyric in it that was almost identical to mine. My bassist called me out and I was like “I wrote that a year ago, dude!”. At first I was flattered because I remember thinking, “I’m on Layne’s level!”. But it was shortly after that I realized “Oh, shit, maybe he’s on mine…”. I still think that Facelift rules and if I was making a Top 5 all time songs, Would would be on it three times.
3. PAPER
I don’t know how Paper made its second appearance already. As we all know: PAPER COVERS ROCK. Coincidentally, there was a time where this was literally true, and there were a shit ton of zines and tangible publications where, if you wanted to hear the latest about things like whether or not Dave Mustaine had found the mirror that tells him he is the fairest of them all, you’d turn to a printed publication of sorts. Like, ACTUAL PAPER.
Sometimes this was a super small niche zine and sometimes it was run by a cute girl with a Cure obsession. My high school had one called Pathos that I wrote some poems for. The founding editor took up an issue with me about one of these poems. Rightfully so. Tenth grade me was a pain in the ass. For the record: I don’t like tenth grade me. Anyhow, my poem was titled “I’m Sorry”: a bunch of pathetic droolings that were, in fact, written about her and how I liked her. She knew this. I ended the poem with the lines “I’m sorry you don’t see me in the same light you are viewed. I’m sorry you don’t love me. I’m sorry I love you”. Tenth grade. Sad. Cheesy. Pathetic. I remember it well. I also remember her hitting me with something along the lines of “You don’t really love me. How can you say these things? You don’t really know me.” I remember feeling really stupid (and again, sorry…) and being all “Yeah, I get it, but, you know, it’s kind of just, like, creative license, because, you know, if I said ‘I’m sorry you don’t like me, I’m sorry I like you’ it just doesn’t have any ring to it… And you’re right I don’t know you at all, which is valid, but it’s kind of like how you love Robert Smith and don’t really know him, but you’re pretty into the image you have of him, you know?”. I did learn that I needed to become a better writer tho… Looking back at it, I probably needed to get punched.
2. ROCK
At its very core, Rock is a fist and should rank highly just for this fact. You can win this stupid game with violence if you wanted to. You can also punch your past aforementioned tenth grade self in the face repeatedly with said fist. Since I don’t care much for violence, we will focus on the rock and stupid aspects I’ve illustrated thus far. My first concert was a memorable one, albeit a stupid one. I was 13 and it was a big tour where I’m pretty sure Spin Doctors were the headliners, but I was going more for both Soul Asylum and Screaming Trees. I was looking forward to witnessing Mark Lanegan’s voice of a constipated angel live. Instead, I got one of the Conner brothers rocking out a little too close to the edge of the stage and mindlessly falling off mid-song. The other brother didn’t miss a beat. He kept playing, walked over, extended an arm to pull his brother up, and instead was dragged down into the pit area as well. Set was over. NEXT. Again, I was 13 and that’s how I remember it. It was pure chaos and I loved it. I couldn’t wait to see what happened to the clown from the Spin Doctors.
I hope it happened how my brain tells me it did. I don’t recall which brother fell first. This was pre-cellphone era. This wasn’t documented on socials within minutes. I couldn’t check this the next day to verify my recollection. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they played three encores and dipped back into the SST catalog and the crowd got lost and bored and wandered off for nachos. This was during my gas huffing phase so who knows…
1. PAPER
This is an easy number one. Anyone who tells you otherwise simply cannot be trusted and is a fool. Much like Rock can be a fist, this can be a karate chop if you want to get violent, but again, don’t get violent. It reminds me again of reading, specifically occupying time as a child plopped down on the toilet. I’d lock myself away in the bathroom on the shitter and read anything and everything about my favorite bands, or my soon to be favorite bands, as formerly mentioned, typically in some magazine or zine. I recall once reading that Guided by Voices lifted their lyrics from a Reader’s Digest, and I took this at face value, assuming this to be literally true. How cool was that? Not to mention absurd… I loved it. Or, maybe I liked it and was being too dramatic. I was growing up, remember. Who knows. Soon, I had read everything, and I moved on to the lyrics included with CD inserts. After that, I said fuck it and just took an acoustic guitar in with me. Hell, I was already just sitting there hanging out, not even really doing what I had came to do in the first place, so I might as well write some music. I’d sit there strumming some bullshit chords for well over an hour, just hogging bathroom time selfishly. Look where it got me. At some point tho, I’d wind up needing, you guessed it: PAPER. Time to wipe.
Mirakler live shows:
July 13 – Philadelphia, PA @ Breadbox
July 14 – North Bergen, NJ @ North Bergen VFW
July 15 – Wilmington, DE @ Squeezebox Records
July 16 – Willimantic, CT @ Willimantic Records
July 17 – Troy, NY @ Troy Speakeasy
July 18 – Manchester, NH @ Thrive Outdoors
July 19 – Cambridge, MA @ Zuzu
July 20 – Washington, DC @ The Runaway (w/ Cherubs)
July 21 – Baltimore, MD @ The Crown (w/ Cherubs)
July 22 – Richmond, VA @ Cobra Cabana
Oct 21 – Denton, TX @ No Coast Fest
