Alan Semerdjian: News

Anyone want to host a house/living room concert? Contact me at alan@alanarts.com. Two are in the works already and more to come. Thanks GenPop Books (and all of you who helped make the book what it is) for putting out In the Architecture of Bone as well...what a great literary ride it's been. Again, more to come. Stay tuned for a big summer show or two in the NYC area. Thanks for the continued support, people. This is all for you/us.

So the music will slow down for a while, good people. Big thanks for all the great shows of love for The Big Beauty over the past few months. After the October 30th fundraiser for the AGBU at NYC's Canal Room, I'll be concentrating on promoting my first full-length book of poetry, In the Architecture of Bone (GenPop Books 2009). The poems deal with growing up hyphenated-american, reconciling the very unreconciled armenian genocide, and my grandfather, the cubist-impressionist painter Simon Samsonian. For more information on this, see www.genpopbooks.com. The Big Beauty is available at iTunes and CdBaby.com. Get in there. Hope to see you at a reading down the line...

love,

as

What a summer so far. The Big Beauty Summer Tour is grand...big shows and small shows and a few in between. Seeing great friends along the way always is a plus too. Thanks to Portland, Maine Community Radio (Jeff!) and Portsmouth Community Radio (Chris G. and Terry!) and Shenecteday Today (Richard G. and Jack!) for some special community broadcast shows...

Stay tuned for LA next month and a few more shows in September before slowing the music down and getting set to release my first full-length book of poetry...

Thanks for everything...especially for reading this.

::::as

Dear Diary,

So I'm back in Huntington, NY for the day browsing through the aisles at Book Revue (one of the truest indie bookstores in perhaps the nation) and one of the employees there, Kevin - a real kind guy whom I've known peripherally for quite a while - tells me that it was real cool to hear me on the radio the other night. He goes on to tell me that it was 107.1 FM The Peak, and immediately I think that I haven't thanked Chris Bro and his NEXT show on the Peak. He's what I call a "super music guy"; he's made it his mission to do good for music lovers and musicians for his stay here on earth. I got in contact with him through a real great songwriter and friend named Neil Nathan. We played a show together for NEXT up in Stamford, CT. Great folks, great music, lots of pool tables (the place was called Rack N Roll) and the magic of Chris Bro, the wonderful wizard of indie rock. Check out his webpage for the program: www.nextmusiconline.com/8 Look for Alan Semerdjian on one of his playlists after a Flaming Lips cover of Madonna's Borderline...Neil Young comes after me...yes, he makes some pretty great mixes too...

Thanks again Chris! and Neil for making the connection! I'm hoping to connect with NEXT soon...

Hi.

The music video/public art project for my song "Can't Wait," directed by Haik Kocharian, is being aired as part of a contest on Indi Music TV, a program on WLNY (channel 10 or 55-depending on where you live), a TV station in the Long Island/New York City area. The video is on at 2:00am tonight 4.03.09 (Friday night/Saturday morning), and the voting begins after the video is aired. It would be awesome if you could vote for this several times (once per day) over the next week. Registration is super easy. Here's the link:

http://www.indimusictv.com/season02/watchandvote.cfm.

Thanks so much in advance. Please pass the link around and tell friends to vote. It would be a big win for me and unusually beautiful music videos in general if "Can't Wait" won.

You're the best.

::::alan

So the new The Big Beauty CD is released and available on iTunes, and while there are no official reviews yet from any major regional/national publications yet the feedback on a local level has been awesome. The music video too has been well-received and is up for an award in a music video contest on Indi Music TV. More on that later. Stay tuned for summer touring dates too - NYC, LA, Boston, Philly, among others.
Appreciaton!

The new CD is officially released, but it will take a little while for it to
appear on itunes and amazon and cdbaby and other digital music stores. You can grab mp3's from Digstation though:
http://www.digstation.com/AlbumDetails.aspx?albumID=ALB000027063
And if you haven't checked out the music video/mini-documentary/ short film
for my song "Can't Wait" directed by Haik Kocharian, check it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEAq35TRG5M
We got a whopping response that blew me away. I hope you send it to your address book and turn other people on to it. Perhaps people can post
comments stating what it is that they (you) can't wait for?

Stay tuned beautiful people. Real music and art will continue to exist as long as there's folks like you out there who support it.

Thank you.

The Big Beauty is what we're calling the new batch of songs that Alan Semerdjian is currently shopping around. And what exactly is The Big Beauty? It's a group of songs that explores what it means to be in a relationship - the good, the complex, and, of course, the beauty. We're all a part of The Big Beauty in one way or another and, in fact, we're all big beauties...each and every one of us.

Several incredible people came together to create The Big Beauty and they are:

Mike Bloom (producer and multi-instrumentalist)

Philip A. Jimenez (additional production, multi-instrumentalist)

Matthew Cullen (engineer, The Clubhouse, upstate NY)

Brian Blackburn (additional engineering, acoustic guitar)

Matthew Iselin (pianos, organ, wurlitzer, keys)

Dave Diamond (drums, percussion)

Christopher Kuffner (bass)

Melinda Hirsch (viola)

Maureen Keenan (flute)

Rebecca Perea (cello)

Franz Nicolay (accordian, tack piano)

Jivan Gasparian (duduk)

Daniel T. Levin (trumpet, flugelhorn, euphonium)

David Moyer (baritone sax)

Melissa Menake, Blaire Eltringham, Scott Bloom, Jenelle Kunz, and Casey and Olivia (backup vocals, claps, and great energy)


Alan Semerdjian is doing a residency of showcases at The Living Room during the month of September (every Tuesday at 9pm except the 16th) to promote the new songs to friends, family, fans, and industry.

Songs from The Big Beauty can be heard on Alan Semerdjian's Fan Page on Facebook, myspace.com/semerdjian or right here on alansemerdjian.com.

Free downloads will be available at the shows in September.

See you soon, you big beauty.

It features 14 songs, 11 of which are completely new...

Mike Bloom handles production (with Philip Jimenez and Brian Blackburn helping out), Philip Jimenez, Mike Bloom, and Matthew Cullen handle the engineering, and Fred Kevorkian mastered it.

More news to follow + website updates and much much more...

Here's what it looks like so far for the new record:

CAST:

yours truly on acoustics and electrics and pipes

Matthew Cullen in THE CLUBHOUSE in upstate NY for the basic tracks

Philip A. Jimenez for tracking all sorts of goodies and final mixes on a bunch of the tunes

Mike Bloom mixes and lap steel and banjo and electric and programming and what else?

Dave Diamond on drums
Matt Iselin on assorted keys and piano
Chris Kuffner on bass
Franz Nicolay on accordian and tack piano
Melinda Hirsch on viola
Rebecca Pereira on cello
Maureen Keenan on flute

and Mr. Brian Blackburn?

and FS for the mastering?

and investors? label support?

We're all looking forward to this one at the alan semerdjian camp...hopefully so are you.

I'll be playing select shows in the NYC area to highlight some new songs I've been working on. The plan is to figure out how recording is going to happen by the spring...let me know if you have any ideas...

Thank you friends and fans and family for continued support. It's pretty amazing how (when you least expect it) this making-of-art business brings people together and we all grow and mature and love and start figuring things out and discovering new questions...

Shows in NYC (Makor and Living Room) in the spring and summer touring in little cafes, bars, and performance spaces near you (maybe?). Itunes and Cdbaby and other digital music stores carry the new CD. Or pick one up at the next show...

Thank you WFUV.

If you like some of what you see on this site and on alanarts.com, please contact Peter Ragona at arete@optonline.net.

some relevant information on alan semerdjian


· Alan used to front the alt-pop indie-rock outfit SURREAL in the 90’s.
· SURREAL was too indie for the hippies and too hippie for the indies but, nevertheless, was able to gain college and commercial radio success, television credits, and regional touring.
· Alan is a poet and essayist with numerous print and online publication credits. His chapbook of poems is called “An Improvised Device” and is published by Lock n Load Publishing.
· Alan’s new cd, “When There Was Something Wrong With You,” is produced by Phil Jimenez from Wheatus and Gordo Gringo, Michael Bloom from Rilo Kiley and The Elected, and Brian Blackburn from the “clandestine” studio at The Sunset Marquee in Hollywood, CA.
· A song of Alan’s appears in a little-known short film entitled “Whatever We Do,” starring Robert Downey Jr., Tim Roth, and Amanda Peet, produced by Toby Maguire and written and directed by Kevin Connolly.
· Alan is a high school English teacher and leads writing workshops for teens on Long island and New York City.
· Alan does some tutoring.
· Alan has over ten years and 800+ performances worth of touring experience on small intimate stages across America.
· Alan collaborates for experimental hybrid soundscapes with poets and free jazz musicians attempting to serve as a conduit between the entertainment world and its vast continuum and the glowing complexities of academia.
· Alan is an Armenian-American.
· Alan has an MFA in Poetry from Goddard College.
· Digital homes for Alan’s work (press, bios, images, etc.) can be found at www.alanarts.com, www.myspace.com/semerdjian, www.music.download.com/alansemerdjian, www.sonicbids.com/alansemerdjian, and by google searching “alan semerdjian”.
· Alan’s grandfather was a cubist painter and genocide survivor – a very serious painter and beautiful man.
· Alan layers several hundred printed or handwritten words on a piece of paper and calls it artpoem.
· Alan used to be the caretaker of The Walt Whitman Birthplace and co-curated an arts series there called “The Body Electric.”
· Alan flirts with being a performance artist (he loves public displays of art or art in public).
· Alan is afraid of balloons.
· Alan is in a relationship with a wonderful lady named Melissa.
· Alan is an only child.
· Alan believes art is about entering a conversation.

Alan Semerdjian's new catalogue of songs "When There Was Something Wrong With You" is currently available through www.cdbaby.com.