Kirk Mills – A Rising Star
Plush Room Continues to Present New LGBT Talent

by Dear Diva for the San Francisco Spectrum

The room darkens, orders for the two drink minimum are taken, an unassuming guy with a guitar takes a seat and plucks simple strings. It is an unusual start for an evening at the world-renowned Empire Plush Room at the York Hotel on Sutter Street. But this is not going to be a usual evening.

Entering the stage is a thin, handsome guy with the wiry kind of energy we’ve grown to expect in the Starbuck’s era. He is Kirk Mills. He does a turn, more military pivot than ballet pirouette, and extends his arms in a common-guy-nothing-special gesture of humility. He’s a bachelor, you can tell, and the little curl of his lip tickles you under the one-eyebrow-raised cynicism of his knife sharp gaze. His clothes are too square to be truly hip, but then most hipsters in this stand-up comedy phase of American pop culture are remarkably square. Then he sings.

His voice is easy, loose, a combination of nanny-goat and velvet fog. This guy’s an original, and even though his songs mostly aren’t original, his presentation of many of them makes them so become. He’s nervous. Young talent in a new venue wants approval, and knows he shouldn’t want it so badly. But he is honest, or at least his banter between songs is inspired by those honest, hopelessly bachelor, guys who share the feelings they were surprised to find among the pizza boxes and tennis shoes strewn on their apartment floor. He’s like a gay straight guy, with all the haplessness and charm of the geek who doesn’t realize he is a hunk. His is a show of discovering what lies within—all of it.

He is a child of the 1980s, struggling to find his own voice through a somewhat contradictory song set. But that was what the 1980s was – somewhat contradictory. You have the chick songs with way too many lyrics explaining mundane things—a gay guy Tory Amos, a confrontational Tracy Chapman. Then there are moments of simplicity—an embarrassed apology for the profundity of first hearing a particular Elton John song, and a rendition of a 1960s anti-war song that becomes an animee tour-de-force with slapstick Gilbert and Sullivan choreography on the chorus. There are a few of those ‘80s groove fests that mean nothing but feel really great, the kind of music that has complex jazz chord structures that underlie a sea of sensation, never admitting that deep down they are shallow. Just like the 1980s, there is too much to deal with, so you just kind of ride the evening.

Kirk Mills is a funny, talented, hungry performer. Several times he expresses chagrin over not being a rock star yet. He works hard to get you to like him, unaware that he had accomplished that when he first walked on stage. He sings well, brilliantly even, and can create a powerful mood. But the mood can also be undone by that ‘80s cynicism, when no good feeling was trusted because greed and cocaine made us all think we probably were feeling much more in the moment than was justified under the circumstances. Too many words; too many moods.

Mills speaks of an unfinished recording project. He talks about being lazy. He talks about his own indecision. He must realize that we all have unfinished projects, a lack of follow through, or a dream we couldn’t get our act together to achieve. And yet, when he sang his own material, just two songs, they were amazing. He got it right in those. He used all of his self-awareness to write a song about being self-aware that didn’t shrug it off with a nervous joke but just said it.

He’s got what it takes. We sincerely hope he finishes that recording project. We hope he turns his able pen to subjects other than himself so he can take us on the more universal journey he is capable of leading. One foot in front of the other, Kirk, and you’ll get there. We’ll be waiting…

GGBA, the first LGBT
chamber of commerce.

Positive Resource Center, providing employment services and benefits counseling to the SF Bay Area HIV community.

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