Once upon a time there was a Song.

Ladies and gentle friends. It’s finished and accessible!

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:10:43 -0700

Ladies and gentle friends. It’s finished and accessible!

Hectic but fun weekend. This is worship set/church #3 of 4.

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 19:49:25 -0700

Hectic but fun weekend. This is worship set/church #3 of 4.

You guys interested in tracking a solo Molly version of "Irish Whiskey"?

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 19:48:12 -0700

Molly’s in New Orleans mate!

Dear Mr. Clarke - Be Still is one of my favourite songs after hearing it off the Home Again, Vol.6 CD. I would really like to introduce this song into my small group worship sessions in Copenhagen Vineyard but unfortunately I am unable to locate the chords among my Vineyard songbooks and the songteach-insideworship website. I would like to inquire if it would be possible to obtain a copy the guitar chords from you? With kind regards, Patrick Kierkegaard

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 19:47:38 -0700

Patrick- I’ll have to sniff around for a digital copy of that. Please send me an email from the contact page on www.Clarkelanemusic.com with your email…

Cd’s are here! Official release date 3/31. Beautiful...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 19:44:45 -0700

Cd’s are here! Official release date 3/31. Beautiful cover art by @thehudson - (all done on the iPhone)

Lakes were at Clarke Lane Music on Monday, getting to work on...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:31:32 -0800

Lakes were at Clarke Lane Music on Monday, getting to work on their new album. I think we got through a chunk of 8 songs in that one session. I like these guys. And they’re talented!

Visit them at www.Lakesband.com, there will be pictures to come…

Listen to The Fire by Samuel Lane. We love this record, just...

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:29:55 -0800

Listen to The Fire by Samuel Lane. We love this record, just released today. We got hold of the pre-release because Sam did a version of one of our songs, “Your Love Endures” and we got to play / sing on a couple of the tracks. BUT, even if that wasn’t the case, I’d be sharing this record. It’s a good one guys.

If you tend to hate Christian Contemporary music, for it’s lack of depth or samey sound, (or for whatever the reason) you’ve got to give this one a listen. There are songs that you’ll hear congregations singing before long, but there are also songs to brood over and linger in during your day.

Sam’s an authentic believer and a spiritual man, with lots of integrity, which makes listening to his heart felt songs about (and to) Jesus much more compelling. He sings to his God and to his soul. “Peace be with you oh my soul”…

The record is produced by Bobby Hartry of Cat Beach music (grammy award winner) and he did a superb job with Sam’s songs.

If you like rich deep ambient music with guts, very strong vocals and guitars guitars guitars, this one is a getter and a keeper.

Ha! My first music review. Done.

Since I got my hands on this Vintage Urei 1176 (Rack Compressor)...

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 21:14:21 -0800

Since I got my hands on this Vintage Urei 1176 (Rack Compressor) it’s been like learning a new instrument. My good friend Reggie Fisher who’s been producing since the 1970’s has been teaching me his tricks over the past year. It’s all about fine tuning the levels just right for each vocalist. There’s so many variables with gain and compression and limiting. But when you get each stage right that’s where the magic is. There’s no one setting that makes everything sound great, it’s more alive than that. Sometimes you just turn those knobs and it’s like magic. It makes it sound like a record.

Christmas Lights.

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:01:09 -0800

Christmas Lights.

Here’s three of us (Clarke Lane). Left to right, almost...

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:01:13 -0800

Here’s three of us (Clarke Lane). Left to right, almost hiding there is Seth Igarta on bass, Ryan Allshouse enjoying new heads on his kit, and on the right yours truly Darren Clarke. Jessie was behind the camera and we had Kristopher Chavez on mandolin in an adjoining room.

The good thing about recording live like this, is that as soon as you listen back you can more easily tell if you’ve got the take and ‘the magic’ or not. So it ends up saving a lot of time in the long run. You can also get a stronger sense if the feel is right and if the energy is there and you work off each other and feel it. This turned out to be a great session.

Todd Peterson of Red Canary Productions stopped by and got some behind the scenes footage, so hopefully we’ll have something fun to share of that sometime soon, and the EP should be done early in 2013.

Here’s Ryan Allshouse tracking for the Clarke Lane EP. He...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:35:53 -0800

Here’s Ryan Allshouse tracking for the Clarke Lane EP. He and Seth Igarta popped out across the road to Drum Circuit to grab new heads right before we got started. So worth it! Sounded so much better - especially with a new rug we put into the Showcase room below him. Drums were sounding sweet!

I was wearing many hats this weekend as we recorded another...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:23:42 -0800

I was wearing many hats this weekend as we recorded another three songs for our (Clarke Lane) “Your Love Endures” E.P… I was Producing, Engineering and playing. Took a bit of running back and forth, but it was a very good time and I’m excited to pull this EP together, now in the final stages…

You can now download this gem of a single! I produced and...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:24:00 -0800

You can now download this gem of a single! I produced and co-wrote this with the Queen of Indie Swing, Molly Reeves here at Clarke Lane Music last Winter.

It’s a song Molly and I are both very proud of.. We decided we needed to write something from scratch for her solo EP, and that’s what we did. We’ve got Molly on vocals and guitar, Pam Sheffler on Violin, Sam Boorman on electric guitar, Ken Davis on drums, Jamie Mather on Stand up bass and my lovely wife Jessie doing all the backing vocals. I also played ukulele and some guitar textures.

Click on the image and get your own copy!

Another Custom Music project I really enjoyed doing - and a...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:43:26 -0800

Another Custom Music project I really enjoyed doing - and a nifty environmental product to get behind…

Music Produced by Darren Clarke ( Clarke Lane Music ) / Video made by Red Canary Productions.

"It’s one of those days again, When music is your only friend"

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:07:23 -0800

“It’s one of those days again,
When music is your only friend”

- Unknown

Photo

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 23:05:46 -0800

@sethdigarta @dazzamachazza @thatbanjoguy

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:42:12 -0800

@sethdigarta @dazzamachazza @thatbanjoguy

A few months ago I got to record Americana worship leader Ryan...

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:00:53 -0800

A few months ago I got to record Americana worship leader Ryan Delmore singing a song he wrote for the Verses Project! Lots of fun to have him in the house. I also played for him on my sweet Mezzo guitar that Chris Kohler built for him, and mixed and mastered the project. This is a video by Cameron Ingalls of their recording session.

"It’s amazing how long it takes to make a record."

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:53:25 -0800

“It’s amazing how long it takes to make a record.”

- Darren Clarke

Jessie and I are SO stoked to have a consistent band we’re...

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:17:47 -0800

Jessie and I are SO stoked to have a consistent band we’re working with for our new worship songs we’ve been writing over the past year. We have Ryan Allshouse on drums, Seth Igarta on bass (both old friends) and a new friend Kristopher Chavez on mandolin, banjo and backing vocals. Jessie and I write all the music, sing and I play mostly electric guitar, bit of acoustic, bit of ukelele. We’ve been leading worship with them lately and rehearsing now to record in December.

We’ve been writing and arranging these songs for some time now, but when you work with a band live it’s so much more exciting and dynamic and productive. I try to do this with other projects I’m producing, but it’s only recently come together for us to ‘have a band’. We almost forgot how good it feels to have a crew around you that are excited about the music. It’s given us the boost we need to get this record done! Looks like it’s going to be 8 songs, one of them being a new version of our oldie, ‘I love Your presence’.

So we’ll be blogging more and taking you through the process. Y’all come back now y’hear?