Dear listeners

Just give me an old school call on 006496295179 if you have any ideas or want to get a hold of my material or get me to play somewhere .Or   email me : luke@lukehurley.co.nz

I am very grateful to Jason Kemp for managing this site. If you have any technical questions please address them to him or write to me and I can forward your email

Bye for now

Luke

Ps check out  bandcamp . com  for an overview of my material    and if you like what you hear .. they have a straightforward marketing system

There is a buskers festival this weekend. Check it out : www.aucklandbuskersfestival.co.nz

You will probably find few or no musicians included in the lineup.

Busking festival organisers are generally unsupportive to musicians. We don’t qualify despite having been in the busking tradition for thousands of years. Ha ha!

Update: Photo below

I have a gig opening for Hello Sailor     Here are the details    No mention of  me on the bill so if you wanna come to the event this is as much as there is to go by

Hello Sailor

Date: Mon 30 Jan
Time: 4pm-7pm
Venue: Central Park, Wood Street, Papakura, Auckland
Artist: Hello Sailor
Suitable for: All ages

Influenced by reggae, The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground, Hello Sailor became a major force when disco ruled the airwaves and covers bands dominated the music scene. Sublime.

Contact: Auckland Council
Phone: (09) 301 0101
Email: requiresinfo@musicinparks.co.nz

Transport: Plan your journey with MAXX
Accessibility: Yes, no designated mobility parking however.

(Eds update: Hello Sailor link updated)

what else can I tell ya?

Check this out    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/

Have a nice day. I will be back tomorrow

Here are some more photos from the slideshow by Michael Klinger who writes

“Our last meeting in the streets of Auckland. Luke plays “From New York to Paris” and “Mechanical” – now just for us. Our adoption is welcome. As we go, his songs still sound for a long time before the road noise drowns out Luke’s guitar.

And so our meeting ends as it began: with the unique sound of his guitar. Anyone who walks through Auckland’s streets, should keep their ears so wide open.

You could suddenly be facing one of the greatest unknown musicians in New Zealand – Luke Hurley.”

Click on an image to start the slideshow.

Just today a slideshow / story feature has been published in a German magazine called The Outsource Mag. The photo essay is in German

The story is called
“Luke Hurley – Singer-Songwriter und Straßenmusiker aus Leidenschaft”

Fotos/Texte: Michael Klinger

Unsere Begegnung mit ihm beginnt mit dem Sound seiner Gitarre, dem wir neugierig entgegenlaufen. Und dann sehen wir ihn, Luke, einen Musiker in den Straßen von Auckland. Er liebt es hier zu spielen. “You get a lot feedback of the people.” Wer ist dieser freundliche Typ, der jeden grüßt, der an seinem Gitarrenkoffer vorbeigeht, und hier in den Straßen von Neuseeland so einzigartig Gitarre spielt?

Here is one of the photos in the series. Thanks Michael.

Haiti has been the news lately because the big quake there was a year ago.
The Duvalier song (on Reha album) was written about Haitian history. Jean Claude

“The former ruler left Haiti in 1986 after a 15-year rule plagued by corruption and a crumbling economy.” After the quake Duvalier bizarrely pledged $8 million to the Red Cross.

He now lives in Paris and best estimates of his fortune are in the hundreds of millions – all suspected of being dishonestly obtained from the nation. Song lyrics for Duvalier are below with a player so you can listen to this song.

You took the money from my people
You took the bell from the steeple
You took my only hope away
Jean Claude Duvalier

And if greed were a virtue
I know that nothing would hurt you
If corruption were quaint
You’d be some kind of living saint

Duvalier Duvalier
you took the money and you ran away
Duvalier Duvalier
you took the money and you ran

Who was that beautiful lady
The one by your side
The one O so well dressed
The one you had to hide

Who was that beautiful lady
The queen of every shopping spree
Live a life of luxury back in gay Paree

Duvalier Duvalier
you took the money and you ran away
Duvalier Duvalier
You took it back to France

Now that suffering has come to you
And you’re scraping for a franc or two
When you know just what to do
I guess you’ll turn around

You took the money from my people
You took the bell from the steeple
You took my only hope away
Jean Claude Duvalier

Jean Claude Duvalier
Jean Claude Duvalier

For more background on Duvalier go here.

Reha is now available for download on iTunes.

Originally released in 1994 Reha was produced by Norwegian  Jan Bille. Players are

Luke Hurley :  12 string ovation/vocal

James Wilkinson : bass/backing vocals

Jan Bille :  electric guitar/e bow

Mathew Lawrence : percussion

All songs  by Luke Hurley

The word Reha means the realisation that we have eternal life

Who would not want to know this state of being? Sometimes I think we all have it. Its like eternity is planted in our hearts.

The album was recorded  one week at KATS Christchurch and post production was done in the weeks following

I just laid down the guitar and vocal and Jan and James did the rest

I never had the resources to promote this album.  It’s a bit of a sleeper. It doesn’t just have my  sound. It also has Jan’s signature. His production work is unique. I hope to work with him again soon.

Without Jann Hurley’s help Reha would never have materialised. She suggested I work with Jan Bille & made it possible to go down to Christchurch . Everything To Me was written for her

Not Easy To We think we understand things. We know very little.Life’s a miracle and a mystery!

to be continued

Duvalier about the Haitian dictator was a memorable song from this album.

“Duvalier .. Duvalier- you took the money and you ran away.”

The new artwork is by  Elena Panaita  based on a  photo by Dave Mann .

Booking a private tour of NZ  playing for people in their own homes . Anyone interested in hosting me please get in touch here or write to me  at  Luke@LukeHurley.co.nz  or even phone me on the old school landline 09 6295179

Now that there is music on the site it makes things more interesting cause prior to this it was like a silent movie with no piano player.

Please forgive my (relative) lack of communication up until now but the fact is that I didn’t really have much to offer subscribers cause people want the music and not the blah blah blah.

At last the music is there right in the site and you can listen to anything I have done once all the albums are posted up.Drop me a line with your thoughts about how to  progress this site. Let me know if there are any tracks you would especially like me to include.

I would really appreciate your ideas and questions.Feel free to write to me directly if you have any suggestions/questions/constructive criticisms.

It’s hard to create a site that reflects what I want to present to people. Its hard to know where to start so please give me some clues about what you are interested in……  Luke@LukeHurley.co.nz

Note: As of Nov 12th 6 albums on iTunes + The Best of and Insatiable Moon soundtrack.

My friend Ivan  said  that I manipulate my friends to do things for me and then turn around and claim that God helped me. I have to say that there is some truth in this. A lot of people have given me great encouragement and have had little or no mention over the years. I would like to thank Chris and Audrey, Phil Recordin and Shaolin Hu for making it possible for me to go to Europe.

It happened years ago but that experience is fresh in my memory. It was my intention to return to London soon after the trip but I stayed here in Kiwi to do my tiny part in the Insatiable Moon movie.

It paid off cause the project looks like its going to roll along nicely and the Premiere in London happens in less than three weeks time. It might be cheeky of me to ask this but if anyone out there is feeling generous could you help me get to this premiere.

Like to thank Jason At Dialog CRM and Elena Panaita for getting some of my albums up on line  . Titles posted up so far  are “Limited Liability”   “High Risk”  And “Make Room” with  “Sister Moon” & “Brother Sun” being posted up next week.

Any suggestions of albums/songs of mine you would like to see on line?Also please give me your suggestions….anything you can think of that would make this site better and better.  By the way    if you want to hear any of the albums mentioned here just go to the site and play the tracks in their entirety by using the Widget and the slider.If you want physical cds its easy to get my albums  thru “Amazon On Demand”.

Been on line for years and now for the first time the real advantage of being on line is evident. Until recently it hasn’t been possible to create an e com facility like this. Long awaited and gratefully received. Without  Jason’s expert help this would  still be just a dream. Any musicians out there who want to use Dialog CRM just go to the site www.DialogCRM.Com and fill in the form.You too can have e commerce on your site with a minimum of expense…just talk to Jason. The artwork side of things  was  achieved by Elena Panaita…check her website out…her artwork is outstanding.

Tony Parker has been a huge influence on me over the years. He pointed out a simple rule of thinking to me recently. “Think about what you do want not what you don’t want”.Simple enough but hard to do> I am trying hard to rewire my attitude so that I eliminate thoughts about what I do NOT like and replace them with thoughts of what I DO like. Very simple but totally revolutionary.

Any  fool can make things complicated but it takes a genius to make them simple.

Tony is such a genius. He set his mind on creating the holy grail of educational  paint..a paint  that  completely washes out of clothes. No one has ever done this before. Its a world first. It took him seven years. He set his mind on achieving what was seemingly impossible…The result “Total Wash”. If you ain’t in the paint business this might not seem that exciting but if you are its like in the music world creating a new genre.

That brings me to my goal. Its time for me to start writing in a new way and forget the past. Drawing on past experiences is fine but in future there will be no “getting all bound up” about things and filling my mind with what I don’t want and what I wish I had not done. What a total waste of time that is.

When you think about it we are not only internally inclined to programme ourselves in a negative way…we are also greatly encouraged by the society corporate to think in negative judgmental terms about things. We get dis-empowered by unfruitful thinking and lets face it  its kind of fun to mock and ridicule things and it gives us a sense of superiority if we can rubbish something someone else doesn’t get right but in the end its a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND SPACE.

So what do YOU want? Please write and tell me

I will tell you what I want

1. I want to think straight and quit entertaining what ISN’T and get empowered by what IS
2. Release all my albums online
3. Finish the movie me and Simon Raby have been working on
4. Return favors that people so kindly lent me
5. Share  stories with you the reader and make sure that I reply to comments sent to me here. Up until now I have been like an absent landlord but now that this is actually a real proper music site I can give it my full attention so please write to me

Talk soon

Luke

At last the Make Room album from 1986 is now on iTunes (NZ link also on other iTunes versions but link may be slightly different.) Screenshots are below.

Buy a single song or the whole album. Make Room includes the now famous tracks Mona Lisa & Fait Accompli but you should listen to Gandhi’s Rag and MacDougalls Blues which haven’t been out there for 24 years now!

It would be great if regular iTunes users could add some reviews there and share this update on Facebook and elsewhere like Amazon.

Thanks everyone.

Use the widget on the homepage to listen to all songs off both Limited Liability and Make Room.

( Safari or Chrome browsers seem to work better than Firefox for that widget.)

PS. It was Lukes birthday on August 31. Feel free to buy this album of the Live album released last week to celebrate with him.

In time this Make Room album will be on Amazon and other digital stores. This link should search on Luke Hurley at Amazon. Amazon have a new service called Amazon on Demand and we are hoping to use that as it allows for individual CD’s to be completed and delivered on demand. It will only be for selected albums at this point.