h o m e • n e w s • m u s i c • g i g s • p r e s s k i t • c o n t a c t

p r e s s k i t

photo: Rob Price

biography

Alice Bierhorst wears many musical hats. Primarily a songwriter, singer and drummer, she moves freely between bandleader, collaborator, sidewoman and teacher. She brings tremendous passion and conviction to everything she does and sees every gig as an opportunity for a deeper connection with life.

Growing up, she was exposed to her pianist father's penchant for modern twentieth centruy classical music and her mother's love of opera. Living in a remote village north of New York City, she taught herself piano and composition and studied classical voice and violin. She wrote her first album of songs at 14 on a Korg keyboard around the same time she learned her first chords on a cheap acoustic guitar.

In 1993 she moved to San Francisco and joined the vibrant music scene working alongside artists such as The Mommyheads, Sonya Hunter, Erik Pearson, Noe Venable, Amy X Neuburg, Adam Levy, Irene Sazer, and Val Esway among others. During much of this time she focused exclusively on songwriting and guitar until 1998 when she discovered drums and found the missing piece of the puzzle. Immediately smitten, she had introductory lessons with the visionary Dave Mihaly and was off and running.

Since 1999 she has lived in New York City where she has studied drums with the Modern Drum Shop's Joe Cusatis (Chet Baker, Marian McPartland, Teddy Charles), Jim Pugliese (John Cage, Philip Glass, John Zorn), and Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, Beth Orton) while leading her own bands and working as a drummer for a variety of artists. She has a special affinity for singer-songwriters including Sandy Bell, Jeremiah Birnbaum, David Celia, Greta Gertler, Eric Metzgar, Felix McTeigue, Katie Sawicki and Beth Sorrentino (for complete list of clients, scroll down).

She has been a member of several groups including the now-defunct Pleiadians (Cyndi Levine & Adam Savetsky), Jaleo (now The Sound Mirrors) and Rockdove (Sandy Bell, Laura Cromwell, John Mettam) and is currently a member of the Dixieland combo the Red Hook Ramblers .

Alice has released 10 albums of original material performed either entirely by herself or with a revolving cast of fine musicians. Her tenth album, "The Vigil", enlisted the talents of many of her favorite musicians (Jason Crigler, Anton Fier, Greta Gertler, Rob Jost & Noe Venable) as well as excellent engineers (Martin Bisi & Jack McKeever). Her achingly beautiful music has been compared to vintage visionaries such as the Velvet Underground, Nick Drake, Graham Nash, Brian Wilson and Joni Mitchell.

audio/video (songs)

CLICK HERE FOR EXCERPTS FROM CATALOG

photo: Lucio Menegon

audio/video (drums)

AUDIO
St. Louis Blues (MP3) - The Red Hook Ramblers live on WFMU 91.1 FM
Row (MP3) - Alice Bierhorst (composition and performance) from the album "Oxygen"
She's a Waterfall (MP3) - David Celia live at Rockwood Music Hall, NYC
Girasol (MP3) - Alice, Pete Galub & Dan Hewins perform a tune written by Rob Price

VIDEO
I Think It's Finally Morning (video) - Alice & band live at The Livingroom, NYC
Psychedelic jamming with Greta Gertler and band at Barbes, Brooklyn

discography

sidewoman (drums unless otherwise noted)

venues played (partial list)

press

"Her chameleon vocals change character with each distinctly crafted song bringing to mind the photography of Cindy Sherman. Tinges of Velvet Underground and Nick Drake can be heard, but Bierhorst's urban drumming and painterly lyrics are unique...beautifully weird pop remind us that less is more."
- Performing Songwriter

"Her voice is beautifully expressive, at times whispering...Restraint keeps these songs from going overboard, though it would be hard to imagine them performed any more succinctly. With lyrics about isolation, mental breakdown and death, Bierhorst conveys a world in turmoil as seen through an impassive observer's eye. The music itself borrows from jazz, blues, folk and rock idioms, and is constructed economically, with a waste-not, want-not philosophy, and little if any sweetening."
- Amplifier

"Bierhorst shows promise on this LP of spare but insistent, confident folk-pop. Her voice and some of the songs remind in good ways of Joni Mitchell. But unlike most girls with guitars who ply the Mitchell path, Bierhorst has an engaging voice not immediately compromised by such comparison, and her more strident acoustic-bashes, such as the two-chord puzzler "At Sunset", shows she's got some real punk spunk in her as well. Keep an eye on this one."
-The Big Takeover

"What's it like? It's like one of those albums you wish you had owned forever. Its simple, stripped down arrangements seduce you all the way in to the comfort of Alice's soft, lilting voice and devious hooks. This is an excellent work of art that certainly qualifies as a contender for a best of 2003 album." (review of "Earthbound")
- Echo from Esoterica

"Her music recalls an acoustic Galaxie 500, only her great raspy voice is upfront and she's got some cool lyrics. "I'm breaking the Law of Averages, the one that denies we're infinite". Well said indeed."
- NY Press

"The tunes can be driving but her vocals are always low-key which makes for a fascinating kind of tension."
- Ectophile's Guide to Good Music

"...smoky, supple, creep-folk, similar to and as indelible as David Crosby or Red House Painters...even the gothic traces that surround her songs are less depressing than they are classically beautiful."
- Performing Songwriter

co-writes

"Quicksand" co-written with William Topley (from his album "All in the Downs" ©2006)

workshops

Chris Difford Songwriter Retreat 2004 & 2005

booking

Alice Bierhorst