mikegrosshandler.com » The Velmas

Thanks, Metroland Readers!

mike — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:38:49 +0000

The readers of Metroland, the venerable arts paper of the Capital Region, have voted:

Best Local Solo Musician: Mike Grosshandler
Best Local Rock Band: The Velmas (second place)

Thanks to everyone who voted! Hope to see lots of you out at Sage College on 3/27 4/24 (new date)!

“Bass”-ically getting stuff done

mike — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:14:31 +0000

So it was a snowy weekend in Albany. I think we got nearly a foot and a half over the last 3 days. Not good for stuff like playing shows (The Velmas had to cancel our show on Friday), but great for stuff like staying home and recording, luckily.

Also lucky was the fact that my cold is all but a lingering cough now, so I actually felt up to doing something, as opposed to the last 2 weeks when I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. Net result? 3 more songs’ worth of bass guitar tracks are done. That’s 7 now. I’ve got some fixes to make in a couple of them, but at least they’re recorded. It’s easy to find a few minutes here and there to edit audio, but it’s harder to find big blocks of time to record an entire song in one sitting.

There are still two more songs I need to track drums for, but I have finally booked studio time for that, at least. So by mid-January, I should be able to close that chapter.

Valerie Webb’s new song

mike — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:48:23 +0000

A couple months ago, Valerie Webb (from the band Venomentality) contacted us (The Velmas) with an idea. She’s putting together a portfolio for college (she’s only 16!) next year, and in general is trying new things and experimenting with her music. She had this song called “All While Laughing” that she had recorded a quick acoustic demo for, and she wanted us to arrange it as we saw fit. Then we’d record it in the studio as her backing band. She sent us the tune, and we quite liked what we heard.

So, a rehearsal and a month or so later, this past Saturday we headed down to Coxsackie, NY (what a great name for a town, eh?) and laid down some tracks at Easter Island Studios with Chris Fisher. Bruce and Fig rocked out their parts in no time, and then left the rest of the session to me and Val to finish up with Chris (who, incidentally, used to be in Conehead Buddha). I did my guitar part, and Val did her guitar part. She sang the lead vocals and I sang the harmonies I came up with. We left with a really good-sounding rough mix. Can’t wait to hear the final mix Chris comes up with. The guy’s got a great ear and is super-fast in the studio (and I mean that in a good way).

Token photo:

The Velmas with Valerie Webb outside Easter Island Studios

drummers, garageband, and wordpress

mike — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:05:49 +0000

random thoughts:

i’ve got 7 drummers lined up now to play on 11 songs i plan to record for my new side project/solo album. can’t wait to start tracking. need to come up with a name for that “band” as well as the album itself.

after using pro tools for years, and then trying to do something as simple as a quick edit on a song in garageband just now, i wonder how anyone can deal with garageband. it’s awful!

been working on thevelmas.com lately. finally set it up to use wordpress for at least the news and tour pages so far, which are by far the most updated. it’s way nicer to make updates this way than by ftp’ing files up by hand. and having rss feeds and stuff is nice, too.

Music Video: Tell Her I Love Her

mike — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:38:35 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSWRTnapOXs&fmt=18

after much ado, the velmas are proud to announce our first music video! it’s for the song ‘tell her i love her’ from our city canyons records debut, “Station”.

enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSWRTnapOXs&fmt=18[/youtube]

we come from the land of the ice and snow

mike — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:08:39 +0000

bruce and i had a show up in amsterdam, ny this weekend. it was Very cold out and snowing. i don’t remember exactly how cold, but cold enough that we couldn’t get the lock on our trailer to open. we went in and asked the owner of the place if he had a hammer or something we could borrow. he came back with a crowbar, a hammer, and a blow torch! how cool is that? we finally got the thing open with the hammer, but we were hoping it wouldn’t work so we’d have to actually use the blow torch. maybe next time!