Milan McAlevey Shares Lost 2008 Debut Album + Focus Track, ‘Me & the Griz’

Today, Milan McAlevey (of Maine rock band Coke Weed) shares his lost 2008 debut record entitled ‘Admiral of the State of Maine’, out now via Fortune Tellers. The record is a gem of folky, acoustic bliss, recorded 15 years ago on an old 4-track cassette machine and shipped back and forth from Maine to Brooklyn, where producer Walter Martin (of The Walkmen) gave notes and helped the album along.

Speaking on his newly unearthed record, McAlevey wrote: “‘Admiral of the State of Maine’ is a collection of songs I began writing in the fall of 2007. I was living in a small town in midcoast Maine where I was able to spend most of my time writing. The songs were by and large reflections on my youth spent in New England. I would demo the songs on cassette, which I’d send in batches to my friend Walter Martin (The Walkmen) in Brooklyn. Eventually we enlisted the help of our other old friend, Nick Stumpf, and recorded for five days at a small studio in DUMBO in April 2008. I always had a feeling the resulting record was special, but back then I didn’t have the means or inclination to find its audience. I moved on with my life, but I’ve been holding onto these songs like a secret for the past 15 years, so it’s a relief to finally be getting them out there.”

Featured in the record’s official trailer, the record’s focus track, ‘Me & the Griz’, is somber, nostalgic, and brimming with sentiment.

Speaking on the track, McAlevey continued: “‘Me and the Griz’ is a song about finding my way as a young teenager among the lawless milieu that I gravitated toward growing up in rural New Hampshire. The Griz was a cool older guy who took me under his wing and schooled me in the ways of backwoods latter-day hippiedom. By the time you get to the end, it’s also become a song about outgrowing those kinds of social environments”.

Milan McAlevey is an American songwriter, guitarist, and singer. A long-time resident of the state of Maine, his songs are often informed by the dreamy melancholy of the New England coast. They center on storytelling through lyrics that share an affinity with magical realism and convey a wryly existentialist worldview. Milan’s life and music are an archetypal story of a lost songwriter, one finally getting his due after decades outside the limelight. After all, Milan has written songs for nearly 30 years and yet 2022 brings the first commercial releases under his own name. On July 15, Fortune Tellers, (a label started by Peter Bauer of the Walkmen and his own solo projects), will release Milan’s 2008 debut ‘Admiral of the State of Maine’, a collection considered a lost classic by the few who ever heard it and passed around the tracks almost fifteen years ago. Later this year, the label will release an entirely new and contemporary album from him. Both serve as an introduction to Milan’s work and welcome a unique and subtle songwriting voice to the public at large.

Growing up in the woods of New Hampshire, Milan McAlevey was exposed to a wide range of musical influences. His father, a furniture maker, was a bluegrass superfan and best friend of Eric Von Schmidt, painter, folk musician and mentor of young Bob Dylan. While the likes of Eric Von Schmidt and Maria Muldaur were familiar faces in his father’s home, his mother, a midwife, was a Deadhead who took young Milan on her adventures. So, while he got to see a dozen Grateful Dead shows, he also got to tag along with his father to the Sanders Theater in Cambridge to see the likes of Bill Monroe, the Seldom Scene, and Doc Watson. These formative experiences coincided with him starting guitar lessons, and by high school, he was regularly playing dances and parties with his high school friends.

He moved to New York to attend Sarah Lawrence College to study music and writing, but dropped out during his senior year, working as an art handler to support his musical aspirations. During this period, he served as both leader and sideman in several weird bands, never with much success.

In 2004, McAlevey relocated to mid-coast Maine seeking a quieter quality of life. Songwriting continued to be his primary focus, though there was no commercial output and few live performances. ‘Admiral of the State of Maine’, recorded in 2008 and produced by Walter Martin (also of the Walkmen and thus the Fortune Tellers connection), was immediately shelved and heard by very few people. In 2010, he founded the band Coke Weed in Bar Harbor, ME with his then-girlfriend Nina Donghia. As songwriter and bandleader, he’d go on to produce four Coke Weed albums. The band’s third LP, 2013’s ‘Back To Soft’, was an unlikely and minor college radio hit.