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.

Updates, art, etc.

A few updates...

My acoustic duo, Old Vine, is working on 3 simultaneous demo-records, and posting new content regularly to our Bandcamp page as they become available. One is our "real" EP, Cavernous Spaces... an album of original-material and original-arrangements of creative covers.

The second is a live-demo of covers from our bar-entertainment set, called Voodoo-Folk Live; B-Sides and Covers.

 The third is a record of oddball remixes of our tracks, called Voodoo-Folk Reconjured!

So... Listen, "like", and follow us on Twitter.

We are currently in the process of sculpting our content for two different sorts of sets, both as bar-entertainment, and playing original content in music-venues. We are always for hire, so book us as entertainment for your bar/ event/ party, or to play creative indie-rock shows in your performance-space. Email for details.



I've also re-started an old habit of posting video-demos of new songwriting material to my youtube channel... Here's a brand new one.

In other news, I'm having a sort of "friends and family" liquidation-sale at my Etsy site. If I know you personally, or you're "local" enough to know who I am in any sort of personal way, message me personally before making an offer on any pieces that you might want from my site... I have WAY more of my own material on the walls of my studio than I would like at the moment, so any reasonable offer will be considered.

Project-update post, Part 3- Visual Art.

After a hectic holiday-season, I finally got my Etsy shop back up to date.

There are currently 41 items for sale there... some are made-to-order prints, others are one-of-a-kind originals... all are part of my "5 Icons" series... Which is a project that I'm calling "finished" for the time-being, with the exception of special requests or custom commissions.

Ideally, I would prefer not to have the original versions of the stuff I make prints of in my own possession... So I'm going to try to not start a new series of prints for the shop until I can liquidate some of the one-of-a-kind stuff. (There's a whole lot more original stuff hanging on the walls of my studio that isn't up here because it's not from this series that I'd be MORE than happy to sell/ barter. Email me if you're interested in seeing some additional offerings or if you're looking for something in particular.)




(If you're local to the New Hampshire/ greater-Boston area, please get at me directly before ordering from the Etsy site to see if I can possibly save us both some shipping/ surcharges/ hassle.)

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.
 

Crazy Chicken Prints now available on Etsy!

Because the logistics of selling mail-order art baffle me a bit, I finally broke down, revived my long-dormant Paypal account, and started an Etsy shop.

At the moment this shop is just for the variations on the Crazy-Chicken photo-reproduction prints that I've recently posted about making available (there are two different designs now!), but in the future I may or may not make one-of-a-kind pieces available here too, if there's interest in that sort of thing.

Check it out, here-

Prints!

My infamous "crazy chicken" design is now available as a limited-edition custom print!

Think of this as the LeVautour equivalent of the soup-can or Obey-giant. THIS is my pop-art manifesto. Get with it.

$10 for a basic, unframed, 8x10 matte or glossy print. Framing options, custom colors, bizarro printing options (I'll find a way to put this on ANYTHING you want...) are totally available, and pricing is negotiable. Get at me. 

bernard.levautour@yahoo.com