Friday, February 27, 2009

My Parents...

I love my Mom and Dad so much. I can't be thankful enough for who they are, and for who they've let me be. They are always supportive and encouraging. I think I'm one of the luckiest kids alive. It's really been hitting me on this tour....

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Levator Live @ Soda Bar - San Deigo



Filmed by Jermy of Origami Ghosts at Soda Bar in San Diego.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

tour - day 15

happy valentine's day?

let's see, what has happened since last we spoke: well, shirley's brakes still work, we had a great night in l.a., a great night in san diego, and the less said about long beach the better...

mr. t's in l.a. was awesome; an old converted bowling alley that has shows where the lanes would be. we played with some fantastic local psychedelic bands: electric children, spirit vine, and rocking horse people. we're lucky enough that we get to play with the electric children again in san francisco next friday.

we weren't sure how san diego was going to go; we played the same venue last year and it was a dud, but it's under new owners now and the change was unreal. we crossed paths again with origami ghosts, a band from seattle that we met up with in arcata. never met them until then, but they had their cd release the same night as ours at the high dive, left for tour the same day we did, and have already hit many joints along the way that we're hitting on the way back. apparently they've seen our fliers everywhere.

once again, long beach stories are for later.

we are sitting in the silver fox in bakersfield, one of our favorite places to play. I swear it hasn't changed since the late sixties, and it's perfect. right before walking in I was talking with joe alton on the phone, telling him about the silver fox, and, no shit, a fox ran right by me! they love their foxes in bakersfield I guess...

okay, I'm thirsty, it's time to end this rant. buenos tardes, amigos.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

California Bars...

Ever heard of "Mood Lighting"? Well, apparently it's something California bars take very seriously. I don't even know why I bother brushing my hair in this state because no one can see it anyways! hahaha That's really funny because I haven't brushed my hair in two days. No, that's a lie. Today. But time seems longer. Or shorter. Maybe I only need to brush it once every two days. I also have a theory about that, but back to my point.. lighting....

No, I actually really like it- the low lighting that is, (unless I'm trying to find something in my lego case) but I have a theory. I think it's so dang sunny here that the bars keep it very dark day and night to kind of even it out and have you noticed that most bars in Seattle are too bright? Well, maybe they are trying to make up for the big thing that's usually MIA in the overhead compartment of clouds.

I wonder if there are less single people in California. hahaha.. I apologize, that was crude humor. Like people just go to bars to pick people up or something....

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

SPINearth's Em Brownlowe interviews Levator

Progressive-shoegaze trio, Levator, hope Seattle's moody rain cloud won't follow them into sunny California. In search of a cure for seasonal depression and to realize the rock n roll dream, Sky Lynn, Rando Skrasek and Nate Henry aim to leave Northwestern territory and embark on a month long tour of the Golden State's inland empire.

Such an adventure is nothing new to Levator, as the trio tours regularly throughout the year. However, this time they are driving senior-style in an old school RV (which singer, Sky Lynn, has inherited from her grandfather) to promote their latest self-released album, The Biggest Waves Come At Night.

Levator's first show on the road happened at Portland's Mississippi Pizza, a kitschy pizza lounge whose decor is inspired by the lost city of Atlantis. Inside, Levator's unique sound washed over the audience whose conversation was drowned in awe of the band's somber orchestrations. Sky Lynn, a master of atmospheric sound, wears pointy toed heels to assist her maneuvers upon a effect board containing over a dozen pedals, creating live loops of guitar and vocals which she exhales with impressive range. Meanwhile, saxophone player, Nate Henry adds suspense and mystery through tasteful blows while Rando Skrasek keeps the songs steady with his forceful minimalist beats.

The next day, before departing on a 110 mile trip to Eugene, Levator and I met up to re-nourish ourselves with Bloody Marys, eggs and plenty of bacon. Afterwards, they gave me a tour of their beloved RV and spoke about rock n roll's place in small towns, their new record and living the dream.

EM: Where are you all headed on this tour?
SKY LYNN: Our final destination is San Diego, CA.
NATE HENRY: And every place in between.
SKY: Different town every day...sometimes two towns in one day.

EM: A lot of bands just hit the big cities. What is it like playing small towns?
RANDO: Awesome!
SKY: A lot of times people are appreciative that you stopped through because a lot of people just blow through it. I grew up in a small town so I can appreciate that.
RANDO : I was very appreciative of any band that came to my small town as well.

EM: Where did you all grow up?
SKY: I grew up in Oregon in a town of 1,100 people and one stop light.
RANDO: Oklahoma
NATE: I grew up in eastern Washington and we didn't have bands come through....ever. Unless they were big....like Boston would show up.

EM: What are some of the smaller towns you're going to play between Seattle and San Diego?
ALL: Eugene, Arcata, Redding, Chico, Bakersfield, Monterey, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Eureka, Merced, Modesto...

EM: Tell us a little bit about your newest record, The Biggest Waves Come At Night. How and where was it was recorded?
SKY: The title, The Biggest Waves Come At Night, is a lyric taken from one of the songs. We recorded it in multiple locations. It started at my grandma's old house and then we took it to our practice space and our apartments. We mixed it in our apartment.

EM: Did you find any themes coming through during the recording process?
SKY: We weren't really picking a theme. We recorded a basket full of songs and let them sit together. The two or three that didn't fit the mold of the basket will be put on something else like a 7".

EM: How was the song collection composed?
SKY: We started to record them and then they grew on their own. We would record a skeleton and then listen to it and someone would put something here or there. It was cool and really collaborative.
RANDO: We had good experimentation with micing and sounds that all came out very colorful.

EM: What are the music genres that have influenced these recordings?
SKY: Gosh, what have I been listening to a lot?
NATE: Pink Floyd.
SKY: Yeah, I've probably seen "Live In Pompei" fifty times! I think that's the best movie ever!

EM: What are some of the records you have been pumping while on the road?
SKY: Well, we haven't been listening to a whole lot of music because we broke down twice and couldn't use the stereo because the battery was dead. I taught these guys a couple of rye whiskey songs and had a little sing a long.

EM: Do you all get cabin fever in the RV?
SKY: Not yet!
RANDO: (laughing) Shoo fly shoo....
SKY: Compared to a Chevy Astro Van...
NATE: We're living like kings.
SKY: It's like a football field! I was doing cartwheels, lunges, running back and forth.
NATE: We're gonna be making bacon right over there (points to built in stove)
SKY: And pizza! I brought a pizza pan.

EM: Well, I'll let you all hit the road. Is there anything else you would like to tell the world about the tour or your music?
SKY: I would just recommend [touring] to bands. I just can't even describe the pleasure of being in random places and towns I normally wouldn't even go to.
NATE: And meeting all sorts of cool people that you wouldn't necessarily meet otherwise.
SKY: And finding about all these other bands that I never would have known existed because a lot of people don't go on tour anymore. I mean, there is Myspace but it is different when you see it in person. It's always nice to come home with a stack of new stuff.
RANDO: The explorer...
SKY: The wanderer, gatherer.

Click here to see the video and pictures from the interview.

tour - day 12

I see a pattern developing: play a really fun show, have rv problems. I don't think it has anything to do with radio shows...

here we are in san luis obispo, california, after playing a really fun show last night at a place called the clubhouse. we were part of a "songwriters showcase," which sounds an awful lot like an open mic night, but trust me it's not. there were seven other solos/groups that played three or four songs a piece, with us smack in the middle with our five songs that turned into 45 minutes. we know how to party. some of the acts we played with were really quite good, and some were very funny. the people at the clubhouse were awesome and treated us really well; drinks, food, ghost stories, etc...

now we're waiting for the brake pads and rotors to be replaced on shirley so we can make it to l.a. for the show tonight. without a doubt, this is the most expensive thing we've had to work on yet. but hey, by the time we get back to seattle we will have an almost brand new rv, right?

right?

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

209Vibe and The Record Newspaper's Aaron Davis interviews Levator

When you’ve got a name like Sky Lynn, you pretty much have no choice in life but to be the lead singer of a band. Period. Done.

Fortunately for Sky Lynn of Seattle’s Levator, she seems to have a knack for the whole frontwoman thing, in particular from a songwriting standpoint. The band’s newest album “The Biggest Waves Come at Night” seeps with the cherish and occasionally the anguish of an aged family photo album (not the digital kind you buy at Target).

“Last year was kind of a tough year – my grandma passed away, my dad got hit by a car, so I was going through all the things that that would entail,” Lynn said in a phone interview from a tour stop in San Jose, with bandmates Nate Henry and Rando Skrasek hanging out on speaker phone.

“We started the record in my grandma’s old house before the family sold it, so it kind of was a way for me to capture some of those memories and feelings,” she said. “Even though some of the songs aren’t necessarily about those subjects, it’s like my own personal scrapbook.”

Henry and Skrasek were more than happy to lend their chops to the faded edges of the band’s third record (the first as a collaboration between these three), making Levator a much-buzzed Emerald City export that’s garnering heavier radio play and filling more and more iPods these days.

Levator (pronounced like “elevator” without the e) performs at the Plea For Peace Center on Wednesday, February 18, joined by budding Manteca singer/songwriter Travis Vick, as well as Sacramento’s Sulky Darky.

Plea for Peace is at 630 E. Weber Ave. in Stockton. The show gets rolling at 7 p.m., and admission is $6 ($2 annual membership fee required).

Just give a listen to the first track on “Biggest Waves,” entitled “12:34” (and no, that’s not a rip-off of Feist’s “1234”, I checked) and you’ll probably have this as the first thought: “Woah, easy on the Pink Floyd!”

“I don’t know if it was intentional, but I could see how it would seep out; we all love our Pink Floyd,” said Henry, amid chuckling from the rest of the band. Henry green lights the beginning of the record with a primal, narcotic saxophone riff that packs hazy undertones of “Wish You Were Here.”

From there, Levator takes off on a spinning sonic siesta of Lynn’s ethereally aching vocals and raw, salt-of-the-Earth guitar licks, with Henry and Skrasek applying an intricate rhythmic landscape.

It’s what a Pink Floyd record might have sounded like inside Hunter S. Thompson’s head whilst driving through Barstow, on the edge of the desert – but before he reaches bat country.

They’re also the kind of band (that doesn’t play ska music) that reaffirms how much of an enigmatically powerful instrument the saxophone can be when correctly applied in rock music.

“I’ve been playing (sax) for over 20 years; I kind of gave it up for a little while, when all my friends started playing in bands,” Henry said. “I was like ‘screw this, I can play the sax with you easier than I can learn another instrument.’

“I kind of forced it on them,” he added, again met with laughter from the band, further demonstrating that nothing this band does appears to be “forced” at all.

BAND WEBSITE: www.myspace.com/levator.

Click here for actual Site

Monday, February 9, 2009

tour - day 10

after a couple relaxing days off in the redwoods - damn, shirley was a champ - we made our way to san francisco, with a stop along the way to get the alternator replaced. now that almost the whole electrical system has been worked on things seem to be running well.

san francisco was a great time. house of shields was the place; it used to be a speakeasy during prohibition times, and it still retains the charm. the bands play upstairs in a little loft, 10 people makes it seem full. we ended up staying up til 5:30am with sam the sound guy. needless to say, our trip to san jose (where we are right now) was a little rough, but we made it.

now it's off to santa cruz and monterrey, two shows today. and hopefully some beach if there is time...

Press, Great Bands and Film

It's a nice sunny day here in San Jose California and the folks at Coffee Society are playing Blonde Redhead. Support from the local press has been great in most every town we have played. Thank you: Seattle Weekly, Portland Mercury (Seattle's Levator is the unlikely trio of guitar, drums, and sax, but they emit a florid, encompassing sound that is rich with shadow and detail. Guitarist Sky Lynn is a vocalist of surprising range, and on the band's new full-length, The Biggest Waves Come at Night, she weaves both wordless chorales and hard-rock vocals with equal skill. And don't be put off by the presence of Nate Henry's sax: This isn't Huey Lewis and the News or Men at Work. Henry's drawn-out, haunting lines aim for drama, mood, and mystery rather than rooty-toot gas piping. Together, the trio patiently creates a stormy, lush backdrop in which songs rise up slowly, then heavily crash down like waves hitting sand. NL Levator also performs tonight at 6 pm at Music Millennium (3158 E Burnside), Eugene Weekly, Hope Mountain Radio (http://www.takilmafm.com/), northcoastjournal in Eureka, San Francisco Weekly and the San Jose Metro for writing up our Street Light Records show and Humboldt's New Rock! KSLG 94.1 FM for broadcast love.

I'd like to share some of the great bands we had the pleasure of playing with this week!
http://www.myspace.com/secrethighways
http://www.myspace.com/theswallows
http://www.myspace.com/jongarciaportland - Live Harp! very nice Raelyn.
http://www.myspace.com/sniderland - Testface
http://www.myspace.com/origamighosts - Thanks for the love fellas!
http://www.myspace.com/heyeleanor - Amazing Aunty Mo's set!
http://www.myspace.com/aforeigncinema

Check out a film I put together befor we left for the road: Bruises, Biggest Waves Come At Night

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

tour - day 5

hello again! we successfully made it from eugene to cave junction, oregon, where we spent our evening in a small radio station up in the mountains with epoch the dj. it was a blast. we played cd's that we brought with us, rooted through the station's record collection, ate the first meal cooked on shirley's stove...

now we are sitting behind big pete's pizza in arcata, california. notice a trend here? pizza and beer, pizza and beer. we got to see paul bunyon and babe the blue ox at trees of mystery today, but unfortunately we got there right after closing. no redwood seeds for anyone! at least babe had his head back; the last time we went through it had fallen off. very traumitizing.

hooray for tour. will correspond soon. say hi to my cat.

tour - day 3

so, after having a blast last night in eugene, we awoke this morning to our rv's battery being dead. well, that's what we thought, until getting a jump-start; turns out it is the starter. we're waiting right now for AAA to show up and tow us to a service station. seems we are going to replace the rv piece by piece; hopefully in the next week or so we will have fixed everything...

we are on our way to cave junction, oregon after this to do a radio show. I'm wondering if maybe doing radio spots is what's killing the rv. 'hey sky, cancel all our radio shows!!'

tour - the first couple days

it started out well enough: we got to sleep at 4 am after the cd release party, got up at 6:30 am, went over to all-city coffee, and were on the road by 7:30. our radio went out in tacoma (goddamn circuit city!! we said...), but spirits were high. about an hour outside of portland we noticed that something was wrong.

it seems that shirly, our rv (named after it's speed: we'll get there, slowly but shirly), had thrown a fan belt. it turns out, the fan belt also turns the alternator, and without that, we ran the battery out with our radio, thus no tunes. (sorry, circuit city, we didn't mean to besmirch your name.) as we didn't have another fan belt with us, we called sky's father, who lives about half an hour from where we were. he came with an assortment of fan belts, we found the one that fit, and we were on our way. until shirly threw that belt too. we made it to the nearest service station and had it fixed. if you're ever in kelso-longview area, go to kerr's kar korner (or something like that), and have manuel help you. he got us back on the road for about $10.

problem is: we missed the radio show in portland. but we made the cd store show, and got a nap beforehand. I think we still won.

we got to see some good friends in portland, played a fun show at mississippi pizza, ate our fill of delicious pie, and fell asleep early. well, sky didn't, she had an adventure instead. but I'll let her tell you that part.

this morning we had a delicious breakfast with em from swallows (who we played with at miss. pizza) as is our portland custom, and now we're hanging out in eugene. sam bond's garage is an awesome venue, we're looking forward to it. man, I'm thirsty (that means I need beer).

okay, that's all for now. see you soon.

Oregon


Portland Walk
Originally uploaded by Levator