Elevator

Hello, this is the Elevator. The triangle from Moncton. We thought we should finally contact somebody. We grew concerned as we realised that we had not moved in a long time. We tried to recall the now and clear some vision on what might have happened. "Are we dead?" we asked ourselves, "maybe we didn't notice it happen". "We were gettng a little deep but we were just following the path". We looked back at our long journey that thankfully we had documented. Eerie was the incantation, the Such was the door, Vague searched the woods, Taste found the garden, Headquake fell off the cliff, Darkness-Light was the death and halving, and August was the wake, going home. "But where is the end? We still feel something continuing. Time is still moving right? Where are we anyway? Maybe we should listen to the records again. The answer must be in there. We put everything in there. And the pictures... oh yeah i remember".... "Maybe we could still be. Even as a ghost i still feel i could be".
Elevator or Elevator to hell was originally an album recorded by Rick White in 1994 while his band ERIC'S TRIP (1990-96) was still touring and recording with SUBPOP. The label released the album on a limited 12 inch pressing in 1995 as Rick put a band together to perform some shows. With Tara, Mark from Eric's Trip, and Ron Bates ..board they also recorded the "forward to snow" 7 inch before Erics Trip's final album and touring dominated the remainder of 95 and early 96. Once Eric's trip broke up in May, Elevator to hell without Ron began touring right away and recorded two more 7 inches and the EERIECONSILIATION album. SUBPOP picked up the band even though sore about the whole Eric's trip drama. THE SUCH sound track came next as well as the hallucigen experiments. By 1999 the band pretty much refused to play shows in the USA, and shortly after the release of their Jack Endino recorded VAGUE PREMONITION album they parted ways with subpop. The whole next winter was filled with a hermitted, obsession in making their defining masterwork. A TASTE OF COMPLETE PERSPECTIVE was compiled from hundreds of takes of ever evolving songs and pieces. " I wanted it to be liquid, the songs and any ideas need to move into each other without math, it needed to seem alive. I wanted to capture the LSD experience in all the aspects, not only in the production but in the way we played. It breathes. It needed to be as profound and lost as us. The key just out of reach, the TASTE of complete perspective". Canadian label Teenage USA released the album in autumn 2000, then Tara and Rick up and moved to Toronto. Everything was in disarray, but with Mark making up drum only song recordings in Moncton and mailing them to Rick on cassette who wrote fated songs to fit them, they made a record called LOST DURING HEADQUAKE. " We wanted this record to be free and simple, not the songs but the process. No budget, no label, No waste". The songs were anything but simple. The dark and creepy 4-track recorded album was released on CDR in Dec. 2001 on their own mail order Great Beyond Recordings and was seen by some fans as "too much", yet others realised it's important symbolism. Some other raritie collections and live concerts were also released around the same time and in the same manner. In 2002 DARKNESS-LIGHT was recorded in Toronto with Dallas Good added to the band. He had played with the band live in the past but this would be the first recording. Marks parts again were done in Moncton and the album really splits in two with the first side like a continuation of the noisy gloom of the HEADQUAKE tapes, and the 2nd side more like an introduction to Rick and Dallas's psych-folk rock project from 2003 called the UNINTENDED. In later 2003 and 2004, much breakdown was occuring in all parts of the bands path, but Rick and Mark got together in Moncton to work on some songs that later along with Dallas and Tara would become the AUGUST LP. Released like the last on the small but well distributed and friend owned BLUEFOG label, August is a breath of fresh air. Still thick and heavy and deep and "psych", but more filled with life than ever. This cannot be the end of such living sound. They WILL play again. Where is the end?
ELEVATOR TO HELL live in Moncton N.B. Jan.3,1997. The two songs included here are from the Parts 1-3 album. "Analysis 1313" and "Sink into the sea" were part of Elevator's set quite regularly in the first couple years and though Mark doesn't play drums on the album's version, you can see here how much he adds to the songs live.
ELEVATOR TO HELL live on Moncton local cable show "Friday Night Rocks" in January 1998. "Sleep experiment 1" and "Avoid the outside".
Elevator live at Irving Plaza in New York City. This was filmed on the first tour that Dallas did with us. We were opening for Built to spill for a couple weeks in May 1999 and some camera crew showed up to film their set. We ended up getting a copy of ours as well. There is two complete songs here,"M" and "RAIN".
Live Elevator from the release show for the LP "A Taste of Complete Perspective" at Lee's Palace in Toronto in October 2000. This footage was re-edited from an abandoned concert film started by Brad Peyton and the sound is from a good quality board mix of the show. A far out time indeed
Elevator play a Discharge song during Feb 15th 2002 show in Toronto. Live camera audio mixed with board recording.
Come see more videos at Rick's youtube channel. www.youtube.com/rickwhitearchive