Jonah Matranga is a Sacramento-rooted vocalist, guitarist and singer-songwriter best known as the frontman of the post-hardcore band Far and for his solo project Onelinedrawing.[1][2] He has been described in the Sacramento press as a "local legend" who developed his career in the city before relocating to the Bay Area.[3][2]
At a glance
- Frontman/vocalist-guitarist of Far, the Sacramento post-hardcore band.[1]
- Solo project: Onelinedrawing; also played in New End Original and Gratitude.[1]
- Credits Sacramento's cheap rent, music scene and all-ages clubs for letting him develop as a musician.[2]
- Provided guest vocals on Fort Minor's single "Where'd You Go" (Mike Shinoda's side project).[4]
- Now lives in the Bay Area but returns to Sacramento to perform.[2]
Origins and local status
Matranga grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, and left in 1987 to attend Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he majored in English.[5] He had never visited Sacramento before moving there to form Far — according to the No Echo interview, he met founding bassist Malcolm O'Keeffe through mutual friends, and O'Keeffe was organizing a band in Sacramento, so Matranga gave it a try; he slept on O'Keeffe's bedroom floor that first summer.[6]
Matranga spent a substantial portion of his musical career in Sacramento, developing his band Far and his solo project Onelinedrawing there.[2] Submerge repeatedly frames him and Far as belonging to Sacramento: Far is called "Sacramento's Far," and Matranga is identified among "Sacramento locals."[1][4] At a 2012 hometown performance he publicly thanked the city, explaining that he owed Sacramento his gratitude for the music scene, cheap rent and all-ages clubs that allowed him to flourish as a musician.[2] He also recalled going to shows at Sacramento's Cattle Club as a young person.[3] By 2012 he had moved to the Bay Area but continued to return to town to play shows.[2] These origin cues place him firmly as a local artist by point of origin, even after relocating.
Far
Far emerged in Sacramento in the mid-1990s, in the same era that local bands Cake and Deftones were signing to major labels while post-hardcore was developing in the city.[1] The band's complete studio discography runs to five albums: Listening Game (1992) and Quick (1994) as indie releases, Tin Cans With Strings to You (1996) on Epic/Immortal, Water & Solutions (1998), and At Night We Live (2010); the band also issued the Soon EP in 1997.[7] Water & Solutions is widely regarded as the band's masterpiece, blending punk, post-hardcore and pop.[1] Submerge notes that Far is one of the rare bands that grew in popularity after disbanding.[1]
Far's founding lineup featured Matranga (vocals/guitar), Shaun Lopez (guitar), and Chris Robyn (drums), with Malcolm O'Keeffe as the original bassist — it was O'Keeffe who organized the Sacramento band and recruited Matranga.[6][8] John Gutenberger, listed in Submerge's coverage of the band's reunion-era lineup as the bassist,[1][4] came in place of O'Keeffe in the later configuration.[8] Submerge characterizes the band as blurring the line between nü-metal and emo rock, and suggests its influence "should have" reached well beyond Sacramento.[4]
Reunion and At Night We Live
A reunion nearly happened around the 2004 re-release of Water & Solutions but did not materialize.[1] Around 2008 the members re-emerged under the joke moniker Hot Little Pony, recording a cover of Ginuwine's 1996 hit "Pony" — a song they used to play before shows back in the day — laid down by Lopez and Robyn in Los Angeles with Matranga adding vocals.[1] After a deliberately low-hype run of shows (including dates in the U.K. and Los Angeles), Far played a homecoming show at the Empire in Sacramento on January 15, 2009.[1] The reunion led to At Night We Live, released May 25, 2010 on Vagrant — the band's first album in 12 years — which closes with the "Pony" cover that had seeded the reunion.[4]
Solo work and other projects
After Far's 1998 demise, Matranga became most notable for his solo work under the name Onelinedrawing.[4] His two full-length albums under that moniker — Visitor (2002) and The Volunteers (2004) — were both released on Jade Tree Records; he retired the onelinedrawing name in 2004 but revived it in 2012.[9] He also performed in the bands New End Original and Gratitude.[1]
Matranga's band Gratitude released a self-titled album in 2005 on Atlantic Records, with members Jeremy Tappero, Mark Weinberg, Bob Lindsay, and David Jarnstrom, produced by Jim Scott; the band dissolved after Weinberg quit.[10]
He gained mainstream radio exposure by providing vocals on the Fort Minor single "Where'd You Go," Fort Minor being the side project of Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda.[4] The song reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Matranga his highest-charting mainstream exposure.[11]
As a solo performer he appears as a one-man acoustic act, accompanied only by guitar and PA, sustaining ongoing banter with the audience and drawing material from both his solo catalog and Far.[2] At a free Hot Lunch Concert Series show at Fremont Park in downtown Sacramento on June 14, 2012, he opened with acoustic Prince covers ("Purple Rain," "Kiss," "The Cross"), played a Beatles cover ("In My Life") on request, and performed originals including "Every Mistake" (dedicated to his daughter) and "Smile."[2] By that time his songs frequently touched on the music business and on watching his daughter grow up.[2]
Scene relationships and collaborations
Matranga is woven into the broader Sacramento music community. He contributed his "signature falsetto" to the hook of the track "Evening Push" (over verses by local MC Task1ne) on Tel Cairo's debut album Voice of Reason (2013).[3] Tel Cairo's Cameron Others and 7evin described him as someone they had looked up to and watched at Sacramento's Cattle Club growing up, and noted the collaboration was handled remotely over email.[3] He was scheduled to perform with the rest of the Voice of Reason vocalists at the album's release show at Midtown BarFly on April 4, 2013.[3]
He has also remained a recurring presence on Sacramento's free summer concert series: he was booked for the 2015 Concerts in the Park lineup at Cesar Chavez Plaza on June 12, 2015, alongside acts including Kevin Seconds and The Storytellers.[12]
His former Far bandmates branched into other Sacramento-connected projects: Lopez fronted The Revolution Smile; Robyn and Gutenberger formed the more pop-oriented Milwaukee; Gutenberger later formed Two Sheds with his wife Caitlin and also played with Jackpot.[1][4]