alec spiegelman

These days (as of this writing on Feb 9, 2019) I am busy with good work. And so I rarely get around to updating this website. Truth is the slow loading time for the admin page for the very old version of wordpress that I run is also an impediment. And then there’s all the potentially historic news on top of which to keep. I just don’t have much time.

So here’s a pretty broad & long view update, to keep the page current-enough for a while:

I am in the middle of producing three wonderful records for three wonderful and inspiring songwriters – Ana Egge, Zoe Guigueno, and Taylor Ashton. Can’t wait for you to hear them all!

I and the rest of Cuddle Magic spent three weeks in December in a slightly-larger-than-normal bathroom in a nice house on the Eastern tip of Long Island. There we recorded, all playing together very quietly, many performances of all the songs that will comprise our next record. There will be lots of time-taking and take-picking before we even send it off to be mixed. Still, I bet everyone gets to hear it before the end of 2019. I’m very excited about the album that is somewhere among all the things we recorded. It’s been a while since we made one — long enough for everyone of us (and the music and the lyrics) to have noticeably matured.

Here’s a new song of mine. Andrew DiMola plays the electric bass and sings harmonies. Michael Winograd filmed and recorded the audio.

Did you make out in front of a camera last year at the Bowery Ballroom?
Then you might see yourself herein, accompanied by a song I wrote (with crucial assistance from the master musician Dinty Child) about some anxieties, uncertainties, and caution, and not-kissing … at least not just yet.

Don’t know quite what I would do without my good friends in Cuddle Magic pushing me to make this music.

And much love to Thomas Brown, Taylor Ashton, Jacob Blumberg, and our own Christopher Andrew McDonald for making this video. And to Northern Spy and DRUNKEN PIANO for all their work, and NPR Music for the kind words!

https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2018/11/15/667547383/cuddle-magic-builds-a-pop-up-kissing-booth-but-leaves-the-kiss-to-you

Andrew Dimola and I have been at work on a record of strange meandering and hilarious cinematic music: mostly instrumental, but with the choicest words here and there. It features two of the finest improvisors we know, Trevor Dunn & Jason Nazary, and blooms out of compositions stretching back more than a decade back our respective notebooks.

The music will be available (very shortly, or maybe now?) here:

https://dieselcleaning.bandcamp.com/releases

And it should be available in all the standard digital stores (Spotify, Apple Music, and so on …) by the end of this week.

And we’re going to perform it live, joined by the incredible musicians Christopher McDonald and Dave Flaherty:

11/15 Cambridge, MA Lily Pad
11/16 Hadley, MA 123 Bay Rd. (House Concert)
11/17 Brooklyn, NY The Owl Music Parlor

I’ll be releasing some music to the world, via all the usual digital channels, this Friday, July 27. To celebrate I’ll be performing those 5 songs and others at Barbes that very evening, at 8pm, joined by Jason Nazary and Ryan Dugre.

I’m so very proud of this song from Ana Egge’s new record, and happy to see this incredible video by Taylor Ashton. You should see it too!

And/or you should catch me playing with Ana, live ….

(dates here: http://www.anaegge.com/shows/)

And you can also catch me playing some other music in Brooklyn this month …

July 11 me and Grant Gordy and Jared Engel and Raphael McGregor are gonna do something fun at Rockwood 1, 9pm

July 27 me and Jason Nazary and Ryan Dugre are gonna play all these songs I’ve been writing the past year while listening to the national news nonstop, at Barbes at 8pm. And if I can get it together (and I think I can!) that same week 5 of those songs will finally be made available on all the contemporary digital music distribution services of note.

ps — I’m in Brooklyn these days working on records (for and/or with Lissa Schneckenburger, Zoe Guigueno, Taylor Ashton, Zusha, Roy Williams, Teddy Thompson, Mike Robinson …) Wanna make a record? Let’s make a record. It’s fun.

A song I wrote with Ana Egge, for her new album (out next month) got some attention this morning from the folks at Billboard.

(My parents have heard of Billboard!)

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/8448805/ana-egge-you-among-flowers-video

not this winter, though that’s been weird too …

i wrote this one LAST winter, as unprecedented weather matched unprecedented national news, and I was thinking about it all watching a fire burn itself out in my good friend’s Philadelphia backyard.

https://soundcloud.com/alecspiegelman/never-even-a-bit

Uproxx published some nice words about the just-released first single from Ana Egge’s new record (which I produced):

Premiere: Ana Egge’s ‘Dance Around The Room With Me’ Is A Vivacious Invitation To Open Up Your Heart

And it’s all the other electronic places, if you look for it (like Spotify, Apple Music, and the like). Listen! It’s good!

I’m joining Ana at Rough Trade on April 12 (see the sidebar on the right) … and all sorts of other places in the coming months. (I’ll add them to the calendar, too … just gimme a minute)

I do really love to live in Brooklyn. Lot’s of fun projects, many of them facilitated by our new fine friendly-neighborhood studio, are either recently or just-now or shortly available for everyone to hear.

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/15/585457299/first-listen-darlingside-extralife
https://www.folkradio.co.uk/2018/02/hannah-read-way-out-ill-wander/

More wonderful music, soon to be released, includes the new Okkervil River record (featuring lots of snaggle-tooth tiger horns) and an album of incredible songs by Ms. Ana Egge which I was given the honor of producing!

I have shows upcoming in NYC and Boston, as well as a trip to SXSW to play with Cuddle Magic and Okkervil River, and other trips …

Mar. 8 – Solo – opening for the Stash Band at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA

Mar. 14-18 – SXSW in Austin, TX – showcases wi/ Cuddle Magic and Okkervil River

Mar. 23 – Cuddle Magic at the Finger Lakes Thaw, Ithaca, NY

more stuff to be shuffled around and confirmed very soon — i’ll update as I figure it all out.

Here is a Wichita line, in homage to the late Glen Campbell and to Jimmy Webb, who is still on (and entirely of our) time.

Thanks to Trevor Dunn (heard here on electric bass), Jason Nazary (on the drum set), and Robin Macmillan (as recording engineer for our productive first day in Williamsburg).

Andrew and I are playing two duo concerts at this end of this week. Friday Oct. 6 in Montague, MA (details upon request) and Saturday, Oct. 7, at Barbes in Brooklyn. The Barbes show is the first of four Saturdays I’ll be in-residence at Barbes … presenting different ensembles each week at 6pm.

The entire month of Saturdays at Barbes includes so many of my favorite musicians, friends both new and old. I could not be happier:

Oct. 7 wi/ Andrew Dimola
Oct. 14 wi/ Taylor Ashton & Akie Bermiss
Oct. 21 wi/ Jennifer Kimball, Maeve Gilchrist, Daniel McDowell
Oct. 28 wi/ Wes Corbett, Brittany Karlson, Duncan Wickel