Author: Luke

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Wrote this song a few days ago. Been playing cello again a lot, and wanted to create something using this arpeggiating technique across the strings (string players… what is the technical term for this? Can’t remember!)

Lyrically it carries the same theme as the rest of “The Faraway”. Journeys, changes, destinations.

Funny how I thought that the lyrics for this were just absolutely impossible. I banged my head against my lyric book for a couple days, recorded several scratch tracks of improvised lyrics and then walked away. When I came back it wasn’t garbage anymore, at least not when stitched together.

The real reason I made this was because I wanted to test out my GoPro Jaws Flex Clamp. It’s so simple, yet super brilliant for capturing live music. It worked! Now I just need to get like five more and clamp them everywhere.

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Just got back last weekend from camping with my three brothers, three of my favorite people, at the mountain of gold. Where this video was made last year exactly around this time:

And so The Faraway was so half-assedly “released” to the world. Really it was my birthday and I was going to be gone and I had self-imposed deadlines and thus, hence, I released an album. Without thinking! Without mastering! Without caring.

But that’s fine… right?

Camping now with my girls, my dog Cinco and the ever-amazing Katy Unger. Between last weekend with my brothers and now this, it doesn’t really get better. What a crazy blessed life!

#blessed

Yeah. Well. Anyways. I thought I might do the same this year with The Faraway part 2. But I’m going to hold off until my return from the ocean and woods and just being faraway. It’s ok. I can do that, I’m indie.

I don’t want to rush it. And, truth be told I’m going to fold in the impatience of that album “release” last year with this one, and it will all be well and good in the universe. You’ll see.

So stay tuned. Hopefully I’m far enough from cell phone coverage to not be bothered with any thoughts of anything at all but guitars and walks and campfires and maybe a beer or two.

Or don’t stay tuned. Stay out of tune. Stay golden. Stay, though, please.

I promise I’ll give you music if you do.

More music.

I hope you are feeling good and able to get some good things out of your day. And that it all adds up to beautiful. Thanks for being here. I’ll see you there.

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E’ry so often I put ye old iTunes on shuffle and here something perfectly podcast worthy. Here’s an older live on-air performance from KDVS live in studio A. So much reverb! I believe I requested that. I can never have too much reverb.

Got that image from here, you can get a print of it even.

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Owls & Vultures - Live, Rare
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I’m a big fan of interludes and in between moments. I’m a fan of the album vs. the single, and I think these snippets create a glue to hold the other songs together. It’s a fine line and you can kill the momentum of an album pretty easily… But I can’t help myself.

It’s also a way for me to include snippets of musical ideas that maybe don’t ever make it into a song, and the why bother there is that for me albums are more about a certain period of time being captured, rather than a bunch of songs. And those little snippets tend to coincide pretty well with the feeling of the rest of the music.

ANYWAYS.

This one is called “Forge” and it’s a throwback to my ukelele addiction I suffered through last year. I listen to a lot of EDM and somehow someday I want to marry the pulse of that music’s kick drum to an acoustic instrument. For fun and amusement. For justice and glory. And stuff.

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Interludes & In Betweens: Forge
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Working on a thing, you have this moment before it’s finished where it’s time to take stock. Same with building a bookshelf as it is making an album as it is planning an event, there’s a moment where you can begin to visualize how it all will turn out, and whether some serious reconsidering needs to be done. Is it a ton of things? Just a few details? Was something fundamentally wrong with the inception? That’s the time, and unfortunately you only get to that point after you put in that much work.

This is definitely where I’m at with my latest group of recordings/album. It’s all laid out and I’m got my hands on my hips just kind of nodding my head up and down trying to decipher it, like a crime tv detective looking at the pins on a map.

And it’s either discouraging or re-invigorating.

And I guess my point of bothering to write this moment down is that I realized just now that whether it is discouraging OR re-invigorating is YOUR choice at that point. It’s a choice.

Your bookshelf is a mess all wrong angles the screws are poking through, the shelves aren’t level. That could be it… forget it, other f it, get mad, burn the scrap wood and move on. OR recognize that fixing the fundamental flaws is not only necessary but maybe… (I’m definitely inserting my own optimism here) just maybe this is the most important part. Not the work you’ve already done. But the evaluation of it.

That’s what I’m going to tell myself at this point. And ideally make the most of this moment. Or just burn it as scrap wood. No. I don’t think I’ll do that.

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I’m not entirely sure from whence, but this track has been getting a ton of plays on soundcloud lately. Is it possible people think it’s a cover of an Arcade Fire song? No way! I prefer to believe they are into the quoting of Saint-Saens in a rock song turned classical turned rock quartet.

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Thought I’d gather all the pieces I composed for Shar, Nisha and Brad’s film “You Follow”. It’s my first official soundtrack! I’ll be unrolling them in rapid succession here on the site, via the podcast. Hope you enjoy…

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"You Follow" Soundtrack - 'To Be Is To Do'
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Here’s the second part of the album I made for making things to. Make whatever you want! Again what we want is ambience and a lack of drama, without aspiring to New Age.

I had a friend who had a ranch out in the hidden part of Mendocino County, and one of our past-times during an amazing Summer visit there became “rock-hopping”, where you hop down a mostly dried up creek bed, ideally reaching a state where you don’t think between leaps. For some reason this song reminded me of that.

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Music For Painting To, Part 2 - Rock Hopping
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Seeing a film with my music in it for the first time #hellarad #egotrip

Last night joined Shar and Nisha and the whole workings of You Follow to watch the first public screening of their documentary.

The story, of an adopted woman looking for her birth mother in India, is moving, and making a few pieces for it was a really amazing experience. Especially seeing it, and hearing it, all together last night.

One of my favorite moments was running into one of the women interviewed for the film… I created some music to go with her very emotional story about finding her mom, and so I had spent hours watching her face and cue-ing musical moments to her words… It was surreal to see her in person.

Great times, great group of people, makes me realize how much I love the endless energy of Los Angeles.

And makes me realize how very much I want to continue to make music for moving pictures…

Here’s some of the music writ for it…

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I had the honor of working on the soundtrack for “You Follow”, a story about a woman who goes to find out about her past in India. The main character does a lot of searching and I composed this piece to be her (Nisha) theme. It was a fun and interesting project and I’m excited to go see the opening screening tonight(!)…

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Film Music: Nisha's Theme
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For a long while my blog re-routed to the subdomain /word… I’m putting this up to let you know that if you followed one of those older links to get to the blog, you can now just go on ahead here: lukejanela.net

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Had a good rehearsal yesterday. Me and Tripp played at Bedrock Studios over in Echo Park. A big room, horror movie posters on the wall, huge amps, and a little time. We haven’t had time to play lately and so it was good.

If you are a musician out there trying to get better, let me tell you, if you can book a gig, any gig, that is the key. Basically you are forced to get your act together, literally, and it will speed up the process of developing your material exponentially.

Also: rehearsal studios = good. Never thought I’d be a fan, but now I kind of am. It’s nice, for one thing, to get away from the house to play. It’s nice to have all the equipment set up and ready to go, and then to walk away from it. And it’s also nice to see and occasionally meet all the other musicians in your peer group coming and going from their rehearsals. You can hear them through the walls and get a feel for where other bands are at.

Opened up the book of songs we’ve been playing. Six or seven tracks off of “Tomorrow Was” that are manageable live and that are propulsive. Good to play those but wow they take a lot of energy. Playing a super fast song for three minutes is one thing. Playing a string of fast six minute songs is different. So we kind of played around with new “material”, improvised is why it’s in quotes, and it was exhilarating.

I feel certain that if we work together on a new album, making material from rehearsals and live shows, that we will be onto something really cohesive and cool.  Recorded part of it too. I’m not sure that it warrants sharing per se, but you know that I’m always down to share stuff that is borderline fit to listen to. I like raw. So I’m ok with it.  So yes, a show Tuesday night near downtown LA at The Airliner. Midnight Door plays at 9ish. Cover is $5. I think it will be a really fun night out, given that there are DJs and other rad bands and live painting. I’m looking forward to it.