Jeremy Larson

Ski Lift- "Give It Up" (My Process)

I'm a little late on blogging this, but this past year, I produced an album with my good friend Trey (Ski Lift).  It was a long distance collaboration that was done mostly through email.  He would send me tracks, and I would add to them.  For most of the songs, he had written and recorded the core of the song already, but wanted me to hype them up a bit, and then mix them.  

Oddly enough, this has become the norm for how I work on projects.  Bands will send me an Mp3 of an idea, and then I try to fill them out.  The benefit of this, is that I get to keep my own schedule, and work the hours that I want to alone.  I'm a lot less self-conscious when I work alone, and I usually feel a lot more inspired.  But it takes a lot of courage for a band to give me free reign over a song.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for the client who is able to hand over control to someone who lives in another state.  The process can be very rewarding when it works.  As a self proclaimed micro-manager, I have a very hard time handing my stuff over to anyone, even for mixing or mastering.  Trey is a micro-manager as well, and I commend him for letting go of some of that for this project.  

Above, is the song, "Give It Up" (you have to skip ahead to track three).  Some of you might remember this from the first Red Velvet dress line promo video.

Most of what you hear was already written and recorded before I got my hands on it.  Trey is a great songwriter, but he also has a great mind for production.  Most of the parts were already great.  If memory serves, Trey had some temporary electronic drums in there as a placeholder for the time being.  I wanted to make the song much more "vibe-y", so I deleted them and started recording some drum ideas of my own.  I remember that I wrote an entire blog post about working on these drum sounds, you can read that post here.

Here are some of the drums soloed:

Drummm

You may or may not be able to tell, but there are actually several full drum takes blended together.  Many times I will just record a bunch of ideas separate, and then stack them.  This allows me to get a more "layered" sound on the snare- which I like.

Bass and Crumar were added, but I won't spend time on that right now.

The EP is both fun and epic.  You can listen to it here:

http://skilift.bandcamp.com/album/romantic-ep

I'm very proud of this collaboration, though the greatness of it lies more in the songwriting than in anything I contributed.  Give it a listen!  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

PS.  If you are interested in hiring me to do this type of thing, you can email me at band@jeremylarsonmusic.com .  When the new site is up, I will post a price sheet for collaborative work.

Lens Flare

Turning Page

It's been tough to keep this one a secret, but my good friend Ryan (Sleeping At Last) is going to have one of his songs in the new Twilight Movie "Breaking Dawn".  The song is called "Turning Page", and it's one of the most beautiful songs he's written to date.  Now, I'd really like to over-hype this next part:  

I played cello on it. Though I can't even take credit for writing the arrangement, I feel very honored that Ryan asked me to perform the part.  

This is a very exciting day, and again, a HUGE congrats to Ryan for writing such a brilliant song!  (And for giving me the privilege of playing along).  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

What Else?

I finally made a music player for my Facebook page.  You can listen and "like" here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jeremy-Larson/8900682290

If you have already "liked" my page, then it will be on the left side where it says "Bandpage".  I also uploaded some songs to a SoundCloud page.  There are the same ones as my FB page, but you can check them out here:

http://soundcloud.com/jeremylarson

Or, as always, my entire new album is here:

http://jeremylarson.bandcamp.com/

We've been working like crazy on the content for the new website.  ALL my music will be there, lots of video, and all of my lyrics.  Any other things you'd like to see on there?  We will try to make it happen!  I've learned after your stellar music recommendations that I should ask all of you first when it comes to matters of taste.  Feel free to let me know in the comment section.  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

Project Nim

 

Have I ever told you how much I love chimps?

Jeremy

Thank You!

I will never again go to a music blog before consulting with all of you first.  Great recommendations!!  I was able to add another hour and a half of music from your comments.  I'm trying to build a playlist that is about 7 hours long, so whoever is working in the store only has to hear each song once a day.  (Spoken like a true musician...) So, thanks again!

I know I've been talking a lot about all the different things I'm trying to do this fall. Some of them are working out, some may not work out.  But it looks like I have finished making instrumental versions of "They Reappear" and "Salvation Club" - to be released in November.  Why instrumental versions?  I get a lot of emails from people wanting to hear or potentially use instrumental versions of songs for their video's or websites.  This will make it easier for everyone to simply download the tracks they want to audition, rather than emailing me to make one specifically for their project.  My new website will include a price sheet for this type of thing.  Oh, I guess this would be an ideal time to mention- I'm building a new website!  It will have, among many other things, all of my albums streaming, and both live DVD's streaming as well.  You will love it.  I'll talk more about this later.  I suppose that's all for now.  Thanks for reading!

Jeremy

Playing Favorites

On Saturday I spent almost six hours searching for new music for the Red Velvet Store.  This type of thing always seems to depress me- and here's why.  I start to feel really old when the music world moves on without my consent.  (joking)

However...

In all of my searching, I did manage to find a few new bands that I thought had some nice songs that would fit the aesthetic of the Red Velvet store.  Some of them are new to me, some are not.  So here they are:

1. College

2. Cults

3. Best Coast

4. Club 8

5. The Gentle Waves

6. The School

7. The Postmarks

8. Acid House Kings

9. Vivian Girls

10. Surfer Blood

11. Broadcast

12. St. Vincent

There you have it.  An entire day of searching, and that's what I came up with.  Many of you wrote to me on Twitter and made recommendations, and they were fantastic!  But most of them weren't quite what I was looking for to play in the store.  But I am enjoying them on my own, so thank you for that.  I'd love for you to leave more recommendations in the comment section.  But I know many of you will probably recommend things we already played to death in the store, so here are bands you do NOT need to recommend:

1. Beach House

2. Blonde Redhead

3. Camera Obscura

4. She and Him

5. Jenny Lewis

6. The Arcade Fire

7. Animal Collective

8. The Civil Wars

So go for it!  Anything else is fair game.  Just try to make recommendations that fit the "style" of all of the bands I've listed- mostly girl singers, a little folk is ok, but not preferred, maybe a little ambient.  Thanks everyone!

Jeremy

Chiann-Yi

About two weeks ago, I became determined to get in touch with my piano instructor from college.  I hadn't seen her since she moved to St. Louis in 2001.  I'm not sure what prompted me to start searching, but it probably had something to do with me reworking a Hindemith piano sonata.  I was practicing for five or six hours a day, and her voice kept popping into my head as I was playing.  

When you are a performance major, you will most likely have just one teacher for your instrument throughout your entire college career.  It's easy to forget that your teacher may have had hundreds or even thousands of students.  When I emailed Chiann-Yi, I wasn't completely sure that she would remember me.  But thankfully she did, and we sent a few emails back and forth before deciding to meet up for coffee in St. Louis.  

It was one of the highlights of my year.

Chiann-Yi has influenced me as a musician more than just about anyone else.  She introduced me to Ravel and Hindemith, and she is a large part of the reason why I still practice, and still attempt to refine my skill.  She taught me to love music in a way that I didn't before I met her.  I'm extremely thankful that our paths have crossed again.

Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

Catching Up

We had a wonderful time in Chicago these past few days.  I'm thankful I had the chance to meet some of you in person!  After I got home last night, I immediately returned to work on yet another super-secret collaboration that I will share with you soon.  Life is good right now.

While we were passing through St. Louis, I had the chance to catch up with my piano instructor from college.  I hadn't seen her in nearly a decade.  I'll post pictures, and tell you all about it tomorrow.  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

Gillioz

I'll be in Chicago for the weekend at the Renegade Craft Fair.  If you live in the area, come say hi!  I'll be at the Red Velvet tent.  No official release date on the DVD yet, but I can tell you it will be this fall some time.  The trailer is in the post below.  Have a great weekend.

(Still from the live DVD.  Soundcheck.)

Thanks for reading.

Jeremy