About Paleface
Paleface is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist who has been active in the music business in the United States since 1989. He tours on a full-time basis as duo with longtime girlfriend, Puerto Rican drummer Monica "Mo" Samalot.
Paleface met songwriter Daniel Johnston in 1989. Johnston taught him how to write songs and Paleface began to make homemade tapes. At this time Paleface was roommates with Beck in New York City. Beck says, "We used to go to all the open mics together. He taught me Daniel Johnston songs on the sidewalk and let me sleep on his couch. He was a great songwriter, a generous friend, and a big influence on my early stuff". In 1990, Danny Fields discovered Paleface at a "Lach's Anti-hoot" , and signed on as his manager.
PolyGram signed Paleface to a major label deal in 1991. He wrote and recorded his first album, which includes "Burn and Rob" and "There's Something About A Truck" among others. He went on tour with The Judybats and then The Crash Test Dummies to showcase the album in 1992. He next toured with Billy Bragg, and appeared in Rolling Stone and Spin Magazine.
In 1994, Paleface recorded Generic America, produced by Kramer for the independent label Shimmy Disc. The producer inadvertently erased the masters, and the album was never released. A hastily assembled and hard-to-find album made up of whatever recordings they could find was released in its place: Raw which barely made a splash.
Paleface was the subject of a Lisa Robinson column in The New York Post in 1995. Toward the end of 1995 he signed to Sire Records. The album Get Off was released in 1996 on that label. Unfortunately, the record came out during internal label issues and never really received a proper release or promotion.
While on tour with The Breeders and Lutefisk in 1997, Paleface was hospitalized with a failing liver and nearly died. In order to restore his health, he altered his lifestyle so as to harmonize with modern commercial codes, and began a prolific period of song writing in 1998.
In the early 00's, Paleface reconstructed his career in the Lower East Side, especially at the Sidewalk Cafe, where he met and began playing with Mo' Samalot, an architect who had begun learning drums. Paleface's music had evolved from a raw, anti-folk punk sensibility to a richer Americana feel that still maintained his artistic edge but expended his musical sensibility. A prolific period followed with homemade albums like the Multibean series and indie releases like I Just Wanna Play Guitar, which revealed a maturing songwriter finding his creative spark again. In the Spring of 2003 he recorded, but never officially released Bottlefed- a legit rock album featuring Praxis / Primus drummer "Brain" Bryan Mantia in NY. He also released a pair of true Americana albums under the moniker Just About to Burn. Shortly after, Paleface and Mo finally left NYC for North Carolina, which afforded them more space for less money and served as a home base for an aggressive year-round touring schedule.
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