Fort Christmas Song #1
Posted in New Music | Tagged Fort Christmas |In case you are new to this blog, or my music, I started a fun side project last year called Fort Christmas. It actually has nothing to do with Christmas, but was named after a tradition that Elsie and I started a few years ago. If you look to your left and scroll down, there are a few Fort Christmas songs on one of the players. You can hear more songs at http://fortchristmas.bandcamp.com/ .
I realized yesterday that I haven't actually written a song in nearly a year. "The Leave Behind" was the last song I wrote. It was one of my goals for this year to finish a full length Fort Christmas album. Starting a new album always feels like starting your freshman year of high school. You're trying to decide who you want to be. I remember trying out several different personalities going into my freshman year. "Am I cool?" "Am I unique?" "Do I have anything unique to say?". Same thing here. I've had lots of false starts with this new album; mainly because I was having a hard time creating the "image" of what I wanted this to be. Every lyric that I wrote was combated with imaginary criticism from music elitists nerds. But yesterday came the breakthrough. I realised that my ego was acting as the biggest music elitist nerd. A bully. And I needed to get over myself.
I reminded myself why I was doing this in the first place. I wanted to write songs that document the first years of Elsie and I's relationship. And I wanted it to be fun. On the EP, I wrote about our first date, a road trip, starting a new business, dancing at a wedding, and getting engaged. It only seemed fitting that the first song for the full length album would be about our wedding day. I should be able to finish it up today. Nine more to go. Thanks for reading.
Jeremy
(Photo by Chris Bown)
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Our Wedding Video
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Brandon Goodwin, Elsie Larson, Jeremy Larson, wedding video |Our beautiful wedding video, by Brandon Goodwin.
Elsie & Jeremy | May 15th 2011 from Goodwin Films on Vimeo.
Brandon was also the one that did my first live DVD. Talented guy, and a good friend.
Jeremy
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Letters To My Younger Self: Recording
Posted in Uncategorized |I think the biggest change in me as a person, happened between the age of 24-27(ish). I'm not sure there is much left of the pre-24 year old me any more. I wanted to start a segment on here addressing the pre-24 year old me, in hopes that some of this may also apply to someone reading this. These will be about a variety of different subjects, but I'll keep this one light. The topic- recording.
Hey man,
It's 11 at night, so you're probably at the Vineyard right now working on some of the first songs you've ever written. I really admire the place you are at musically; you've written some very honest things and there are people that want to hear those things. You probably don't know this yet, but it's an amazing thing to be unheard. Your ideas are un-manipulated by the worry of what people will think. Keep that up.
Having been in your shoes, I thought I'd try to give you a few little pointers on the actual recording process. Again, I don't want to influence your process too much, but these things are good to know. Here we go.
1. Careful with the Autotune stuff. You're new to singing, and that's ok. But over-Autotuning things doesn't actually make you sound better, it kind of does the opposite. If you wanna hear some great "bad" singers, listen to The Flaming Lips. Wayne has an amazing "bad" voice. Autotune is kind of like the guy that's gained a few pounds and thinks that by wearing an untucked XL button down shirt, he can fool people into thinking he's thin. But really it's just kind of sloppy. Be proud of your badness.
2. I know you are struggling with mixing these songs, and this may be, at least in part, due to the fact that you are using the church main speakers as your monitors. It's a mono system, and you're trying to mix in stereo. That doesn't work. Spend $50 and get some actual monitors. But hats off to you for attempting the impossible!
3. Don't show any of your songs to that one red-haired guy. I don't remember his name. At least not in front of Lindsay. I think he has a crush on her, and he's probably gonna make fun of your songs to make you look bad. Be VERY careful who you show your demos to. Those comments can stick with you for a long time.
4. One the other hand, you have Phillip as a dear friend. When you need someone to be excited about what you are doing, just show your work to Phillip. He loves music more than anyone you know, and he will always give you the encouragement that you need when you are feeling discouraged. He's loyal to you. It's very important to learn who to show ideas to. If you show them prematurely to the wrong person, those ideas will never have a chance to grow.
5. I can't emphasize this enough- less is more. I know you're spending hours and hours trying to figure out how to EQ a guitar to make it sound like Jimmy Eat World. You may have 10 different EQ's in your chain, but it's not gonna help. If it doesn't sound right coming out of the amp, no amount of EQ is gonna turn it into magic. In fact, I'd say you might wanna go ahead and bypass all of you EQ's and just cut out everything below 200 hz. With the equipment you're using currently, that's probably the best it's gonna get. But don't worry!! In a few years, you won't even use an electric guitar anymore! Start learning the violin.
6. Not recording related, but stay away from Todd when he has his camera. He saves EVERYTHING.
Jeremy
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Paper Route Collaboration
Posted in Collaborations | Tagged Jeremy Larson, Paper Route |A few years ago, I was having dinner with Elsie and I told her, "I think I'm gonna start reaching out to some bands that I've never met, and ask them if they need any string work." Up until that point, I had only worked with people that approached me, and came to the conclusion that I should branch out a bit. The first person I emailed was Ryan O'neal from Sleeping At Last. The rest you probably know; we worked on lots of music, I had the honor of being a groomsman in his wedding, BFF's forever etc. But I guess I was feeling so good about my new friendship with the SAL boys, that I never actually reached out to anyone else about collaborating. That is, until about two weeks ago- i.e. the week of my wedding.
I wasn't really expecting to get a response when I emailed Chad Howat of Paper Route. At least not right away. Shortly after, Chad wrote me back and said they had a song they might want to send my way. "Do you have time this week to work on it?". "Sure." I said. It didn't take me too long to remember, oh yeah, I'm getting married this week… So in-between wedding errands, I'd sneak over to my studio and knock out some strings. I sent them the final draft the day before we left for our honeymoon, and I think it turned out great. They actually put my string track into a promo video for their album, it comes in around the 1:45 mark.
PAPER ROUTE / 1 from Micah Bell on Vimeo.
It's been so much fun working with these guys. Big thanks to Chad JT and Gavin for being so easy to work with. The new stuff is sounding AMAZING! And thanks to everyone else for reading.
Jeremy
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Good Things Are Gonna Happen
Posted in Uncategorized |
Photo courtesy of Arrow and Apple Photography.
How is everyone? I've been away for a few weeks doing wedding stuff. Above is a picture from our wedding portrait session with Sarah Rhodes. She's AMAZING! Click the link above to see some of her work. I'll be posting more photos from the wedding later on this week, as well as some pics from our honeymoon in Austin.
While Elsie and I were driving back from Austin, we did a ton of planning for this blog. We talked for hours about what I want to do with it. It's been a few years, but I feel like I still haven't really tapped into what it is that I want to do on here everyday. I convinced her to read me her entire "Blog Love" e-course while we were driving. I know this is going to sound like a shameless plug, and I suppose it is. Her e-course has completely changed the way I think about blogging- good things are gonna happen. I promise, it's better than any book you could read on this sort of thing. There are lots of new segments I want to start doing on here, but I thought I should give a friendly hello first. So, hello again! Glad you are here, and thanks for reading.
Jeremy
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