Julian Fleisher is a singer, writer, producer, and performer living in New York. With his Rather Big Band, he has performed with the likes of Jennifer Holiday, Martha Plimpton, Molly Ringwald, Michael Feinstein, Justin Vivian Bond, Kenny Mellman, Bridget Everett, Lauren Graham, Tonya Pinkins and Diana Krall. He recently appeared as George Davis in Gabe Kahane’s February House at The Public Theater, as the Cat in Stephin Merritt's Coraline at MCC and he is a member of Elevator Repair Service. Julian wrote the music for the plays Almost, Maine and The Performers on Broadway and he is the composer/lyricist of the new musical Measure of Success with librettist Kirsten Guenther, which has received grants and residencies from The Rockefeller Brothers, The Orchard Project, The Lark and the Peter S. Reed Foundation. A native of Baltimore and a graduate of Yale, Julian produced CDs for himself, Kiki & Herb and Ana Gasteyer, among others, but he began his professional career as a writer — he's the author of many books on the subjects of grammar, self-improvement and vocabulary from Random House as well as The Drag Queens of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide (Riverhead). A genuine "renaissance man", Fleisher draws on a wealth of varied experiences to undress the American songbook (as well as his guests) in a fresh, quirky, and entertaining way.

Hurray for the Riff Raff

Alynda Segarra is 36, or a little less than halfway through the average American lifespan. In that comparatively brief time, though, the Hurray for the Riff Raff founder has been something of a modern Huck Finn, an itinerant traveler whose adventures prompt art that reminds us there are always other ways to live.
Born in the Bronx and of Puerto Rican heritage, Segarra was raised there by a blue-collar aunt and uncle, as their father navigated Vietnam trauma and their mother neglected them to work for the likes of Rudy Giuliani. They were radicalized before they were a teenager, baptized in the anti-war movement and galvanized in New York’s punk haunts and queer
spaces. At 17, Segarra split, becoming the kid in a communal squat before shuttling to California, where they began crisscrossing the country by hopping trains. They eventually found home—spiritual, emotional, physical—in New Orleans, forming a hobo band and realizing that music was not only a way to share what they’d learned and seen but to learn and
see more. Hurray for the Riff Raff steadily rose from house shows to a major label, where Segarra became a pan-everything fixture of the modern folk movement. But that yoke became a burden, prompting Segarra to make the probing and poignant
electronic opus, 2022’s Life on Earth, their Nonesuch debut. Catch your breath, OK? We’re back to 36, back to now.
During the last dozen years, these manifold tales of Segarra’s voyages have shaped an oral folklore of sorts, with the teenage vagabonding or subsequent trainhopping becoming what some may hear about Hurray for the Riff Raff before hearing the music itself. Segarra has dropped tidbits in songs, too, but they always worried that their experiences were too
radical, that memories of dumpster diving or riding through New Orleans with a dildo dangling on an antenna were too much. But on The Past Is Still Alive, Segarra finally tells the story themselves, speckling stirring reflections on love, loss, and the end or evolution of the United States with foundational scenes from their own life. “It felt like a trust fall, or a letting go of this idea of proving something to the music industry—how I can be more digestible, modifiable, sellable,” Segarra says. “I feel like I’m closer to what I actually have to share.”