Artists

The year is 1970. The place is Austin, Texas. Who and what is this mysterious musical collaboration that Sonobeat Records co-founder/producer Bill Josey Sr. refers to as, simply, the "Bill Miller Group"? Bill Miller's "Group" is known as Amethyst prior to its near-mythical 1970 and 1971 Sonobeat sessions, but begins the sessions nameless. At some point during the 1971 sessions, the "Group" changes its name to The Daily Planet; however, Bill Sr. rarely calls the group by that name. The prolonged Sonobeat sessions with the group produce a highly programmatic album entitled Cold Sun. Even more mysteriously, over the following years, the group comes to be known as Cold Sun and the album as Dark Shadows.

Sonobeat's archives list the following artists on the Cold Sun sessions: Bill Miller, Tom McGarrigle, Hugh Patton, and Mike Waugh. The versatile Waugh previously plays bass on Jim Chesnut's country-pop single for Sonobeat and on Bill Wilson's song demo album and Herman Nelson's second song demo album, both demos for Sonobeat's sister company, Sonosong Music. All songs on the Cold Sun album are written by Bill Miller, except Fall, co-written by Miller and Winston Taylor, and the album's epic finale, Ra-Ma, based in part on Egyptian mythology, written by Miller and McGarrigle with lyric contributions by Herman Nelson, himself deeply interested in metaphysics and the occult.

Miller's electric autoharp, that Miller acknowledges an analog to the 13th Floor Elevators' amplified jug, adds a significant contribution to the distinctive sound of Cold Sun's tracks. But capturing the unique sound of the autoharp is challenging, and, after trying and discarding several microphone techniques, Bill Sr. simply plugs the autoharp's pickups directly into Sonobeat's custom 16-channel mixing console, a common studio technique now known as "direct injection".

Cold Sun is recorded over a five month period, starting in November 1970 and finishing in March 1971 at Sonobeat's Western Hills Drive studio in northwest Austin. Final touches, including some re-recordings and vocal overdubs but primarily extensive remix sessions take place at Sonobeat's new North Lamar studio in Austin in July and August 1971. There are confusing titles on the various master tape boxes, possibly early titles of songs that change as the album matures – titles like Marble, Mind Aura, Light, What Season, Cycle, and Silent. These titles (except for Marble) don't appear as part of Bill Sr.'s final remixes on July 29, 1971, and Marble is removed from the album's final track sequencing less than a month later.

Although Sonobeat never releases the album, Bill Sr. contemplates releasing a stereo single featuring See What You Cause and Twisted Flower, but he eventually abandons those plans for reasons not documented in the Sonobeat archives. In a shift from his customary practice, Bill Sr. doesn't make vinyl test pressings of the Cold Sun album, instead circulating inexpensive audiocassette dubs to his contacts at the major record companies, hoping to license the masters for a national release. But there are no takers for the esoteric, often bizarre recordings. Although dubs of the master tapes have circulated for over 45 years, the album is not publicly released until 1989 when specialty label Rockadelic issues a limited vinyl edition of 300 copies under the artist name Cold Sun and album title Dark Shadows, a title Miller selects as homage to the '60s cult TV series. The Rockadelic and subsequent releases, including a digital version sold by Amazon, are not Sonobeat-sanctioned releases and regardless how advertised are not mastered from Sonobeat's original session tapes or first generation mix-downs.

Miller goes on from Cold Sun to perform, along with McGarrigle, with Roky Erickson and the Aliens. Assuming the stage name Billy Angel, Miller later moves to Marin County, California, and joins the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based punk rock band The Blood Drained Cows, flying around the country wherever the band performs. On May 1, 2011, 39 years after breaking up, Miller, McGarrigle, and Waugh reunite as Cold Sun to perform one last gig at the Austin Psych Fest (an annual event in Austin that has since been renamed Levitation), joined by The Blood Drained Cows' drummer Tom Trusnovic.

On October 19, 2012, It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine's Klemen Breznikar interviews Bill Miller to dig deeper into the Cold Sun experiment that leads to Miller's collaboration with post-13th Floor Elevators Roky Erickson in Roky's Bleibalien band.