Alina Simone

News

May 2010: I’m one of the arty Russians depicted and mentioned in New York Magazine’s feature on ‘global Russians.’ Aside from two shows in Berlin in July, I’ll be taking the summer off to write material for a new album we will be recording this coming fall in Montreal with producer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, A Silver Mt. Zion). I’ve also started work on a documentary film about Amanda Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls) that grew out of an essay I wrote for my forthcoming book about our road trips together. I’ll also be spending the early half of the summer completely revamping this website to make room for book-related content, documentary photo work from Siberia and more, so for now, if you want random musings, tune in to my new blog thingee.

April 2010: Two exciting shows this month in NYC: Night of Mayhem at Highline Ballroom (hosted by Flavorpill, The Rumpus and Tinhouse) w/Michael Showalter, Starlee Kine (This American Life), Sam Lipsyte, Colson Whitehead, Lorelei Lee and Jeffrey Lewis on April 6; and opening for The Shondes‘ cd release party at Southpaw on April 10th. Also, I will be playing some shows in Germany this summer, including Berlin on July 7th.

March 2010: SXSW coverage included a pick as a “SXSW standout” by the New York Times Magazine among others. The artist Austin Kleon (whose cool-looking book ‘Blackouts’ comes out in a few weeks) live-sketched the LargeHeartedBoy.com SXSW day party I played at Book People. Author and friend Stephen Elliott (editor of The Rumpus) lambasts me for merrily ruining my friends lives. (And here is a snap of Stephen and I at the grunge-nostalgia-filled Hole concert at SXSW) High-definition videos of two new songs (from my forthcoming-someday album), shot live in January at Union Hall in Brooklyn can be found here and here. Answers to what must be the most unusual questions I’ve ever been asked can be found here, in my interview with SXSW.com. My band and I also did an interview and live session with Jack Rabid (founder and editor of The Big Takeover) for his show Rabid in the Kennel on Breakthru Radio (March 10th) — you can listen/download the session here. The folks from Rabid in the Kennel just posted some live videos of the taping for “Special Reason” , “Beautiful Machine” and “My Love is a Mountain.” A new feature article (with cool illustration!) in my college alumni mag here. (My dad, who teaches at the same college, wrote a way more illuminating article for the same issue about the end of the universe.) A short interview with OnlineRock.com about South by Southwest.

February 2010: Just posted information in the shows section about upcoming SXSW events, as well as a couple more shows we’ll be doing here in Brooklyn in March and April. My full band and I just recorded a six song set for Rabid in the Kennel (Breakthru Radio) which will be airing March 10th and will also be available as a podcast in February, and also includes an interview with Jack Rabid, the editor of storied indie music mag, The Big Takeover. The session was recorded in a professional studio and mixed by sound engineers. It was unlike any in-studio radio thingee I have done, ever, and includes new versions of a couple songs with the addition of our fantastic trumpet player Satish.

January 2010: I will be playing a full band show at Union Hall on January 7th @ 8:30 PM, sharing a bill with the raw and rugged The Duchess and the Duke. We’ll be shooting live video of the show that night. On January 21st, we will be playing a benefit at Crash Mansion for the literary webzines The Rumpus and HTML Giant which will include readings by authors Rivka Galchen, Stephen Elliott, Tao Lin and more. The very next day, I’ll be performing at author Nick Flynn’s book release party at Book Court in Brooklyn. (Nick Flynn is amazing. Go buy all of his books.) The recent piece I wrote on Russian chanson for the music travel guide series Museyon got a cool write up in Popmatters this month. One last tiny aside: I am on Twitter now. Also Facebook.

December 2009: Back from Siberia and happy to be speaking English again. My last show of the year will be December 13th at Fort Useless in Bushwick.

I was beyond saddened to learn that Jerry Fuchs, the drummer for my first album, Placelessness, died in Brooklyn on Nov. 8th. Aside from being a drummer whose technical skills challenged the imagination, he was an incredibly smart and sweet and generous guy who will be truly missed.

October/November 2009: I am writing this from Siberia, where I will be traveling, writing, working and taking photographs until November 18th. Eugene Mirman featured me last week on Magnet Magazine’s website. I just played a CMJ showcase which featured Margaret Cho as surprise guest. The Village Voice had some…interesting observations about the evening. Museyon’s indie travel guide is coming out on November 3rd and features a piece I wrote about the Russian ‘Chanson’ scene in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In other book news, French artist Nicolas Moog’s “My American Diary“, a graphic novel about Obama’s election from the perspective of indie rockers around the country, includes a section about my (pretty weak-ass) political activism. Lastly, the folks at ‘Phoning It In‘ recently posted an old live set of mine on the WFMU Free Music archive.

August 2009: Hot and slow and sleepy. A show at Pianos and some nice press from New York Magazine. I am happy to welcome the amazing drummer Conrad Doucette from Takka Takka as the newest member of my band.

July 2009: I will be playing a show at Monkeytown on July 19th with Ben Coonley, as the featured video artist. The other bands on the bill are Butterflies and Beards. Also, I will be playing a show at Piano’s in NYC on August 20th with Ben+Vesper, Emilyn Brodsky, and hosted by Sara Benincasa.

June 2009: I am played a show at Northside Festival in Brooklyn at Spike Hill curated by legendary producer Martin Bisi on Sunday, June 14th. The show also included King’s Crescent (members of the Fiery Furnaces) and Martin Bisi’s band. On June 20th I performed at a festival in Catskill, NY put together by author Jedediah Berry whose new book, The Manual of Detection, is a must read, says every literary critic on earth, including my favorite blog, Largeheartedboy. Then it was down to North Carolina for Duke University’s summer concert series. Here are some nice previews for that Duke show from The Weekly Independent, and the Raleigh News and Observer.

May 2009: Here is a video of my performance/interview at the flagship Barnes and Noble in NYC alongside ‘genius’ award winner, Aleksandar Hemon, who read from his latest book, “Love and Obstacles.” The Village Voice has a write up of the May 21st show at Union Hall as a pick for their ‘Voice Choices’ of the week and The New Yorker had some kind words for us too. Our May performance on WNYC’s ‘Soundcheck’ is now available for download too. Sunken Treasure Records has released a new song of mine on vinyl as a split 7″ with The Black Swans and you can stream the songs at the new music website MBV Music. The artwork is hand-screened and lovely and the limited-edition marbled red vinyl is gore-jus. Order it here.

April 2009: A short review of the graphic novel ‘Unlovable’ that I wrote for The Rumpus and Harper’s Magazine editor Paul Ford’s funny/sad/true five star review of my SXSW mp3 (covering Yanka Dyagileva) in just 6 words.

March 2009: An interview with Howard Wolfson featuring a live version of Oops I Did it Again recorded in my bedroom recently and one new song (New York Magazine found this gossip worthy.) Popmatters’ Nicole Solomon did a very in-depth interview with me about the life and death of Yanka Dyagileva.

January 2009 update: Here is a live recording of an interview/in-studio I did with my band on the North Carolina public radio show “The State of Things” on Friday, January 23rd. The show got some nice previews from the Indy Weekly among others. David Menconi, music editor for the Raleigh News & Observer, stopped by our show at the Arts Center in Carrboro on January 24th and has used his blog to reveal all of my ambitious plans regarding Britney Spears. My reading for the Farrar, Strauss and Giroux Reading Series with Sam Lipsyte at the Russian Samovar got bloggers blogging from Time Out New York and USAToday.com. Here are also a couple of photos from the reading.

December 2008: USA Today pop culture blogger Whitney Matheson included me in her list of Top 100 people of 2008. I also made the best-of- 2008 lists of LargeHeartedBoy, political hipster Howard Wolfson (via Huffington Post and another seconded by political hipster Ben Smith at Politico) and # 20 on the Yahoo! Music website. Sunken Treasure Records, the label offshoot of the blog DoneWaiting.com is releasing a split vinyl 7″ featuring a new song of mine on one side and a tune by the haunting and stirring band The Black Swans. It is a lovingly handcrafted production to be released around SXSW 2009 in March. The song I contributed is called “Snowfall and Starlight” and features John Lynch on drums, Greg Heffernan on cello and I play a toy organ (!) The winter issue of Alarm Magazine had a nice feature/interview with me including photos by the amazing rock photographer Noah Kalina shot in Red Hook.

November 2008: Whitney Matheson, pop culture blogger for USA Today managed to stop by my CMJ show at Pianos and listed it as one of her favorite shows at CMJ this year. The Wall Street Journal also interviewed me for an article about CMJ which was published Nov. 1. The hilarious radio show “Phoning it in” just finished archiving old performances on its really cute new website, which includes an old session of mine circa 2005 (and my cover of Britney Spears’ ‘Oops I did it again’ sung over the phone). I am heading to Russia in a couple of weeks and will be performing at Club Sochi in balmy St. Petersburg!

OBAMANATION: Here are some nice photos from the sold out Obama campaign benefit concert I played on October 7th at the Music Hall of Williamsburg along with Andrew Bird, Les Savy Fav, Fiery Furnaces and special guests Franz Ferdinand among others. I interviewed Mark Everett of EELS in conjuction with the release of a PBS/Nova special about his father who is also a theoretical physicist (like mine.) Some quite surreal video interviews with me have been posted by the nice folks at UncensoredInterview.com. Here is a radio interview I did on the New Hampshire Public Radio show ‘Word of Mouth’ October 9th and an interview and on-air performance with Marco Werman for the PRI/BBC show “The World: Global Hit.” I made it onto KCRW’s ‘Band’s to look out for at CMJ’ list and here is a nice photo my friend and blogger extraordinaire Bryan Bruchman took at my CMJ/After the Jump Fest show at Knitting Factory. Here is an interview with the blog ‘Music is Art,’ which is among the great blogs hosting the After the Jump fest show at CMJ. Here is another new interview over at Spinner.com. And here is my first interview with a newspaper from the city where I was born (Kharkov, Ukraine) in case you read Russian

A free 4-song EP that I recorded live for Daytrotter is now available for free download. Another session that I recorded for the wonderful indie radio station ‘Planet Claire’ is also available for free download. Also, new press from USAToday.com, Said the Gramophone, The National Post, Howard Wolfson’s (democratic Fox News correspondent) blog GothamAcre, the Portland Mercury and an interview in Boston’s Patriot Ledger newspaper. Other things! Here are some photos of me and Shawn all dressed up from our sold out show at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston with the amazing band ‘Why?’ last Friday. Mmmm…what else? I did an impromptu performance at the opening party for the incredibly lovely new Brooklyn venue, The Bell House, when Nada Surf unexpectedly couldn’t make it.

A RANDOM TANGENT: There are three artists out there whose work I love. In no particular order: (1) Vladimir Zimakov who has designed an album cover and a poster for me (2) My friend Steven Popovich who created the only painting I’ve ever bought in my life, on a sheet of old player-piano paper and (3) Jeremy Davis, whose penetrating takes on the campy/seamy side of life appeal to the Bukowski in all of us.

In July I made a special version of the Yanka album, recorded solo at home with five new Yanka covers included, in a limited edition of 50 copies. The artwork and liner notes for the Raw, Homemade Yanka Demos are all handmade by me. Each cost $15 including shipping. There are still a few left so if you’d like to order one my mail just drop me a note (see contact section).

I am happy to announce that ‘Everyone is Crying Out to Me, Beware’ has been released on vinyl by Topple Records. The album will feature original artwork by Vladimir Zimakov in a lavish, double gatefold format and will include an extra, exclusive track. Vinyl edition distributed by Junket Boy.

Some heartfelt, Europe tour thank yous: ***Michel Bergner ***, Stefano D’Agostino, the Mathias’s @ Laut.de, Traveling Music, Troels Mads, Vinciane Verguethen, Planet Claire and Marco in Rotterdam.

Previews for my April 4th, NYC show at Joe’s Pub in The New Yorker, critic’s pick of the week from Time Out New York, and interviews in Metromix and New York Press. CMJ review of the show here.

I was selected by Billboard Magazine as one of their ‘12 Bands to See’ at SXSW 2008, along with Santogold and Bon Iver. Lots of live SXSW show reviews, including Boston Globe online and LiveDaily.com, in the ‘press’ section.

The wonderful Russian artist, Vladimir Zimakov, created a special limited-edition artist’s print (linoleum cut and letterpressed) for my latest album/tour ’Everyone is Crying Out to Me, Beware.’ They are 11 x 14 inches, hand numbered, hand pressed, and beautiful. If you want one, shoot me an e-mail. They cost $10 + shipping. Or you can buy one at a show! Er, if I remember to bring them with me.

The Raleigh News & Observer has included me in their annual ‘Great 8‘ music feature, alongside the Bowerbirds and other lovely NC bands. There’s an exclusive video, original portrait and short interview.

My most recent album, ‘Everyone is Crying Out to Me, Beware‘ was released last summer.

My debut album, Placelessness, was released by 54º40′ or Fight! on September 18th, 2007. There was some nice advance press from Venus, The New Yorker, Paper Thin Walls, Music for Robots, Said the Gramophone, among others.

I will be touring a large part of the US and Canada in August and September. See ‘shows’ section for tour dates.

My recent album ‘Everyone is Crying Out to Me, Beware’ is sung in Russian, covering the music of Russian punk-folk legend Yanka Dyagileva. The album was, again, produced by Steve Revitte and was released by 54º40′ or Fight! in the Summer of 2008.