alec spiegelman

I’m grateful and excited to have a bunch of performances upcoming, of my own music, and with a bevy of inspiring collaborators.

Here’s what’s happening in case you’d like to hear it in person!

Saturday, Aug 20 – Charlottesville, VA – album recording with a live audience! – David Wax, Suz Slezak, Jeremy Gustin, and I will be recording new David Wax Museum songs this coming week in the brand-new, high-ceilinged, sonorous&beautiful barn in the Museum’s hometown of Charlottesville. Come and be a part of our barn-studio audience as we play through the songs on Saturday night. Tickets here.

Alec Spiegelman Solo – Labor Day Weekend Upstate Tour

I’ll be playing songs from Airplane Mode, and newer songs, and maybe some older songs, as well, on three shows over Labor Day Weekend

Friday, Sep 2 – Tivoli, NY – 6:30pm – 101 North Rd. – Tim Davis will also play a few songs, and I’ll follow with a set of mine! (scarcely upstate)

Saturday, Sep 3 – Upper Jay, NY – at the Recovery Lounge, Upper Jay Art Center, 12198 Old Rte 9N – sharing the bill with Ali McGuirk (far upstate! this is up north!)

Sunday, Sep 4 – Cambridge, MA – I’m playing a solo set at 5:45 (sharp) as part of Passim’s Labor Day Campfire Festival. (this is sort of like ‘upstate’, i propose, at the risk of triggering some ancient boston-nyc rivalry)

and later in September I get to make more sounds in NYC

Saturday, Sep 24 – Brooklyn, NY – I’m joining Ana Egge for her set at the Brooklyn Americana Fest, 7pm at the Dumbo Archway

Thursday, Sep 29 – Brooklyn, NY – playing with Emily Wells at National Sawdust in Brooklyn

Friday, Sep 30 – Frenchtown, NJ – with Emily Wells at the ArtYard

Having a lovely time traipsing around our nation, making music with Emily Wells and an incredible band (Dandy McDowell, Addie Vogt, and me!) We’re realizing, live, her incredible new album “Send My Regards”, and some classic cuts.

We’ve already done it (trio style, to start) in Carrboro, NC and Atlanta, GA … the tour continues at all these places on all these dates:

JUN 3 FRI Parish @ 8:00pmAustin, TX, United States

JUN 4 SATRuins @ 8:00pmDallas, TX, United States

JUN 5 SUNPaper Tiger @ 8:00pmSan Antonio, TX, United States

JUN 8 WEDMusical Instrument Museum @ 8:00pmPhoenix, AZ, United States

JUN 9 THUHighland Park Ebell Club @ 8:00pmCreature of DoomLos Angeles, CA, United States

JUN 10 FRIStarline Social Club @ 8:00pmArthur MoonOakland, CA, United States

JUN 12 SUNHult Center for the Performing Arts @ 7:30pmArthur MoonEugene, OR, United States

JUN 13 MONWonder Ballroom @ 8:00pmArthur MoonPortland, OR, United States

JUN 14 TUEMadame Lou’s @ 8:00pmArthur MoonDowntown Seattle, WA, United States

JUN 15 WEDFawcett Hall at Alma Mater @ 8:00pmArthur MoonTacoma, WA, United States

JUN 17 FRIVisual Arts Collective (VAC) @ 8:00pmGarden City, ID, United States

JUN 18 SATKilby Court @ 8:00pmArthur MoonSalt Lake City, UT, United States

JUN 19 SUNSwallow Hill @ 8:00pmDenver, CO, United States

JUN 23 THUArts + Literature Laboratory @ 8:00pmMadison, WI, United States

JUN 24 FRISpace @ 8:00pmEvanston, IL, United States

JUN 25 SATHi-Fi @ 8:00pmIndianapolis, IN, United States

And when that’s all done, more shows in July with Parsonsfield (and my musical brother Benjamin Lazar Davis), as well as a solo Alec Spiegelman set opening for Dallas Ugly at the Owl (July 15!) (I had the honor of producing Dallas Ugly’s new record … can’t wait to hear them rock those songs live in one of my favorite Brooklyn rooms!)

I’ve got a bunch of shows coming up soon: collective celebrations of music released during the long last two years. They will be precious opportunities to play the songs from my album Airplane Mode, and some Cuddle Magic material you’ve heard and some you haven’t yet, and to join up with Parsonsfield to play songs from their latest (Benjamin Lazar Davis produced!) album, Happy Hour on the Floor. I can’t wait to sing and play in front of some crowded collections of people in live-music-optimized spaces!

Dates & Details below:

I, Alec Spiegelman open

followed by Parsonsfield ft. me and Brittany Karlson!!!!

Exeter, NH – April 21 – The Word Barn

Fall River, MA – April 22 – Narrows Center For The Arts

Portland, ME – April 23 – One Longfellow Square

Old Saybrook, CT – April 27 – Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center

Philadelphia, PA – April 28 – Milkboy

New York City – May 6 – Mercury Lounge

Northampton, MA – May 7 – The Parlor Room

Saratoga Springs, NY – May 12 – Caffe Lena

Cambridge, MA – May 13 – The Sinclair

Rochester NY – May 14 – (no solo set here — but Parsonsfield wi me & Brittany Karlson will be so tour-tight by the time we hit the Rochester Lilac Festival stage, and it’s free, and check out these amazing gardens!!)

Benjamin Lazar Davis & I open

followed by Parsonfield ft. BLD & me !!!!

Buffalo, NY – July 6 – The 9th Ward

Harbor Springs, MI – July 8-9 (BLD & AS set tba at Blissfest!)

Ann Arbor, MI – July 10 – The Ark

I’ll be performing a bunch of songs from Airplane Mode on Feb 1, in the cozy Park Slope listening room at Barbes. And I’ll be joined by the wonderful guitarist Wendy Eisenberg!

Also – a northeast tour commences soon with the David Wax Museum. David & Suz and I will be playing as a trio all around the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic late February and into March. (go to their website for the dates and the deets!) We’ll play songs from the two (2!) wild&weird David Wax Museum albums I produced & mixed in the last couple years. If you haven’t heard them yet – do please take a listen to Euphoric Ouroboric and Remember My Future (available on all the normal streaming platforms)

More touring, with other wonderful musical associates, is on the books for the Spring (can you believe it?!) Details to come!

I’ve got shows upcoming!

I’ll be doing a set of my own songs (including a bunch from Airplane Mode, out last Fall) on Nov 19, in Hartford, CT, opening for the fine fellas in Parsonsfield. And I’ll get to join them for their own gloriously unplugged set! Tickets available now, here.

In NYC, I’ll be joining Taylor Ashton at twice at Rockwood Music Hall (Nov 2 & 21), proudly rounding out a crack quartet with Julia Easterlin and Sean Trischka. We’ll be opening both those evenings for pals Rachael & Vilray.

And … important news … the wonderful album I produced for Zoe Guigueno is available now on CD, AND I will join Zoe herself (as well as Michelle Willis and Jason Burger) to play songs from that album (and newer songs) at Pete’s Candy Store on Nov 22

I have a show, indoors & before a live audience, coming up in Brooklyn, on Saturday July 24, at 7pm!

Julia Easterlin and I will play sets at the Green Lung Studio, at the base of Park Slope by the Gowanus canal.

I will sing songs from my recent album Airplane Mode, and newer songs. And, we’ll be getting together in advance to work out some collaborations.

What a year-and-a-half it’s been, and what a surprising world in which to mark a numerologically significant birthday. I am 40 now! The pandemic seems to have neatly divided my life: I’m hoping I have at least roughly as many decades to come, and I’m happy to face them with a little more wisdom, won via all the hours of Covid-enforced self-examination.

Physical isolation aside, I’m thankful to have spent the pandemic time still busy with music, and engaged with inspiring and challenging collaborators. David Wax, Zoe Guigueno, Taylor Ashton, Sadie Gustafson-Zook, Andrew Dimola, Anna Tivel, Caroline Cotter, Dallas Ugly, Joseph DeCosimo, Kenniston, and others invited me into their work, and it’s been a great privilege to craft sounds with them all. Not all of our most recent creations are yet released to the world, but ALL of the music made by those folks is good and I encourage you to give it a listen.

Also of great comfort this year, the six of us in Cuddle Magic have been writing an album’s worth of songs together. We’ll record them this coming fall, in the same small bathroom where we recorded Bath, our pandemic-Spring offering, once again breathing and listening to the shared air in that tiny space!

I have a delightful time talking with a true musical mensch, the ever-inspiring Mr. Mike Watt, on today’s episode of The Watt from Pedro Show. We cover: my Dad’s record collection, my Mom’s guitar, my high school swing-revival band, Little Joe Cook, and Cuddle Magic, among many other topics. And, in between our brief chats, Watt plays some very good music, a bunch of which I made. And, like every episode of this wonderful show, it starts with a track by John Coltrane!

Not a bad three hours of radio, at all!

You can listen here, or find the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

I had a delightfully rambling chat with Cindy Howes for her podcast, Basic Folk. (Listen at the link!)

I seem to remember we talk about music I’ve made (like my album Airplane Mode, and the latest from Cuddle Magic, and great stuff from Ana Egge, Taylor Ashton, Sadie Gustafson-Zook, Zoe Guigueno, and The David Wax Museum), places I’ve played (weddings, comedy clubs …) and some of the deep wisdom I got from Ran Blake.

And other stuff!

Airplane Mode is the new full-length album by me, Alec Spiegelman.

Since yesterday, Oct 23, it has been available on all of the usual digital platforms.

Things got slightly confusing over at Spotify, inside which a second and distinct Alec Spiegelman was created, for this new album and for some guest appearances. Here’s the new me. I’m told that this will only last for a little while, that the new me and the old me are the same, and that they are in the process of being consolidated.

I wrote the songs for this album pretty quickly in the late summer and into the fall of 2018. “Hurt A Little” and “One Decision” were written with Ana Egge.

Ana is my songwriting hero. I got to spend a bunch of time with her on the road, and through the making of two very good albums. Besides just being the most incredible hang, all that time working with Ana was also a graduate education, my theses: the songs we wrote together. Ana happens to sing my favorite version of “Hurt A Little” on her album, “Is It the Kiss”. I sing an entirely different version with my band, Cuddle Magic, on our album “Bath”. And I think that other people should (and will likely) sing it on other albums, and also at home just for themselves. My sense that anybody should, and could, sing that song, is something of which I’m incredibly proud, and which I do not think I could have done without Ana.

Andrew Dimola & Robin MacMillan play the bass & drums, respectively. And Robin engineered the two day-long sessions (Jan 27, 2019 and Aug 10, 2019), with the three of us tracking together at Robin’s amazing old Williamsburg loft studio.

Robin MacMillan is an incredibly talented musician and producer. He is a masterful engineer of his notoriously difficult-to-mic primary instrument: the drum set. He imagines all kinds of driving parts and pockets. He understands some very subtle connections between musical rhythms and dance, and he’s a fine & un-self-conscious dancer. He makes all sorts of beautiful music in collaboration with all of my favorite musicians in town.

I’ve been playing music with Andrew Dimola pretty steadily since we met around 2003 in Cambridge, MA. At this point, I think we have a remarkable amount of shared and specific musical vocabulary. Thankfully, Andrew still breaks rules I would never break, in pursuit of symmetries I would never have seen. Critically, in the context of this album, he can rock un-ironically and aggressively, as this music demands.

Jacob Blumberg made four music videos for four of the shorter songs on the album. Those are all available to watch on my instagram account.

And also, here:

my new album Airplane Mode will be released on all the usual digital platforms on Friday, Oct 23