#musiceveryday 77 – jealously
all these cellos chasing after each other.
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Category: podcast
#musiceveryday 76 – fell through
and here we have a cello falling through a forcefield.
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#musiceveryday – 75 – cello z
I had fallen behind. I had Bruce Springsteen shows to go to and a show to play in San Diego and Spring to hike for and just life. So I decided to catch up and recorded the 8 missing tracks in the past two days. All cello based instrumentals. Enjoy!
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#musiceveryday 73 – Sirens
I want to be cinematic. All my cinematic attempts lately veer so hard towards the melancholic. I blame cello.
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#musiceveryday 72 – The River (Bruce Springsteen Cover)
In honor of The Boss being in town this week I played through as many songs off this album I could pull off. This one gets me every time.
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#musiceveryday 71 – shtuff
I want to make a new album where I can sing and it’s just one cello part (no overdubs) so that when I play it live it’s something that is as real as the recording.
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#musiceveryday 70 – Sirens
Recording today, my favorite chord of all time, A6
yay for A6
#musiceveryday 70
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#musiceveryday 68 – here is enlightenment
Here is enlightenment, you can pay with your time.
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#musiceveryday 69 – The Great Escape (Light Repose)
#musiceveryday 69
This is one where I’m glad that the four track still works. I don’t know when I did this song, but it was very, very long ago. And it was when I’d use a handheld audio recorder to double up the vocals somewhat randomly.
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#musiceveryday 66 – Hail
This morning the most tremendous thunder I think I’ve heard in LA… woke me up and admittedly I was kind of grumpy like “what is that rumbling sound argh” and then I’m so glad I got up in the early dawn and saw this wall of hail approach and flashes so close I decided being on the roof maybe not the optimal place to witness.
Also this is another solo cello improvised thingy.
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#musiceveryday 65 – Formerly Known As
Playing cello and that’s all, seeing where it leads…
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#musiceveryday 64 – Fireflies
Recording in a living room while a party outside. This song. The one about one night camping in the woods in North Carolina.
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#MusicEveryday 63 – Forest
#MusicEveryday 63
Playing cello and trying to pull something out of being erh… not the most inspired I’ve ever been. This ended up sort of being like a walk up and down hill which is what I did this morning so there you have it.
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#musiceveryday 59 – On The Outside In The Nighttime (On The Guitar, In The Afternoon)
#musiceveryday 59 – I’ve never played this song on guitar… UNTIL NOW
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Music Everyday 39 – Pushed Together
For this edition of Music Everyday for some reason I took two junk guitars and tuned them to the same-ish note (whichever note would hold, they’re not renowned for their intonation) and pushed their backs together while I played, hoping to create a nice drone-y sound from the back guitar. Not too much drone action but made the crummy top guitar very warm and resonant. I might have my million dollar idea: lashing together guitars for a warmer tone. I mean, it’s not like I composed a masterpiece with this setup or anything. But it’s fun to try new things.
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Music Everyday 32 – Once I Caught A Wave
?#?musiceveryday? 32: an idea that I should remember
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Make Music Every Day 7 – Back To Where
Here’s a raw song idea from a while ago. I’d like to turn this into something someday soon, it keeps hanging out.
*Also I want to explain what I’m sharing here since I haven’t really yet: raw, unedited music that I make shared everyday for the sake of sharing. Not for the sake of being cool or furthering my career or whatever, not to impress, just for it’s own sake on my end. So this ideally will be me each day picking up an instrument or singing something new and fresh and having the um, gusto to share it regardless of whether I am super duper confident in it. That’s the big challenge right there. I just want to find the joy in making music this year a lot more than I have when I’ve been overly concerned with what people think. You know? So take it as you like it, and thanks if you’ve read this far lol. And also thank you sincerely for taking a moment of your time to listen to this music.
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Make Music Every Day 6 – Rehearsal
Didn’t have time to record/create something new for the e’ry day project. But I did rehearse with Bear Club for our show on Friday at El Cid. Cello eye view!
Make Music Every Day 5 – Another Sun
Here’s my everyday creation for today. It turned out a bit weirder than I expected. It’s another from the cello in a church. Cheers.
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Make Music Every Day 4
Day 4: Just a simple idea in one ear, sounds of the city in the other
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Make Music Every Day 1
I should record / share some music every day. Even if it’s rough and just because. Here, let’s start. #makemusiceveryday
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Valley Of Gold – Instrumental Version
I just felt like putting this up tonight.
It’s a fine Summer night. Is it the end of Summer? That’s what I hear. Me and Cinco are tending to the empty home while the rest of the pack is off at FYF Fest. Slowdive is playing. Hmm. I wish I was there. It was sold out.
I’ve mostly finished up on a big buffet of music I’m going to serve up in the near future. I’m happy with the work done and mostly the feeling of the songs.
Los Angeles for me: still and ever just past my fingertips somehow. It’s there, I push at it, brush it aside like curtains. But I have yet to pass through.
It’s a good city after all, and there are just so many surfaces you could attach your mirrors to here. Everyone is beautiful and larger than life, even if just in their own minds.
There aren’t country lanes, nature revery is rare, and the general balance leans one way and then the next, undecided. It’s menacing and inviting at once.
Blah blah poetic yada yada. Meaning: I’m here, making music in my dear studio with my dear cellos and my dear thoughts and I’m not on that damn stage at this damn point in this damn city.
That’s my check in.
Hope this version of this song fits with your time and place.
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Take My Chances – NEW Song Live Video
You. My friend. Are the first. In the world. To ever. See this video.
Because you, my friend, are subscribed to the podcast.
High fives, to you!
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“Angeles” – Elliott Smith Cover – Audio
Wanted to give y’all a video-free version of the cover song I posted on youtube a few days ago.
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“The Longest Book Ever Written” – Performance Video
This song has been around with me for a long long time. I probably wrote it more than ten years ago. Unlike some songs from that era it has aged well, ie. I’m not embarrassed by it.
I don’t know how it never ended up on an album or fully produced. It’s a perfect example of a thing that works well in a room with people and flat/not quite alive on album…
I’d tell you what it’s about but doesn’t that always ruin a song? I will tell you there is a lot of church related imagery in there. Clearly growing up Catholic and an altar boy invaded my subconscious and probably will give me songs by the bucketful forever. Because? Because church is the imperfect institution, the fallible middleman? Because church is metaphor for society? Church can be metaphor for any thing in our lives be it music or art or love or nature? Because because because. Whatever it is to you.
Without further ado!
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Owls & Vultures – Live, Rare
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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Interludes & In Betweens: Forge
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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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘Unraveling 3’
And thus concludes our magical journey through the soundtrack to “You Follow”… thanks for following.
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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘Unfinished’
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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘To Seek Is To Find’
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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘On To The Next’
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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘Unraveling 2’
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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘The News From Afar’
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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘In Pursuit’
“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘A Dialogue’
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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘Cello Blues For A Sad Letter’
“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘Unraveling’
The next episode. I’ll be following up with the rest of the soundtrack in the next couple days.
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“You Follow” Soundtrack – ‘To Be Is To Do’
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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Music For Painting To, Part 2 – Rock Hopping
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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Film Music: Nisha’s Theme
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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Music For Painting To, Part 1 – Unfold
A while ago I made my girlfriend Katy an album. She has a certain playlist she’s created for painting and has talked about the perfect music for that kinda thing… meditative and non-disruptive, but interesting enough maybe to be listenable over and over. So obviously I created a  polka/deep-house mashup. And that didn’t fit the bill. So I tried this.
Just a live cello performance using some looping, and a very brutish beat to pull it all along.
It’s long, and it’s a pretty good quality mp3 if you are into that sort of thing.
This is the first of three parts to that album.
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Valley Of Gold
When my girlfriend heard me play the early version of this she said “that’s pretty is that a Bruce Springsteen cover?”, which I took as a compliment. Nebraska is one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded. I didn’t intend to have the influence be so obvious, it wasn’t conscious, and also, if there is a sound I’d love to pay homage to it’s that one.
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You Can Get Far – Early Version
Came across this early version of “You Can Get Far” (video from the album REDWOOD SUMMER here).
And it reminded me of when I recorded it, at Canyonlands National Park, sitting up on a cliff’s edge. As you can hear not a lot is different in the studio version, just perhaps a nicer mic and the absence of the sounds of rocks scraping underneath my shifting weight. And the view I had was incredible.
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The End Of The World
This song is made famous by the lovely Skeeter Davis.
We made a version of it a while back, with vocals by the also lovely Katy Unger.
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Stardust, part 2
Here’s an update from a song I posted a couple weeks ago. I added a cello solo in there. It was imperative to shred. I also added backup vocals toward the end. And hand claps. Always more hand claps. Also as always I prefer the original, what do you think?
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Podcast again? Let’s try it.
The podcast was my main delivery about five years ago. Then facebook happened. The thing about facebook for me now, is that it feels WAY less personal than it somehow used to.
Also, I don’t need to share ALL my random songs with ANYONE who likes my facebook page. You, my friend, are here because you are (amazingly) dedicated and I appreciate that.
So we’re going to try to get the podcast back on its feet.
Here’s a new old song. I wrote the lyrics/melody quite a while ago, and stumbled across it in my lyric book, which happens when I’m playing little mini-concerts of old material.
It’s a bit rough, but I like the way it turned out. I’m thinking of adding a little more bowed cello, and perhaps more vocals at the end there…
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alright, you’re right, it’s time for some new music
I’ve been putting off basically everything working on some new music, so much new music in fact that I’m needing to break it down into its respective pieces.
This one is on an album I’m putting out that is basically electronic music meets cello. I’ve done that in the past, but the key with this one is that I more or less be able to play it live. Or some semblance of it. With looping that is possible!
So without saying much more, here is a new electrocello song. I’m likely to take it down soon, as I don’t want to spoil the fun, but love rewarding you my faithful readers…
Take care, enjoy…
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Attack of the besides
B sides are always around in my boxes. I have a lot of ideas that eventually would lead to a melody, but sometimes, like in the case of this one, will never be duplicated because the performance is so unique.
So here you go, so amazingly uncut or edited:
Here Is Enlightmenent
permalink to this post: http://midnightdoor.com/word/?p=558
I was playing around with vocal range in this one, total Mariah Carey inspired (kidding), it’s pretty rambling for sure. I’ve got a “holidays” ish song coming next week, so stay tuned!
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Fever Saved Me… Let It Save You
The albums are coming along. I had the pleasure of recording some drums with Molly from Huff This!. She adds such a rock sound to the tracks. It’s perfect for the feel of the album.
So here is a more rounded out version of the song I posted a few weeks ago. This is the sample of the more rock, acoustic guitars and cello based album I’m calling ‘Redwood Summer’. Enjoy!
Remember the earlier version of this song?
Here is my sample from the electro-cello album tentatively called ‘Half Moon’. It’s the stuff I’ve been playing live lately.
Here is a sample of my all cello instrumental album, as yet un-named.
Here is where the electronic-instrumental album will be coming from.
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New Music – “Fever Saved Me”
So I have been hell of out of the loop, removed from reality in so many ways, both living out in the woods and absolutely inundated with work. I’ve been thinking of the big posting I would put here, announcing the fantastic things going on, but just haven’t had the seconds.
The house I was staying in was outside Nevada City in Northern California, totally beautiful views of stars and wooded hillsides… it was a perfect place to get to work on the album that I’ve been wanting to do for a long long time. I call it my “old Luke” album. It’s basically like, no electronics, no avant attempts. Just simple songs, like the ones I used to rock over the hills and dales of Ukiah and Santa Cruz. And the open mics of Portland.
No concept per se, but I intend to have at most on each track the same instrumentation: cello, acoustic guitar, and vocals. I have an inkling to put drums on a couple of tracks, like the one I’m posting here, but if I do, they will be straightforward rock drums, etc.
It for me is a return to my roots: a certain Northern California sound. Not hippie, not punk, not folk, not really in between. Just who we were and are in that wooded corner of the world.
The album is tentatively titled “Redwood Summer” and is set for release April 14, 2009.
This track is called ‘Fever Saved Me’
Thanks for stopping by!
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