Saturday night, October 5th, something truly magical is going to happen. The self titled Ali Wadsworth album is going to be released in grand fashion. We're talking G R A N D! Cocktail hour, a secret band, a roving party, and the much anticipated release of the most #EPIC album of all time!
The Ali Wadsworth band itself, is made up of members of Good Old War, the Lawsuits, Hezekiah Jones, Chris Kasper, and more!
We're not talking epic as in my favorite over-used adjective, but epic as in over 50 potential writers contributing to a project! The cross-section of the Philadelphia scene involved with this project is huge. We're not even talking 6 degrees of separation or 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever. The number of artists directly writing for or playing on the album is staggering. Don't confuse things though. This is not some weak celebrity all-star album or some vanity project. This is a full on collaboration with Ali Wadsworth, all stemming out of the huge respect that all the other Philly scene-sters have for Ali. Likewise, even though none of the songs are written by Ali, every song is overwhelmingly Ali Wadsworth. Some have taken so much new life with Ali that they seem like they were written about her. Going through a break up, mid-record, this album became a document of what she was going through. 'Still Not Over You' has become her break up song, 'Long Hours' to avoid the ex, and 'Biding My Time' wanting to keep him away.
How did it all begin? "Wadsworth’s
solo album was successfully funded via Kickstarter as a project whereby
she asked 10 of her favorite songwriters to write her songs. Within a
month of starting this project, she received almost 50 songs from some
of the most renowned songwriters in the city most of whom she didn’t
ask, but heard about the project and submitted anyway; making the
decision process quite difficult. As challenging as it was to choose
just 10 songs, the decisions were made with Wadsworth’s
mega-producers/engineers BILL MORIARTY and JOE BISIRRI (DR. DOG, MAN
MAN, FLOATING ACTION, TALL TALL TREES, GRANDCHILDREN, DRINK UP
BUTTERCUP, THE SHEEPDOGS, TOY SOLDIERS, THE LAWSUITS) the ambitiously
mind-blowing album was finally completed, mixed, mastered, and pressed a
month ago just in time for The Philadelphia Folk Festival where she had
an unbelievably fortuitous pre-release."
How did these songs get to Ali? To get the best answer on this I went straight to the writers themselves.
From Sean Hoots: 'All Due Respect' was a song I just had laying around. In its demo state it was a bit too hip-hop/r&b for Hoots & Hellmouth to use. The big chorus works well with Ali's voice, and that was what initially inspired me to offer it to her for her record. The final version sounds a lot more polished than I thought that little gem could get. She's got a great producer and session cats on her team, so it's not surprising that they were able to mold it into a proper rocker more suited for her style. I'm a proud papa.
Brian Dale Allen Strouse:
Any other favorites from the new album?
Speaking of Kate Bernhardt, the songstress adds; while it was a thrill and a great experience to be asked to add some vocals to the album. 'I'm so excited for Ali. This album really allows her to flex her vocals, showing of her range and dynamics."
As an added bonus for this post, I got with RLS Video's Bob Sweeney to edit another video from the Sofar Sounds Philadelphia session! Extra Thanks to Bob and the Sofar Sounds Philadelphia team for team help sharing more Ali Wadsworth Ali Wadsworth "Biding My Time" Sofar Philadelphia (#408)
Thanks also to Ali Wadsworth, Sean Hoots, Brian Strouse, Kevin Killen, Joe Bisirri, Kate Bernhardt, and Marley McNamara for all sharing their time to give us some special insight on this album!
Ali Wadsworth "Biding My Time" from Bob Sweeney on Vimeo.
**
Ali Wadsworth Ali Wadsworth
Song title writer
1. 'Long Hours' - Chris Kasper
2. 'Still Not Over You (Blue)' - Adrien Reju
3. 'Biding My Time' - Claire Wadsworth
4. 'Just One Kiss' - Eric Hickey
5. 'I Ran Away' - Kevin Killen
6. 'Hurricane Blues' - Brian Dale Allen Strouse
7. '30 Days' - David Cope
8. 'Where Is Your Love' - Ron Gallo
9. 'All Due Respect' - Sean Hoots
10. 'Say Goodbye' - Seth Kauffman
The Ali Wadsworth band itself, is made up of members of Good Old War, the Lawsuits, Hezekiah Jones, Chris Kasper, and more!
How did these songs get to Ali? To get the best answer on this I went straight to the writers themselves.
From Sean Hoots: 'All Due Respect' was a song I just had laying around. In its demo state it was a bit too hip-hop/r&b for Hoots & Hellmouth to use. The big chorus works well with Ali's voice, and that was what initially inspired me to offer it to her for her record. The final version sounds a lot more polished than I thought that little gem could get. She's got a great producer and session cats on her team, so it's not surprising that they were able to mold it into a proper rocker more suited for her style. I'm a proud papa.
Brian Dale Allen Strouse:
"I was made aware that she was making an album. I
met her at a bar one night and we spoke about me sending her a few tunes
for her to possibly use on her new album. I sent her a bunch she picked 'Hurricane Blues'. There was
one song that I actually wrote for her. She decided not to use it, and
went with Hurricane Blues, which was probably a good idea because her
version of that is so good."
As a habitual song writer, what's it like seeing your song being presented so well amongst the Ali Wadsworth album? "It's great! She's a hell of a talent. Her version of 'Hurricane Blues' is how that song always wanted to be."
As a habitual song writer, what's it like seeing your song being presented so well amongst the Ali Wadsworth album? "It's great! She's a hell of a talent. Her version of 'Hurricane Blues' is how that song always wanted to be."
Any other favorites from the new album?
'Blue (Still Not Over You') is one of my favorites. The whole album's good start to finish. Kudos to her."
From Kevin Killen:
Ali asked me to write her a song and I was honored considering the huge pool of writing talent she already had to draw from. I slaved over a piano for a while and truly thought of her when creating the song. In fact. The only time I was in her car there was a warbley, worn out old soul tape ... Yes tape, playing on the radio. She's a great singer and I'm amazingly honored that my song made the record. I wish her the best if luck but she won't need it because it's a killer record.
Where did all the magic happen? Philly bands and friends of Ali Wadsworth, the Lawsuits and Toy Soldiers had each worked with Bill Moriarty at Waking Studios, when Ali came in. To get the details of making this album, I went straight to Co-Producer Joe Bisirri.
"I first met Ali Wadsworth during the Toy Soldiers Maybe Boys sessions. She came in a couple times to do background vocals. I actually remember the first time I heard her: I was doing some editing in another room at the studio and I heard her wailing out in the live room. "Whoa, Robert Plant is here"
From Kevin Killen:
Ali asked me to write her a song and I was honored considering the huge pool of writing talent she already had to draw from. I slaved over a piano for a while and truly thought of her when creating the song. In fact. The only time I was in her car there was a warbley, worn out old soul tape ... Yes tape, playing on the radio. She's a great singer and I'm amazingly honored that my song made the record. I wish her the best if luck but she won't need it because it's a killer record.
Where did all the magic happen? Philly bands and friends of Ali Wadsworth, the Lawsuits and Toy Soldiers had each worked with Bill Moriarty at Waking Studios, when Ali came in. To get the details of making this album, I went straight to Co-Producer Joe Bisirri.
"I first met Ali Wadsworth during the Toy Soldiers Maybe Boys sessions. She came in a couple times to do background vocals. I actually remember the first time I heard her: I was doing some editing in another room at the studio and I heard her wailing out in the live room. "Whoa, Robert Plant is here"
Ali
came to us with Ron Gallo and said she was anxious to begin recording her
record. At this point she had already done her Kickstarter and had done
some demos and arranging with Dan Schwartz from Good Old War."
Had you heard any previous versions of the songs? "There were demos of all the songs from the artists. 'Say Goodbye' is a Floating Action song that I believe is already out in the world. We literally just recreated the arrangement of that song with slightly slicker production. Kevin was working on his own version of 'I Ran Away' at the same time as us. That's one of my favorite songs on the record. (He put his version out on his Laurelwood Road EP)"
How were the songs introduced into the project? Did the author play a version first and let Ali take over, or the studio take over? Did Sean Hoots, Brian Strouse, Chris Kasper, etc, take part in any of the development of the songs? "The writers weren't involved in the process of making the album. Dan and Ali had done a few of their own demos which also informed what we made. We pretty much picked our favorites of the demos and then would filter it through the band. If we had something cool after working on it for a while then we kept with it, if not we moved to a different song. Ron wrote the chorus of 'Where is Your Love' in 15 minutes. While we working on it we realized that the chorus we had was more of a pre-chorus, so we called him up and asked if he could come up with something. He sent us an iPhone voice memo a little while later."
Had you heard any previous versions of the songs? "There were demos of all the songs from the artists. 'Say Goodbye' is a Floating Action song that I believe is already out in the world. We literally just recreated the arrangement of that song with slightly slicker production. Kevin was working on his own version of 'I Ran Away' at the same time as us. That's one of my favorite songs on the record. (He put his version out on his Laurelwood Road EP)"
How were the songs introduced into the project? Did the author play a version first and let Ali take over, or the studio take over? Did Sean Hoots, Brian Strouse, Chris Kasper, etc, take part in any of the development of the songs? "The writers weren't involved in the process of making the album. Dan and Ali had done a few of their own demos which also informed what we made. We pretty much picked our favorites of the demos and then would filter it through the band. If we had something cool after working on it for a while then we kept with it, if not we moved to a different song. Ron wrote the chorus of 'Where is Your Love' in 15 minutes. While we working on it we realized that the chorus we had was more of a pre-chorus, so we called him up and asked if he could come up with something. He sent us an iPhone voice memo a little while later."
The musicians, were they all friends of Ali's or introduced through the studio?
A lot of people
played on the record. Many of them were friends of Ali's and had played
with her in the past. I fell into playing on the record by way of
engineering it. You know, everyone's gone home and the song could use a
couple more overdubs, "Oh, Joe plays." The album was recorded in a
couple chunks, but the biggest chunk had Matt Scarano on drums, whom
Bill suggested we bring in. Phil DAgostino played bass on the whole
record. A lot of the more sublime trippy groovy stuff was done with
Matt, Phil and I. Dan and Tim from Good Old War played on 'All Due
Respect' and 'Where Is Your Love'. Josh Friedman from the Lawsuits played
drums on 'Biding My Time'. Jaron Olevsky played keys on 'All Due Respect'
and 'Where is Your Love'. Ron played piano on 30 Days. Dom Billet from Toy
Soldiers played some percussion as well as drums on a Dave Davison
song that we worked on for the record but didn't end up making it.
Any unexpected matches? Kate Bernhardt came in and stole the record doing background vocals. Her part on the second verse of 'Still Not Over You' is awesome.
Any unexpected matches? Kate Bernhardt came in and stole the record doing background vocals. Her part on the second verse of 'Still Not Over You' is awesome.
Speaking of Kate Bernhardt, the songstress adds; while it was a thrill and a great experience to be asked to add some vocals to the album. 'I'm so excited for Ali. This album really allows her to flex her vocals, showing of her range and dynamics."
As an added bonus for this post, I got with RLS Video's Bob Sweeney to edit another video from the Sofar Sounds Philadelphia session! Extra Thanks to Bob and the Sofar Sounds Philadelphia team for team help sharing more Ali Wadsworth Ali Wadsworth "Biding My Time" Sofar Philadelphia (#408)
Thanks also to Ali Wadsworth, Sean Hoots, Brian Strouse, Kevin Killen, Joe Bisirri, Kate Bernhardt, and Marley McNamara for all sharing their time to give us some special insight on this album!
Ali Wadsworth "Biding My Time"
Ali Wadsworth "Biding My Time" from Bob Sweeney on Vimeo.
**
Ali Wadsworth Ali Wadsworth
Song title writer
1. 'Long Hours' - Chris Kasper
2. 'Still Not Over You (Blue)' - Adrien Reju
3. 'Biding My Time' - Claire Wadsworth
4. 'Just One Kiss' - Eric Hickey
5. 'I Ran Away' - Kevin Killen
6. 'Hurricane Blues' - Brian Dale Allen Strouse
7. '30 Days' - David Cope
8. 'Where Is Your Love' - Ron Gallo
9. 'All Due Respect' - Sean Hoots
10. 'Say Goodbye' - Seth Kauffman
For Immediate Release
ALI WADSWORTH RECORD RELEASE SHOW
WITH HER SICK BAND AT THE RUBA CLUB
Feat. Divers, Auctioneer, Thom McCarthy, and a Late-Night “Caber-ALI”
with a Super TOP SECRET Party Band, DJ Frosty and Tripledouble
Saturday, October 5th, 2013, 8 pm
ALI WADSWORTH throws down in honor of the release of her solo debut album and her birthday on Saturday, October 5th at the RUBA Club, 416 Green Street, Philadelphia, with a pre-show cocktail hour including snacks from local restauraunts, mind-blowing musical performances with all the bells and whistles of a high school musical,, a late-night dance party with only the best DJs, the greatest dance band in Philly, and a few other wacky Ali shenanigans. Doors/Cocktail hour starts at 8 pm, The show starts at 9 pm, and goes until 3 am. Tickets are $10.00.
Ali Wadsworth and her Sick Band are:
Ali Wadsworth- Vocals (Unlikely Cowboy, back-up singer for virtually every band in Philadelphia, contestant on The Voice, yes, really)
Joe
Bisirri- Guitar (The Lawsuits, Engineer/Producer of Ali’s New Record,
as well as The Lawsuits’ and Toy Soldiers’ new records)
Daniel Schwartz- Vocals/Guitar (Good Old War, Unlikely Cowboy)
Phil D’Agostino- Bass (Hezekiah Jones, Chris Kasper, Ben Arnold, Pete Donnelly, Sharon Little)
Josh Friedman- Drums (The Lawsuits)
Kevin Killen- Guitar (Kevin Killen Band, Hezekiah Jones, Chris Kasper, Tin Bird Choir)
Vanessa Winters- Vocals (The Lawsuits)
Kate Bernhardt- Vocals (Juston Stens and The Get Real Gang, The Bernhardts)
On October 5th, Ali Wadsworth hosts the most epic night of
her life. Besides consecrating the birth of her long-awaited
self-titled debut solo album, she also will be celebrating her 32nd
birthday with some wild and crazy antics brimming with ridiculous
set-design, costume changes and four incredible bands who have such an
astounding stage presence; this night will no doubt be a glorious
spectacle of the most massive proportions. This night will not just be a
fantastic show, it will be an experience and journey into Ali’s absurd
world.
Wadsworth’s
solo album was successfully funded via Kickstarter as a project whereby
she asked 10 of her favorite songwriters to write her songs. Within a
month of starting this project, she received almost 50 songs from some
of the most renowned songwriters in the city most of whom she didn’t
ask, but heard about the project and submitted anyway; making the
decision process quite difficult. As challenging as it was to choose
just 10 songs, the decisions were made with Wadsworth’s
mega-producers/engineers BILL MORIARTY and JOE BISIRRI (DR. DOG, MAN
MAN, FLOATING ACTION, TALL TALL TREES, GRANDCHILDREN, DRINK UP
BUTTERCUP, THE SHEEPDOGS, TOY SOLDIERS, THE LAWSUITS) the ambitiously
mind-blowing album was finally completed, mixed, mastered, and pressed a
month ago just in time for The Philadelphia Folk Festival where she had
an unbelievably fortuitous pre-release. Now, it’s time to party.
Together with a glorious cast of
characters, Ali Wadsworth and her Sick Band will lead all in a splendid
night of antics, song and dance. Featured in the night’s festivities will be:
DIVERS - http://www.diversband.com
If
Leonard Cohen and PJ Harvey had a baby who grew up listening to The
Smiths, Nina Simone and old Rolling Stones records, that baby might form
a band that sounds like DIVERS, a newly formed rock quartet from
Philadelphia starring local sweethearts Emily Ana Zeitlyn (The Weeds),
Ross Bellenoit (Birdie Busch), Tom Bendel (Buried Beds) and Todd Erk.
DIVERS use equal parts stabbing lyric, extreme dynamic and darling
melody to whisper to the sadder side of your soul.
AUCTIONEER - http://auctioneer.bandcamp.com
Auctioneer
is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their music has been described as
art-pop and has been compared to TheTalking Heads, David Bowie, and The
Zombies. In 2011, the band debuted with The Auctioneer EP, and in 2013,
released the album Future Faces, mixed by Jon Low. The band also toured
the summer of 2013 with fellow Philadelphians mewithoutYou.
THOM MC CARTHY - http://thommccarthy.bandcamp.
“I
really think Thom is a genius in every sense of the word. He’s
extremely unique, humble and often a nervous wreck leading up to every
performance but once he takes the stage it’s pretty apparent he was born
to be on one. He’s a real character and a true showman. He has a
divine ability to command a room with just himself and a finnicky
classical guitar. He has this HUGE voice that can range from silk
sheets to a primal howl. Not to mention his songs are brilliant.
They’re timeless and classic, super accessible yet complex, he’s an old
soul cast into today’s world and his lyrics have a lot of nostalgic
language and imagery but somehow applied perfectly to todays world and
what it is that’s right in front of him. Thom McCarthy is
Philadelphia’s finest hidden gem that needs some light shed upon him!”
-Ron Gallo of Toy Soldiers
Schedule of events for the evening are as follows:
8:00-9:00 DOORS/Cocktail Hour downstairs with free snacks from local restaurants
9:00 party moves upstairs, AUCTIONEER plays until 9:40
9:50-10:30 DIVERS
10:35-11:05 curtain closes THOM MCCARTHY plays trio set
11:10 ALI WADSWORTH PLAYS until 12:15/12:30
12:15/12:30 LATE-NIGHT “CABER-ALI” commneces downstairs with TRIPLEDOUBLE
12:45
SUPER TOP SECRET PARTY BAND (this is Ali’s favorite Philly band, but
cannot announce their playing because of a very important show
immediately after)
1:15 -???? DJ FROSTY and TRIPLEDOUBLE DANCE PARTY.
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