James Loney: Feel the Music

Featured Artist:  School's Open
Venue:               School II
Date:                 Wednesday, November 17
Time:                 7:00pm

About the time he was turning twenty, guitar hobbyist James Loney was working at a fast food joint on Hennepin Avenue.  A band called the Flamin' Oh's walked in so Loney offered them free burgers whenever they felt like swinging through.  Singer Robert Wilkinson took him up on the offer and soon after Loney was traveling with the band as a guitar tech.  Not only did this fill Loney's Friday and Saturday nights with work and music, it provided him a group of musicians who were willing to mentor him.

Loney says whether or not they knew they were teaching, he learned a lot from the members of the Flamin' Oh's during this period.  He credits Wilkinson with encouraging him to sing when he had never considered himself a singer.  Even with Wilkinson's urging, Loney did not take the leap into singing until he was auditioning lead singers for his band.  Unimpressed, he realized he could get what he was searching for in his own voice.

Loney's songwriting followed suit with his singing.  He has always enjoyed stream-of-consciousness journaling.  Songwriting, he feels, is a very similar experience to his journaling but simply formatted differently.  Loney's writing and music are his release.  He does them both daily and never considers it "practice" because labelling it as such "just sounds like it would be awful." 

Loney's recording of his original song, "Book About Dreams," was included in the soundtracks for the 1997 film, Just Write, with Jeremy Pivven and the 2000 film, Luckytown, with Kirsten Dunst and James Caan.  The Flamin' Oh's, Soul Asylum, The Phones, and Golden Smog are a few of the groups Loney's bands, House of Mirrors and James Loney and The Velvet Troubadours, have played with live.

 His EP, Who's the Lucky One? boasts Loney's personal folk/rock blend.  After a 13-year hiatus from live shows, Loney is back playing solo gigs and can also be spotted sharing the stage with Robert Wilkinson and Paul McFarland. Hear him perform and experience this original artist feel the music.

Learn more about James Loney and where you can catch his shows:
James Loney Music