The good die young: Rest in Peace Sam Miller

Sam was a quintessential artist and was a fixture of Grass Valley and
Nevada City. At the risk of sounding presumptuous and cheesy, the
contribution the Nevada County of Sam’s generation will make to the
world is its art (is it appropriate to call it “Crit art”?): its music,
its boundless creative energy. In this regard, Sam personified the
deepest essence of Nevada County – there is not a
twenty/thirty-something musician or artist in Nevada County who did not
know and love Sam, who was not touched or influenced by his creative
spark. In many ways, Sam was the guy around whom much of the artistic
energy in the area revolved, and yet he remained largely in the
shadows, behind the scenes and probably unknown outside of the
tight-knit crew up in the hills.