Luke Thomas: News

Still anxiously waiting to hear the results of the Top 10 Finalists for the 2010 Guitar Superstar Competition. Regardless of whether or not I made the Top 10, I'm very proud of my submission, my performance, and especially my writing. A friend said that it sounded a lot like Oz Noy, and I'm proud of that. I wrote the tune as a tribute to him after taking a lesson with him in SF. If you're not hip to Oz, you should be. I especially dig the way he uses effects to create the illusion of more instruments in a trio setting.

Wow, what a great week. I am in the studio finishing up some eEnik tracks that are just about ready to be unleashed. I also had a great gig with LT4 at Beckett's with Uriah Duffy (Whitesnake, Lyrics Born), Colin Hogan (Dynamic), and Dickie Ogden (Chemystry Set). We'll be there every Second Saturday. 2271 Shattuck, Berkeley CA. See you soon!

Just finished tracking all of the guitars for the eEnik album... and it sounds awesome. I got to use some great amps from Bogner and Rivera and a slew of killer guitars to get a great sound. You'll get to hear it for yourself soon enough. Check www.eenik.com for more.

My Bogner Alchemist promo video is finally up! This was a lot of fun to do, and it was great to work with Reinhold Bogner. This is a great amp, and a great bargain. Click on the youtube link below to see it, or check it out by clicking Press/Reviews above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSj-RaDcrx8&feature=player_embedded

I love living in LA. Back home in Wisconsin, Dad says it was 30 below zero. That's scary. It was 81 degrees in Anaheim! I got to go to the NAMM Show and hang out with the Bogner crew. Great bunch of guys, great conversationalists, beer drinkers, and all around good guys. I also got to kick it with some friends from Line 6, Rivera Amps, Xotic Effects, Budda Amps, and many other cool companies. I had a great time, and got hooked up with a Bogner Artist Deal. Sweet.

On wednesday night, I got invited to the Van Doren Jazz Jam, and got to sit in with the band. I got to jam with my buddy Diz from Oakland, and got to trade licks with Eric Marienthal (Chick Corea Elektric Band, Elton John, Stevie Wonder). It was great to play with such killing players, and they really dug my playing, which made me feel amazing. That's all for now. Keep watching for pics of my new Bogner Amp!

Ever since the Amp Show, I've been literally dreaming about getting a new Bogner amp. For several weeks, I have on my “To-Do” list “Call Bogner!” in
big, bold letters. I was so excited to
work with Reinhold and record some demos, and I was itchin’ to make it
happen. I had been playing another
Bogner amp, the Uberschall, that afternoon at my new teaching studio at
Westwood Music. It got me thinking,
“Man, I gotta call Bogner and see what’s up with the demos thing.” I didn’t get a chance to make the phone call
and chat with them about getting one, because when I got home that evening, I
had an e-mail in my inbox from Reinhold Bogner, saying “Hey, man, We’re doing a
video shoot for my new amp, the Alchemist.
Do you want to come down and play some stuff?” I hit him back right away, “YES! Where and when?” We set up the shoot for Thursday, just a few
hours before my flight back to Milwaukee
for Christmas. With a bit of luck and
some grace from the Highway 101 Traffic Gods, this just might work.

I arrived at Line 6, where we were shooting because they are
helping Bogner with the marketing of the Alchemist. I got to have a look around one of the most
cutting-edge guitar companies in the world, which was amazing. Into the studio, and I get to bust out my
arsenal: My trusty PRS Custom 22, a Fender Strat and TC-90 with Seymour
Duncans, and my trusty Gibson CS-336. I
figured between those guitars, we should get something cool, and I could show
off what got me the gig – my versatility.
First, I just plugged in the guitars, one by one, into the Alchemist to
get a feel for how everything worked.
It’s an awesome amp, and it covers a LOT of ground, and has built in
delay and reverb. I just noodled around
for a bit, finding the jazzy settings, the bluesy settings, and the
tear-your-face-off-and-throw-it-at-you settings. We loaded up a couple of backing tracks,
including “Final Mission for Spearmint Children” and “Passive Attack” (See the
Japanese guy above), and a couple of my own tunes, “In Memory Of” and “Whatchu
Lookin’ At, Human?”.

I got to lay down some tasty licks in Line 6’s studio and
hang out with some guys who design the toys that we guitar players use to make
our music. It seemed like everyone dug
my playing and the session, and it was time to roll out to the airport. Handshakes all around, and a parting gift
from Line 6: their new M-13 pedal system.
Too cool. I won’t have time to
play with it until I get back from Wisconsin,
but it will be a really sweet Christmas present.

The video editing should be done in the next couple of days,
so if you want to check out the Bogner Promo vid, visit www.bogneramplification.com. Let me know what you think about the shoot
and the amp.

Special thanks to:

-Reinhold Bogner for building the best amps I’ve ever heard
and letting me play on them.

- Aaron, Ben, Rich, and Line 6 for making great gear and
hooking me up with an M-13.

-Craig and Blas for letting me use the eEnik tunes, and
staying up late to get me the mixes in time.

-Juan Carreon at Big Hit Studios for drumming, recording,
and mixing on “Whatchu Lookin’ At, Human?” and “In Memory Of”.

-Jorjeana Marie for supporting me in reaching for the stars,
and for helping me lug all of my guitars around LA and taking me to the
airport.

It's official. I have joined the ranks of the fabulously bizarre - eEnik. We're a progressive-experimental rock'n'roll band. This is not for the faint of heart. Have a looksie in the pics department to see my rig. Check out the blog at www.eenik.com, then find us on myspace at www.myspace.com/eenik.

So here's how I got into the LA Amp Show. I met a lot of cool people and made some great contacts. A week before the show, I was hanging out at the Axe Shop in Studio City,
chatting with the owner and teaching a guitar lesson. A gentleman named Loni Specter came in
carrying some flyers for the LA Amp Show.
I figured this was something I should go to or at least know about, so I
inquired. We got talking, and I found
out that he was the guy who puts the whole show together. He handed me a flyer and I noted the $20
admission cost – a lot of bread for a musician new to LA and on a tight (read
non-existent) budget. I was quick on my
feet that day, and asked him, “Hey man, do you need any help with the
show?” “Yeah, sure,” he said. We exchanged info and he put my name on the
list to get in free. I showed up that day
and collected my VIP Guest Badge (Sweet!) and found out that they were
overstaffed, so I could just hang out and walk around.

First stop, Bogner Amps.
My friend Justin Derrico, who tours with Pink, showed me his collection
of amazing Bogners and I was hooked. I
had actually played one a few years ago in San Francisco, and proceeded to drool all
over it and have dreams about it for the next six weeks. I told Bogner about my amp fantasy and he
told me to talk to the owner and designer, Reinhold Bogner. I walked into the booth and introduced
myself, although no one seemed to notice thanks to the musical efforts of a few
different would-be rockstars testing the boundaries of Reinhold’s amps and the
surrounding structural integrity. I
decided to come back later. Next
stop: Rivera Amps.

I have been using Rivera Amps, namely, an R-100 “Hundred
Duo-Twelve” and a Suprema 55. These amps
have been great workhorses – No problems, great tone, and totally
versatile. It seems like every time I
play a gig, some other guitar player is waiting by the side of the stage to
shake my hand and ask me what kind of amp I’m running. The Rivera guys, Paul, Jr. and Rich, were
just as cool as the amps they make. I
got to try out a few new toys of theirs, including an awesome loop switcher
that I’m saving my pennies for, and their new Venus amp line. Killer.

LA Amp Show: Back to the Bogner room.
This is where it gets interesting.
I walked in and got my chance to jam out on some of the world’s coolest
amps. I talked to Reinhold and told him
what styles I play – pretty much everything.
He plugged me into one of his amps, and I started playing. Smooth jazz chords with a shimmering clean
punch. We edged up the gain a bit for
some bluesy licks, and cranked it to push the amp into metal heaven. I busted out my favorite riff, Passive
Attack, from my new band, eEnik. The
guys in the room were just as excited as I was to hear that this amp could
cover so much ground. Reinhold spoke
with his associate, we'll call him Dude, and mentioned that I was a very solid and versatile
player, and that I would be a good guy for some amp demos they were doing for
their website. I was so stoked, and sat
there feeling like I’d made a friend or two and struck gold. Now here's where it gets weird.


So there’s this Japanese guy standing in the
hallway listening to me play. I bust
into Passive Attack, and he comes running into the room, yelling “What is that
song? I love that song!” He was convinced
that he knew it, though I tried to explain to him that it was a new band, that
we hadn’t played any gigs, yet, and that the recording wasn’t even out. He was determined that he had heard the song
before, and he told me that he had even learned it. Turns out that he replied to the same “guitar
player wanted ad” on Craig’s List that I had, and eEnik had sent him that track
to learn for the audition. Small
world. At this point, Reinhold is
curious about the conversation going on, and greets the Japanese guy by
name. “You know each other?” I ask. “Oh, sure,” says Reinhold. “He’s the distributor for my amps in Japan....!” So here I am trying to meet Reinhold, and his distributor from Japan
loves my band and thinks we’re going to be rockstars. Awesome.
He then proceeded to offer to backline eEnik’s guitar amps for the
Japanese tour. More on this later*.

I then stopped by the Line 6 booth to speak with Rich Renken
and find out why they haven’t updated my favorite pedal, the DL-4 Delay
Modeler. I got to try out a few new
gadgets and gizmos, and offer my feedback.
He showed me their new pedal, the M-13, which sounds and looks like it’s
from a James Bond movie. I dug it, but
the $499 price tag was a bit much for the guy who had to work a deal just to
get into the show… lol. Very cool gear,
though. I also met my new friend Louie
who performs on Sunday nights at a whole in the wall bar inside Canter’s Deli
on Fairfax called the Kibitz Room. The Wallflowers did a lot of their jamming here in the early 90's. Great room, and awesome music on Sunday nights. Say "Hi" to Louie.

Q: What gear are you playing through?

A: I'll have to break it down into categories.

Guitars - My main guitar is a 1998 Paul Reed Smith Custom 22 10 Top with Bird inlays, a stop/wraparound tailpiece, and Dragon 2 pickups. Other guitars include a Fender Lone Star Stratocaster with 2 Texas Specials and a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in the bridge, A Fender Telecaster that I gutted and revamped with Lindy Fralin pickups (single neck, hum with coil-tap in the bridge), and a Gibson CS-336 figured top semi-hollow in tangerine burst.

Amps - I have been using Rivera amplifiers for over 10 years. I usually run a Suprema 55 closed-back combo, sometimes with an extension cabinet 1x12 Rivera or 2x12 Marshall. I also have a R-100 'Hundred Duo-Twelve', which is 100 watts and has two twelve-inch speakers (duh).

Effects - All of my guitar effects are mounted into two Furman pedalboards. I have my favorites, but there are always new additions and substitutions. Click on pictures to see my current setup. Effects include (In order of signal chain) - Board 1: Crybaby wah, Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer, Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive (my secret weapon!), Tech 21 XXL ditortion, Boss TU-2 Tuner, Boss CH-1 Super Chorus. In the effect loop - Board 2: Digitech Whammy, Electro-Harmonix Polyphonic Octave Genereator (POG), MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay, Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress Flanger, Digitech Hyperphase, Digitech Synth Wah, Boss BF-3 Flanger, Boss Volume, Channel Switcher for Rivera amp (not in signal chain)
Board 1: Line 6 DL4 Delay w/ expression pedal, Boss TR-2 Tremolo, Line 6 MM 4 Modulation, and Boss RC-2 Loop Station. I use George L and Horizon Cables to hook 'em all up.

Well, I've done it. My website is finally up - www.lukewhatimade.com.
New pictures, songs, links... what else could you want? Please take a look, sign my guestbook, and sign up for my e-mail
newsletter. I just got back from playing the US Air Force Academy's
year-end bash, performing with country-pop crossover artist and People
Magazine darling Bettina (www.bettinamusic.com) opening for Smash
Mouth in Colorado Springs. I've also been hanging out quite a bit in
LA, and I'm really excited about the opportunities opening up in
SoCal. I also put up some new pictures on myspace. My hair is getting
really long, but I have a haircut scheduled for tomorrow.

Los Angeles.
City of the Angels.
I was always afraid of Los Angeles. Or any other big city. Too many people. Can't trust strangers. Not safe. I want to be safe.

I'm learning to love the city. It's dirty and rough and violent and beautiful and noisy and so incredibly representative of humanity - the best and the worst of us all in one swirling mass of concrete and cars and chaos.

Los Angeles will be good to me. Oakland has been good to me, and San Francisco, and Chicago... I love the city.