Alan Wilkis profile picture

Alan Wilkis

from the earholes straight into the heart

About Me


**click HERE to buy now at CDBaby**
**click HERE to buy now on iTunes**
The Forest Gospel: “Blazing guitar riffs, rubbery electronic bass, addictive Casio keyboard lines and soulful R&B vocals... Chock full of life affirming smiles and booty shaking grooves... A supremely sequenced album of hits from front to back."
Toe Taps and Spastic Claps: “The newest prince of soul... Sugary-sweet synths, blissful acoustics... Neglects the sleaze-tastic tactics (think: pencil-’stache) from other electro-soul bands, and instead lays an emphasis on pop sensibility and ’70’s-’80’s electronics... And that boy’s voice is slick.”
Popmatters: “Refreshingly modern... infectious Brooklyn retro-electro-pop.”
Papermag: "A tasty bouillabaisse... will put a boogie in your step, no doubt."
What To Wear During An Orange Alert?: "Walks the thin line between pure cheese and electro greatness...Alan knows how to craft a fine tune."
Concrete Circles: "On constant repeat since I got it. Every time I play it, I have a new favorite song... Electronic groove-shaking, can't-help-but-having-a-good-time music."
Be Kind & Remind: "Pure pop genius. A veritable treasure chest of fond childhood memories have never been built into a single album with such gaiety."
Advance Copy: "70s soft rock/pop walking on multi-color electronic lifts... One of the best things heard all week."
Bag of Songs: "A soulful, catchy, and addictive collage of sounds of many eras... one of the hot party records of the year."
The Docking Station: "A unique sound of 70-80s synth-pop, classic rock, and even blues... So different and good... Pounding rhythm, poinging synths and a squealing vocal."
Butter Team: "A single blippy, pixelated jackpot... a dynamite debut"
It's The Money Shot: "AW creates jam after jam... a total mind-f$% in the best way possible... Genius."
Indie Music Filter: "Each track jumps out in its own way. Reminds me of a bedroom Jamie Lidell."
The Fast Life: "[AW] is perfectly producing the style of music that I would have grown up to if I had been the ovule of Yoko Ono... Somehow seventies, somehow eighties but still some kind of nowadays... A musical delicacy."
17 Seconds: "A fantastic album... Tunes, attitude, and a lot of fun. The joy of pop, the freewill of the honest music lover."
A Limerick Ox (on 'Astronaut'): “Glittery... A soaring, elevating, otherworldly anthem where everything seems right within reach.”
B-Town Hit Parade: "Fun yet emotional... A tear on the cheek, a swing in the hips and the occasional heroic guitar solo. Recommended!"
The Invisble Blog: "Somebody with great ideas, talent and nuance has been given the opportunity to express and share what's going on in his child-of-the-eighties-pop-addled head, and we are the beneficiaries."
MistaJam, BBC Radio: "Wicked... Like Hall & Oates or Stevie Wonder playing with Kraftwerk."
Cause=Time: "Crooklynite Alan Wilkis has created an album that has extrapolated bits and pieces from a lot of my favorite artists from the 70's & 80's and casually put them in a blender."
Undomondo (on 'It's Been Great'): "A lighthearted pop / electronica album... Cheerful and catchy... Lovely moog solo."
Egoeccentric: "An album that fuses Stevie Wonder, Hall & Oates, Boston, Kraftwerk, and the Beach Boys. Crazy? Probably. Successful? Surprisingly so."
Lost In Your Inbox: "Part electro, part dance, familiar yet quirky enough to be more like that distant cousin you remember visiting when you were little..."
Get Weird Turn Pro: "A highly recommended genre-crossing journey."
AM, Then FM: "'It’s Been Great' is what we’ve been waiting for Stevie Wonder to deliver."
Mixtape 4 Melfi: "Best of 2008"
KROTO Music: "Will be one of the cool sounds in pop this year... Soul tech music."
The American Scene: "A sublimely excellent album... What a falsetto!"
London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis: "A perfect one for sitting outside, relaxing on the balcony at night... what a Flaming Lips album would be like without the acid."
Local Vertical: "If you ever worry about buying an album where the entire contents aren't good, Babies Dream Big won't disappoint. Excellent stuff!"
Appetite for Distraction: "Like the lost sequel to Beck's Midnite Vultures... Something for everyone."
The Ass Saw The Angel: "A combination of a lot of styles, mainly 70s and 80s soul, electronica and soft rock music."
Some Guy on Youtube: "Is this music from a 1970s porn video? or made on a child's toy organ?"
BABIES DREAM BIG is the self-produced solo debut from Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, Alan Wilkis. Conceived and recorded mostly in his home studio over the course of a year, BDB seamlessly blends together the soul, R&B, classic rock, and electronic music of the 70’s and 80’s.
BDB grew out of a genuine love for the pop music of the past, which quickly ballooned into full-blown obsession and a mission to boil those pop classics down to their core elements: the syrupy vocals of Stevie Wonder, the smoothness of Hall & Oates, arena-sized Boston guitar solos, Kraftwerk electronics, and Beach Boys harmony. Alan set out to find his own voice by weaving these essential but seemingly disparate raw ingredients together into unique new forms.
After a little help from a the talented Eric Biondo (ANTIBALAS) and Jason Treuting (SO PERCUSSION), Alan is now ready to present BDB to you, 12 tracks of booty-wiggling, feel-good, turn-that-upside-down-smile-rightside-up new music!
Get at me: [email protected]

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 7/12/2005
Band Website: myspace.com/alanwilkis
Band Members: Alan Wilkis and Shmalan Shmilkis - Vocals & Instruments & Computering

Eric Biondo - Trumpets on "I Wanna Know"

Jason Treuting - Drums on "I Love the Way" and "It's Been Great"

Influences:

"I’m Famous" featured in GOOD Magazine Barack Obama profile:

"Milk and Cookies" featured in GOOD Magazine Hillary Clinton profile:

"It’s Been Great" featured in GOOD Magazine John McCain profile:

Sounds Like: TI-82
Record Label: Wilcassettes
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

My Icelandic Aint What It Used To Be...

So the gang over at B-TOWN HIT PARADE in Iceland was kind enough to throw a little blog love my way. The original post was in Icelandic (see here). They sent me a translation of the post, but I though...
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:20:00 PST

NINTENDO NOSTALGIA: BDB Autographed CD Giveaway Contest at Butterteam.com!!!

Hi there!The gang over at Butterteam.com has put together a little healthy competition, the grand prize being a free AUTOGRAPHED copy of BDB!!! That’s right, people - one lucky winner gets to fi...
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:57:00 PST

BABIES DREAM BIG - Now Available on iTunes!!!

Howdy friends!BABIES DREAM BIG is now available for your downloading enjoyment on iTunes!!!! Order your copy today!Love,AW
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:24:00 PST

GOOD Magazine: John McCain

GOOD Magazine is back in the cut!They put together a video profile for John McCain - I guess he was feeling a little left out after the Obama / Hillary ones... And once again, GOOD was kind enough to ...
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:32:00 PST

BABIES DREAM BIG: Album For Sale on CDBaby.com!!!!

Dear friends and extended AW family,I am a happy guy today. After a year and a few months working on "Babies Dream Big," I can finally say that it's out there and you should go buy it immediately!!!! ...
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:50:00 PST

GOOD Magazine: Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton

In this corner, weighing in at 5 bajillion votes....Howdy Campers!The kind (dare I say good?) folks over at GOOD Magazine made some nifty endorsement videos for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - onli...
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:57:00 PST

Album-in-a-Day Audio Online

Our lil album in a day is now online at:http://web.mac.com/mtomall/iWeb/Fearlessmusic/24%20HR%20C emetary.html
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:08:00 PST

Album in a Day? No Problem...

So my buddy Matt found this crazy website called "Album in a Day" - http://crapart.spacebar.org/aad/.The rules were simple: Record an album in a day...1. It must be written, performed, recorded, post-...
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:29:00 PST

Visit "Bumpy's Place" Online

Hey party people,Captain Alvin J Willikers here, about to set sail on the seas of smooth. Before I do, though, here's some interesting news:My old pal Lindsay Alpert made an extremely awesome stop mot...
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:59:00 PST

AW song featured in animated short film:

(All my doggies on the left go: "Woof Woof!")Hello, It's Me!My extremely lovely and talented pal Kasia made a beautiful short film called "This Way Up" using rotoscope animation (a la "Waking Life"), ...
Posted by Alan Wilkis on Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:39:00 PST