STEVEN ALVARADO arrived in New York City after a brief stint in Nashville and a childhood in Los Angeles. In L.A., armed only with his acoustic guitar, Alvarado played the club circuit on a regular basis. He got noticed. He eventually signed a deal with the famous Del-Fi Records where he released Mercy (Del-Fi), his first album. Sales were mediocre, radio play was sparse, and the press hardly took notice other than a mention in Billboard Magazine. Steven say’s “the album didn’t go gold, it went led. But I stand by that album. It's a good album and those songs came from the heart.” In need of a big change, Alvarado decided to move to Nashville Tennessee where he would do it all over again, only this time he went indie and recorded and released "Bleed" without the help of a record company. The album got some college radio play and a little press and Alvarado gained some fans. He played the Nashville club circuit and made life-long friends.
Not much of a “careerist”, Alvarado explains, “I left L.A. based on life decisions, not music career decisions. I never cared enough about a music-career. I never cared about ANY career, that’s why I walked away from a record deal. I just wanted to be happy. Sometimes, you just need to pack up and leave everything behind and get a fresh start.” From L.A. to Nashville, Alvarado would unexpectedly get the opportunity to move to his secret childhood dream-city, New York. “I can’t explain why, but I always knew that New York would be it for me. When I finally got here, I knew I had come home. That’s when everything changed for me.” With the help of friends, Alvarado started his own record label (Mott Street Records), and went back into the studio to record his third solo album. The result was the critically acclaimed 2005 release of The Howl Sessions which achieved breakthrough success on an international level.
"Howl" received extensive airplay on France's popular Radio Dio/Pop Dreams radio show, which chose the collection as one of the Best Albums of 2005. In the UK, Alvarado headlined The Porter in Bath and The Troubadour in London, a famed venue where Bob Dylan made his London debut. Howl received extensive airplay domestically as well. The single "Wish You Were Here (Postcards From Hell)" was featured on the hit PBS TV show Road Trip Nation.
On Let It Go, his new 10-track set, Alvarado switches emotional gears and draws on a lifetime of personal experiences, moving beyond the edgy religious and political commentary of his earlier works. Let It Go, has drawn enormous press attention. USA Today picked it in their Top 10 favorites. The Advocate Magazine featured Alvarado as an “Artist to watch” along side the legendary Bob Mould. And Pro Sound News Magazine interviewed Steven extensively about the recording process of the very “stripped down” album, to mention just a few. The music video for the single It's For You made the Top 10 on MTV/Logo and is in regular rotation on VH1.com & MTV.com. Alvarado has once again surrounded himself with a circle of friends who just happen to be world-renowned musicians. Playing on the record are guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, T-Bone Burnett, Sam Phillips), drummer Kenny Wollesen (Norah Jones, Rufus Wainright, Rickie Lee Jones), pianist Rob Burger (Beth Orton, Lucinda Williams, Rufus Wainright), and bassist Joe Quigley (Shawn Colvin, Lisa Loeb, Syd Straw).
“When I was writing Let It Go, everything that came out tapped into all of these intense personal experiences I've had in my life," Alvarado says. "The album is about heartbreak and explores life falling apart and the reality that follows. It's not about any one specific person, its everyone mashed into one who I've had relationships with over the years. When I was writing Howl, I was trying to get a lot of things off my chest about the way things were in the world, but with Let It Go, it's about all these left-over unresolved emotions."
Let It Go is not all darkness; the jangling, high-spirited "New York" is a celebration of the wildness of living in New York City. "It's For You" has an uplifting, percussive groove that contrasts with the harsh reality of feeling numb after a relationship falls apart, while the softer, more reflective "Nobody Knows" starkly reflects the sadness one feels over missing someone when they are gone.
Let It Go is out now in wide release.
-Mott Street Records
DISCOGRAPHY
Steven Alvarado
Let It Go
(2008) Mott Street
Steven Alvarado
Howling Live in New York
Songs from the critically acclaimed album The Howl Sessions
(2006) Mott Street
Steven Alvarado
The Howl Sessions
(2005) Mott Street
Steven Alvarado
Bleed
(1997) Independent (re-released 2005 Mott Street)
Steven Alvarado
Mercy
(1991) (re-released 2005 Mott Street)
TELEVISION
Song: "Wish You Were Here (Postcards From Hell)" from The Howl Sessions
Show: Roadtrip Nation PBS/September 06
Song: "It's Alright" from Let It Go
Show: Roadtrip Nation PBS/March 08
Song: "It's For You"
Show: Chris & John to the Rescue LOGO/MTV 2009
RADIO
WFUV & SIRUS Radio, New York - Vin Scelsas Idiots Delight
Radio Dio, POP Dreams with Gérard Girard, FRANCE
AmericanaOK, with Tom Fahey www.americanaok.com UK
Americana Music Club - producer Jacques Spiry FRANCE
HomoPod Radio with Mark & the Mixologist www.homopod.com (podcast)
Sundown Lounge, with Larry Winfield www.larywinfield.com (podcast)
KTOO 104.3 FM Juneau AK
KSTK 101.7 FM Wrangell, AK
KAJX 91.5 FM Aspen, CO
WKHS 90.5 FM, Worton, MD
WBAR Cable, New York, NY
WKDT 89.3 FM West Point, NY
KRVM/KSYD, 91.9 FM Eugene, OR
WXVU 89.1 FM Philadelphia, PA
WEBR 94.5 FM Washington, DC
WGDR 91.1 FM Plainfield, VT
WPKN 89.5 FM Bridgeport, CT
KPUR Radio Forest Grove, OR
STEVEN ALVARADO - LET IT GO
Get This Far
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
It Crossed my mind_To cross the ocean
Cross my heart
I took no notion of it…
My hearts got holes_Like holy Jesus
Holey shoes_But no one sees it…
I gotta stay
I gotta go
I gotta pray
But I don’t know who to…
I’m outa gas
I got no car
I never thought
I’d get this far…
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Marc Ribot: Electric Guitar
It’s For You
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
I can’t feel a thing
Not a thing
Like diamond rings
The way you sing
A goddamn thing
Cut me I won’t bleed
It’s all gone
We drank ‘til dawn
You handsome thing
Your torn up jeans
Back there in New York
You and I
Like birds in sky
A love so high
You make me cry
Emancipation rings
Listen close
two lovers sing
‘til it’s all gone
No lingering
Ooh come on baby, it’s for you
Ooh come on baby, it’s for you
Everything you do
And what you done
It made you run
‘til you ran out
I miss you now
Take my love for you
Turn it in
Turn it out
I promise you
You’ll find it true
Ooh come on baby, it’s for you
Ooh come on baby, it’s for you
Ooh come on baby, it’s for you
Ooh come on baby, it’s for you
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Kenny Wollesen: Drums
Joe Quigley: Bass
Nobody Knows
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
It’s Saturday night and I’m
Drinking and thinking about you
It’s cold and it’s raining
I’ll stop complaining soon
But I cannot help myself
My heart is aching again
I wrote you twelve letters that
I never had nerve to send
Nobody knows, nobody knows
The angels are slow, nobody knows
I will not cry for you
Why should I cry for you babe
I already cried and I
Already died for you babe
Your heart is a stone and it
Broke every bone that I got
Now no one can save me not
Angels not, devils not god
Nobody knows, nobody knows
The angels are slow, nobody knows
Nobody knows, nobody knows
The angels are slow, nobody knows
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Burning Bridges
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
I’m burning all my bridges ‘cause I
Like to watch their face’s in the flames
I’ll burn that baby to the ground
Before I ever, ever feel ashamed
I don’t know what you want from me
But you ain’t gonna get it here today
I’m twenty-seven thousand miles
Seven years and seven lives away
Ooh baby, baby
You don’t know
Ooh baby, baby
You don’t know
I’ve been to hell I’ve been to heaven
There ain’t nothing you could ever say
Your hands are clean but you’re a mess
‘cause I was never like the rest that way
I’m walking down that line I painted
Maybe I’m a little jaded babe
But I am here and I am free
Ain’t nothing you can do to me babe
Ooh baby, baby
You don’t know
Ooh baby, baby
You don’t know
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Kenny Wollesen: Drums
Joe Quigley: Bass
New York
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
She’s a boy beneath them
Pumps and plastic
She’s a drag
Postcard didn’t look so
Rough and drastic
It’s fantastic
Soho Jesus poet
Jeans on skinny billboard boys
Belching buses that smoke
Breath it in before you choke
Bethesda angel touches
Earth with blackened iron toe
God don’t live here baby
Better learn to let it go
Same old bar again babe
You’re a broken record babe
Fourteenth street and Broadway
Did you buy my record babe?
Drunken sidewalk sinner
Backseat taxi ride again
Been around the block babe
Now I’m here and now I’m home
Bethesda angel touches
Earth with blackened iron toe
God don’t live here baby
Better learn to let it go
Let it go now baby
Let it go now baby
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Marc Ribot: Electric Guitar
Kenny Wollesen: Drums
Joe Quigley: Bass
Blue
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
We’ve been talking ‘til my face is blue
God I love you but I’m leaving you
It should never ever be so hard
I feel worn and sad and very tired
Now I live in my beloved New York
Everyday it heals a little more
I am free and finally found my way
All’s forgiven baby it’s OK
La la la la… La la la la… oh so blue
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Kenny Wollesen: Drums
Joe Quigley: Bass
Gone, Gone, Gone
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
Try and find me if you want to
I won’t stay beg if you want to
Tell me why I shouldn’t want to go
You can drag my name all through the mud
And tell the world that I’m all fucked up
And say and do whatever you want
But I’m gone, gone, gone…
I could change my mind and stay with you
And tell you things that are not true
And make believe it’s me and you, babe
You’re doing the same but won’t admit
And cheat me every chance you get
But when I leave you’ll soon regret, babe
And I’m gone, gone, gone…
You got everything you wanted
You got everything you paid for
You got everything and more
didn’t you babe… didn’t you babe
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
See You Again
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
Come on baby
Just stay a while
The last time I saw you
I was a child
And I ran like the wind
Just to see you again
‘cause this worlds gonna end
And I need you my friend
‘cause I’m falling apart
And it’s breaking my heart
Can we get a new start
If your heart’s not too hard
Come on darling
We could forgive
It’s alright darling
It’s alright
And you said you were sorry
And I said I was too
But you found someone new
And now what can I do
And I’m tumbling down
And I’ll Never be found
And I can’t hear a sound
I can only hear you
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Marc Ribot: Electric Guitar
Kenny Wollesen: Drums
Joe Quigley: Bass
It’s Alright
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
I thought we could do it
Tougher than the rest
But you never knew it
I cleaned up your mess
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
Met you back in Nashville
Loved you at first sight
Then we never parted
Feel you breathe at night
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
Maybe I was lonely
Withered ‘til it died
Wish I could be stronger
Wish I’d be alright
It’s alright...
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Marc Ribot: Electric Guitar
Kenny Wollesen: Drums
Joe Quigley: Bass
Reasons
Words & Music Steven Alvarado
If you want
I could tell you everything
Give you reasons
Reasons I can’t feel a thing
It don’t matter
It don’t matter anyway
Never loved
Never loved you ‘til today
Tell me stories
Tell me how you got this far
In my eyes
Baby you’re a superstar
Steven Alvarado: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Rob Burger: Piano
____________________
Steven Alvarado - Let It Go
Produced by: Steven Alvarado
Executive Producers: Al Houghton & Mike Crehore
Recorded & Mixed At Dubway Studios, New York City
Mastered by: Mike Crehore at Dubway Studios
All Songs, Words & Music Written by Steven Alvarado
Steven Alvarado: All Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Marc Ribot: Electric Guitar
Kenny Wollesen: Drums
Joe Quigley: Bass
Rob Burger: Piano
John-David Hahs: Shakers, etc
Special Thanks To: Keith Rigling, Eric Spring, and all the staff at Dubway Studios. All my love.
Extra special thanks to: Marc Ribot, Kenny Wollesen, Joe Quigley, and Rob Burger. You are extraordinary people, exquisite musicians and a pleasure to work with. Can’t wait to do it again!
“New York” is for the celebrated poet, and my best friend Aaron Smith
Recorded By: Keith Rigling
Assisted By: Mike Judeh
Second Assistant: Jessica Wernet
Marc Ribot’s guitar recorded by: Eric Spring
Mixed By: Eric Spring
Gone, Gone, Gone Mixed by: Jason Marcucci
Graphic design by Mark Lerner at Rag & Bones Shop.
Cover Photos by Aaron Smith
All Songs ℗ & © 2008 Steven Alvarado/BMI