New York, NY (Top40 Charts) American Opera, the creation of NYC singer-songwriter John Bee, will release the debut full-length album "Small Victories" on June 30.
The title track is premiering today on Idobi Radio. Stream "Small Victories" here: https://idobi.com/exclusives/premiere/premiere-celebrate-small-victories-with-american-opera/
Bee says, "The song "Small Victories" is what happens if you take Frank Sinatra's "
New York, New York" too seriously." He explains, "I moved to New York the day after the city was hit by Superstorm Sandy. The area was hit hard. Power was out. Mass transit was down. We were driving through Pennsylvania on I-80 alongside emergency crews thinking to ourselves, "what are we driving in to?" Cabs didn't have gas to take you more than a mile or two. The apartment we were going to sign for was given to someone else displaced by the storm so we lived in our car and hostels for a week before finding a place to live. I had booked a couple months worth of shows to try to dive head first into the music scene here while my girlfriend found work. She was gone all day on job interviews. I was gone all night playing shows to empty rooms. Over and over and over again. It was brutal. The city was throwing punch after punch but the song is about getting back up. It's about pouring your heart out on stage every night, all while no one is listening. So then the doubt settles in and you start to realize that you need to come up with something different to say. The song starts the record and sets the pace for ups and downs that followed."
American Opera has toured the U.S. and Canada as both a solo act and with a full band, playing shows with the likes of The Avett Brothers, Josh Ritter, Cursive, Murder By Death, Owen, and
William Elliott Whitmore and on Vans Warped Tour, Bledfest and more.
www.americanopera.net
Track Listing:
1. Small Victories
2. Sand & Seed
3. Sailor's Song
4. Monsters Among Men
5. Michael
6. Sidewalks
7. Jack Pine
8. Dear Devil
9. An Empty Cup
10. Farewell
11. Songs I Used to Sing
About American Opera:
Incremental progress. Monumental setbacks. Small victories. This is the story of American Opera. More than a record, Small Victories is a collection of moments, both devastating and victorious. Ominous nostalgia confronts hopeful reemergence. Sonically, think
Manchester Orchestra meets Ryan Adams,
Brand New meets Langhorne Slim — polished stones in a bed of gravel and grit. The result is a stunning eleven-song rollercoaster exploring a complete spectrum of emotion and experiences. It is an album of dynamics — a perfect balance of the fragile and explosive. By the end, we're reminded that sometimes the small victories were all that mattered in the first place — and that the silver linings were not just that after all, but rather small glimpses of a larger hope that can sustain us through even the most miserable of seas.
