Miracle of 86 was formed by Kevin Devine and Christian McAllen back in the day on Staten Island, New York. The most recent line-up, including Mike Robertson (guitar/vocals) and Mike Skinner (drums), was solidifying 3 years ago as the bands second full length album, Every Famous Last Word (2001) was released on Defiance Records/Lakeshore Records. The album was received to much critical acclaim and was followed by successful tours in the US (with Sorry About Dresden) and Europe (with the National Anthems) including sold out shows with bands like Desaparacidos, Rilo Kiley and Cursive. The title track for Every Famous Last Word was included on the soundtrack to the feature film, “Wrong Turn”.
Following the last Miracle tour, the band took a break to work on other projects. Christian began touring/recording with psych-pop legends The Lily ’s as well as with Pablo (ex-AWEK/Realistics) – Mike Robertson formed and fronted Mason Dixon, playing shows around the New York area – Mike Skinner worked with Kevin Devine on his solo record (Defiance), re-mixes for Black Moustache as well as the latest album from Onelinedrawing. These different bands played on the same bill when possible until talk about recording and touring moved from drunken late night ramblings to sporadic daytime rehearsals. With support from Defiance Records (Germany) and Immigrant Sun (US) the band entered the studio in June for a cannonball weekend of recording with friend and producer Chris Bracco to assemble a new EP of unrecorded material and new alternate versions of songs like Every Famous Last Word and Surprise Me. The new recordings reflect the influences of the varied projects the band has been working on individually; it may surprise some long-time fans who discovered the band many years ago on the emo diaries.
Miracle of 86 will tour Germany and Austria in August/September. It will probably be a while before the band will return to Europe and no dates are being planned in the US at this point. In typical Miracle fashion there’s a lot of uncertainty and no one is sure what the future will bring… |
