Live(OnTape) CD

Torchy, funky songs with haunting melodies and rich harmonies, from lush to bare bones! Intimate and stirring performances by various lead & backing singers backed by keyboards, saxophones, guitars, harmonica, bass & percussion. (Includes the 9/11 tribute song Keep Walking.) Featuring Wendy Boulding, with performances by Mark Abrahams, Eva Atsalis, Valerie Gomes, Marc Landesberg, Adam Levin, Ellen Weiss and Steve Wirts. Songs written by Adam Levin, with collaborative material by Wendy Boulding, Elena Rye Pellicciaro, Anne Ptasznik and Peter Stoller. Produced by Adam Levin and engineered & mastered by Jay Mark. Illustrations: Charles Addams. 1 hr. 3 min. "Truly enjoyable.... serious musical talent... music has the same haunting intrigue [as] Todd Rundgren’s..." – Alan Schlein, Journalist, Billboard Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine [MORE CRITIQUES] [ORDER]

For a more accurate representation of this CD's sound & instrumentation
as heard over full stereo speakers, listen to its audio samples with a headset.

   All Caught Up In Nothing    Every Time I Hear Your Voice    Emily

     Let It Go    Everything She Needs      Keep Walking

   Walking On Thin Ice      Do You Feel It?    Something In The Way

      Say It    Feeling What I Feel

   Ivory Tower      Too Far

Inspired by my own experience near Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, I wrote Keep Walking for New York Artists Unite to Support World Trade Center Disaster Relief. It was performed there with Wendy Boulding the week of its completion, and later at Marianne Williamson's opening rally for the Department of Peace Campaign in New York City. -- A.L.

Live(OnTape)

"My grandmother once asked me, 'Why don't you write some happy songs?' I told her, 'These are my happy songs!' "
– Adam Levin, in performance on Live(OnTape)

"Adam Levin is a pain in the ass. While other, normal songwriters are content to provide you with polite background music for your daily activities, he demands your full, rapt attention. He’ll seduce you with lush harmonies, only to steal your breath away with trap-door chord changes that drop you into a hall of mirrors where your reflected image strikes you and sends you hurtling through a melodic maze, alternately twisting around an impossibly tight corner, then soaring across a death-defying abyss and, finally, landing feather-light in a landscape of aching beauty, only to realize that you’re right back in your chair, yet looking at everything from a new angle. And that’s just his opening number." – former roommate

"What type of music would you call that?" – piano teacher

"The songs sound like him. What I mean is, the music sounds like his music and the words sound like his words."
– recording engineer

"I like it because it’s short." – psychology resident

"I don’t understand it." – member of a spiritual recovery program

"It’s classical." – rock musician

"It’s jazz." – classical musician

"It’s rock." – jazz musician

"‘Rock’ isn’t really music." – psychiatrist

"It must be music because it uses more than three chords." – jazz harpist

"I only like music that uses more than one instrument, and am glad this does." – music devotee

"An electric guitar is not really an instrument." – college professor

"Why doesn’t he write some happy songs?" – Grandma

"This is a song about one of those situations that we find ourselves in so often. One of those six-way love affairs where your third wife’s dog doesn’t get along with your bisexual girlfriend’s lesbian lover’s cat. You know, the same old shit. But I didn’t want this song to be like all the other six-way love songs, so that’s why, as you can see, I’ve filled the piano with water and tropical fish, effectively making a musical aquarium out of it, so that the sound of the song as well as the lyrics reflects the complexity and density of thought that went into it. Okay, so without further ado, here is Merry Christmas, Penis Buster."
– explanation of song by Adam Levin (as told by Jay Mark)

"Only someone earning money doing music is called a musician." – social worker

"I only listen to music I’ve heard before." – audience member

"____________________________________" – _____________________

Excerpts from Walking on Thin Ice and Emily