A little about Alan and his musical journey:
Alan was the lead singer and piano & organ player for New York City's rootsy/melodic pop legends The Brilliant Mistakes, who were aptly named after a song by one of their songwriting mentors, Elvis Costello. The band frequented the downtown NYC club scene from the early 90's through 2011, and played across the US, from Portland, ME to Southern California, from Austin, TX to Milwaukee, WI, and were independent radio favorites along the way (WFUV, WFMU, WFDU, WXPN among many others). They released three records which are still available as CDs or on all the streaming services. Alan was joined by his fellow songwriter Erik Philbrook, drummers Mickey Wood and Paul Mauceri, guitarists Andy Resnick, John Putnam, Cameron Greider and Keith Tasker, as well as a long list of great horn players, collectively known as The Expensive Horns.
At age six, Alan first became a music nut when he heard the Beatles' Let it Be emanating from his family living room into his bedroom. Upon hearing I Me Me Mine for the first time, the world was born anew. Another influential record of his youth was Ella Jenkins' Rhythms of Childhood (check out the beautiful and haunting Wake Up, Little Sparrow if you've never heard it!).
The first album Alan owned was Revolver (an age six Christmas gift) and the first record he bought with his own money was a used copy of Beatles '65 for $0.25 at a Northampton, MA record store. I Feel Fine was played so often that you could see the added wear and tear in the vinyl grooves of that particular tune. Having two older brothers, he grew up with a steady stream of rock and pop, from the Stones, to Hendrix, to Pink Floyd, to the pre-Gram Parsons Byrds, and everything else in between, only to later discover on his own the endless trough of great mid-70s pop on NYC's AM radio (Gerry Rafferty anyone?). His first concert (and spaceship sighting) was ELO at Madison Square Garden during the Out of the Blue tour.
In high school, Alan and his pal—and future band mate—Mickey Wood spent most of their free time buried in their friend Tom Marshall's record collection. For their peers, music meant The Doors, Rush and the Dead, but for our resolute young lads, Tom's collection was filled with the sounds of something exciting and different, with albums like Elvis's Get Happy, Dire Straits' Making Movies, XTC's English Settlement, and bands like The Talking Heads, Squeeze, Split Enz, The Pretenders, and The Clash! Like with that first Beatles' album, it was if a door had opened. It was during this time that they formed a band and set out to imitate their new musical heroes, and create their own music (at this stage with somewhat painful results).
Decades later, Alan has recorded and released his first solo record, after a lifetime playing in bands, clubs and studios, not to mention his office day gig in the book publishing business. Alan called up Lincoln Schleifer, friend and producer of The Brilliant Mistakes' second and third records Dumb Luck and Distant Drumming, and they set out to record ten of Alan's favorite compositions that he'd never had chance to put down on tape. Lincoln brought in an all-star group of New York musicians to add their talents (for a full list go here) and the result is Something Up My Sleeve. Nowadays Alan still listens to a lot of music, but it's mostly 60's and 70's soul records and anything ever recorded by Nina Simone or Dusty Springfield. In the interim he spends time with his beautiful wife of 17 years, Sally, and their two dogs and two cats.