Steve Miller Band – Children Of The Future

Huge soundstage, deep bass imho superbly engineered. Heard a coupla hundred times with strange sound effects. Closer to the Piper at the Gates of Dawn as to Fly like an eagle.

This is the first UK pressing with rainbow rim labels. Capitol changed to black/ silver and then green labels around 1970 and then red labels after that.

Important piece of psych-blues-rock even if not perfectly accomplished. Influenced by the summer of love ethos complete w/ jammed out sounds, Chicago styled blues, ambient background themes & extraneous knob twirling.
Classic 60s west coast psych-scape.

Some great musicians on this album, including Boz Scaggs of solo fame and Lonnie Turner who joined Tommy Tutone and did the song 867-5309 / Jenny. Lonnie Turner returned to the band in 1973 but other than that, the other members were all gone by 1970. This is a great album from a totally different Steve Miller Band. If you're a fan of 60's music but not really a fan of Steve Miller's big hits this is something completely different.

Buyer beware, crap GZ pressing and unable to tell if you are getting the limited color or regular version. Good luck

This can't be a 1968 pressing with the green Capitol labels.

Excellent reissue here on nice, thick 180g vinyl. A great remaster supervised by Steve Miller himself. This is probably cut from a high resolution digital source but it doesn't sound bad by any means. It's very dynamic and full sounding and does not sound compressed at all. Guitar is bright. The drums sound super nice and punchy. Vocals can be sibilant. Bass is decent, sounds better on some parts of the record than on others, the low end is a little thin and the highs of the organ can sound a little hot at times, clarity might not be as exceptional as an original press but the overall sound is pretty damn good with some awesome effects worked into the mix. Pressing quality is tops, no surface noise, pops or clicks, flat and centered precisely. Lacking a little definition and analog warmth but not a bad listening experience. Prob a 7/10 sound-wise. Comes in plain polylined white inner sleeve no inserts and a standard gatefold cover.

C'mon Stevie..dip into your Pre 1973 stuff and start making deluxe reissues !!! Noticing that's sorely lacking in your output of resissues. I love the Ultimate hits 2LP package but I already own 8 copies of your single LP greatest Hits... haha

The infectious Children Of The Future was miles from the grand mainstream rock that would bring Miller his life long fame. So it’s no wonder that fans of “Fly Like An Eagle,” or “Take The Money And Run,” will hardly recognize these prolific tracks. While one would certainly not characterize this record as being “far out,” it does rank right up there with the first outing by Moby Grape, and floats with the same intelligence and grace as The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, where Miller and his band can be heard embracing a solid album of rhythm and blues laced together with enough psychedelic attitudes, effects, and solid instrumentation to carry the band headlong in the arms of those tripped out nights.

If you weren’t there during those heady days, there’s no way that I’m going to try and convince you that this is a timeless album, even with it’s use of [at the time] the unheard of Mellotron, where the release reaches in various sonic directions at once, though it does manage to come off as a cohesively seamless inspired creation, delivered smoothly and cleanly, with vocals that are laid up front, in a true blues tradition, showing how brilliant a psychedelic album can be in the hands of the right artist, who knows what and when to deliver, and when to hold back, keeping things in check and balanced. I use the world ‘balance’ with purpose, as this was a time of musical transition, where too much of the over the top psych could easily alienate, and just enough sounded fresh, intoxicating, and exciting … while still managing to be linked to the pop music culture we’d grown up with during the late 50’s and early 60’s.

All and all, the album moves and ebbs effortlessly, almost lazily from one track to another, at times swirling with its atmospheric organ riffs, though never rises above a sleepy hypnotic flow of musical washes that would open the gates for later bands such as Spacemen 3 to follow.

*** The Fun Facts: During the year of this album’s release, Steve Miller was working as a janitor in a Texas music studio.

The album artwork was created by the legendary artist Victor Moscoso, who was responsible for countless venue posters and record jackets of the day. I won’t kid you, the album art was what drew many of us in, with those bits of confused lettering becoming crystal clean with a dose of the Sandoz Blue … reading The Future.

Review by Jenell Kesler

Those of you who equate the Steve Miller Band with that 35-year-old guy in the black denim vest who still hangs out in front of the liquor store on his BMX bike singing "Fly Like an Eagle" with saliva gathered around the corners of his mouth need to hear this debut album in all of its 1968 psychedelic blues rock splendor.