Category Archives: music

14 Albums up now

14 Albums up now

music, news

Just letting you know there’s some postings on Bandcamp worth checking out especially Mona Lisa. just type in. lukehurley.bandcamp.com and you can listen to a number of songs you won’t be familiar with . Arnie Van Bussel at Nightshift Studios baked the reels and saved these recordings from oblivion.

Grateful for his help and Jan Billes production of the tracks back in the early 90s. Have a listen and if you like it season your admiration with a donation.

There are 14 albums posted up. Be great if you could listen to them and send us some feedback. Eds Note : You don’t have to be logged in to listen to all songs for free.

Also have to mention I’m playing a gig with Craig Hubber tomorrow in the Queenstown market from 11am to 3pm. Come listen and have a yarn with us. Bring your favorite musical instrument.we could be inclusive. ha ha

Also am playing Tuatara Invers next week but it’s as yet unconfirmed.

Have worked for years on a song called Before The War which is based on a poem by Ardie based on his horrific experience of the Iran Iraq war which cost a million lives in which he lost a lot of his friends.

That song will be released very soon.

There’s a possibility of Basant Madhur turning up to play a spot in our show as he happens to be touring this at the moment  see poster below.

India to Ireland

We lost a great friend Patric Casey who set up a radio station called Hope City FM and who campaigned tirelessly for civil rights. He loved in abject poverty in order to promote the music he loved and the attitudes that make for a family based society as apposed to our current bag it or shaggy it carry on.

Today I met with my old buddy Steve Garden who brought me up to date with the adventures of his Rattle Records label. It now boasts a catalogue of 200 titles and is exclusively dedicated to recording unplugged music unique to this forgotten colonial outpost. He’s the Peter Gabriel of K1W1 music. The breadth and scope of his assembled talent is astonishing. Also on bandcamp for free listening to rattle.

We have some more music to release but need some feedback from you. The best feedback is when you visit Bandcamp and buy something. Prices are going up shortly so why not stock up on the albums you aren’t familiar with and while you are at it visit the website of Rattle Records. You will get a nice surprise. Acoustic music of great originality abounds in God’s own country

Call me if you have a need for live music of the unplugged variety. I will be in QT. Arrowtown, Invercargill, Dunedin and Nelson. Call me 021 0259 2919

In closing please check out www.marklapwood.com if you need pics….he’s vastly experienced in stills and movies so check him out if you have a project that needs great imagery

Over for now
God bless

Mona Lisa the album

Mona Lisa the album

music, news

Mona Lisa the album is back from the lost archives.

Hi good people here’s something both new and old. Jan Bille put some hard yards in to create Mona Lisa the album out of tracks that nicely fit with my little hit from 1986.

Picture is the artist Michael D Clarke who made the cover. Mona Lisa Video link is here or here

To come up with this he had to enlist the support of Nightshifts Arnie Van Bussel who is credited with recording many musical projects coming out of the south. He is still in business and we recommend him to anyone who needs technical assistance resurrecting analogue recordings or making new ones in his famous studio. In this project he helped rescue reels that date back decades. He had to bake them in order to remaster them. His charges are more than reasonable.

The critical response to Mona Lisa has been enthusiastic. There is material here that will be unfamiliar to you like Anthony Jack’s poem put to song ‘The Friend I Had’.  Always loved the poem. Moneywise and Summer Blue are two songs that will be new to many.

Then there’s Gravity that co write with Dave Robb. The tones of the 12 string Ovation are unique. Made with James Wilkerson on bass and Matthew Lawrence on drums.

Since then I preferred to use SB guitars and Godin Guitars.
Hope you enjoy this project and season your admiration with a small donation!

Making music is one thing. Creating albums that are worth a listen is another. For this support is required! Look forward to your feedback. Please call should you need advice with the things within our scope of our activity 021 0259 2919 or happyislesnz@gmail.com

In Queenstown at the minute. Keen to hear from anyone based here. You can listen on Apple or Spotify already. Now on bandcamp too.

Information Station and Levin

Information Station and Levin

blog, music

Just had 5 weeks in Hokitika which was very calming; now in Wellington and on the way North again.

A lot of time spent in that buzzy little town called Hoki. I gotta write about the tour.

Finally can write another blog to you my friends who like me are interested in the state of the heart of our vanishing world of convivial places to meet and talk and play. It’s been a long time away.

The tour started with one gig in Christchurch and then just a case of going where invited. It’s a real eye opener seeing in real life the state of your own country.

Everywhere there are small enterprises closing.

Dunedin lost in the space of a few weeks three key watering holes. Nova. Dog with Two Tails and the Zuccini Brothers* and most likely more have closed their doors since. Meanwhile the corporate food giants feed on our addiction to the familiar. Don’t matter if it’s crappy just so long as it’s the same crappy. (* Eds note. Zucchini owners retired after 28 years)

Kids in our time probably don’t know the sheer joy of visiting places where the sole owner went to great lengths to create (key word there) a convivial civilised space for us to meet and greet and find true nourishment for body and soul. Real venues like Arc in Dunedin. Like The Island Of Real in Auckland.

There are still good places and I’m on a mission to find them so please if you know of such let us know.

What is going on though really?one can understand poorly patronized places going under but in the case of those Dunedin venues they were in fact thriving.

How can this be?

Could it be that the allurement of a keyboard and a screen has made the great unwashed happy to stay home on a government recreation scholarship rather than mix with our own flesh and blood Brothers and sisters in little ol real world ?

It’s astonishing.

At least my loafing experience involved something real with a box and vibrating strings and a mouth that could express my deepest longings. It involves reaching into the soul and finding your own unique take on things and not being at the mercy of an algorithm and simulations and titillating from the information stations.

I leave you with the lyrics of a song called Information Station. It’s on an album called Reha which is on www.bandcamp.com. look it up we wanna see you support this great facility and busy it up ok? Listen to Information Station – embedded below.

Anyway here’s a few key lines.i wrote this song 32 years ago and released it in 1994. It’s a sleeper. Wake it up ok?

“Meanwhile try to work at home
With a keyboard and this honky phone
Where is it written – Creation groans
Computer bureau bound to know”.

(i.e. what became Google and such)

i think I was bang on.

We really do have this option of vegetating in a simulation.i call it once removed living.
Do this or just get out more. Go to concerts. Go to the mountain. To the sea. Anything but tippy tippy and watching the devils eyeball .

Anything but tippy tappy and mesmerisation at a hopeless little screen……..to quote the late uncle Lenny

Real life is always gonna surpass these imaginings on a screen. We gotta support the watering holes that remain.

By the way I am playing at Firebird again. It’s in Levin. Saturday 7pm

The acoustics are great. Food is wonderful and it’s not only pizza…the kitchen is being renovated and extended significantly.

Support anywhere that encourages live music. Such places are very rare.

I should give up but I simply cannot do that. There is still too much to say and it’s gotta be said. Come and join in. Door charge 20. Call me if ya want a ticket and just have a chat…otherwise doorsales is fine. The good thing about being a little guy is you get to talk to all your supporters. 021 0259 2919.

Call me if I can help or if you want to chew the fat. It’s a dying art…talking on the phone.corporates hate it. They prefer you use the tippy tippy and don’t engage at all at all.
@#%÷ them.

God bless.keep us posted.communication is love. Love is in short supply in the world of humans .

By the way. A new album or four is waiting to be posted up .help the cause. It is costly to make album.very costly.

Just to give you a glimpse of how impossible it is to recover the cost of making an album. 20,000 listens on Spotikleptofy realises 20 bucks for the artist.

It takes YEARS to get that many listens for tiny acts like this. We ain’t going broke coz we got your support right?

Woke Up Album Release

music, news

An 8 track album is being released today called Woke up.

Listen now.

Auld lang syne
This is a very early song I released on a 60 minute cassette called Japanese overdrive. It started out as an EP and became way better in production and length in its second edition.

It was a popular tape in fact. In those days no one was selling original tapes so it even got airplay on student stations and got me a spot on Radio With Pictures on account of my “epistles” to Brent Hansen that I snuck into the overnight courier bag from tvnz Dunedin to tvnz wellington..

In the end Brent phoned me and said “enough!” But added “which song do you want to do on RWP?” Which left me speechless. It happened. They flew me up and it was recorded in Avalon main studio. What a blast..that track (Japanese Overdrive) got me orientation gigs too.

Auld Lang Syne was from the same time and it’s a story about a girl from Dunedin who got Hollywoodised and removed from her people group in dear old Dunedin. The best line in the original was the bit about her pink Rolls “I hear they’re using digital clocks in them now. You can’t even hear the ticking anymore but I can”

Anyways this song from that time is a totally updated version recorded on a Takoma baritone at eieio studios. Is it as good? Who knows all i know is its quite different in feel and tone.

Caroline (Blue Sky) is about a Peter Stephen guitar (in this recording its played on a steve Barkman guitar) that took ages to make and we christened it Caroline after a friend of mine. Never got to own the guitar and never really got close to its namesake either.

Woke up – this was a song I first played on TVNZ Dunedin evening News show. Can you believe it? They actually encouraged the arts. That was before the world’s media got taken over by Santa Klaus Shwab. You really could get on local TV. It was marvellous. Hang on you still can its called channel 9 its owned by the ODT they play me often….come to think of it

Miracle cure is a new take on an oldie but its slow and down a few tones and played on a Takoma

Kings Cross – this is a version that needs to see the light of day played on the baritone takoma its caught the mood. Its a key song of mine and again…one day…the epic version will emerge

Greenfields this was title track to an album of the same name that iris productions made with me Nikki Lindsay and Dave Murphy. It’s a God song for sure. The kinda love that never can die has to be the holy spirit. The key lines opening the song were penned by Caroline Armstrong. Greenfield first two lines was inspired by a poem by Caroline Armstrong which she wrote in response to Blue Sky (alternative title for Caroline)

Its intriguing how our perception is based on such subtle circumstances ie the sky we see as blue isn’t in fact blue….nor the green painted fields.

Precious Time this I guess is the only studio version but the live one is on a tape I released called First Civilian

Far Away is the first tune I ever wrote back in the early 70s and it became a song recently. Its going to emerge again and when it does it won’t mean I am at a loss for material – it’s just that some songs regenerate and remorph

These tracks were recorded at eieio studios out in the country in a field with two cows and the engineer (who chooses to remain nameless). Back in 2018.

This project was supposed to be released years ago. There is in fact more material to be released from this elusive studio ….in fact the best is yet to come.

Jan Bille compiled this from a hard drive labeled “Roundhead” but none of the Roundhead tracks got selected so that also is yet to happen. We are a long way from catching up on releasable material.

Eieio is interesting.its a studio in the middle of a paddock that hosts two cows. The owner of the studio is a perfectionist. It was built specifically to record acoustic guitar and vocal PERFECTLY.it includes handmade microphones made by another perfectionist from far away.

He doesn’t want to be named congratulated or esteemed. The most I could get was permission to mention the name of the studio eieio I wasn’t even allowed to post up a photo of the superstar cow grazing in the paddock.

So at last its emerged. it truly is an arts for arts are project for no profit.

On the subject it would be great if you were to Koha to this project. It’s hard to keep up any momentum in light of the fact that cost greatly outweighs returns. Arts for arts sake is good its all the better when it pays. Thats you debt. Ha ha.

Kaiwaka says hello

Happy Isles CD Coming

music, news,

Hello friends. Hope you are well and happy. If you need someone to talk to dial 0800pizza. Or call me and I will call by and play for you 0210 2592 919. If you have an out of town gig then so much the better. The photo up top  is from Kaiwaka – Eutopia cafe last week.

Last week I played a gig at a venue designed for career drunkards and got fired for taking a long break to get some relief from a big table of of highly wasted girl gang members talking extremely loudly with their table virtually part of the stage. The people who came to hear me were dining inside out of view with no chance of enjoying the show. Depressing? What do you think?

But that’s a normal gig in these happy isles. Drunks often get to call the shots coz they generate the profits. So. I guess we have to tolerate them and learn moron as a second language

Anyways I wanna tour these Happy Isles and the world beyond please invite me somewhere or suggest places pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. My new email for this is. Lukehurley @ protonmail.com

By the way. The new album will be out on cd as well as record but we will be needing pre-sales.

A happy customer
A happy customer with Happy Isles vinyl

If at any stage you pre bought a vinyl record then make sure you let us know if it hasn’t arrived yet.

If you want to pre-buy a cd please do so as it makes it easier to make them to the highest quality in super jewel cases that don’t crack and fall apart.  (Ed’s Note: We are working on this and setting up a pre-sale option right now.)

I love tactile stuff even if many can’t be bothered with it. I want to hold it and put it on a spinny thing and know it cost me money and it cost me time and it cost me all the best years of my mind. You can lean on my machine friends.

Aroha
Luke

Graham Reid on Elsewhere wrote a review thanks Graham.

Listen below to the whole album for free