Steve Almaas - Kingo A Wild One

Artist: Steve Almaas Title: Kingo A Wild One Catalog#: Parasol-CD-067 Price: $7.50	Tracks on this CD:
	Something To Look Foreward To
	She Thought She Knew Him Well
	Kingo A Wild One (Windows Media)
	The Better In Us
	Pretty Picture
	All This And More
	More Than I Can Prove
	Hello
	It's A Beautiful Day
	El Rey Del Mundo
	The Wrong Man
	When I Held Her In My Arms

www.stevealmaas.com

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Steve Almaas describes his new album, Kingo A Wild One, as simply "a collection of songs I like. My last album (1998's Human, All Too Human) expressed a specific mood and feelings. This one is made up of old and new songs that I thought would sound good in the hands of the players."

Produced by Steve Almaas and arranged by The Ministers of Sound, Kingo A Wild One was recorded by Eddie Sperry at Eddie's House in New York City and mixed by Mitch Easter at Fidelitorium Recordings in Kernersville, North Carolina. The album contains 12 songs, with at least one, "She Thought She Knew Him Well," dating back to Steve's days with his mid-'80s band Beat Rodeo. Others, like "Pretty Picture," were finished just prior to their recording.

With Steve Almaas on guitar and lead vocals, The Ministers of Sound are Dan Prater (bass, backing vocals), Doug Wygal (drums, percussion), and Jon Graboff (6 and 12 string electric guitar, pedal steel, mandolin, acoustic guitar). Reknown Nashville guitarist Kenny Vaughan contributes superb solos to "More Than I Can Prove" and "Hello," while old friends Richard Barone (E-bow, vocals) and Chris Whitley (banjo) join in on "Kingo A Wild One" and "The Wrong Man" respectively. Mark Sidgwick, who's worked with Steve since the inception of his solo career, plays bass on five tracks. Paul Scher and Eddie Sperry add their chugging saxophone riffs to "Something To Look Forward To," and Paul blows tenor and baritone on "The Better In Us."

"The Ministers of Sound are my version of Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew," says Steve. "They're so technically adept and so in tune with my writing style, we can just run through a new song a few times and be ready to cut it. We worked fast and everybody had a good time."

STEVE ALMAAS - HISTORY:

Steve Almaas was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father emigrated to the United States from Norway and worked as a salmon fisherman in Alaska before settling in Minnesota to marry and raise a family. His mother was from a Danish farming family and was working as a nurse in Minneapolis when she met Steve's father.

Steve played piano and violin in grade school, and began playing the guitar and bass around age 12. His first working band, the Suicide Commandos, was the first punk rock group in Minneapolis/St. Paul. From the Commandos' pioneering performances and recordings grew the thriving alternative rock scene which later produced the Replacements, Husker Du, Soul Asylum and so many more.

At the end of the Seventies, Steve moved to New York City. He worked briefly with a post punk trio called The Crackers before forming a new country-influenced band called Beat Rodeo. This group released two albums, Staying Out Late With Beat Rodeo (1985) and Home In The Heart Of The Beat (1986), on I.R.S. Records and successfully toured the U.S. and Europe.

Returning to New York, Steve began appearing every Monday with a shifting cast of musicians (including former members of Beat Rodeo) at the intimate Ludlow Street Cafe. These gigs attracted a loyal and enthusiastic following, as well as favorable writeups in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Steve also worked with his friend George Usher in a duo called The Gornack Brothers, which released the album Refund on Strike Back Records (UK). In the fall of 1990, Steve Almaas performed at Berlin Independence Days both as a solo and in the band The Kool Kings with Justice Hahn and Alex Chilton. While in Berlin, Steve also had a chance to meet and spend time with long time idol Townes Van Zandt.

Outside New York's Ludlow Street Cafe one night, Steve met Ingemar Magnusson. The eventual result was East River Blues, the first solo album by Steve Almaas, which was released January 1993 on Magnusson's Lonesome Whippoorwill label of Sweden. The album was produced by Mark Sidgwick and contained eleven new Almaas originals. Steve toured Sweden twice that year accompanied by the mighty Ministers Of Sound (see below). A second album, Bridge Songs, was released in 1995. The album was recorded in New York with Mark Sidgwick producing, and mixed by Mitch Easter in North Carolina.

In 1996, Steve played bass on Chris Whitley's third album Terra Incognita (Columbia). Then, after a seventeen- year hiatus, The Suicide Commandos played a reunion show in Minneapolis... and 10,000 people showed up! Mercury/Polygram reissued The Commandos' sole studio album, Make A Record, on compact disc. In the summer of 1998, Steve recorded his third solo album, Human, All Too Human, at Mitch Easter's new Fidelitorium studio in North Carolina. Mitch co-produced the album with Steve, with the music by The Ministers Of Sound.

A message from Steve:

Hello Groovers,

Steve Almaas here, celebrating 25 years of not being in show business. Allow me to introduce myself... I began my musical life as a Suicide Commando, spent the formative years as the singer/sonwriter for Beat Rodeo, and now I am content to hold court as me me me!

My new album is called Kingo A Wild One, a metaphor for absurdity with an absurd story to go with it. Back in the Beat Rodeo days we employed a drummer named Lewis King. Before beating the skins for us, Lewis had played in a band with George Usher and a fellow named Tim Scott. The combo went through several name changes before deciding on a handle. One day Lewis came to practice and was informed that the name of the band was going to be U.S.A. George Usher being the "U", Tim Scott being the "S", and (the newly christened) Kingo Awildone would be the "A". I thought it was funny...

Getting back to the matters at hand, let me tell you a little about the album. I write and sing the songs. When it's time to record, I get the best players I can to help me make the records. Jon Graboff (guitar), Mark Sidgwick (bass), and Doug Wygal (drums) are my New York "Wrecking Crew", dubbed (by me) the Ministers Of Sound. Anybody who is hip to the Nashville scene will have heard of guitarist extrordinare Kenny Vaughan (I've know him since the Suicide Commandos shared a bill with his band the Jonny III). Among many others, Kenny plays with Luicinda Williams and R.B. Morris, and I'm happy to say that he plays on this album. My longtime compadre Richard Barone (he produced the original Beat Rodeo EP) played e-bow and sang on the title track. Dan Prater of Beat Rodeo fame (Kenny Vaughn sent him to us from Denver Colorado) split the bass duties with Mark and sang backups. Chris Whitley played "Civil War" banjo on The Wrong Man, and Paul Scher (along with engineer Eddie Sperry) played the horns. Mitch Easter (the best in my book) mixed it all up at his Fidelitorium, and I hope you'll give it a listen.

If you'd like to hear a couple of tracks you can go to my web site: http://www.stevealmaas.com. If you have any questions (not too hard please) you can email me at salmaas@aol.com. There's talk of a tour, but who knows...

Anyway, I hope you dig the sounds.
Best,
Steve

REVIEWS

"If you can recall when Hoboken was hip and “quirky” was the ultimate compliment, Steve Almaas’s first American album in 15 years should bring back some good memories. Almaas was probably the first punk-rocker ever to cross over into country music: His original group, The Suicide Commandos, were Minneapolis’s original punk band - no doubt the young Replacements used to sneak into their shows. Later, he turned up in Hoboken with the nifty country-pop combo Beat Rodeo, whose two IRS albums are worth combing the used bins for. Aftger a break from music and a stint playing bass for Chris Whitley, Almaas picks up exactly where Beat Rodeo left off. The support crew includes some of his old collaborators, among them onetime Bongos leader Richard Barone and co-producer Mitch Easter, who does his usual sparkling mix. Almaas sings with the same fresh-faced enthusiasm, and his songs have the same modest charm: They’re toe-tapping rather than earthshakers. But his hooks have a way of getting under your skin, and his tunes are able to evoke Buddy Holly without sounding hokey. And since Almaas’s idea of a happy sentiment is “Baby’s got a roof over her head/ Woke up this morning, I wasn’t dead,” he can still wear the ‘quirky’ tag proudly." -Brett Milano CMJ New Music Monthly