I process through writing. And, right now, sharing these words and sharing Miles in every way possible feels important for me. I want everyone to see and know how big this loss is. I need us all to grieve him and praise him together.

The duality of grief and praise were important to Miles. He loved duality. He was brave enough to hold both the darkness and the light at the same time. Do you all remember the yin yang earring he wore for years?

In the past 7 days, I have said the word “no” thousands and thousands of times. “No, no no, please no” has become a mantra. And also, I have said, “I love you, I love you, I love you” thousands and thousands of times. That, also, has become a mantra.

Miles and I met in 2011, at a party in Philly. I was a train wreck of a person at the time. We talked and laughed and I got drunk and embarrassing and I wanted him to fall in love with me right then + there and I made that clear. We’d known each other for 2 hours. But nothing happened. He was a man of deep integrity and this was in no way the right time.

On March 7, 2012 I got an email. A year later, out of the clear blue, I got an email from Miles saying that for a year, he’d been thinking about me. He signed it, “why the fuck not.”

My immediate response to him was “If I woke up with my head stapled to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am right now.” And my phone number. And, we were off.

A month later, he was at my house in Delaware for the weekend. A month after that, we had made plans for me to move in to his place in Los Angeles.

Some day soon, I will write about all of the years in between 2012 and right now to try to capture our collective timelines. There was so much.

But there are two things that I keep returning to right now, urgently.

ONE: Miles was a nomad and, knowing or unknowing, he prepared us all to be physically far from him. Even before touring with Akron/Family, he was not a homemaker, never a nester - his life was in constant movement, geographically and in every way.

The week that I moved to LA, he left on tour. When Akron/Family stopped touring, he began his musical journey with his Italian family. When Covid hit a year ago, and we were together in LA in lockdown, we realized that these 7 months were the longest consecutive months we’d ever lived together. In almost 10 years.

In our early years together, the distance was hard for me because I was so full of fear that he would leave me. From the first moment we met (hence, me drinking myself into fake-brave oblivion that very first night) I was so deeply in love with him and so certain that he would realize I wasn’t worthy.

I wish that I could take back all of the wasted time I spent with this fear. He was never anything but loving and devoted. I was playing out my self-consciousness on him and, my god, what a waste of time when we could have just been having fun.

After that first year or two, I started really building my own life in LA - a life separate from him and us and focused on my work and my communities.

In some ways, I did it to protect myself from the fear of losing him to the road. I leaned hard into self-sufficiency to stop the gnawing pain and fear that he wasn’t really mine.

But mostly, I did it because I liked it. I like living alone. I like building things and making myself impossibly busy and diving deep into communities and experimenting with huge life changes. So did he.

Whenever anyone would find out about our 2-months-together, 2-months-in-different-countries marriage, they’d say one of two things. Either, “oh wow, that must be so hard” or “huh, that actually sounds like a pretty great setup.”

And just like the duality that Miles loved so much - it was both. It was hard and painful and complex. It changed our relationship, and it changed both of us. And it was wonderful and liberating and perfect. Not either/or, but both/and.

TWO: In the fall, Miles and I started having some hard conversations about marriage. Thank you, Covid. Without months together and weeks without work, I don’t know when we would have had these discussions.

At no point were these talks coming from a lack of love. Even in the hardest moments, there was so much love. Crying and hearts ripped open, we both still said, “this shit is so hard and I am so hurt, but I love you because that is deeper than any of this.”

Understanding how our love fit into the structure of marriage and monogamy and domesticity was a struggle for me. What did those things have to do with our love? How did it serve either of us to live in celibacy or fear of feelings for others while living apart for months? Why would that matter, when our love for each other was obviously so much bigger than anything? And, shit. We were both punks at heart - why would we ever look to the state to sanction our love through marriage?

The idea that I forced us to ask these questions now feels like a petty excuse to cause pain and live without consequence. In the moment, I thought they were important to us both living our most authentic and liberated lives.

It’s hard to feel regret over that, because in the past few months, Miles was happier + more joyful than he had been in years.

And here’s the thing: WE DID IT. We were separated for 5 months and had painful, impossible conversations during that time. And, we came through it with a deeper and braver version “us” then we ever imagined. By January, we were sharing more honestly than ever before and our love was still huge and we couldn’t wait to spend time together in this new version of us. He was driving to LA for our reunion when he died. I still am unable to accept this reality.

Because Miles valued true, real connection even when it was hard; because he was courageous; because he wanted the real shit; we found ourselves in this new place on February 17, 2021 when he died. And this gift of closeness-over-comfort was how he was inside of every relationship he had, not just ours.

In true Miles fashion, the turmoil didn’t tear us apart because he wasn’t willing to hide from it. And he wasn’t willing to let me hide from it either. This is how he loved me and this is how he loved everyone he knew: by trusting that we could handle the terrifying depths, by taking our hands in his, by walking into the fire with us and, if we were willing to do the courageous work, by helping us emerge brighter and closer and braver and more full of life than we could have ever imagined.

I am just starting to unpack the millions of gifts and lessons that Miles shared with all of us. I am so grateful that I can spend this time grieving by also reflecting on this. The depth of this loss is only a mirror of the love he inspired in us all.

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A beautiful memorial from Miles’ collaborators in Akron/Family. Click here.

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FRIENDSHIP IS NOT AN ALGORITHM, and DEATH IS A REAL THING.

A walk with Miles Cooper Seaton, who lived on Planet Earth between October 23rd, 1979 and February 17th, 2021.

When I read the first articles published on Friday morning, my body was overwhelmed by a feeling of great confusion: who was that person they were talking about? Angel had texted me that Miles had lost his Life in a car accident during the night, and I couldn't believe it. Then friends started sending me articles from American websites with quotes and memoirs from people that he never mentioned, with pictures dating back almost ten years, as if they ignored where he lived and what he did since 2013 until the day before the accident. Was that person they were talking about really my Friend Miles?

Only then I understood that I had never met that indie-rock musician mentioned in those articles. I met a person called Miles Cooper Seaton, and I forgot that he ran away precisely from that world that wanted him like he didn't feel like being.

I met my Friend Miles Cooper Seaton on June 19th, 2014, on the eve of the first edition of our festival Lessinia Psych fest. I couldn't have imagined that he would have become one of my best friends back then, but I must admit that I hoped it somehow. For some reason, with some people, it's all completely natural even before it happens. Pippo and I went to pick him up at the station on the legendary Skoda; I told him that we had already met each other two years before at Interzona, and he said that he remembered it, but I didn't believe him. We took the huge backpack that he was travelling with around Italy for a month and a half, we got onto the car, and we went smiling towards so many adventures that not even a crazy book could tell. It went just like that: I planned a concert with one of the best booking agents (thanks very much to Marco/Wakeupanddream!) with an artist I knew about because he played in the Akron/Family (that I liked and I appreciated but I didn't follow). Fast forward a few months later, organizing his first Italian tour, not knowing we would have spent three months recording in our home studio on Monti Lessini, leaving only for some concerts around Italy.

I immediately understood that there was something special in the air; I trusted my instinct, mainly because this goblin from LA and Seattle was putting himself in my hands. I didn't even know why, and I'm still asking myself why he did so! When I was planning his first Italian trip's details, I would sometimes talk with Pippo and tell him: do you think there is something up? Why does such a well-known musician, who has just played worldwide with worldwide famous indie-rock artists, want to come with us to Vaggimal for one or two months? Is there something I'm missing? We barely know him; we have been together for only two beautiful days in Lessinia. Is he maybe "going too fast"?

Then, he landed again in Italy six years ago in March, this time to stay. And it was at that time that I understood who I was dealing with. Of course, he was "going too fast"! That was Miles.

Any prejudice, any judgment, any cliché, any qualm disappeared with him: he would go straight to the point, directly to the eyes, right to the heart. The musician with a blog, with a great career, with international collaborations and notorious festivals, was left in America. He was a crazy one, ready to go straight to the heart of "things" among us.

We set the home studio of Vaggimal up; it was the dining room, entirely in the dark, so that when we played, we were forced to hear each other with ears and hearth. He said that the goal was to create a mutual sound, in which it would not have been possible to distinguish which came from who. Back then, I couldn't have known that it would have become one of my Life's goals, not only in music! And how much since then it impresses me when I meet musicians who play together, aiming for the exact opposite! One evening Miles let us argue: I screamed something rude at Ambro, and he answered harshly. In the beginning, Miles remained quiet. After a while, he became earnest and told us: this is the place where we play; this is a sacred place. If you have to argue, do it, but go out and leave it outside the door.

Of course, I can't tell here even the tiniest part of what we lived together. Miles has been the first person I've met who knew more about music than me and who could show me exactly what I was looking for. Pippo always called him "the accelerator". Miles has been the first musician I've played with who played a lot better than me, in the way I would have liked to play when I was 25 years old (not that I was particularly good at it or that I had met many musicians). Miles has been the only person that understood how you felt when you wanted to lead a rock band to success, without being able and wanting to be a "traditional" leader. He never hid that he saw in us C+C the story of his band and firmly believed that he could have helped us not make the same mistakes that they made.

From the very first moment, Miles broke down the aura of "sector professional", as we inevitably looked at him before knowing him well, to become our brotherly Friend, our roommate, the guest at the Eastern lunch at grandmas. He never gave priority to anything else than the very essence of our relationship: staying together for the joy of doing it.

Being fully there, at that moment, 100%. Everyone who met him for at least some minute can't deny it. All the people who are calling me and writing to me since last Friday are confirming that.

Like everyone, he had a complex personality, which he never hid from those close to him (sometimes 15 minutes were enough to be close to him). His selective filter was a sort of test: if you can stand me, we will do great things together. He tested you, as he let you test him.

Everyone has a choice in Life, and he decided to devote his to the complexity of being alive. He decided to go deep instead of remaining on the surface and ignoring the treasures that can be found near and far.

With Miles, I condensed in six years so much energy, adventures, wonders, happy and sad moments comparable only to those of a lifelong friendship.

One year ago, we decided to take a break – if it is possible to apply this formula to friendship. I always thought being in a band is like being in a relationship in which more than two people are involved; in the same way, I felt that our relationship was very similar to a romantic one for some aspects. We truly loved each other, and there's no need to involve the sexual sphere to make this feeling more valid. We loved each other and, like two lovers who needed to breathe some fresh air, we took a break and walked on different paths for a while.

When I heard about his unexpected Death, I couldn't help thinking that he was already gone a year ago for me. He left all of his stuff here as if he had gone out to buy some bread. The empty cup of coffee was still on his desk. He left for Berlin for a few weeks. In the meantime, the pandemic unexpectedly spread out, and he was forced to leave for the USA with the last available flight before they were all cancelled, and he didn't manage to come back home to Veronetta. He reasonably decided to go back to Leanne, and we were very happy for them. Since then, we have texted a little, and we shared only one vocal note. We made a video call with Pippo in August 2020.

I think that true friendship is also this: giving each other time to think, breathe, and understand whatever you have to. I've never doubted that Miles knew that I loved him, and he loved me in return. I have often asked myself when we would see each other again, thinking he was such a crazy one.

What remained of resentment and misunderstanding slowly vanished with the seasons' flow, with the cold weather after the warm one and the rain pouring down the road. I wasn't in a rush because you got nothing to lose when you have given everything you have. You can only gain something. I was waiting for his move, and I was ready to provide whatever it would have taken.

This news painfully shocked me. As I have already said to all my worried friends who keep asking me how I feel, with shock and sadness, a mix of feeling and emotions moved within me, which are also positive and creative. Let me explain: I think that Miles had a sort of 'magic' relationship with me. I have had this kind of relationship with very few people; you can count them on the fingers of just one hand, and they're all more than 80 and 90 years old (hello there, grandmas!).

We never fought over money or stupid misunderstandings for envy or childish reasons. We surely fought badly – especially during these last years – but it was always over things we could have written in books or on which we could have found a new philosophical movement.

Miles didn't live according to society's standard rules, which he obviously abhorred and always challenged, and within which he desperately suffered.

Miles aimed at magic with every little choice, and he often drowned in an inch of water or exaggerated things. But this is how the Life of someone who goes for the unknown looks like.

He was the first person to ask me whether I would prefer to remain in the secure room of dissatisfaction or overcome my fear and open the mysterious door towards the unknown.

If I took the risk of being happy is because of you, my dear special Friend.

I cannot see what happened as a loss, mourning, and an end. Miles wouldn't have done that to anyone, and he surely wouldn't want that done to him!

Years ago, he talked to me about Death – because people like him can talk about Death the minute after they finished praising the authentic Neapolitan pizza.

I didn't understand what he was talking about, and I told him that I found Death distressing and that I was not particularly eager to talk about it. Only later, when I spontaneously approached Buddhism, I began to understand that what he was saying was part of an astounding view. I slowly get to understand it better. It surprises me that this view is so far from our culture, and it makes me sad: Death as a part of the circle of Life. It is not the end because there isn't any beginning. We shouldn't be scared of Death because it is as relevant as the sand that the rain washes away, later brought back there by the wind the next day. Only knowing what Death is, you will know what Life is. As the night permeates the day, so does the end with the beginning.

It would be simplistic and disrespectful to those who lost a husband, a son, a brother, saying that Miles had prepared me for his death. But it would be simplistic and disrespectful, also saying to Miles, "Don't be afraid, you're already dead". Miles, Miles, dude, bro, brother, General Madness, this is the biggest test, which I would have never wanted to face. But thank you for bringing me also to this; I don't think there's a better way than this to make us understand the preciousness of Life, to make us realize what and who matter in our lives.

As you already know, the Sufi teachers say that a civilized person's primary goal is leaving every place and every person he meets a little better than before their encounter: thank you for having done this to all of us.

Do you know the cool thing about the sentence "At least we still have his music"? That is entirely true.

Tob

Veronetta, 20th february 2021

(in the photo: a pheasant and the bromeoz, the day after they met for the very for first time, 20th june 2014, San Rocco di Piegara in Verona, Lessinia Psych Fest - photo by Ana Blagojevic, that from that day she became his official photographer, that means of the heart)

So much about this shop, the events, the vision, and the ideas behind this space, are a direct influence of Miles Cooper Seaton and our friendship.

We met in early 2012. He became my best friend, and the brother I never had. We spent endless hours together, shared numerous adventures, trips, delicious meals, laughs, cries, arguments, ideas, and hugs. We listened to so much amazing music including the music he made after Akron/Family. He was always so grateful for the time we spent on those recordings, the events surrounding them, and the shop install.

Whenever things got hard in my life I always felt safe if Miles was around. People who knew him know how incredibly hard he would ride for the people he loved.

We introduced each other to so many people. He held those connections so dearly. His music, love of people, ability to unite, and inspire, was a force.

I had spoken with him the morning of the night he passed. He said “I’m really looking forward to seeing you”, and I said the same. I was supposed to see him today. I’d give anything for this to be a dream, get a text from him that he was on his way to the shop right now. Then we could just get lost, find some adventures, and commence day with “Family Dinner” with Leanne.

No friend has ever known me better, accepted me so unconditionally, or pushed me harder. I feel so lucky to have been held so closely by such a loving, supportive being.

I can’t believe this is real. If you were lucky enough to have known him, honor him simply by living more intensely, and passionately. That’s ultimately what he wanted for people.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out, sent love, and support. I’m overwhelmed by the love, and I know he is too.

(Above are some personal moments we shared over the years that people aside from Leanne may not know)

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devastated and broken hearted.

on wednesday night the world lost an artist and a poet of rare sensitivity and clarity. miles was a person unlike any i’d ever met and i trust ever will again.

i lost a best friend and a light in my life that i don’t want to be without. miles’ depth of person and generosity on all levels was singular. he came into my life when i knew even less than i know now and helped me transform the way i saw myself and in turn everything else since. i am forever grateful.

miles’ vision and ideas for how we should act, communicate, and create squarely did not fit into today’s world or mesh with our time’s prevailing sentiment of inevitability. he knew we all deserved better and could have it if we wanted it, or at least talked to our neighbors.

for now, i’ll assume there’s a place more deserving of him.

tell your friends you love them.

rest in peace, miles cooper seaton.

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I eyed the band skeptically, sizing them up. The year was 2005, the band was Akron/Family, and my band was sharing a bill with them and David Grubbs as part of the East River Music Project, a series of free shows at the beautiful East River Amphitheater in Manhattan. The previous week the guys and girls in my band saw an ad in Arthur magazine announcing the debut album by this “hermetic sword-swallowing quasi-religious freak troupe” or something to that effect (this copy was likely written by Young God label head Michael Gira) and we scoffed. This was our turf. How dare these interlopers play weird, improvised, vaguely jam band-adjacent music without consulting us first? And that band name. Turns out they weren’t even from Akron!

Unfortunately, after watching the band perform, I had to eat crow. They were great. And hanging out with them afterward, I found that they were also wonderful and down to earth guys. Not a single sword swallower among them. I liked them all immediately, but it was the band’s bassist, Miles, with whom I had an instant rapport. He was shrewd and sarcastic and hilarious and we bonded over noisy punk bands like Man is the Bastard, as well as certain people in the larger scene we didn’t like. We stayed in touch.

We played many shows together over the years. “It was Waaaaaand-erful!” Miles would whisper mock-seductively after I played a solo set, lightly teasing me about my band name. Touche, Mr. Not-Actually-From-Akron.

Whenever we hung out we’d commiserate, discuss records, and talk about Big Things and Big Ideas. You didn’t really talk about the weather or the latest Netflix series with Miles. He was complicated, sincere, passionate, and inquisitive. Existential and deep, a grappler. Like me, he could also be deeply cynical, suspicious of people and skeptical about their motivations.

But here we differed a bit: My own cynicism was the complacent kind. I was typically content to merely complain, to shake my fist at the cruel and unforgiving universe and the fickle music business or whatever, feeling sorry for myself, seeking appropriate company for my misery. But Miles was different. He seemed to forever be seeking ways to transcend his natural inclinations to cynicism. Basically, he was a pessimist who worked very hard at being an optimist — a guy with a hippie heart and a punk rock mind.

When he spoke to you, Miles always — always — maintained eye contact. Those soft yet probing eyes could be very intimidating. Just because he loved you didn’t mean he wouldn’t call you out on your bullshit, but just because he called you out on your bullshit didn’t mean he didn’t love you. He’d challenge you on things you said, unafraid to disagree, and force you to examine comments you might have made flippantly or carelessly. He would have made an excellent life coach.

It makes perfect sense that Miles is the only guy I knew who went head to head with our mutual friend Michel Gira and lived to tell about it. Even after becoming close with Gira, collaborating with him as Miles had, I rarely argued with him and always remained at least a little afraid of him. Miles was not afraid of anyone.

On tour together in 2006 we played at the Knitting Factory in New York. After the gig, we both went to the back room to get paid. The promoter broke down Akron/Family’s payout. They’d sold out the show and also received some sort of bonus. It was a few thousand dollars. Then it came time for the promoter to pay me, the representative for the lowly opening band. “Here’s your $200. Goodbye.”

“God, I’m sorry man,” a visibly uncomfortable Miles said as we left. I assured him there was nothing to be sorry about, that we both knew that this is just the way it worked and neither of us were strangers to the indignity of being a support act. Anyway, I was having a ton of fun on that tour and it really was no big deal.

The next day, Miles and Seth hopped into our van and explained to us that they decided, as a band, to give us a cut of the money they made. I don’t remember if it was $500 or $1000, but it was a lot of money. Of course we tried to refuse their offer but they insisted. They said they had a band meeting about it and it was unanimous and we needed to just shut up and take the money. “You guys are out here toiling just like us, doing the same drives and playing the same places, and we feel you earned more than you received last night. It’s only fair.”

I don’t need to tell you this sort of gesture is unheard of, even in the tight knit network of touring bands. I have never forgotten this generosity.

But Miles made an art of generosity.

On a trip out west in 2017 my wife and I were involved in a harrowing multi-car accident on the freeway that left us very shook. Miles, sensing our anxiety, selflessly and gamely chauffeured us around LA for the better part of a week. Leah and I didn’t have to drive again until we left town, by which time we’d calmed down, mostly thanks to Miles’ radical hospitality and kindness. “Your enjoyment of LA is directly proportional to how much or how little you have to drive here,” he said, a statement Leah has been quoting ever since. He bought us weed, took us to record stores, and hosted us in his home. We talked about cryptocurrency and Sun Ra and our many mutual friends.

Speaking of my wife Leah: I might have never met her if not for Miles and Akron/Family. She and the band were old friends, so when she promoted her final show in August of 2009 at the Bottletree in Birmingham, Alabama — Akron/Family, with opening band Wooden Wand — the guys in Akron/Family insisted she attend the show, despite Leah having already moved to Kentucky for grad school. (In true rom-com fashion, she nearly missed her plane.) I was backstage when Leah arrived. The boys in Akron/Family noticed our instant connection and teased us about it in private. I guess I might have shown my hand a bit when I asked, upon seeing Leah for the first time, “Who is that?”

Leah and I have now been happily married for 10+ years and Leah remains the single greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I am forever grateful to Miles and Akron/Family for being the eager, impish facilitators of our once-in-a-lifetime romance. Miles is inextricably linked to our story.

As other friends have gradually receded from our lives, as friends frequently do, Miles remained one of a handful of people who always kept in touch with us. I never once remembered to call him on his birthday, but he never missed mine.

Last month Miles left me one of his trademark rambling voice mails. It was classic Miles. In three minutes, between long thoughtful pauses and weary sighs, he told me how much he missed and loved me and Leah and how much he enjoyed my podcast, then inexplicably pivoted to recounting his visit to Willie Nelson’s biofuel facility in Salem, Oregon, and informing me about his new job as a weed mule. He told me he’d be driving from Seattle to Portland that weekend and that we should catch up on the phone. I don’t know what I was doing that prevented me from taking his call, but I will be eternally kicking myself for missing what would have been my final chat with my dear friend.

Miles had a close network of friends and musical collaborators in Italy — a country he loved — and he regularly invited me and Leah to visit him there. Maybe make a record.

For a while he was living there in a yurt.

What a weirdo.

Now I’m thinking he was probably capable of swallowing a sword, after all.

— James Toth

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Miles Cooper Seaton. Healer of Human Interaction in the Information Age. Ceremonial Ring Master of The Five-Hundred-Cap Club. Nomadic Fugitive of the Capitalist Matrix. Philosophical Stroller of the Urban Neighborhood. Destroyer of Creative Insecurity. Functional Best Man. Text Thread Poet. Coffee Shop Monk. Grocery Store Shaman. Moving-Day Saint...

Okay, okay, Miles, stop cringing just for a sec. Yes, I’m posting this. I just found my voice again. This isn’t for you. It’s for me. How about this: I love you. You ushered me towards embracing so many things I was unknowingly hiding from. You were so often the doula to the deep life experiences and difficult decisions, over and over again. You were that to so many, I’m seeing that so clearly now. You are that. That you are.

You illuminated the joy of The Circle. Where Giving and Receiving have no distinction, no separation. No Call, no Response. No Tit, no Tat. Just one single gesture, with intrinsic properties of both, engaged and firing simultaneously. You understood that like no other human being I know. This is at the center of my heart and at the center of my existence on the planet, as we all begin to grow into the void you’ve left behind.

Keep the forces burning out there for us, or become them, or just don’t do at all. You were beyond before, and you are beyond now. Step into it. Bask in it. You deserve everything you gave. Beautiful passage to you, my beautiful friend.

Original post

Here is Miles holding his album in Trevor’s record store. I loved Miles like a son and was always very proud of him.

Read the post here.

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Miles...it's been a few days since the news broke and honestly, it's taken me several days to even process it. i still dont know how to start or go about this...but here i go.

i'll be forever grateful to @jackniferecordsandtapes for introducing us and presenting the idea of us playing together. though it was only one evening and a three hour rehearsal starting at midnight the day before, it was such a bright and incredible moment. i remember just being carried away by the music...we would go on to getting coffee and talking about all aspects of life, spirituality, music of all sorts, have heavy, uplifting and encouraging conversations lasting hours on hours....

i remember one of the questions you asked me when we first hung out was "what are your dreams/what do you want to achieve in music." what a question to ask!! when i emailed you back my response you were so warm and told me to ask you whenever i needed help of any sort. i never did, not cause i didn't have anything to ask for, but i think cause i wanted to show you how hard i was working and looked forward to talking about what we were both accomplishing both in music and life. im glad i got to see you with @leannepedante and that you were able to meet @amber.jeanne.

i probably have listened to Pacts with Beasts a hundred times these past few days and decided to do a short little cover. maybe ill do the full song one day if i can muster the courage. love you Miles, thank you for sharing your time with me. i will keep it with me always. until we play together again...

…Miles! I can't believe you're gone forever, and this makes me very sad. Just the other day I republished on my Facebook page what you wrote to me on your cd, "When the water rises… have a swim.", and as soon as I enter my room I always see you, what you wrote on the poster you gave me, in green: "Keep it real!". When you gave this poster to me I had recently moved, and I have had this writing in front of my eyes for years, I always read it, it’s always inspiring; and even that African instrument whose name we don't even know is always there in plain sight, on one of the stereo speakers, when you gave it to me you said that maybe one day we could have played together. When we met I had short hair almost like yours, and also a beard, we looked just like brothers; it was so nice to hang out together and chat, listen to the tales of your restless "gutterpunk" adolescence, your new life in Los Angeles, yoga and contemporary art.

I still remember with a smile when a little embarrassed you asked me if it was okay to ask for a little more oil on the pizza, you loved it so much. It’s really terrible that you’re no longer here. I remember you wanted to move here in Napoli, too bad this dream never came true. I have seen you play several times, alone and together with Akron/Family, one of the most beautiful and shocking concerts I have ever seen, if they hadn't stopped you probably you would have gone on all night long… how much lost beauty. The music remains, yes, but it's not the same thing, you'll be missed as a friend, a lot. Have a nice trip Miles, I love you.

“And me

I just want to be satisfied

And me

I just want to be free

And me

I just want to hide my face until it’s over

But it seems I’ve got no choice so here

I am”

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You might think, since I’m Extremely Online, that no news escapes me; however, it was only today that I learned of Miles Seaton’s passing, aged only 41. I feel very sad.

Even back in the heady days of the mid to late 2000s, I never missed an Akron/Family show when they were near - they were one of the few bands who weren’t local pals that I’d always make the extra effort to see. There was no feeling quite like listening to them do their wild, beautiful thing. I would dance, joyful and free, too free to care what an idiot I probably looked like.

The last time I saw Miles was when it quite serendipitously lined up that Akron/Family were playing a London show shortly after I moved to the UK. I danced there, too.

I said hi to Miles after the show, and he was like “don’t I know you from, like, Toronto?” and I told him I’d just moved to the UK. He told me he always remembered how I would dance with such carefree feeling when they came to Toronto/Guelph/Hamilton, and he thanked me for that, and I thanked him, and he gave me the biggest hug. You know sometimes in the space of a pretty insignificant social encounter you can just TELL someone’s got a genuine heart? Yeah, that was Miles Seaton out of Akron/Family.

So this news has given me great sadness, but I feel grateful for this person, and his work, and his heart. Thank you, Miles x

Courtesy of Sami Kelsh - Link to original post

We first met Miles Cooper Seaton during the first edition of Lessinia Psych Fest, in 2014. It was then that a great friendship with all of us was born, and in a very profound way with C+C=Maxigross. Miles spent extended periods of time living in Verona, where he worked with C+C and had an essential role in their process of growth. Miles was escaping from superficiality, and he wanted to learn from and connect deeply with all that surrounded him. Which is why our world, our tiny Italy, a province of an empire, was to him a world of relationships to nurture and of people to discover, where music and making music were, to him, connected to an essential and unavoidable human dimension. And he also managed to amplify that same love towards music within each one of us. We have shared albums, meals, and walks with Miles. It has been a blessing.

—

Abbiamo conosciuto Miles Cooper Seaton durante la prima edizione del Lessinia Psych Fest nel 2014. Da allora è nata una grande amicizia con tutti noi e che si è fatta profondissima con i C+C=Maxigross. Miles ha abitato per lunghi periodi a Verona, ha lavorato con i C+C, contribuendo in maniera fondamentale al loro percorso di crescita. Miles era in fuga dalla superficialità, voleva conoscere, entrare in relazione profonda con ciò che lo circondava. Per questo, per lui, il nostro mondo, la nostra piccola Italia, provincia dell'impero, era in realtà un mondo di relazioni da coltivare, di individui da scoprire, dove la musica e il far musica erano, per lui, legati a una dimensione umana imprescindibile. E questo amore per la musica lo amplificava in ognuno di noi. Con Miles abbiamo condiviso dischi, mangiate, passeggiate. È stata una fortuna.

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ph @s_leuth

The singer and multi-instrumentalist, who passed away this week at 41, played a key role in the cult rock band’s unbridled sound.

Akron/Family played music that was rooted in folk-rock, but they treated each album like a spiritual quest and each concert like a conversion experience: an invitation to epiphany. Miles Cooper Seaton, Seth Olinsky, Ryan Vanderhoof, and Dana Janssen met in New York City in the early 2000s, became roommates, and released a handful of generous, spell-binding albums before Vanderhoof left—fittingly enough, to join a Buddhist commune. All the band members were multi-instrumentalists who also sang, and the trio soldiered on, widening their sound while standing off to the freaky side of folk revivalists like the Avett Brothers and Lumineers. Akron/Family’s last album was their seventh, 2013’s Sub Verses.

Seaton, who also went on to release solo music, was vital to this eclectic, multi-voiced group. When news broke this week of his death at age 41, tributes spread out across the music community, from collaborator M. Geddes Gengras to peer and admirer Justin Vernon. “When we started touring, you see audiences and start to feel, ‘This is a place I can do good in the world,’” Seaton told Pitchfork contributor Grayson Haver Currin in a 2008 interview. “That’s a real gift to me.” Here are seven songs that can act as an introduction to Akron/Family’s shape-shifting musical dharma. –Marc Hogan

Link to original

By Marc Hogan and Sam Sodomsky

Reddit members share memories of live shows + shared moments. Link to original

“This is such an enormous loss. Saw them at small music festival in upstate NY in 2012, the same year I graduated college and my friend group had just lost on of our best friends. A group of us went to their show and danced in the crowd with Miles to Ed is Portal at sunset, and it was one of the most healing experiences of my entire life.” - LauraPalmersMom430

That's me on stage in the teal shirt looking at his phone in the photo before the Collaboration section. I had met Miles and Akron/Family a year earlier at Kohoutek, the Pitzer College music fest (thank you JP & Jared, for making it happen). I was helping run the show, and I was so bummed to have missed the set. We'd run into each other again that summer, then again in the fall, and then there in the picture, closing out the 2nd stage (I think?) of Mess With Texas, an "unofficial" festival during SXSW. I again helped run the show, and Miles was stoked that I'd turned my college passion into some work. Sometime shortly after the photo was taken, Miles yelled at me: "Kramer, everything's going wrong!" What is? "You're missing the show again!" I put the phone away and took another turn holding the flag.

Our paths crossed a dozen times or more in the years afterward. Miles would give me fun-grief for missing the show, or the phone, or whatever. I'd respond with some ridiculous claim (sitting on the back bumper of a taco truck in LA, Miles started running down the street when I asked if he'd subconsciously lifted the lyric "you and I and a flame make three" from Eagle Eye Cherry's "Save Tonight"). We were not friends, but whenever we were in the same place, we were old buddies. I was amazed at his memory where mine was terribly faulty, but I do recall a very good Jewish-grandmother voice asserting that my protestations of lack of Jewdom didn't matter, I needed to eat more regardless, I was all skin and bones, skin and bones.

I didn't have a way of getting in touch with Miles. I always kinda trusted we'd cross paths again and again because that's what had been happening for over a decade. I can't pretend that the loss of that feeling doesn't make me terribly sad, not that my grief is infinitesimal in contrast to so many others. I just know that there are so many more people like me; there must be–everything I see indicates that Miles stuck with people the way he stuck with me–and together, our pain is immense. Miles was a treasure. What he left for us is a treasure. He will be so terribly missed.

Miles came to my bachelor party in Big Bear, CA. He rolled up late at night with a bag of meat, made everyone burgers, and got in an argument with my friend in the hot tub. He later explained that my friend was being bourgeois and deserved it. Fair enough.

Miles was there when I bought my house in Highland Park. He called it my “weird little normal adobe house”. He lectured me on buying into the neighbourhood, not just the property. He improved me like that.

Miles invited me to orchestrate strings for Phases In Exile, in return for bass parts for my stuff. “Strings for strings” he called it. We sat in my Echo Park apartment listening to Wagner and Vaughan Williams and Nick Drake, and making dirty jokes. It was the privilege of my life collaborating on that album. I know how personal it was for him.

Miles and I met in 2011 at a music festival in way-out-there Quebec mining town Rouyn-Noranda. I interviewed him. We talked about free jazz and Los Angeles and his new crush Leanne. At the Akron gig that night he ran over and rhythmed my leg like a cowbell.

Miles played processional music at my wedding. I asked if he could make a guitar sound like an organ (he could). The marriage didn’t last, but friends still talk about how great that music was.

Miles lent me three records once - Albert Ayler, The Last Poets, Megafaun. What a trip.

We lost touch when he moved to Italy. But I always hoped I could have visited him there.

Miles, peace. Gone, but your light shines on. You’re with the cosmos now. Have fun out there.

Monocreo has always been a modest affair. I started the label simply to put out my own music as I assumed non one else would. Eventually the label morphed into a joint project between myself and Ryan Mawbey. We’ve played music together for over 20 years and Ryan’s always been much better at getting shit done so it just made sense.

One day Ryan called me and told me he’d emailed Miles Cooper Seaton to see if he’d do a split with our band, Black Spring. I found this highly amusing and assumed we’d never hear anything back. Fast forward a year and we’d released a tape together. Soon after we found ourself in a van with him playing a handful of shows around the UK.

He was a beautiful human being, he was generous, open and such a creative force. In truth, many of the shows we played were to only a handful of people. This never fazed Miles at all, he would walk into the crowd and turn a quiet gig into a series of beautiful, intimate moments.

We ended up touring with Miles on a couple occasions. We played some amazing shows and he introduced us to some extremely beautiful human beings. This time stands out as one of the highlights of my life. Ill never forget his set at Islington Mill, it was beyond special. I feel extremely privileged to have spent time with him, he made a huge impact on us and will be sorely missed. Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones.

Rest in peace Miles, we will miss you.

Jonny (and Ryan)

x

I still have a guitar pick that Miles dropped while playing at the Duke Coffeehouse in Durham, North Carolina on February 17th, 2007. That show is forever etched in my memory as one of the best I've, ever seen. It was a highly transformative moment, and made such a huge impression on me, at an age when I was so raw, open and ravenous for music. That show taught me something new and important about the hysterically fun and funny nature of playing live music with other people. I've moved between many houses and different parts of the country several times since then, and the physical possessions that have survived all of those moves are very few. But for whatever reason, that guitar pick is still with me. It's currently living in the corner of a framed picture of Billie Holiday in my living room.

A few years later, I was beyond thrilled to be the host of the Ann Arbor, MI listening party for Shinju TNT. My friend Matt took a great photo of us destroying the disc afterwards. We burned it in the alley behind the T-shirt printing shop where we had listened to it. The photo was used in an Akron/Family newsletter email which made my year.

Love, love, love, always.

-Makka

Miles probably has influenced my life and art more than anyone I've met personally, except maybe Seth and Chris Franklin. He's one of the few people that I met and instantly knew was part of "the family". I had an immediate impression that we'd known each other for many lifetimes and this was just our most recent meeting. Karmic kinship. I remember once we were hanging during a visit to Williamsport, PA and he discovered I had an old Casio SK-1 keyboard from the 80's. It was my first keyboard my parents bought me as a kid for Christmas and I had put stick-on letters on all the keys to remember the notes. Miles just had to have it. He pleaded with me to give it to him. I figured, what am I going to do with this thing? It's traveled the world at this point and I always would love seeing it on stage with him over the years.

Maybe one story that's uniquely personal to me happened at a show in Seattle. Christopher Entz and I grew up with Dana and Seth, so we were devout Akron heads from the first home recordings. We lived, and still live, in Missoula, MT, and anytime Ak/Fam played in the PNW we would drive over for the shows. Eventually, the band was based in PDX for a few years, but I'm pretty sure this was before that.

Anyway, Ak/Fam played a show I believe at the Tractor. During one point, the entire band left the stage, except for Miles and he started to go totally berserk. Smashing and breaking things and instruments, screaming into a contact mics and putting them in all sorts of wrong places (remember those? Thanks, Miles), and even attacking parts of the house PA system. At this point, his energy was whipping the crowd crazy, at least the 2/3rds or so still in attendance. At the time, lots of hip folkies would come to shows hoping to hear all their acoustic favorites from the first album, so when things got wild and freaky, they'd get...well, freaked out. Those that remained were usually there for tension and release that the band had mastered. I'd been dancing hard in the front row all show and I was right in front of Miles and somehow a switch flipped in my brain and I began to have a psychedelic experience of some sort. Not sure if it was a flashback or just induced psychosis, but first I started to hallucinate and then I started to panic for Miles sake. I had a vision that the authorities were going to show up any minute and haul him away, he looked so out of control. Eventually the chaos subsided and the band reappeared and segued into calm beautiful harmony again, like they were so good at. After the show, I ran up to Miles, pushed him in the chest, and screamed, "You son of a bitch! Don't ever scare me like that ever again!" He laughed and said, "Chill out, Billy. This is my mom. I'd like to introduce you her." I was instantly embarrassed and immediately apologized to her for my outburst but I'll never forget how deeply that moment of insanity hit me and that now, all was back to joy and calm.

Miles truly pushed the envelope all the time. It was not an act. Around this same time period, not sure if it was this specific show (blurry) but afterward the whole Ak extended Fam spent the night on Miles' mom's floor and couches. I remember all of us waking up the next morning, drinking amazing coffee, talking about art and the universe, and walking in some rare dappled Seattle sunshine. Everything was perfect. Can't wait to meet you again, Miles. Safe travels.

Thoughts on Miles Seaton from the precipice of winter in Antarctica:

The first I ever encountered the musical collective known as Akron/Family was in the form of an article in a weird, slightly-soiled indy hippie magazine I discovered behind a couch in the laundromat around the corner from the house I shared with my ex, three cats, and an itinerant posse of cockroaches in the Clinton Hill neighborhood in Brooklyn. The thing that drove me to look for one of their albums in the record stores I frequented was an intriguing couple of sentences about the group’s (failed) attempt to bring up the house lights while they were playing a gig, the reasoning having something to do with the idea that the audience, being intrinsic to the performance, was as much a part of the show as the band. The reason I scrambled to by the first album I found the moment I saw it was that my favorite jazz drummer was featured on it. It was the first perfect coincidence of many I’d have with them.

My experience with that album, Meek Warrior, would have been enough to cement my love of this group by itself, but as it turned out, they were scheduled to play the Bowery Ballroom the following month. This turned out to be during a period of time when the band Megafauna was both opening for them and then joining them onstage as a double-quartet—something I’d only ever heard of Ornette Coleman or King Crimson doing—this was some serious sound-nerd shit, and man, I was into it. They started their set with a lullaby-soft rendition of “Afford,” rich, and quiet, aching and heartbreaking, and beautiful. It was a gorgeous and delicate moment that was shattered into dust when all eight of the people on stage picked up drums and started thundering in unison. It was a moment of perfect sonic clarity. It was a koan without words. I had never seen anything like before.

From that night until I left New York for the heartbreak of the Seattle mists, Akron/Family never played another show in the city at which I was not at the foot of the stage, staring up at them like an overexcited puppy. Whatever the configuration they appeared in—quartet, trio, big band, random-ass collective—they managed to hold a mirror up to my full-to-bursting heart. There are countless musicians in this wide and twisted world that make music that I want to listen to; there has never been a band that made music I so badly wanted to play. And of course, at every show, there was Miles, singing with his clear, rich, soulful voice, playing bass, and making a beautiful goddamned racket with a huge grin on his face.

I remember a show they played at the New Museum in SoHo in Manhattan. It wasn’t a space designed for performance; it was literally just a room. I wonder if maybe it was the absence of a formal stage that discouraged other people from crowding in front of the band with me. Regardless of the reason, I felt a bit out of place standing closer to the three dudes making sound than the other people who’d come to listen. I was thrown even more off guard when, in the middle of a song, Miles thrust a tambourine into my hands. I admit that the thought “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, I’m in the band now,” did momentarily pass through my mind. And while I immediately saw it for the fantasy it was, it was something that was ultimately actually true for all of us, any time we shared a space with that group. This was Miles’s aesthetic, as it was Seth’s, and Dana’s, and Ryan’s. Not only was Akron/Family able to create music the felt like it had come from the most vital part of my deep and private self, they were able to curate an experience of which every member of the audience was a fundamental part, a fact which I believe every one of us felt. That gift is something I won’t ever be able to forget.

In the wake of learning about Miles’s passing, I’ve been reading stories about the group’s early days. I knew we all walked the same New York streets, smelled the same New York smells, saw the early summer sun set against the same New York skyline. I hadn’t realized, however, that the shop where Miles met Seth was directly across the street from the bookstore in which I worked, at which I met the people with whom I would myself make art, which also defined my creative and social experience of that city. I hadn’t realized we’d lived and worked in the same neighborhoods, hung out at the same bars, had so many of the same foundational experiences, all just a few years apart. I doubt there’s any deeper meaning to it—it’s just the latest perfect coincidence—but when you learn that a musician whose work has meant something profound to you has died, a piece of what you mourn is the part of your own life for which their music was the soundtrack. Glad as I am be where I am now, I miss that time. I miss the people I knew then. I miss the New York of the mid 00’s and the small, fleeting life I lived there. I am grateful for all of it, and for the places it has lead me since.

Thank you, Miles. Thank you for your music. Thank you for being some part of the life that has brought me here, watching bergs calve off the McMurdo ice shelf and drift into the fast approaching austral winter as I listen to “Crickets,” and your voice carries me to another time, another season, another place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITD9LwpD6kc

I first met Miles in 2009 when Akron/Family took my band, Bad Weather California, under their wing. Through multiple tours, recording sessions and hangs, Miles was always a positive force who was glad, genuinely glad, to see me. That meant a lot to a young kid who held Miles and his music in such high regard. Plenty of good moments from the past decade with Miles talking coffee, comedy, and even some advice about women I was crushing on.

The best memory I have of Miles is actually the last time I saw him. In September 2018, my partner and I visited a friend in Berlin. It was the first time I had ever traveled outside the country and I was PUMPED. The first night in town, we randomly stopped in a bar nearby my friend's place. We ordered our beers, sat down, and I proceeded to marvel in the excitement of being in a foreign country. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, Logan." I turned and could only say "no!" It was fucking Miles! At a random bar in Berlin at a random time randomly on the first night of my travels! Needless to say, I was absolutely blown away. Hugs and laughs ensued. Miles told me he was on tour and had played that night at a nearby venue. He told me of his life split between the beaches of LA and wild castle (!!!) living life in Italy. We talked for a bit and then parted ways; probably with some joke about seeing him next time in another random country at another random date.

Playing this memory over and over again during the past week, I'm struck at just how MILES it was. I was beside myself in the unbelievable nature of the meeting, but Miles was cool and cosmic about it. Of course a meeting like this was possible. Of course it would happen. He was open to the possibility of possibility. I've never had a moment like that with anyone else.

Glad our lives intersected here and there and to and fro over the years, Miles. Keeping my heart open for more possibilities.

(photo taken 8/14/2010 near the Brookdale Lodge outside Santa Cruz, CA)

The first time I met Miles it was during one of the concerts that C+C were doing in my city, Verona. i don’t remember how exactly we ended up talking, but Miles introduced me to the Comité Invisible and I am very grateful to him for that. at that time he was reading Franco Berardi, so, among other things, we talked about him.

unfortunately I’ve got to know little about him, but for those few times that we have managed to speak, it was such a pleasure for me, that when I came to know of his disappearance, I felt like that day the world had lost a pure and a kindness soul. although I knew little about him, his death shocked me a lot. I just wanted to listen and listen again "Phases in Exile", maybe something previous that you then went to really live.

Miles, for the little we met, you flooded me of sincerity, respect, of something you used to call “bella vibra”.

Link to original story

Miles Cooper Seaton, co-founder of the experimental rock group Akron/Family, has died at the age of 41. The news was confirmed by Dead Oceans Records, which released Akron/Family’s final albums. No cause of death has been announced.

“Akron/Family are the type of band that underscore the whole reason Dead Oceans exists,” label co-founder Phil Waldorf wrote. “Miles was one of a kind person, in a one of a kind band. It’s a rush of emotions.” He added, “I feel lucky that I knew Miles, and sad that I have to say goodbye.”

Seaton grew up in California and Seattle before crossing the country to Brooklyn in the early 2000s. He became roommates with Seth Olinsky, Ryan Vanderhoof, and Dana Janssen, and together the four musicians founded Akron/Family. Everyone in the group was proficient in multiple instruments, and they used layered soundscapes that pushed against the boundaries of popular music with folksy charm, psychedelic curiosity, and swelling choral arrangements.

In 2004, Akron/Family caught the ear of Swans’ Michael Gira, who hired the group as the backing band for his side project Angels of Light and signed them to his label Young God Records. In 2005, Angels of Light and Akron/Family collaborated on a split album together, and A/F put out their self-titled debut. Seaton and his bandmates went on to release several more records, including 2006’s Warrior, 2007’s Love Is Simple, 2009’s Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free, 2011’s S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT and <bmbz>, and 2013’s Sub Verses.

In 2013 Seaton parted ways with Akron/Family and launched a solo career that spanned 2013’s Notes From the Interior, 2015’s Functional Musics Vols. 1 and 2. His final album, Phases in Exile, came out in 2017.

Justin Vernon of Bon Iver was among the many who paid tribute. “I cannot believe Miles Seaton is gone,” he wrote. “He is an integral part of so many musical histories. I am in shock and grieving for those who knew and loved him the most. Hearts out to all of you. His music will live on forever.”

Link to original piece

The co-founder of the experimental rock band released a series of solo albums in recent years.

Miles Cooper Seaton, a founding member of the experimental rock band Akron/Family, has died. Dead Oceans, the label that released Akron/Family’s final albums, confirmed the news. His cause of death is currently unknown. He was 41.

Seaton was born in California and relocated with his family to Seattle when he was young. In the early 2000s, he met Seth Olinsky, Ryan Vanderhoof, and Dana Janssen in New York City; they’d all moved there within months of each other and ended up living together in the same apartment. Seaton moved to the city from Seattle hoping to do something as a musician.

“I mean, you move there and you get the worst job imaginable, and it’s shitty, you don’t have money and it’s really cold,” Seaton told Foggy Notions in 2006. “And so when we met, and we were playing, that was the happiest thing that was going on. And when we were recording—I mean we were playing for hours and hours. So much stuff was coming out.”

As with the other members of Akron/Family, Seaton took a multi-instrumental role in the band. Their first albums were released by Michael Gira’s Young God Records: Akron/Family (2005), their split with Angels of Light (2005), Meek Warrior (2006), and Love Is Simple (2007). Their last three albums were released by Dead Oceans: Set ’Em Wild, Set ’Em Free (2009), Akron/Family II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shiniju TNT (2011), and Sub Verses (2013).

As Akron/Family’s activity wound down, Seaton continued making music under his own name, issuing projects like 2013’s Notes from the Interior and 2015’s Functional Music Vols. 1 & 2. His last album, 2017’s Phases in Exile, featured collaborations with Brad Cook, Phil Cook, and M. Geddes Gengras.

“Damn, Miles. You were such a comet,” Brad Cook wrote. “You crash landed in my life and changed everything. First time I heard your music it changed it all for me. I didn’t know you at the time but it changed me. Then we became friends and our friendship changed me. You opened all the doors.”

“Miles was one of a kind person, in a one of a kind band,” wrote Dead Oceans co-founder Phil Waldorf. “It’s a rush of emotions. Akron/Family are the type of band that underscore the whole reason Dead Oceans exists. I feel lucky that I knew Miles, and sad that I have to say goodbye. We hope you’ll share some memories. There are too many for me to count right now.”

M. Geddes Gengras shared a tribute that included a story about the period when he was a touring member of Akron/Family:

At Miles’ request I was opening all the shows playing my alien insect synth music which, as you can imagine, didn’t go over super well in the mid-sized indie rock clubs of 2012 America, but Miles sat at the side of the stage and watched every set from beginning to end. When he noticed that maybe the audience wasn’t paying that much attention he made a point of getting on stage before me every night, introducing me to the audience & explaining how much my music meant to him & that even though it might be different they should really give it a chance and listen closely. I can’t even begin to say how much that meant to me, how good it made me feel.

Link to original piece

Miles Seaton, musician and co-founder of the experimental rock outfit Akron/Family, has died. He was 41.

Phil Waldorf, co-founder of Akron/Family’s label Dead Oceans, confirmed Seaton’s death, although a cause was not announced. In a thread on Twitter, Waldorf shared memories of old Akron/Family shows and hearing their song “River” for the first time.

“Miles was one of a kind person, in a one of a kind band,” he wrote. “It’s a rush of emotions. Akron/Family are the type of band that underscores the whole reason Dead Oceans exists. I feel lucky that I knew Miles, and sad that I have to say goodbye. We hope you’ll share some memories. There are too many for me to count right now.”

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, a longtime Akron/Family associate and friend, tweeted, “I cannot believe Miles Seaton is gone. He is an integral part of so many musical histories. I am in shock and grieving for those who knew and loved him the most. Hearts out to all of you. His music will live on forever.”

As Pitchfork reports, Akron/Family formed in the early 2000s, after Seaton moved from Seattle to Brooklyn and ended up living with his soon-to-be bandmates, Seth Olinsky, Ryan Vanderhoof, and Dana Janssen. Befitting the group’s experimental sound, each member played multiple instruments. By 2004 they’d attracted the attention of Swans’ Michael Gira, who signed them to his Young God Records.

Akron/Family’s self-titled debut arrived in 2005. At the same time, they were serving as the backing band for Gira’s other project, Angels of Light, which had just released a new album, The Angels of Light Sing “Other People.” An Akron/Family and Angels of Light split album was released at the end of 2005.

Over the next several years, Akron/Family remained consistently busy, dropping new albums, Meek Warrior and Love Is Simple, in 2006 and 2007, respectively. They linked up with Dead Oceans for 2009’s Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free, and the label would release their final two albums, 2011’s Akron/Family II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT and 2013’s Sub Verses.

After Akron/Family’s split, Seaton released several solo projects, starting with 2013’s Notes From the Interior. In 2015, he released Functional Musics Vols. 1 and 2, while his final album, Phases in Exile, arrived in 2017.

I first met Miles for coffee before my band Delicate Steve was to go on tour opening up for Akron/Family in 2011.

Miles personally invited me for a hang to get to know each other before the tour. I forget the name of the spot we went to but it was significant to Miles, either because he worked there or because the coffee was the best, something...it was all news to me. I was a kid from NJ, I'm pretty sure I drove into the city to meet him that day. I didn't really care about coffee and that much I'm sure about. But I took note.

After the basic introductions, at which Miles made me feel very much at ease, he talked to me about my newly-released debut record under this name Delicate Steve that I had just put out. And he was talking about it like he actually listened to it. And he was talking about it like he liked it. And specific things about it he related to. All of this blew my mind at the time. Miles was able to recognize something about what I was doing that I wasn't able to recognize in myself or my own music. Miles was able to effortlessly instill a sense of confidence in me about what I was doing. I remember bringing up Stevie Wonder and Alice Coltrane to him, and I wish I remembered more of that conversation.

The following Akron/Family tour was a life changer. I still look up to Miles, Seth and Dana as a force of a band, and three of the most unique and awesome people I've met. I feel lucky to have experienced their awesome power as a true band, and I feel lucky to have kept in touch with all of them over the last 10 years.

In 2014 my band supported Tame Impala on an east + west coast tour. We flew to LA bare bones with minimal equipment, and cobbled together amps and drums for each of the west coast dates through friends and friends of friends. Miles was eager, EAGER, to let us use his bass amp for the LA show. I remember us picking him up at the coffee place he worked at/hung at, driving him to his practice space to get the amp. I remember texting Miles after our opening set and running up to see him and Leanne in the lobby of the theater. I remember feeling slightly nervous about whatever I had just done on stage in Miles' presence and I remember both him and Leanne beaming and radiating so much good energy back at me.

When I think about a lot of these moments, I think of my own self-consciousness, and I think about how fully Miles was able to completely dismantle it in his presence and make me feel warmhearted and okay.

The things I've seen Miles do on stage, and the things I've heard him say to the audience have also brought up a similar feeling of self-consciousness in me, because he was truly an openhearted soul, and sometimes while watching I would feel nervous and anxious. That has been such a rare thing for me to feel from watching a performer, especially from the comfort of being an anonymous spectator in a dark crowd. But with Miles it would happen regularly on tour, and I would always be left feeling so much lighter and more open and raw. And that was part of Miles' power to me.

I last saw Miles in September 2020 when I was in LA for about 5 weeks. I was doing okay, but in general, I was feeling pretty run down and depressed. From the pandemic, the natural disasters and wildfires in CA and AZ where I was staying, things in my relationship at the time, the general uncertainty of what's to come, it was all peaking around that time for me.

Miles randomly texted me, and I told him I randomly happened to be in town. Instantly we made plans to meet up the next day right before he left for Oregon.

He scooped me up in his car–came right to where I was staying and scooped me. He was blasting Moroccan music, windows down, shitty air quality and everything, and his vibe just totally snapped my depression in half like a twig. We got coffee and sat in Echo Park by the lake, and I don't think I'm quite able to put into words exactly how that hang made me feel. But I won't forget it.

One of the things he told me about that day was his daily journaling. Just write, just write, every day, just fill the pages if you have nothing to write about, make it part of your day.

When we parted ways after the hang, he gave me the strongest bear hug. We talked for a little bit more, said more goodbyes and more small talk, and then had to come in for one more bear hug. I will remember those two bear hugs.

When I got back inside that day, I instantly begun my research on all it was that we talked about, all of the people and books and art that he referenced.

Since that day I began journaling every day, I only missed a few days, and its become one of the most clarifying habits in my life.

Miles, thanks for leaving me with that and with all of the memories. Love you man and thank you for introducing me to such special people and for giving all of us your music and your soul. We will all never forget you.

Miles and I met in our early teens. We were angry, explosive and eager to change the world. I wanted to fuck with everyone and Miles wanted to make everyone aware we were all soon-to-be fucked. We often butted heads and bickered over who knew more. Miles was often right and I despised/admired him for it. He usually said the smart thing I wish I had. His decades of life experience already acquired and understood years ahead of his time. His ability to converse with peers and adults alike was unlike anything I had seen before. He made everyone feel like we were all in it together, even if he truly believed we were all destined to fail as a whole. We spent countless late night hours in empty parks devising our master plans to change the world one vicious punk anthem at a time. It felt like we were two bodies thrashing in open water trying to save the ocean from itself. Miles quickly learned life was more enjoyable if you accepted the waves for their chaotic beauty and learned to float with them. It took me years before I finally understood what came so naturally to him.

For those who knew the loving, open hearted Miles Seaton, you are truly fortunate.

For the others that saw the untethered flair screaming across the hot summer sky, you are absolutely blessed.

I know Miles was a different person later on in life but I feel we can all love, appreciate and learn from the angry politically driven teenager Miles grew from. I put together a bandcamp page with the old records. All proceeds from record sales will be donated to https://www.farestart.org/

I met Miles when he came to Calgary for Sled Island and worked with him on a Drone Project for Wreck City’s Demo Tape. Akron/Family was the soundtrack to a specific era of my life, and somehow I crossed paths with this human a few key times the way musicians so often do, bumping into each-other at shows and festivals. I was always struck by how open he was, never a snob, just genuinely interested in connecting with those around him in a real way. Then, when he was here for Sled we properly hung out for most of that week off and on, I took him out to Audities where I was working on my first Hermitess LP and we jammed there with the Backhomes one of those evenings. I got the opportunity to tell him in a non-awkward-fan way how those Akron/Family albums had soundtracked a pivotal period in my life, some of those songs almost anthems, and how dear that was to me. We’ve been in contact via sporadic text since then, odd things, ideas about music, stories about Italian food, we last chatted about my quarantine bread making. It was just good knowing Miles was out there in the world, and I looked forward to that unexpected time when we might cross paths again.

I’m so sad he’s gone.

My memories of Miles have nothing to do with music, though I went to my fair share of Akron/Family shows when living in Brooklyn. As a barista at Gimme Coffee I would see Miles nearly every day. He was as fanatical about espresso and the wild flavors it could produce and how different it could taste day in and day out as I was. When I picture him I think about cold winter outside while inside the warmth of a overly heated New York building, but Miles kept his scarves and coat on and as he stood next to the grinders and sipped and chatted flavor and I crushed more large lattes for the never ending stream of people who where probably his fans. He didn’t do it in a pretentious way— he wasn’t trying to teach me anything or show off. He was genuine in his desire to share in this experience and the tastes smells and flavors I spent my day covered in. When I came back to LA we got tacos a handful of times and I realize now not nearly enough. He was a great, great, guy, and I can’t believe I was lucky to know him.

Miles came into our lives in late 2014. We desperately needed extra help at our new coffee shop, and our friend Trevor, who was all too familiar with the struggles of small-business life, said he had the perfect person in mind for us. That’s when he introduced us to Miles. (Thank you, Trevor)

At first, Miles was just an employee and co-worker, but he quickly grew to become a dear friend and brother. We were absolutely crushed when we found out he was gone.

During those early days at the shop, our baristas put up with a lot. We were impatient owners, obsessed, overworked, feeling our way in the dark, but Miles was incredibly gracious, pushing us to be better, more open communicators. This did not come naturally to us at first. Hell, it’s still tough to have those uncomfortable adult conversations. But Miles was insistent on the importance of this above all and always encouraged free and honest discussions.

Eventually, as we became more comfortable with each other, Miles’ grumpy old man side emerged. If the start of our day felt too early, as it often does in coffee, he’d pick a little fight with us about something he felt wasn't "the best use of his skillset” like being on register instead of pulling shots or having to work a closing shift, which he hated. He'd get annoyed that his rule: “only music with no drums or vocals allowed before 9am” wasn’t being strictly followed by the rest of us. Sweet Miles needed to be gently eased into the day--don't disturb him with your drums. Or heaven forbid we not play a full album from start to finish. People worked really hard figuring out the flow of the song order; such work must be acknowledged and revered. Plus, don't you want to create a vibe? You can't do that by playing a single or a random playlist, he'd insist. Eventually he invited us to one of his soundbaths, and it all made sense after that.

Though he was oftentimes entirely too serious, he was quick to tease us when we’d bicker in front of customers. “Uh oh, mom and dad are fighting again” he’d joke. But he apologized freely if he sensed any hurt feelings or that he’d made a mistake. Miles was sensitive, but he was never afraid to speak his mind or break the tension with some snark or pop-culture reference. We always missed that when he'd leave for a few weeks to play shows or take time off to make art. But he'd always come back or at least send a meme. Once he left for Italy, he still came back to see us any time he was in LA. We were so eager and delighted when he'd visit. He seemed lighter, happier and more free than we'd ever seen him.

We are beyond grateful to have made many ridiculous, random, frustrating and fond memories with Miles over the years, both as co-workers and as friends. There are too many to list here. But simply being at the shop, pulling a shot or drinking a topo chico while chatting with friends on the bench outside will always be great reminders of Miles and all that he's meant to us.

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On behalf of everyone at Woodcat who knew and loved Miles, Saadat and I are so sorry for this tremendous loss. We are sending all of you: Leanne, Trevor, Miles’ Family and Friends, anyone who loved him, all of our love and light.

Miles, we will think of you always and treasure the time and space we were lucky enough to have shared with you. Thank you for being such a huge part of our lives. Thank you for seeing us, for listening, for respecting us, for calling us out, for making us laugh and for caring so deeply about us. We will love you and miss you forever. Rest easy, dear friend.

Janine & Saadat Awan

(woodcat coffee)