Nate Leavitt

Fall Clean Up

nateleavittmusic.com — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 02:25:17 +0000

Autumn is by far my favorite season and what better way to enjoy it than to have a ton of gigs! I’ll do my best to recount all of the activity.

Parlour Bells had an interesting October with two gigs at Boston’s best new joint Radio. The first show was a set of originals followed by a Halloween show playing as Jane’s Addiction two weeks later. Glenn and I are huge Jane’s fans and it was very cool to play dress up and play the tunes of a band which transformed us nearly twenty years ago. An interesting and unimaginable thing happened too. Glenn and I recorded an acoustic cover of their song “Classic Girl” to help promote the show and as we spread it around the internet it came across the ears of Dave Navarro who listened and tweeted that it was a great cover! Cool. Check it out for yourself.

The show as Jane’s Addiction itself was great too.

Here’s a video of us doing “Summertime Rolls”

As we roll into the Holiday season we’re working on our next single to be released soon. More details to come! In the meantime here’s a pic of Glenn tracking vocals earlier today.

In addition to keeping busy with Parlour Bells I had an equally enjoyable couple of months with Old Jack. We played 4 gigs including Oktoberfest in Harvard Square, CMJ in New York and Patriot Place in Foxboro.

We released a new Maxi Single……

And were nominated for a Boston Music Award as “Best Live Act”

Lastly, on November 18th I played my final gig with Brendan Boogie and the Best Intentions. I really enjoyed the time I spent with Brendan and he is a talented, hard working and professional musician…and a cool guy. I look forward to continuing playing with him in Parlour Bells and whatever else may come along.

Songs of my Youth: Alone Again by Dokken

nateleavittmusic.com — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:35:51 +0000

Dokken was one of the first bands I cut my teeth on while learning how to play guitar. I can remember many weekend nights as an 11 year old sitting in my room learning as many songs as best I could by ear. My first guitar was a red Kramer (I wish I still had it!) like the one George Lynch used and my mom went as far as to write on the Christmas card “To the next George Lynch.” I was all about Dokken in the mid 80′s even braving a Loverboy show to see my heroes open the show. These were some of my first experiences of live music and it was fascinating to see the big lights and deafening sound….arena rock at it’s finest!

My favorite part of the shows at that time were when the bands would perform the power ballad. Dokken were no different and their song “Alone Again” was the highlight for me at their show. The video for the song was like many at the time portraying the band as a tired horse on their last legs while being on the road endlessly. Live shots of them onstage, lonely hotel rooms and fans with lighters high in the sky built up a mystery and fascination I still have today.

When I recorded my version of “Alone Again” I closed my eyes and envisioned myself on that stage.

Photos and Video from the EP Release Show

nateleavittmusic.com — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:21:49 +0000

Big thanks to Johnny Anguish from Daykamp Music for covering the show. You can check out more pictures like the one above Here.

Also here’s a video of my song “I Came Here Tonight” which Johnny shot.

Nate Leavitt – “I Came Here Tonight” @ The Rosebud 8.25.2011 from Johnny Anguish on Vimeo.

EP Release Show the Morning After

nateleavittmusic.com — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:30:05 +0000

Miss the show? Read about it in Dig Boston’s The Morning After Column here!

Artist of the Day on theRSL Blog

nateleavittmusic.com — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:30:31 +0000

A real pleasure to be named Artist of the Day on the day of my EP Release at Ryan’s Smashing Life blog. Ryan writes, “Leavitt is a gifted soul who deserves this attention and more. Regardless of the name he plays under, most everything he touches turns to gold.”

C.D. on Songs Reviews “My End”

nateleavittmusic.com — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:06:38 +0000

“Leavitt presides over his own ending with somber, solemn and sobering songwork” writes Boston Band Crush music reviewer C.D. Di Guardia in his column. Read the entire review here.

Daykamp Music’s review of “Inference”

nateleavittmusic.com — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:32:39 +0000

Johnny from Daykamp Music is a great photographer and responsible for most of the photos you see on this website. Check out his review where he says that “The World Today” stands out as a beautiful contradiction. The song’s sunny melody and major chord progression are tempered by its world-weary sentiment. It’s a work of profound simplicity. This is the sound of innocence lost.”

Review in the Weekly Dig

nateleavittmusic.com — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:20:57 +0000

Alex Schab writes “Nate Leavitt’s solo debut packs a lot of power—subtle, ghostly, chill-the-flesh-off-your-bones power. Which says a lot, considering this is a folk album.” Read the rest here at the Weekly Dig.

Boston Globe Reviews “Inference”

nateleavittmusic.com — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:15:55 +0000

Jonathan Perry writes that “Inference is an emotionally stark, bare-bones affair that puts his plainspoken, plaintive voice squarely front and center.” Read the full review here at Boston.com

Debut Solo EP “Inference” Available Now

nateleavittmusic.com — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:38:10 +0000

After much deliberation, procrastinating and tweaking I’m finally ready to release my first ever solo album. It’s in your hands and ears now people so I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did creating it. For now it’s available digitally at Bandcamp but I hope to get some hard copies available for the CD Release Show at the Rosebud Thursday August 25th.

A little about the recording……

I started this solo project about a year (or two) ago after coming up with some songs I thought represented my love for mellow, country and folk music. I decided to keep the tracks to a minimum and also wanted to play every instrument myself. So I packed up my studio and headed south to Chatham, Cape Cod where my family has a summer house. I set up the mics in the living room in front of the fireplace and the control room on the porch.

(I thought I had pictures from the session but I guess not so this one of the fireplace will do!)

I spent an entire night recording the vocal and guitar as two tracks for five or six songs as my basic tracks. I was also engineering so before and after takes I had to go back and forth from room to room to hit stop or record. The house was relatively quiet inside but I had to close all of the windows because there was a little outside noise. If you listen closely you can hear the occasional passers by talking, a car or two and I swear I can hear seagulls on one track.

The next day I laid down some overdubs with my resonator and electric guitar as well as some backing vocals. Unfortunately that was it for the recording for some time since I became increasingly busy with other projects and decided to put it on the shelf for a little time. I did make some rough mixes to listen to and made a list on what needed fixing or additional instruments so the intent to finish was there.

It wasn’t until about 6-8 months ago that I got back to work on the songs. I had some computer issues and it took a while to retrieve the files and convert them but when I had them ready I headed to longtime friend and The Blizzard of 78 band mate Chris Cuginis Appleman Studio to finish tracking and mix. Again, other things got in the way and the process was slow but eventually I finished the tracking and made some mixes to listen to.

What I heard really pleased me and I became at peace with the songs and mixes. As some of you know there is only so much one can do when recording music and most of the time it’s best to stop when the songs sound musical which at this point they did. So, that was that. I sent them off to Dave Collins to be mastered and they sounded even more like what I was going for.

So there you have it my solo EP “Inference” enjoy!