Strange brew:
Monsoon Teacup spins into Redmond
by Sarah Koenig
Staff Writer, Redmond Reporter - a King County Journal Newspaper
In some ways [Eva Moon's] Redmond living room looks ordinary: White
carpet and gray couches complement a piano topped with pictures of her
children, a globe, a painting of the ocean.
What sets the room apart is its plethora of instruments: a keyboard
and microphone plugged into an amplifier, an electric guitar, tambourine,
headphones and mixing board for a start.
Then there's Levinson herself, or Eva Moon, as she calls herself on
stage, playing the keyboard and singing passionately into the mike about
a giant motor home and its adventures.
"Run! Run for cover!/There's a monster on the highway/Save your
children, save your mother/Roadzilla's coming your way," she sings,
unable to resist a smile as she does so.
Alan Gordon, Levinson's 17-year-old son, arrives home from school in
the middle of the concert and runs for cover upstairs, backpack in hand.
Strangeness in the suburbs
Monsoon Teacup, the band Levinson performs in with husband Mike Gordon,
Tym Parsons and a saxophone player who prefers to be called Ferko Saxmanov,
proves that even busy professionals raising kids can carve out time
to be creative. And strange.
The band, which formed two years ago, has performed locally at the
Northwest Folklife Festival, the Mars Bar, and the Central Saloon, among
other venues.
It sings mostly satirical songs, with subjects ranging from the UPS
man to one-day department-store sales and the personal ads to sex change
operations (that song is called "Switcheroo.")
There is even a ballad about the man who sends e-mails to get his $40
million out of Nigerian bank: "If I'm the one to represent, I get
25 percent."
Never too late
Levinson, who writes the band's songs, sings and plays the keyboard,
thinks it's never too late to start being creative.
"I've heard so many people say, 'Oh, I've always wanted to take
flute lessons, or voice or cello or whatever, but I'm too old, or too
busy or not talented," she said.
She always tells them to do it.
"I'd never written a song until three years ago, and then it came
out of nowhere," said Levinson, who's written about 37 songs since
then.
She got started when Balkanarama, a folk-gypsy band she and the current
members of Monsoon Teacup play in, took a hiatus for the summer three
years ago.
"I started messing around on the keyboard and writing lyrics and
it was really fun," she said.
She carved out time for writing between raising kids and running a
Web development business, TroutDream Graphics, Inc., out of her home.
But she knew she wouldn't always be so busy, so it was a good time
to start, she said.
"Part of this has been a preparation for my kids' leaving,"
she said, "Even a few years ago I saw them needing me less and
less."
Her oldest son, 19-year-old Eric Gordon, left home last month to join
Americorps in Charleston, S. C.
"I don't want to be one of those empty nesters," she said.
"I'm leaping off too into my next life."
Today she performs a song she wrote recently about her kids leaving
the nest.
"Now my children look ahead/On the edge, they won't stay/And
they don't look back at me/I wish them well and turn away,"
she sings, choking up a little when she tries to speak afterwards.
"It was just yesterday," she explains, of her son's leaving.
But one son remains, and writing in the family home can be challenging,
so she waits until everyone leaves, she said. Or she goes outside.
"I find taking long walks limbers up the brain, and I sing,"
she said. "I'm the crazy lady walking down the street singing."
The group rehearses in Levinson's living room.
"The kids are embarrassed by some of my songs," she said.
"Teens don't like to think of their parents as sexual beings, so
it can be embarrassing to have your mom singing about dinosaurs of love
or sex-change operations."
But she feels that deep down, they're proud of what she does.
"How many kids can say that their parents do this?" she said.
And she's no longer afraid of looking silly, as she did when she was
younger.
"When you're older you can say things that embarrass your kids
and take pride in that," she said.
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