Steve
Almaas & Ali Smith - S/T
www.stevealmaas.com
"Ali
Smith and Steve Almaas are like a musical Edie Sedwick and
James Dean" - Gabe Soria, Bang Magazine
Ali
Smith's musical background is steeped in punk, rockabilly
and most notably, the blues
stomp of Speedball Baby. Steve Almaas was in on the ground
floor of punk rock, as a founding member of the Suicide Commandos,
as well as a precursor to alt-country with his band Beat
Rodeo. Their shared love of American song manifests itself
on their self-titled debut album, with country, folk, R&B
and rock n' roll stylings all working their way into the
mix.
The twelve songs included were picked to suit their voices
and to make a cohesive whole. Ali sings a few, Steve sings
a few and the rest they do together. Steve
wrote or co-wrote seven of the twelve songs, the other five are songs they
always wanted to do. The album begins with their version of the Fleetwoods' "Come
Softly To Me". Except for Ali's vocal overdub, the song was done in one
take and the feel on that number sets the tone for the rest of the set. They
also rework Jack Logan's "Shrunken Head", Peter Holsapple's "Moving
In Your Sleep" and Adam Roth's "Little Jean". Ali revisits "Mistake",
a song from Steve's Beat Rodeo days and two of the many songs Steve has written
with George Usher are finally given an airing.
Steve Almaas & Ali Smith was recorded by Justin Asher at Sperry Sound in
New York City and mixed by Mitch Easter at Fidelitorium Recordings in Kernersville,
North Carolina. Besides Ali and Steve sharing the vocal duties and Steve playing
acoustic guitar, harmonica, piano and organ, the core band included long-time
Steve cohort and Holly and the Italians alumni, Mark Sidgwick on bass, Speedball
Baby's Andy Action on drums and multi-instrumentalist Jon Graboff on pedal
steel, mandolin and guitar. Mitch Easter and Matt Verta-Ray both make guest
appearances on guitar.
ALI SMITH - HISTORY:
Ali Smith has packed many careers and a lot of living into her 32 years. Born
and raised in Manhattan, she grew up with a smart, funny, first generation
Portuguese nurse for a mother and an eccentric, clever, musician for a father
(her father, Andre Smith, spent time playing with the American Symphony Orchestra
under Leopold Stokowski and as part of the "musique concrete" movement,
playing pieces composed by Jacob Druckman).
Ali's first incarnation was as a dancer at the School of American Ballet, until
she shaved her head (which made it hard to perform in the Nutcracker). In between
working such odd jobs as a strawberry picker and film producer's assistant,
Ali taught herself to play bass, guitar and drums, and spent her early teens
playing and singing in local punk bands and photographing life on the road.
In 1994 she joined the blues/rockabilly-influenced band Speedball Baby, with
whom she released many albums, survived a major label deal and toured the U.S.
and Europe with the likes of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the Lemonheads.
Ali liked the delta influenced, psychotic preacher style music, but the philosophy
behind the lyrical content never suited her, so last year, coinciding with
getting her first book deal, Ali left the band on good terms to pursue her
own musical aspirations and her photography.
Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, released her first book, Laws
of the Bandit Queens in April 2002. This album, Steve Almaas & Ali Smith,
is her first musical endeavor since striking out on her own. Making this album
has given her the opportunity to do again what she started out doing at 18
and what she really loves to do… sing.
STEVE ALMAAS - HISTORY:
Steve Almaas was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father emigrated to the
United States from Norway and worked as a salmon fisherman in Alaska before
settling in Minnesota to marry and raise a family. His mother was from a Danish
farming family and was working as a nurse in Minneapolis when she met Steve's
father.
Steve played piano and violin in grade school, and began playing the guitar
and bass around age 12. His first working band, the Suicide Commandos, was
the first punk rock group in Minneapolis/St. Paul. From the Commandos' pioneering
performances and recordings grew the thriving alternative rock scene, which
later produced the Replacements, Husker Du, Soul Asylum and so many more.
At the end of the Seventies, Steve moved to New York City. He worked briefly
with a post punk trio called The Crackers before forming a new country-influenced
band called Beat Rodeo. This group released two albums, Staying Out Late With
Beat Rodeo (1985) and Home In The Heart Of The Beat (1986), on I.R.S. Records
and successfully toured the U.S. and Europe.
Returning to New York, Steve began appearing every Monday with a shifting cast
of musicians (including former members of Beat Rodeo) at the intimate Ludlow
Street Cafe. These gigs attracted loyal and enthusiastic following, as well
as favorable write-ups in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Steve also
worked with his friend George Usher in a duo called The Gornack Brothers, which
released the album Refund on Strike Back Records (UK). In the fall of 1990,
Steve Almaas performed at Berlin Independence Days both as a solo and in the
band The Kool Kings with Justice Hahn and Alex Chilton. While in Berlin, Steve
also had a chance to meet and spend time with long time idol Townes Van Zandt.
Outside New York's Ludlow Street Cafe one night, Steve met Ingemar Magnusson.
The eventual result was East River Blues, the first solo album by Steve Almaas,
which was released January 1993 on Magnusson's Lonesome Whippoorwill label
of Sweden. The album was produced by Mark Sidgwick and contained eleven new
Almaas originals. Steve toured Sweden twice that year accompanied by the mighty
Ministers Of Sound (see below). A second album, Bridge Songs, was released
in 1995. The album was recorded in New York with Mark Sidgwick producing, and
mixed by Mitch Easter in North Carolina.
In 1996, Steve played bass on Chris Whitley's third album Terra Incognita (Columbia).
Then, after a seventeen- year hiatus, The Suicide Commandos played a reunion
show in Minneapolis... and 10,000 people showed up! Mercury/Polygram reissued
The Commandos' sole studio album, Make A Record, on compact disc. In the summer
of 1998, Steve recorded his third solo album, Human, All Too Human, at Mitch
Easter's new Fidelitorium studio in North Carolina. Mitch co-produced the album
with Steve, with the music by The Ministers Of Sound. The new millennium saw
the release of Steve's best-received solo album to date, Kingo A Wild One,
his first on Parasol. |
