Goodbye/Hello

Goodbye/Hello is the self-released album by The Luke Walton Band: Luke Francis Walton (then publicly credited as Luke Walton; not Luke Walton the basketball coach), Logan Shrewsbury (drums), Peter Lee Johnson (violin), and Nick “Thor” Campbell (bass). The group formed in USC Thornton’s inaugural Popular Music Program during the 2009–2010 school year, playing weekly around Los Angeles before a self-booked summer 2010 California coast tour (San Diego to San Francisco) with Rozzi Crane and Liplash, Walton and Crane’s first tour together. The Luke Walton Band ran one bill; Crane’s band was the same Walton lineup with Sam Wilkes on bass. On September 24, 2010, the band closed a USC Thornton night at Rusty’s Surf Ranch on the Santa Monica Pier. Neon Tommy (Cynthia Balderas, September 25) puts the Derik Nelson Band and Rozzi Crane on before them, and lists “Goodbye,” “Heart in Hand,” a “Crossroads” cover, “Stay the Same,” “A Good Girl,” “Where We’re Going To (Go),” and an acoustic Taylor Swift cover she calls “Love Song,” folded into “Hello Beautiful.” Concert Archives has that same Friday as Rozzi, luke walton, and Dainty. An earlier Rusty’s bill, May 21, 2010, is Elias, Rozzi, luke walton, and Pinhead.

Spring semester of freshman year, circa 2010, he was jamming in the dorms at Pardee Tower. The photo has no exact day.

He played the San Diego County Fair more than once in 2010. One date is acoustic, probably June. July 4, 2010 is Luke Walton and Jordan Sorokin as The Luke Walton Band, filling in. The drummer in that frame is not named. That night is not the July 4, 2011 Del Mar Fair set.

May 1, 2012. Left to right: Peter Lee Johnson, Luke Walton, Logan Shrewsbury, Rozzi Crane, Mia Minichiello, Nick Campbell. The venue is not named.

Recovered discography (archived lukewaltonband.com CDs & Lyrics): Just A Friend (2007) → Heart in Hand (2008) → The Other Side (2009, Luke Walton feat. Blue Suburbia) → Goodbye/Hello (2010, The Luke Walton Band). Parallel band line at La Costa Canyon (solo EPs ran at the same time): Rock I IV V (2006 school club, named for the I–IV–V progression) · Casey McSocial (2006, bass: Walton’s first band; won LCC Battle of the Bands, Luke archive memory) · Mannequin (2006–2008, original songs: co-founded as equals by Walton, Jonathan Gillie (guitar) and Zach Freeman (drums); second place at LCC Battle of the Bands, Luke archive memory) · Blue Suburbia (2008–2009, classic rock / blues trio; won LCC Battle of the Bands, confirmed in the 2009 Coast News profile). Walton did not compete freshman year, which is what makes the three-band run add up to the Coast News line about winning all but one year; he recalls the competitions falling in the first semester but is not certain. Round by round, with sources: Catalog: LCC Battle of the Bands. Luke graduated early from La Costa Canyon in January 2009. Walton: guitar, piano, voice, songwriting on the solo EPs; store credits as “Luke Walton,” national radio and television, and a YouTube campaign from December 2008 before the USC cohort adopted his name as the marquee.

The public break was the March 21, 2009 Taylor Swift “Love Story” date video (300k+ views). Luke rewrote “Love Story” to ask Swift for a date. She never responded. In May, the San Diego Union-Tribune covered encore screenings of We Must Remember, a Carlsbad High Holocaust documentary Walton scored, naming him as composer and performer at MovieMax Carlsbad. The press did: San Diego Reader (“Swift Serenade,” June 17: a recent graduate of La Costa Canyon rewriting “Love Story” on YouTube, KSON and local television paying attention, and the video clocked at roughly 45,000 hits at the time of writing). Six days earlier, the June 11 Reader lists him on a Sunday acoustic bill at Swedenborg Hall, 1531 Tyler Avenue, University Heights, 7:30 p.m.: Brooklyn Mack, with Jessica Lerner, Karen Real, Jordan Reimer, Sven-Erik Seaholm, and Luke Walton (screenshot). June 11, 2009 was a Thursday, so that Sunday is June 14. The June 2009 San Diego Troubadour prints the same night as Sunday • 14, 7:30 p.m., Acoustic Nights with Sven-Erik Seaholm, Brooklyn, Jordan Reimer, Jessica Lerner, Karen Real, and Luke Walton (screenshot). NBC New York, the Orlando Sentinel, Nashville City Paper, San Diego Union-Tribune (July 10), a print feature in Country Weekly, a Winter 2009 cover of USC Trojan Family Magazine: Walton alongside Peter Lee Johnson, Leland Cox, and Mia Minichiello (PDF via Wayback), and a July 2009 trip to Nashville. Luke graduated a semester early from La Costa Canyon in January 2009 and used the open spring/summer before USC for a video project. The “Six Months To Make It” vlog (21 episodes, January–July 2009) was that project. Episode 1, “Driving Test,” went up January 12, 2009. The Coast News covered it as a young North County musician’s run-up to USC and Goodbye/Hello. One episode captures getting into USC Thornton’s inaugural Popular Music Program.

Goodbye/Hello landed September 1, 2010 on Bandcamp, eleven tracks (~35:05 on the official site), pop rock / Los Angeles, digital album at 16-bit/44.1 kHz with per-track streaming on Bandcamp. Full per-track lyrics archive (2012 captures): Goodbye · Hello Beautiful · Stay The Same · A Good Girl · Dead End Love · Where We’re Going To (Go) · Just A Friend · Heart in Hand · Who Needs Tears · Preschool · Missin’ the Way. Five cuts reissued from solo EPs: Preschool, Dead End Love, and Who Needs Tears share lyrics with the 2006/2008 versions; Just A Friend and Heart in Hand were rewritten for the LP.

Preschool has a distinct earlier commercial credit: track 5 on Charitable Chords’s Know Your Rights (In Collaboration With Knit The World): June 10, 2010, billed as Luke Walton (Blue Suburbia). Jake Barnes’ student charity project (Social Justice course); proceeds to Knit The World (Sarah Edelstein). Same song, three months before the Luke Walton Band LP: Blue Suburbia name on the comp, band marquee on Goodbye/Hello.

All eleven tracks now link to Songs. Present-tense credits use Luke Francis Walton or Scoobert Doobert; the bare “Luke Walton” credit belongs to this historical window only.

Listen: Bandcamp · Amazon Music · Wikidata