Tib of the Iceberg

Shelton Hull December 1, 2022Feature

Tib of the Iceberg

Tib Miller helped put Jacksonville back on the musical map

Words by Shelton Hull

If you’ve spent any significant amount of time attending concerts in Northeast Florida, it would be almost certain that you’ve been to at least one show promoted by Flying Saucer Presents. I can certainly name a few, but my favorite was probably Yo La Tengo and the Sun Ra Arkestra at the Florida Theatre, back in 2011, I believe. There was also Ani DiFranco at the same building, a decade earlier, as well as The Breeders (my favorite band ever) in Ponte Vedra in 2019.

FSP was the brainchild of ace promoter Tib Miller, who passed away on Tuesday, November 15, following a long battle with bone cancer. He waged this final fight so quietly and with so little fuss that many of his closest friends had no idea that he was sick. This made the news of his death even more shocking, coming near the end of a year, 2022, that has seen more notable losses in the local arts and music scene than probably any other year in history.

The news slowly filtered through the local and extended music scene as the week wore on, and the response was universal: deep sadness, and deeper gratitude to a local legend. I was informed of his death that Thursday morning by his friend Liz McCoy, the Executive Director of James Weldon Johnson Park. “Tib’s knowledge, love and respect for music and musicians is what made him a great promoter,” she says. “He took great care of every artist that performed on stage, whether they were a Grammy-winning headliner or a local artist, and earned their respect and admiration as well. He also loved to share his passion for music either by spinning his collection of 45’s before a show, or just talking about music over a good bottle of red wine. I think the entirety of NEFL will miss the music he shared with us.”

McCoy sent me a spreadsheet that she’d gotten from him a while back. It contains 410 names, just a partial list of the many, MANY musicians and comedians he’d promoted through Flying Saucer Presents over the years. Most of these people would have never come here, or come back here, if not for his personal direction. It’s a fascinating document, and a compelling piece of local music history; I’d advise all future promoters to do this as well.

WJCT printed the list in full, but highlights include legends like Mose Allison, Marcia Ball, The B-52’s, The Breeders, Junior Brown, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Clarence Carter, Roseanne Cash, Boozoo Chavis, CJ Chenier, Cyrus Chestnut, Elvis Costello, Marshall Crenshaw, Dick Dale, Kimya Dawson, Ani DiFranco, Dr. John, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Guided By Voices, Merle Haggard, Indigo Girls, Lake Street Dive, Bill Maher, Christian McBride, Seth Meyers, The Mountain Goats (Dave Hargrove’s favorite band), Graham Nash, Shannon Ogden, NRBQ, Van Dyke Parks, Billy Joe Shaver, Lonnie Smith, Taj Mahal, Trombone Shorty, Suzanne Vega, Loudon Wainright III, John Waters, Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Yo La Tengo and Jessi Zazu. Many of these artists have already preceded him in death.

Some were rising stars in the industry, but many were established veterans. Promoters like Miller helped many of these older artists remain active and on the road, long after their commercial peaks had passed. Over and over, colleagues reiterated that Miller never cared that much about ticket sales–but it is a business, after all, so over time Miller’s own passion for the work became as much a part of the FSP brand and the artists themselves.

Miller moved here from the Northeast a quarter-century ago, and made himself a fixture in the local music scene almost immediately. “Tib Miller was enigmatic yet generous,” says Darren Ronan, leader of the 77d’s and owner of the Ronan School of Music. “He was generous in giving local musicians the opportunity to open for, and meet, the great artists he brought in. His support for local music is almost unheard of by a promoter in today’s world.”

As a music writer myself, I’ve known him for over 20 years, and of course he did a ton of business with Folio and EU, which together must have published hundreds of articles about the concerts he promoted. Folio featured him on the cover with an article by Nick McGregor way back in June 2012. He always had something interesting going on. Oddly for a man so active in the community, he didn’t use social media very much; his last Facebook post was for an Indigo Girls concert way back in January 2013.

Tib belongs on the same list as people like Tim Hall, Erik Hart, Jason Lewis, Ray Lewis, Ryan Murphy and others. Very few people ever promoted more shows in this region than Miller did, and they were of an almost uniformly high quality. Miller promoted for almost every major or minor venue in Northeast Florida in this century, including the Blue Jay Listening Room, Florida Theatre, Intuition Ale Works, Murray Hill Theatre, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall, The Ritz, St. Augustine Amphitheatre, the former Times-Union Center and numerous other places. Along the way, he brought some of the most important musical acts in history to this area.

“He had impeccable taste and just an insatiable curiosity about music,” says musician Matt Shaw, a former editor of Folio who now runs the Jacksonville Music Experience, over at WJCT. (He wrote an excellent tribute to Miller, which is definitely worth your time.) “He was humble and had a really moral and ethical outlook about how to sustain and build the local music scene. He was really conscious about what shows to put at what venues, because he really saw the scene as a fragile ecosystem that really required stewardship.”

Miller’s efforts helped inspire a new generation of concert promoters, whose own work has brought the Northeast Florida scene to new heights of acclaim. For example, Ryan Murphy, who was the brains behind the St. Augustine Amphitheatre for several years, before moving to run The Orion in Huntsville last year. “Tib not only was one of the purest, independent and visionary promoters in North Florida,” says Murphy, “but he was also a magical human being. I was lucky enough to begin working with Tib in 2012 when we first did a WILCO show together at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre. And we co-promoted hundreds of shows after that.”

The loyalty that Tib showed to the artists he loved was reciprocated by those artists, as well as others fixtures in a scene that can be highly competitive, at best, and dysfunctional, at worst. “Tib knew a good song and a good musician when he heard them, and conversely, could tell immediately if someone wasn’t being honest in their music,” says Ronan.

“Tib was a mentor, a friend and someone I could talk to about music, life, food, art and anything that fills the soul,” says Murphy. “He was a dear friend to my entire family; he was even the DJ at my wedding. He was a force of nature, and someone who single-handedly changed the culture of North Florida forever. I am a better person because I knew him and had the honor to work with him…and call him a friend.”

“If you’ve been to a show and seen a band that surprised you or bought tickets to something where you thought, wow I can’t believe this artist is coming to Jacksonville,” says Shaw, “it’s likely Tib booked the show.” This will remain true, well into the new year. The family he leaves behind includes a son, Gram, and his daughter Pepper; she will continue his legacy as head of Flying Saucer Presents. They have a full slate of shows scheduled for 2023 (including Belle and Sebastian), and we’ll be sure to keep you all informed.

“As the months pass and music lovers in Jacksonville begin to realize the tours of many great artists are passing right by us,” says Ronan, “then they will feel how profound the loss of Tib Miller is to them – even if they never met him.”

https://www.wjct.org/jme/2022/11/tib-miller-obituary/

https://www.flyingsaucerpresents.org/