New videos, shows, updates, etc.

My band Devil Grass has just released a new (our first!) official music-video!

Check it out!

Check us out live, our next show is scheduled for Saturday, April 9th, at Cactus Jack's in Ahwatukee (South-East Phoenix), with Zeppapotapuss.

I've also recently released a video from my much-delayed forthcoming solo-record... which could potentially come out at some point...? I recorded this thing last spring, filmed the video last summer, and finished editing it some time in the fall... and then pretty much forgot about it. This one's dedicated to my comrades in the bar-business.

New Music- Devil Grass

 

For those of you who follow me on various forms of social-media, this might seem like old news... but it's time to finally officially announce my new band- Devil Grass.

Devil Grass came together in early September of this year, thanks to the hard work, vision, and determination of our bandleader/ frontman, Michael Roberts. Somehow, within mere months of relocating to Phoenix from the New Jersey/ Philly-area, Michael had assembled a four-piece lineup of players who had all recently relocated from the East Coast. (If you understand the nod to that irony in our name, you win a prize. Message me.)

Devil Grass is a Phoenix-based desert-rock/ dark alt-country act. 

We are-

Michael Roberts- Vocals and guitar (New Jersey)

Joshua Motley- Keys and vocals (Kentucky)

Bernard LeVautour- Bass and backing-vocals (New Hampshire)

Craig Codrington- Drums and percussion (Vermont)

We played a series of three low-key, but super-fun, testing-the-water sort of live-shows over the last couple weeks... Look for information about a more elaborate and larger-scale "official" live-debut soon. It'll be fun, I promise.

As for "sound" and "content," we're going into the studio in mid-January to record our first single (peel your eyes), but in the meantime, check out this teaser-video we put together from some press-kit demos we tracked recently... This one's a cover of a Misfits song.

Follow us on social-media for full and regular updates, and fun behind-the-scenes content...

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Bandcamp

Enjoy, and let us know what you think! 

Hope we see you at a show soon!

ISO- Musicians- New Phoenix-based Doom-Country act "Here Lies."

Ok, Phoenix... I have a new act in the works, and I'm looking for players.

The band is called "Here Lies."

This is a live-show focussed, conceptually-driven project. The goal is mostly original-music (as opposed to covers), aimed at performing in music-venues (rather than primarily as bar-entertainment.) 

The concept? In simplest terms, maybe call this "Doom-Country." In a more specific sense, think old-school Country & Western (most specifically from the Murder-Ballad and Outlaw-Folk traditions) played in a slower, doomier, louder, darker, stompier, dustier, scarier, heavier, high-lonesomer high-lonesome, sense... The darker end of old-school country mixed with big-beat and doom-punk, if you will? 

I have recorded a demo-track to capture the sound in my head for this one... As an original-music, venue-focused concept-act, I'm aiming to keep cover songs limited to a maximum of two per set, but, in the name of demonstrating an example of what my sonic intentions are here, I decided to start by recording a cover-song. This is a 1965 C&W classic by Dick Curless, called "Tombstone Every Mile." (For other covers that might fit into future sets- think Cash- "Long Black Veil," Robbins- "Big Iron," Cave- "Where the Wild Roses Grow"... etc. Important additional influences, in terms of sound, include The Cramps, Bauhaus, Decemberists, Misfits, Joy Division, Soilent Green, Clutch, My Dying Bride... etc.) Check out the demo... and keep in mind that I recorded absolutely every instrument on this recording by myself (with the exception of some backing-vocals by my lovely-and-talented girlfriend Catherine Klabouch), so the sound will undoubtably become further fleshed-out by the influence of additional hands and ear-bulbs.

I intend to play bass (starting on electric, hopefully switching to stand-up once we get going) and vocals. I'm searching for a guitarist, a drummer, and "something else" (a dedicated lap-steel, fiddle, banjo, accordion, honky-tonk-piano, organist, etc. would be ideal... but a versatile multi-instrumentalist who understands the concept and desired sound would also be a good fit.) 

Please email me if interested... or feel free to share with friends if you think you might know people, or know people who know people. 

Project updates...

Having just returned from a somewhat tumultuous trip back east, I'm sitting at a Phoenix coffeehouse, loving being back in such a vibrant city, and excited for making fun and positive things happen for our future here... so I figured it was a good time for an update.

The Green Sea has changed formats yet again... because... why not? What we've been doing lately is some sort of live-improv noise that usually falls in a somewhat electro-punk-meets-comedy-rock vein. Basically, we've found that we thoroughly enjoy playing extended-sets without content, making absolutely everything up on the spot... which naturally incurs some hilariously unpredictable lyrics and sudden genre-shifts. We now have a site on Bandcamp, where you can stream or download loads of various fun content... We currently have four records up there- our debut EP from 2006, two live-improv mixtape records, and an ongoing collection called "...bits and pieces..." that houses lots of stuff that hasn't shown up or been appropriate for any of the other albums.

You can find all of that here-

https://thegreensea-az.bandcamp.com

We've posted some goofy videos from this phase, too, on my Youtube channel...

Such as these-

I've also begun working on a solo-record... (at the moment it's separate from the electro-jazz album I mentioned in the last post, but time will tell... I've got a few tracks from it up on my personal Bandcamp account since relocating to the desert... This is an indie-rock record at its core. I'm making the dusty, wild-west rock songs that occur to me, without trying to sculpt them into any particular context. This record is a snap-shot into my mind at the moment, as it evolves... It's called "Future Tense." 

Take a listen here- 

https://levautour.bandcamp.com

More tracks, and some videos, from that will be shortly forthcoming. 

And as always, new original art, prints, customized instruments, stickers, t-shirts, etc. are being added almost daily to the Etsy site where I sell my visual-art work... I've been pretty productive in that regard lately...

www.etsy.com/shop/levautour

...and more is to come soon. 

New solo-music and art.

I've added a second track to my slowly-evolving first solo-record (tentatively titled {ironically untitled}, without the pretenses of project-title, concept, experimentalism, etc... this one is simply intended to eventually be a stripped-down collection of songs that I would actually want to listen to. As strange as it sounds, with as many records as I've been involved with the release of (8 or so in the past 5 years, I think?) I've never actually done that.




In other news, I have new listings at my Etsy shop... and my "make an offer" liquidation-sale for friends and acquaintances is still underway, so email me if you want to barter or work out alternate delivery before you order.

Old Vine audio...

Old Vine is now on Bandcamp. That means... Lots of listenable Voodoo-folk audio for your ear-bulbs!

If you visit our site, you'll notice there are two records currently up on it. Both are works-in-progress at the moment... "Cavernous Spaces" is our forthcoming EP... original music, and a couple of original arrangements of creative covers. "Voodoo-Folk Live; B-Sides and Covers" is... pretty much how it sounds. An evolving collection of live covers and alternate takes. Alternately, "Cavernous Spaces" is our "actual" record, and our demo aimed at concert-venues, "Voodoo-Folk Live" is our demo as a bar-entertainment duo. Together, they should showcase pretty thoroughly what me and Mickey do as Old Vine.

Cavernous Spaces-




Voodoo-Folk Live-




We are currently also looking for suggestions as to where YOU'D like to see us play. (not just the city... we get lots of "play in Nashua/ Manchester/ Boston!" requests; we're looking for more specific suggestions... like, what bars or venues would you come out to see us play at?) We have two alternate sets- a longer bar-entertainment set (mostly covers), and a shorter, venue-focused set (mostly originals). Versatility is my favorite aspect of this particular act.

More Old Vine...

Old Vine  returns this Wednesday to Great American Tavern in North Reading, Massachusetts. (We are resident there every week, but the first one was different than most because we were up against World Series Game 1 [an interesting challenge], and the second was cancelled because of the sixth and final game of that series [go Sox!]... so this is our first "normal" week of our stint there.).

Here are some clips from our first night there...

"Like" us on Facebook, say "yes!" to the venue's event-invite, come down, drink some beers, sing along!

Voodoo-Folk!

"Old Vine"... details, explanations, etcetera.

OK, here goes something I told myself in the past that I'd never do.

I recently played a benefit-show, as a duo with my friend Mickey Fearon... it was for a good cause; we put together a 3-hour set of eclectic and entertaining covers, peppered with a few originals, to entertain a crowd aimed at helping out a friend in need. This was done somewhat spur-the-moment, with very little preparation.

Surprising to both of us, this worked out pretty well. Somehow, this collaboration turned into an actual "thing." That "thing" is now called Old Vine.

Here's the thing. Me and Mickey have been friends for a while, but we have pretty opposite tastes and musical-backgrounds. Turns out, that works out pretty well. Mickey is a classic-rock kid, I'm an indie-rock kid. I'm a jazz guy, Mickey digs the blues alot. Mickey learns covers note for note as a guitarist and NAILS them, I'm a performer first-and-foremost with a background in original music in concert-venues; I hadn't played or learned any cover at all in YEARS. Turns out, we balance each other out well. My weaknesses in regards to what we're doing are Mickey's strengths, and vice-versa.

Somehow, this odd outfit landed a residency.

We're playing Wednesdays, starting this week, at Great American Tavern in North Reading, Massachusetts. 8:30 to 11:30.

Sure, we're playing acoustic bar-rock. But I promise- our set is WEIRD. Me and Mickey's ideas of "standards" are VERY different... which should make for an interesting experience for just about any sonic-palette. We seriously cover everything from Cab Calloway to Outkast to Johnny Cash to Death Cab to Clapton to M.J. to Kanye... and pretty much everything in between. Expect to hear some hippie shit, expect to hear some hipster shit. All in the same set, mixed with stuff your grandmother might whistle along to. I'm not kidding. And then we mix an original tune in just to mix it up a bit. 

So, come out on some Wednesday and hang out. It'll be fun. And "like" us on Facebook... and check out some videos from that first event that got this all started...

New Music (Tonal Couture, Solo-stuff, Snazzmobb)

A few music updates. I've been pretty busy as a musician lately. Here's some stuff I've been working on.

Snazzmobb is still plugging away at refining our set, now that we've finally settled into a refined bass/ drums/ keys trio arrangement... we're currently polishing edges and editing our press-kit, hoping to start shopping it to venues and promoters soon. I'm not going to lie, it's been a tumultuous year for the outfit, with quite a few strange setbacks befalling the initial lineup I set up a year ago this month, with the intent to fast-track the act to playing out quickly and often by mid-winter of last year. Through that time-period, we ended up writing a set three times longer than it needed to be, featuring songs from all the various phases of the band's still young, yet already rocky, lifespan. That long-form set meandered and wandered, was probably interesting in some ways, but not at all moments what we had initially set out to do. We've recently sliced that set by a third, leaving the content that reflects what we sound like NOW, and we're really happy with what we're almost ready to unleash. Accordingly, the demo that we recently released already feels outdated, as it was recorded as a duo with a bit of a different focus... I hope to drop some sort of an accompanying single soon to demonstrate the current feel of our content.

I recently also started playing with a downbeat instrumental dub act on the seacoast, called Tonal Couture. This project is POLAR opposite from Snazzmobb, and I LOVE that. While the snazz is a rambunctious, high-energy, venue-focused dance act, Tonal Couture is super relaxed and ambient, better suited for swanky martini-lounges and chill-out-rooms. It's fun to play, and fun to listen to. We record our sessions, and we've made select cuts available on our Bandcamp page, as part of the possibly-fictitious un-album (quickly becoming a bizarre future box-set of some sort), called "Future Rarities and B-Sides Without A-Sides." There are 12 tracks up at the moment... check them out, and enjoy.



Also, I've started working on a post-LeVautourEnsemble phase of solo-content. This time around, I'm using my own name (well, sorta... I'm dropping this stuff as "Bernard LeVautour," which is how I've usually billed myself in recent musical-projects) and promising myself to drop the "experimental" schtick and finally make music that I would actually want to LISTEN to. Expect sparse, down-tempo electro-jazz type stuff, mostly... because that's what I tend to actually be most into. Here's the first track I dropped to debut that sort of content...

Snazzmobb album-release!

My indie-dance-rock trio Snazzmobb dropped our demo-EP, "The Violent Taste of Hot Sauce," last week!

It is available for free streaming and download on  our brand-new Bandcamp page... Five tracks are streamable live, plus four downloads rounding it out to nine if you choose to download!



Also, more of our material is now available on Youtube!

Updates... Etsy, Snazzmobb, etc.

I updated my Etsy site... in addition to the prints and original-pieces associated with the initial "5 Icons" series that I made the site to make available, I've now expanded it to include... well, pretty much all of the pieces of my work cluttering the walls of my studio that I would be more than happy to find a new home for. Accordingly, I think the listing-prices on this stuff are mostly pretty good deals... but nothing's set in stone, so message me directly if you want to haggle. Or if you live in the greater-Boston area, message me before ordering to see if it's possible to avoid shipping and fees.




Also, Snazzmobb is on Tumblr now! Check it out! Follow us, share us, like us... whatever it is you Tumblr people do over in Tumblr-land.

Help Wanted- Consummate Performer/ Snazzmobb Keyboardist.

Want to play the coolest key-rig in the business? My band Snazzmobb is looking to fill a hole in our live-lineup. 

We are looking for a consummate, energetic performer to join our show, to spazz out behind this contraption while filling in some holes in our live sound. 

While a skilled keyboard player would be the ideal fit, this role, to be perfectly honest, is not particularly musically challenging if the right person doesn't choose to make it such. First and foremost, we are looking for an absolutely electric performer with a basic working knowledge of music, the ability to push buttons and follow directions. Someone who is, say, usually a guitarist, with a good sense of rhythm and the desire to put on an explosive show, could be as good a match for this role as someone with professional synth experience.

Job responsibilities would involve playing some very basic keyboard parts (many of which are already written) on this rig, which is extremely simple and easy to use (it's built from a mid-'80's Casio- an ultra dummy-proof keyboard.). Additionally, this person would be responsible for controlling a rack of assorted noise-making junk... pushing play-buttons on sampling-devices, cuing loops, etc... basic tasks that would free up the hands of other members, to allow us to do more of our trademark spastic performing and less gear-juggling and button-jockeying. All such tasks are carefully and clearly documented on extensive set-notes ("$nazz-Note$") that we meticulously (compulsively?) update following each weekly session. 

This act has been practicing primarily as a bass/ drums/ vocal/ noise duo for the past several months, following some complications with the original lineup that was put together in the Fall of 2012. With this arrangement, we have an entertaining set of songs written, a demo, a press-kit, and a stage-rig, all nearly complete and ready to start booking shows, waiting mostly on finding the right person to fill this particular role. We also collaborate remotely with a cast of talented individuals for song-craft, sample-production, etc, such as Adhesiveslipper (Noise-wizard/ Headhat Records bossman), Sammie Ryan (Sinestetici), etc. 

Ideally, this act will perform live (hopefully soon) as an extremely high-energy bass/ drum/ keys trio. Despite the stage-rig built extensively out of modified pieces of mannequins (this keyboard rig is just one of several elements that work within a coherent visual theme) this is most definitely NOT a concept-art project. Our goal is is merely to entertain people, to make weirdos dance, to offer audiences a crazy good time, to turn concert-venues into really wacky parties while we play. If this sounds like something you could get passionate about, you might be the person we're looking for. If so, we practice on Friday mornings, usually 10:30 to 2 or so, in Hudson, New Hampshire. Email me at bernard.levautour@yahoo.com if you're interested in giving it a try. Feel free, of course, to share this with your friends if YOU'RE not who we're looking for, but you think you might know someone who is.

In the meantime, here are a couple examples of the sort of thing we're doing, a couple teaser-videos we've dropped with some content from our forthcoming demo "The Violent Taste of Hot Sauce"-

New Snazzmobb content!

My new band Snazzmobb posted a new video-teaser yesterday. This is the second released track from our forthcoming demo-EP "The Violent Taste of Hot Sauce." (watch the first one, "Real People, Real Sex," here.)

This one's the only content that we didn't write in our current set (ready to debut live soon... peel your eyes.) This is an original medley arrangement, with all due respect and reverence to His Purple Highness.

Enjoy, and feel free to share with your friends.

An Unorthodox Album Release...

I have a new album out and available now... in a totally different form and format from how I usually release material.

This one's called "Bernard LeVautour- Vulture From the Vaults {a live dj-set of unreleased rarities and back-catalog cuts}"

A physical, limited-run pressing is available via my Etsy site-

Click here!

A blurb from the liner-notes, to explain a bit about what it is-

"I haven’t quite figured out yet if this is intended to be a CD that’s packaged in an art-print, or an art-print that comes with a CD. So let’s call it, somehow, both. 

The print is a limited-edition digital/ photo-reproduction rendering of a painting called “5-icons,” the only place where all five images from my “Iconography” series appear in the same space.

The album is a single-take live-mix. It’s dirty. It’s messy. It was recorded direct to Type II cassette-tapes on an ancient Tascam 4-track, because that seemed appropriate, as there’s material in this mix that dates back far enough that we were using those things without irony.  Much of the mix is improvised, and I broke a turn-table and plowed my way through a whole slew of other technical issues throughout the mix. 

I wanted to release some sort of compilation of my own unreleased back-catalog cuts and rarities from my musical past, but I wanted to do it in such a way that wouldn’t enshrine or fetishize moments  from the past. Therefore, this mix is often in some ways somewhat irreverent. In terms of mixology, my impulse veered often toward stubbornness- the highest quality, best-known, most successful recordings dropped into this mix tend to be the ones that I made the largest effort to dirty up and in some cases possibly even “ruin” into unlistenable noise, while allowing certain cuts from far more obscure past-projects that most won’t even know I worked on to spin clean, almost undisturbed. 

Basically, this is just a filthy mess that I felt like I needed to get out. For some reason, I feel better now that I did." 

For $15 you get both the limited-edition print, and the disc that's mounted into the back of the frame.
 

Snazzmobb content-teaser.

As I mentioned at the end of the last entry, I do have a third project-installment update coming, about visual-art. Soon.

In the meantime, though, I have a couple more music-related updates to tack onto the last post.

First, my band Snazzmobb now has a sample-track from our forthcoming demo-EP streaming on Youtube!

This song was inspired by a spam-bot that was harassing the band's Twitter account (@Snazzmobb) mercilessly for a while. We got literally HUNDREDS of messages a day for about a month that just read, "Real People; Real Sex!" (followed by a link that we're not quite dumb enough to open.)

Project-updates, part 2.

Music-




I currently have two records and a brand-new live band in the works.



First, the third record from my solo experimental electronic project LeVautourEnsemble is well underway. This one’s called “From the Sketchbook.”

Like the first two (2010’s “…whose wings are a dull reality”, and 2011’s “Machinique Meltdown”, both available for free download [with a whole lot of other neat stuff] on Headhat Records) this one is also a bit of an oddball repurposing of the idea of the “concept-record.” This time around, as the name of the record may imply, I’ve assigned myself the task of navigating a sketchbook where I had been jotting down fragments of transient ideas over the course of several years… and writing songs based on those fragments… even if (or, especially if) I have NO idea what the hell the initial note meant. To throw myself an additional layer of challenge, I’m tracking this record entirely on an ancient Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. (Special thanks to Dan Holmes for loaning me this phenomenally monstrous device).

I’ve nicknamed him “Brutus.” If anyone remembers tracking audio with these things, add about twenty-five years to let Brutus’s physical parts get downright-elderly in electronics-years, and you can begin to imagine how beautifully cantankerous and temperamental he is now. Working with Brutus is much like riding an ornery rodeo-bull; I’m definitely not in charge here. (I’ve always joked that the other members of LeVautourEnsemble’s “Ensemble” are machines and robots… this has never been more true.) By design, this record will sound NOTHING like what I envision it sounding like in my head. (Special thanks for this one are also due to the guy who owns "The Music Connection" in Manchester, NH, for having had the foresight to stock-pile the Type-II cassette-tapes that Brutus requires back when they stopped making them, while everyone else's response when I was trying to track them down was more like "You're looking for what? WHY??")



Some sneak-peak sample of tracks from this record can be heard here-

.. streaming/ download from a recent charity-compilation...

…and here-

Additionally, this album will be the last material I’ll release under the “LeVautourEnsemble” name. My plan is to consider the three records some odd sort of a “trilogy” (maybe even make some sort of limited-edition packaging of them as such available) and retire the moniker. This isn’t to imply that I’m going to stop making this sort of music (who knows), but more that the idea of maintaining false separations between various sorts of solo-content has run its course.



The second record I am working on is a recording of a live-DJ megamix-set of sorts… It’s called “Vulture From The Vaults”… basically, I spin and remix a collection of my back-catalog material from a variety of projects that were never officially released, linked together with improvised live shards of my particular breed of lo-fi indie-electronic music. This is sort of like a bizarro take on a B-sides/ rarities/ out-takes/ greatest (non)hits collection, mashed up with my sort of gadfly take on the “live-mix” records that DJ’s more traditional-style than myself like to release. My plan is to release physical-copies of this disc in such a way that make it very unclear whether it’s more of a CD that comes with a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork, or a piece of art that comes with a free CD… or something in between, or both.



My new live-band is called Snazzmobb.

Expect a crazy-high-energy explosion of indie-dance-rock madness. We’re brand-spanking-new (and dealing with an unforeseen early-lineup restructuring issue at the moment) so we’re not playing out yet, but we will be soon. (I’ve already given my band-mates an ultimatum; if this isn’t going anywhere by early spring I’m heading someplace warmer). In the meantime, follow us on Twitter (@Snazzmobb) and “like” us on Facebook… we’ll be dropping plenty of teaser-content soon enough. Peel your eyes.

Snazzmobb is currently a trio; I'm on bass and vocals, Adhesiveslipper (solo-artist/ Headhat Records boss-man) is on electronic-noise-wizardry and vocals, and Alex Hurschman is on drums and vocals. Think high-energy noisy funk meets post-punk? This will be a fun show, I promise.



(the third installment of this update-series will cover visual-art and odds-and-ends, soon.)

A Pair of Reviews, Part 2: Yeasayer, "Fragrant World."

The new Yeasayer disc, “Fragrant World,” is not technically a sophomore release (it’s actually the band’s third studio-record). However, it faces many of the same fabled pressures of an act’s second album, as it is the follow-up to 2010’s universally-acclaimed “Odd Blood,” which catapulted the group to “It-band” status (recent releases by Animal Collective and The Dirty Projectors, among others, face similar pressure.)

Yeasayer navigates this potentially-tense moment in their career brilliantly with “Fragrant World.” If the record lacks “Odd Blood”’s urgency (which to my ears it definitely does- there’s little if any of “Mondegreen” or “O.N.E.”’s edgy dance-rock here), this is instead a more confident, reflective, mature Yeasayer. Comparatively, this record is almost ‘laid back’… but not in a bad way.

To my ears, the most notable aspect of this album’s interest is the instrumentation. Yeasayer has managed something many musicians might find unthinkable here- somehow, they’ve stripped even more of the ‘organic’ instruments from their mix (I can only locate a couple brief snippets of sound of this disc that I’m entirely confident are made by guitars) while making a record that I would be FAR less comfortable describing as ‘electronic’ than their last. This is not a synth record, this is not an electro record, this is DEFINITELY not a dance or EDM record. This is a well-written psychedelic indie-pop record constructed largely from a palette of ‘What the hell makes THAT noise?’ sounds. 

In my eyes, it’s about time that rock songwriting caught up with hip-hop production in this regard. This is a ‘think outside the box’ record that amazingly manages not to SOUND like one, unless you’re either stubbornly partial to the safety of the box, or you’re paying close attention to the xylophones, pizzicato, noise-swells, glitches, melodica, etcetera that sit in the spaces that guitars might otherwise go. This album should be required-listening for every musician in a guitar-bass-drum cliché-format rock band, to fuel a little thought toward how their songs are put together, and why. 

Oh, and those sub-hits throughout are IMPRESSIVELY low.