Pretty Good Dance Moves
- Location: Brooklyn , NY
- Website:
- Bio: After recording their first e.p. in 2006, Pretty Good Dance Moves singer Jimmy Giannapoulos said his farewells to Chicago and loaded up his truck to move to New York ... (more)
- Bio: After recording their first e.p. in 2006, Pretty Good Dance Moves singer Jimmy Giannapoulos said his farewells to Chicago and loaded up his truck to move to New York City. Six months later, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Allieta called Jimmy with some news. The e.p. was actually getting some notice around town, and national music publications were starting to pay attention to this one-off side project. During this time, Jimmy had established himself as a resident of Brooklyn and a bartender on the Lower East Side. Through these convenient locations, he was able to convince a few friends to appear in videos for his small e.p., including a correspondent from the Daily Show/ Flight of the Conchords personality, as well as a former contestant from America’s New Top Model. When he realized that Aaron had been working behind the scenes in Chicago, Jimmy flew back to record a few more songs with an up-and-coming local star known for her big voice and amazing stage presence.
These new recordings caught the attention of Seattle’s influential KEXP radio station, who invited the band to do an in-studio while they were broadcasting in Chicago for a week. This dynamic performance immediately launched the band into the national spotlight, with a KEXP staff member later naming it the best in-studio of the year. Meanwhile, Spin magazine decided to release the video starring the Comedy Central regular on their website, and many other music websites started paying more attention to the band.
With all the demand for more content from the band, it seemed like a good idea to finally record a full-length. Unfortunately for Pretty Good Dance Moves, the up-and-coming female vocalist had recently signed a deal with a record label and was no longer available to record with the band. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it opened the door for the band to get creative with who they asked to record on their record. Why inhibit ourselves with one singer when we could have multitudes of talent on the record? they asked themselves.
Thus began the search for more unknown stars to compliment Jimmy’s songwriting and Aaron’s production skills. With Aaron still in Chicago and Jimmy in New York, the band was able to cover a lot of ground. They spent night after night in sleazy rock clubs, listening to anyone who could possibly be a raw talent that would be transformed through their music. Their efforts paid off, as they were able to find several female voices that could enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship as the music highlighted the beauty of their vocals. Even a Swedish pop star most known for a catchy whistle-refrained hit took notice and lent a hand writing and singing on one jam.
Their recording process was prolonged by all of these successes and a few memorable failures. With only being able to record in studios at night after everyone else was in bed, several moments turned into disasters. Fueled by late night drug binges, certain hired producers showed up too lit to be able to record and wasted several thousand dollars worth of studio time. Another producer friend held some masters hostage while trying to convince them to let him be in the band.Through this, Pretty Good Dance Moves learned a valuable lesson about the sordid underworld of making records and taking up the offers of help from “friends."
They came out of it all for the better, as they now have a hot record full of sexy jams that each have their own story and are packaged ready for the floor. They were also fortunate to have found a stunning vocalist in Angelina Lucero, who was gracious enough to agree to share her talent with audiences during their live shows. With precious experience gained from this journey, Pretty Good Dance Moves looks toward the future with equal parts caution and optimism.
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