GET GOING: Alina Simone & Gabriel Miller-Phillips
New England Tour, February 2007

press release / for immediate release

THE STORY
Musicians Alina Simone and Gabriel Miller-Phillips grew up a few miles from each other in Massachusetts and attended the same small high school a few years apart. As adults they both made their way to Brooklyn and began writing, recording, and performing with bands and as solo artists. Yet somehow their paths never crossed – until now. In the fall of 2006 mutual friends uncovered the coincidences and made the necessary introductions over a late-night game of Scrabble. A joint tour to Gabriel and Alina’s native New England was the logical next step. Their “Get Going” tour is commemorated by a split digital EP of the same name; for this recording Gabriel and Alina each wrote a new song about Massachusetts. The “Get Going” EP, available on iTunes Feb. 2, also includes unreleased tracks from each of them.

ABOUT ALINA SIMONE
Alina was born in the Ukraine but was raised in the suburbs of Massachusetts, where she often saw Mary Lou Lord singing in T stations (“she was my idol”). The post-high school road led Alina to potent places like Texas and New York City; she began her musical career busking on the streets of Austin and performed with Emma la Reina, a rock band in New York. Alina has one critically-acclaimed EP (Prettier in the Dark) under her belt and a new full-length due out in 2007, with a range of songs featuring full band arrangements, strings, and odd found instruments (like Alina’s beloved ‘strum stick’). The New Yorker has called her voice “potent and ethereal,” and Venus characterized her songwriting as “mysterious, gritty and raw.” Her music is for lovers of Cat Power, PJ Harvey, and Sinead O'Connor.

In her travels around the United States and the rest of the world, Alina has opened for Bettie Serveert, Takka Takka, Alec Ounsworthy (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), Orienda Fink, Scout Nibblett, Jason Anderson, Eugene Mirman, Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett of Arcade Fire), Jason Collett (of Broken Social Scene) and the Wedding Present. In 2006 she also performed at a music festival in Moscow.

ABOUT GABRIEL MILLER-PHILLIPS
Gabriel grew up just outside Boston, where he fell in love with music by listening to his parents' old folk records and an after-hours blues show on public radio. He left New England to attend college in New York, where he tried to keep his mind on his schoolwork, not his guitar. Then life took a strange turn: he was diagnosed with a congenital bone disorder that required major operations on both legs. Post-surgery, Gabriel returned to Boston to recuperate. He couldn't walk, drive, or go to school, but he could practice guitar. An invitation to join a friend's band prompted him to move back to New York, despite being trapped in an external fixator ("a metal cage that goes around your legs," he says, "kind of like an Iron Maiden"). Gabriel arrived in the city in pain and on crutches, only to be told that the band had decided not to hire an extra guitarist after all.

He spent the next several months holed up in a basement apartment on loan from an acquaintance, with little company except his acoustic guitar. He stayed there, writing songs until he was physically able to return to college to complete his degree. Upon graduation he found a job at Sony as the assistant to the A&R director of Legacy Recordings; he also did work for the non-profit New World Records. When his girlfriend invited him to join her on a trip to her native Southeast Asia, he jumped at the chance. After spending several months traveling Gabriel settled in Brooklyn, finally determined to dedicate himself to his music. To support himself (and his two cats), he took a night gig as a bartender at Madison Square Garden. He recorded an EP entitled Shoot the Moon in the summer of 2006 and performs regularly in the New York area. Influenced by everything from sixties folk to jazz greats to the American songbook to modern singer-songwriters like Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith, Gabriel has taken the setbacks and detours of his past and used them to fuel his songwriting - which is exactly what he wanted to do all along.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Bryan or Mary/The Mayan Empire Booking + Promotions
getgoing@themayanempire.com