The following is from the music blog "Loudvine", based in Los Angeles (you can check out http://loudvine.com/blog/live-music-mp3/aaron-levy-silverlake-lounge if you want to see the actual website):

Seriously you guys, what’s up with this weather? 48 degrees in April? In Los Angeles?! It’s wrong and it makes this city seem really spooky. No one wants to go out when it’s like this, and I don’t blame them. Despite the unusually chilly air, I was roaming down Sunset last night and heading towards my favorite indie haunt: The Silverlake Lounge. I was going to see White Rhino, a sweet-natured acoustic-rock band fronted by Aaron Levy. When I got to the bar, Levy was mid-song but… wait. Where was the rest of his band?

Sporting a worn-out denim jacket and his acoustic guitar, Aaron Levy was going it solo last night. His Charleston, South Carolina-based band couldn’t join him on the trip to Los Angeles, but that didn’t stop him. He would rock his guitar and good-naturedly tell the audience things like, “this is where the violin is supposed to come in… Just imagine it!” Man that takes a lot of courage. Still, he mixed it up with White Rhino songs and some of his older solo material. He was actually giving away his old EPs to whoever wanted them, which I didn’t really get because he got along just fine without the violin, pianos, and drums that form the rest of his band.

Levy brought a folksy voice with earnest lyrics that came straight from the heart. Ever hear a song that just seems so much like the soundtrack to your life that it’s kind of creepy? Yeah, that was his music for me. He sang things like, “I want to tell you how much I miss you… but even if I did, you wouldn’t understand” and “I am just a grown up child, swinging from bar to bar.” His catchiest song of the evening was the up-tempo, “Repeat”, with a refrain that merely went, “You just repeat, repeat, repeat the past.” I am a big fan of fancy poetry and clever wordplay, but I often forget how powerful some really simple, to-the-point lyrics can be. His songs were inspired by pets dying and late-night-trips to Taco Bell. Things, I think, all of us can relate to in one way or another.

But, hands down, the most relevant song of the evening was “The Cold.” With Levy crooning about how he couldn’t stand the cold, I thought to myself, “How does he know?!?!” Nonetheless, Aaron Levy from White Rhino gave a great set. Hopefully he’ll get the whole of White Rhino to come out to the West Coast to play some gigs. It’ll be warm soon. I promise!
 

Well, it's Thursday and we're (hopefully!) a little over halfway done recording this album!  It's a very long process....we've all been putting in our 8 hours at work and spending every other hour (into the middle of the night!) each day at the studio doing our thing.  Tuesday was Ben's birthday...and he was sick!! Poor guy.  I guess he escaped spending tedius hours in the studio all day on his birthday, huh? ;)  Everyone at Ocean Industries (www.oceanindustriesstudios.com) has been great to us, and Tim Holbrook is amazing!


This has been the perfect week to spend all our time in the studio...it's been pouring rain every day!  Good thing, because Spring Fever is definately in the air!  This time of year in Charleston has perfect weather for spending all day outside without dying of that southern summer heat! 


Anyways, we're including 15 songs on this album.  We've got most of the guitar and percussion in, and now its down to finalizing vocals, then adding the violin and pedal steel.  And of course, those oh-so-tedius last minute touches!
Tim really knows what he's doing.  He just knows how to make the message and the music make sense together.  He's always coming up with new ideas to make our songs sound even better.  Katie may even debut some lead vocals in a chorus or two in this album! 


Last night we were in the studio until about 2am.  We could never make it through the night without a case of coke and several bags of doritos. (I know, I know...so great for our vocals, right?) We mostly worked on lyrics.  For those of you who have never experienced recording an album (and as the rest of you might guess), this involves singing the same few measures over and over and over again....sometimes as many as 40 times in a row! 


As tiring as this all is, it's so much fun.  We're very excited to finish this thing up and start sharing the tunes with all our fans!  Keep on checking our site for updates!

 
Cheers!
 

We're not a bluegrass band...but we love to mix it up! Enjoy!