Serious Business Music

News

Huge upgrade, new partnership, still banging it out full speed.

Recent circumstances have blessed Serious Business. Our friends at Telephone Co Recording, namely Mike G and Longwave’s Shannon Ferguson, have moved in to our space, and have brought with them a king’s ransom worth of new gear, instruments, expertise, trade secrets and overall positivity. Peep the gear page to read ‘em and weep. Our microphone closet has swollen to unimaginable proportions, our outboard processing capabilities have nearly tripled, and my little office has been transformed into a little bedroom styled, ProTools HD-equipped bedroom style Studio B. And this is just the beginning. Serious Business is armed and dangerous now.

And some recent projects include…
I recorded NOAH AND THE WHALE for Stories in High Fidelity’s Sirius BlogRadio broadcast. This is a great band. It was a totally live in the studio situation.

I recorded my old pals Sam and John from SHLSKD once again, only this time they’ve got a new band called Dirty Wings that kicks ass. We tracked and mixed 4 songs in two days, nearly all live to tape, and we never even turned on a computer.

Rockwood Music Hall stalwarts CHRIS ABAD and the JIM ADAMO ACOUSTIC BAND have begun digging their heels in real deep on their respective projects. My pal TONY MACELI drops bass science on both records.

Josh Kaufman and I made some beautiful music for Yaara Sumerik’s 2 minute short advertising film for the 2009 Ford Mustang.

The Two Man Gentlemen Band have broken ground on their 4th album. I’m recording it to 2″ tape. Brian Kantor and I are both playing some drum on it.

I’ve been working on very fun odds and ends with APACHE BEAT as they prepare their debut full length for Summer Lovers Unlimited Records. They’re also tracking and mixing the legendary MARTIN BISI.

Plus Shannon is making a children’s record, working with THE LIBRARY (ex. Mayflies USA) on a record for Yep Roc Records, and charging full steam ahead with his project FALCON.

Halsey Quemere is working on the second ROCKETSHIP PARK record for Serious Business Records.

Come visit!

Hugs,
Travis

Busting at the seams

Woah Nelly …

I’m busting at the seams over here.

Recently I’ve engineered a bunch of sessions for an educational IMAX movie about science called Molecularium. The score was written by David Last.

Also, we’ve been working on a new EP from Bruno Wizard and the Homosexuals. 3 tunes so far.

I’ve been helping out with overdubs and editing for the new Apache Beat for Summer Lovers Unlimited record which Martin Bisi recorded basics for over at his spot.

Chris Abad came in here with his band and wacked down basics for I think eleven tunes in one day. Hell fuckin’ yeah.

Halsey has been recording the Twilight Procession. That shit sounds excellent.

Jazz vocalist Zack Foley cut a quick bunch of performances in here with the imitable and completely amazing Jesse Elder on piano.

Work has just wrapped on a slew of new Serious Business Records releases. I’m talking about new full lengths from Higgins, Benji Cossa and Looker. Also, the Unsacred Hearts are getting close to finishing their new album. There is also a new DraculaZombieUSA behemoth of a jam-tome lurking in the shadows.

Its still music time.

New happenings…

-Popular music and lefty politics blog ProductShopNYC recently brought their weekly Sirius satellite radio show to Serious Business. The guest was Laura Marling. Read about here at the blog. The show airs on Left of Center Channel 26. It is called BlogRadio. Jason of PSNYC hosts the show once a week. And Laura Marling was lovely, simply lovely. What a talent!
-We recently wrapped production on the new Secret Dakota Ring record. SDR is the solo vehicle of Andy Ross (currently of OK Go) who started this studio/label with me in 2003. The record is awesome. If all goes well, you’ll hear it in the Fall on Serious Business.

-NYC/DC via Portland grrl/boy indie rockers The New York Times recently laid down some jams over here. On bass is reknowned artist / illustrator Tara Mcpherson .

-Anna Copa Cabanna brought her lovely self into Serious Business to record five songs with her manly manly rock band which features members of Les Sans Culottes. Excellent punk / cabaret business.

-Higgins just wrapped mixes for their forthcoming 3rd album which should drop in October on Serious Business Records.

What else?
-Here’s the final version of the El Jezel video for “Champagne and Cold Coffee.” I recorded and mixed the tune with these guys. Also, they shot the live rock out sequence here in the studio on late January night. El Jezel

Full-on rage

Hey folks. As usual, there’s a ton of stuff going on.

First off check this out. Travis recently completed work on Apache Beat’s 2nd 7″ for Summer Lovers Unlimited Records and it got written up in SPIN. Booya. That rules. #14.

Halsey and Travis have mixing the shit out of the new Higgins record.

Let’s see … We recently recorded some sweet jazzy sounds with producer Matt Chiaravalle for an upcoming feature film that has something to do with Joan Cusak, and those American Girl stores. I’m a little foggy on the deets. What I do know is Boshra from Looker came in here and busted out some beautiful jazz vocals with Adam Chilenski from the Red Romance on bass and Tyler Wood on piano.

There was also a really fun night recording a bunch of tracks for Benjamin Wagner’s new record. What a nice fella. We had Ryan Vaughn on drums, Tony Macelli on bass and Chris Abad on guitar. Here’s a YouTube movie that Benjamin put up showing some of the craziness that went on. It serves as a quick little tour of the studio too.

Hard chargin’

Since my last update, what has happened?

OK Go guitarist and Serious Business co-founder Andy Ross’ solo project Secret Dakota Ring has monopolized a lot of time. We’ve made a full length album and it is in the final mixing stages. It is supposed to go out for mastering really, really soon. Expect it on Serious Business this summer.

El Jezel shot a music video in here. It is for the song “Champagne and Cold Coffee” which is going to be on their 2nd album which we made here and is now all done. Alan Douches at West West Side mastered it. Their release show is at the end of May but you should check their MySpace for specifics.

Travis ran a very fun session for omnipresent NJ rock-scene personality Tris McCall who is one of the coolest humans on earth. He recorded three songs for an upcoming solo full length. He recruited members of My Teenage Stride to back him up.

Oh yeah, and we also made the third Looker single recently. Awesomeness. It comes out April 15 via Serious Business. Listen and learn here. Again, Erik Paparazzi from Cat Power handled the production duties.

Also, the studio hosted a week of rehearsals for EMI/BlueNote singer-songwriter Jaymay. The rehearsals were for her appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, at SXSW and a Mercury Lounge show. The below YouTube clip shows Jaymay being interviewed by the NewYorkTimes.com at the studio for some sort of SXSW coverage.

and more more more of course

Raging full on

January has been for lovers here at Serious Business.

Check out the Red Romance’s sweet sweet pop perfection via the 3 song EP streaming on their MySpace page right now. We tracked all that stuff here (except for some vocals which Matt did at home). Claudius Mittendorfer (Interpol) mixed it and Dave McNair mastered it.

We had a whirlwind weekend in here with The Bosch. We tracked everything live to 2″ tape and had tremendous fun with overdubs. Evidence of said fun can be witnessed in this here You Tube clip the band compiled from footage of the proceedings:

The first Serious Business single from the 60’s styled musical man-force called Higgins drops officially on iTunes and the rest on February 26. You can download the hit A-side “Yes I Know” right here, which was tracked by Halsey Quemere and mixed by Travis Harrison all here at Serious Business, with mastering from Richard Morris.

In addition we finished up Looker’s second single for Serious Business with Eric Paparazzi (Cat Power’s Dirty Delta Blues Band) handling production duties. Release date is March 4th … more details to come.
And more…Benji Cossa, who is one of the finest writers of song in all of creation, zipped through with a band he’s dubbed the Tightens, to track 6 songs live to 2″ tape with Travis at the knobs. In the band was Josh Kaufman on piano, Annie Nero on bass, Brian Kantor on drums, Eric Jackson on guitar and Gerald Menke on pedal steel. It was an amazing session, the fruits of which will smack you in your ears soon.

Taxi Taxi also blew through here to track drums for their forthcoming sophomore album.
And just to be sure you don’t think we’re getting soft over here, Queens metal pulverizers SOS have reached the mixing stage of their record. Several working titles are bouncing around: Adult Situations, Meat & Cheese, Over Under, Sweet Thunder. Did I mention Meat & Cheese. This one is gonna be a doozie.

Recent projects include…

So much going on here at Serious Business …
Being that this is the first post on this new site’s news page, I’ll just lay it on thick.

November and December 2007 have been insane. Recent projects include…

THE RED ROMANCE
Ridiculously tight, ultra catchy pop music. These touring pals of the Killers are perfecting a power pop platter of the highest quality. The band features former members of Ambulance Ltd but their sound is totally their own and its a shiny, muscular $100,000 sports car of a sound.

THE ROSEWOOD THIEVES
Here’s an amazing band committed to old school sounds. Think Dylan/The Band/Beach Boys/Stax. They recently waxed a handful of tunes with Travis at the desk for a forthcoming full length. They’ve already issued two EPs, one on their own and one on V2 Records.

LOOKER
Fresh off a successful UK tour, NYC’s queens of power pop returned to Serious Business with producer Erik Paparazzi of Cat Power’s Dirty Delta Blues band and Travis engineering to wax their second Serious Business single. This pairing is “Help Me Roada” / “Gates of the City.” Check out the first single, out now on Serious Business.

BRUNO WIZARD and REMARKABLE MAN (of the Homosexuals
Legendary UK post punk pioneer Bruno Wizard recently visited Serious Business backed up by Travis and Dave from The Unsacred Hearts, Mike and Phil from Apache Beat and Ahoi and also the lovely Neon and Verushka. Halsey Quemere engineered.

APACHE BEAT
Travis recently completed Apache Beat’s the second 7″ single for Canada’s Summer Lovers Unlimited Records The tunes are “Blood Thrills” and “The Western.”

CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY
These guys packed up their van and drove all the way from rock and roll Valhalla of Dayton, Ohio to record with producer Noel Benford here at Serious Business. They tore through a million songs. A few of them featured horn work from a member of the Slackers.

EL JEZEL
After months and months of consistent toil, Travis and El Jezel are finally putting finishing touches on the band’s follow up to 2006’s Elements of Being Put Together.This one is going to be epic.

SOS
Vocal tracking is in its final stages as Travis wraps up production on the second record he’s made with deep-Queens hard rockers SOS. Metal lives!

BRETT CONTI
These have been some Colorado Kool-Aid fueled sessions. Mr. Conti play the piano and sings. Shit Cheese backs him up on the drums. They are just a duo. The record is ultra stripped down and everything is happening in analog-world.

LAUNCH-TIME!!!!

Hello friends. Welcome to the brand new Serious Business Music website! Here you’ll find everything you need to know about the Serious Business Music recording studio, the sounds we make, the people we work with and more. Click around, stay awhile, enjoy yourself. When you’re done, we’re also a label too so check out that site: Serious Business Records.