If you don’t risk anything, you’re gonna risk it all

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This is Nativology.

Every Wednesday, Cornbread Wednesday, that is, my band, Native posts an unreleased song from our vast underground archives in the Cave of Dave.

I, the just-mentioned Dave, as Archivist, Historian, Rockologist, and all-round Pain in the Ass, do ascribe to scribe some scribbles about said unreleased songs, in the hope that the listener may have some contextual coherency, greater musical understanding, and less of a need to jump out the window.

Music can do that. Especially good music. And, music that is damn good — well, that might actually make you feel like shutting the window, cracking open a tall, frosty one, and telling Ethel to put on that crazy flannel thing with the straps.

Today’s selection hails from the mighty year of 1995, when men were men, and women were getting sick of it.

Mat Hutt is the main songwriter of this piece, and it comes to you today as an unreleased tune for a fine, very understandable reason. But, it’s one we’ve forgotten. Now, armed with the 20/20 hindsight of our 20/20 foresight, we can see that it was more like 20/20 shortsightedness. We rarely played this wonderful song much, and it never really got its’ day in the sunlight; it was left on the shelf like a can of dried tomatoes.

Mat, our chief songsmith, really delved into transcribing and translating our tacit belief that if we put ourselves out there, on the line, performing all the time; if we were perfectly willing to starve in the process & utterly fearless in the face of the vast Dali-esque plane of existence that is an artist’s life (complete with melting watches and Madonnas made of bees), that we would persevere.

To do otherwise, to waste our talent and bend to conventional wisdom, which says: “Get a job, Jerkface. Music is a nice hobby for special people, of which you are not one.”

But, the problem with conventional wisdom is that it is rarely conventional, and never wise.

Mat got it right. Not just for us, but for anyone with talent who dares to throw themselves out there, Candide-like into the sometimes fulfilling, oftentimes uncaring, always-changing Tilt-a-Whirl world a performer faces each night:

If you don’t risk anything, you’re gonna risk it all.

So, I’m going to sing for you

Even If I Fall

Cornbread Wednesday

A Hot Day in the Studio with John Epstein

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In the wintry months of early 1995, Native was in the midst of an extended song-writing period. Our self-titled first album had been out for a year, and it seemed to the band that, as good as it was, the issues we *did* have with it all centered around the fact that we had little control over the aspects of its production. With that in mind, we set about preparing an album we would produce ourselves. And with our ever-growing prowess at songcraft, it was sure to be a far, far better thing we would do than we had done before.

Native was touring quite a lot during this period, as well as enjoying residencies at two NYC clubs — Wetlands on Mondays, and McGovern’s on Wednesdays. With rehearsals on Tuesdays & Thursdays, and longer treks out to the northeast corridor on weekends, we were in our first prime period. We were starting to headline our own shows more & more, and gigs at larger venues like Tramps (opening for the Dixie Dregs) loomed ahead.

In this hothouse period, the band arrived for a session at Marmfington Studio one frosty Thursday wherein John Epstein unveiled his newest song which, in my not-so-humble opinion, ranks easily as his greatest contribution to Native’s catalogue. Considering the freezing New York City winter outside, we were bowled-over by the warmth of both the out-of-context setting (Florida) and the emotions conveyed (love & respect) John so eloquently infused in every measure.

To this day, I find myself amazed at the completeness it had. Usually, the band would work hard to expand on our songs. Mike, especially, was great at coming up with bridges and musical passages. But none of this was needed for this unexpected delight, which went to the top of our shortlist for the projected album due to start in the spring.

Unforeseen events would make that album an impossibility, so now all that exists of this rare song is this demo, recorded live to DAT by John Fitzwater one very, very cold evening.

Hot Day

Cornbread Wednesday

The Return of the Nativology: Call My Name

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Nativology Vol. 2 resumes as we harken back to those thrilling days of yesteryear, and explore the songwriting and evolution of Native.

Native toured constantly throughout the nineties. The five core members of the band lived together in a Garment District loft, just steps away from Madison Square Garden. The living environment suited the hothouse atmosphere of creativity that was surging and burgeoning in the nascent psyches of the band.

Everyone was writing tunes and had the luxury of a band at arms’ length to give it a go and see what the darned thing sounded like. Today, we call that Protools, only that software is not programmed to have opinions or tell you that you smell bad.

When John Epstein joined up in late 1993, all attention was given to catching him up on the songs that existed before his entrance, recording an album with two hurriedly-written songs by him, and playing an endless amount of gigs to support the eponymous album.

By the early winter of 1995, all that was done & dusted. It was time for some new tunes.

We already had today’s featured tune on the back-burner, and had done an interesting version of it at Epstein’s old alma mater, the Institute for Audio Research (IAR), in late ’94.

But now, armed with a new Tascam 8-track cassette recorder, we gathered with our live soundman, John Fitzwater, to initiate a series of recordings that would run throughout the Spring of ’95.

This, and the mixes that will follow in the coming weeks, no longer exist in the Native vault in their multi-track form. So, we will be presenting them in all the glory of their original mixes, done by Mr. Fitzwater, with us looking over his shoulder and being really annoying.

Call My Name

Cornbread Wednesday

December Roses (Red)

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December Roses (Red) is one of my favorite Native tracks, and it shows that during our final period of writing/recording we were continuing to evolve and improve.

I can’t be all pedantic, impartial, and removed about this one. No amount of objectivity is available to me. When I hear it, it’s like a piece of my very being has been painlessly removed and made palpable.

Joyce Thomas, Dave's mother

My mother, Joyce, in Hollywood in 1950

My Mom had one song that she played on piano — Debussy’s Clair de Lune. I think of her whenever I hear this tune. It’s both the saddest and the happiest song I ever wrote.

December Roses

You Just Can’t Leave It Alone

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Of all the many and wondrous events that took place at New York’s legendary McGovern’s Bar (and there are countless such events) the one that never fails to amaze is our memory of the night The Beatles debuted a new song, Free As A Bird as a finale to part one of their Anthology Specials.

The guys in Native were at the bar, raptly watching it with all the other patrons who’d gathered around the TV, while Mat Hutt and Steve Greenberg (a.k.a. Steve McGovern) frantically tried to keep up with calls for libation from the teeming horde. Standing in that horde was one Dan Hovey who, along with his sterling band, The Haunted Lobsters, was on the bill for that night’s entertainment.Dan Hovey

No band in their right mind wants to compete with the Beatles, so it was not thought unusual that the Lobsters were delaying their set until the show was over. Cue the extraordinary video that accompanied Paul, George, Ringo, and John Lennon’s distant, haunting vocals, and the inevitable subsequent razzing Dan & the band got — “Yeah, go ahead, guys! Follow that!”

We now come to the part that I hold in amazement — Dan and The Lobsters calmly went on stage, picked up their instruments, and proceeded to play Free As A Bird perfectly from start to finish, a song the whole world had only just heard for the first time. Leaving everyone in the place incredulous and dumbstruck, they went on to perform their set.

The onus was on Native now, as people around the bar turned to us with: “Yeah, go ahead, guys! Follow that!”

We were always in awe of Dan and his buckets of talent. So, when the day came that he presented us with a song, we were more than blown away, we worked harder than ever to do it justice.

Haunted LobstersCan’t Leave It Alone became a setlist tentpole for us. When all else was going wrong, we could reliably pull it out of our bag of tricks and set things right again. It’s such a great melody, and the little turns of phrase throughout are the hallmark of a truly gifted writer of those pesky word-things. In one tune, Dan upped the ante, and we were better for it.

Dan now lives in the D.C. area. His website is danhovey.com. We’ve tried to contact him through it, but the mail folder appears to be not functioning. So, here’s our way of saying thank you, Dan. You are a better man than we. Your guitar prowess is unassailable. Your songcraft is inspiring. And, The Haunted Lobsters live on in the firmament of our collective amazement. Rock on!!!

Can’t Leave It Alone

Just Want To Love You

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Love has confounded, confused, and consternated the world’s greatest poets down through the ages. Ancient cave drawings depict hunters bringing food to their little honey back at the grotto. The earliest artifacts known to mankind are fertility totems such as the Venus of Willendorf . From Shakespeare’s earliest sonnets to Taylor Swift’s latest flame-outs, love’s mystifying ways are laboured over with analytical acuity surpassing any other subject, no matter its popularity — sorry, Pro Football and Women’s Shoes.

Venus of Willendorf

Venus of Willendorf by Matthias Kabel

Love is the focal-point of every moment in our waking lives, whether we are aware of it or not. The poets knew, of course, for love has played muse to countless and uncounted lyrical flights of fancy, and not-so-fancy. Even so, it is the most elusive of subjects, evading the grasp of so many would-be giants of literature. It is simultaneously secular and sacred. It’s evident in a child’s first gaze, and it’s invariably cited in the eulogy after that child has grown, lived a full life, and passed from this mortal coil.

The extent of our love defines us. Which brings me around to the subject of today’s featured song.

Michael Jaimes wrote Native’s purest ode to the venerable subject of love somewhere around 1995. Just Want To Love You was first performed on a demo recorded at the infamous Marmfington Farm Studio in that year, and my chief memory of the occasion was how simple, stark, and direct it was in dealing with this most universal and pervasive of subjects. It became a tentpole in our setlists from that day forward. It even migrated into the repertory of later bands in which Mike played, like Spacebar.

Native had many songs that dealt with love, but it was always in the context of circumstances arising from the emotion, the detritus of love, if you will. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for a lyricist to write of love in such roundabout ways, indeed in rock music it’s the more likely route. After all, the definition of corny is found in love songs, and no self-respecting rock star wants to ever be on the same planet as corny.

But, Mike just dealt with it head-on. I found it very brave. He says what he will do, and will not do in love. And in that simple act, he defines his own very essence, for how we love is who we are.

Just Want To Love You

I Think, Therefore…

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Frank Hightower, the character in the song, I Think, Therefore… from the new Native mini-album December Roses, is a man who has done what most of us only dream of doing — he’s completely run away from reality and gone to live in a hole in the ground. He’s hunkered, bunkered, cut-off, and removed. His cynicism has peaked, and his answer to that cynicism is to hide away.

But, cynicism is oft-times merely a result of misreading the message of events.

When something bad happens to us we want to blame something, point fingers, shout, look defiant. We swathe ourselves in piety, wallowing in the luxurious agony of being so greatly misunderstood. We seek sanctuary, solitude, aloneness. We seek a lonely mountaintop on which, there and only there, can we reflect, assimilate, attain the higher fruits of existence, find true meaning, reach Godhead.

But, rather than a mountaintop, we settle for a hole. Not even a cellar, but a cold, dirty place in which to drill down into the furthest recesses of our darkest side.

Fortunately, we are creatures that like comfort, and before long we emerge from the gravelly depths. Sometimes renewed, sometimes regressed, and sometimes enlightened.

Frank Hightower is not exactly the emergent hermit triumphant at the precise moment in his life this song occupies. Far from it.

The hole he’s dug himself into has reached that most paradoxical of happy places — rock bottom.

He’s starting to ponder whether maybe, he might just have misread events.

He’s considering the question of his own thought processes, his powers of judgement, his criteria. Is he, or is he not the ultimate arbiter of what fate bestows?

I Think, Therefore…

December Roses (Blue)

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“December Roses” is a song that went through a long gestation period before the final version was reached, and even then it waited over ten years to reach the public with the release of the simply fabulous December Roses mini-LP two weeks ago.

Originally intended to be part of a quite long and ambitious medley, the song now exists as a quite concise three-minute exercise in everything Native does well, whilst also treading very new ground.

I remember very well the occasion of recording the original demo of the song, shortly after finalizing the Exhale On Spring Street album. In a fit of nostalgia, Mike Jaimes & I had set up the old analog tape machines we had lying around, one at his house & the other at Marmfington Farm Studio. This enabled Mike to work at home & allowed me to do follow-up work at the Farm. The plan didn’t last long however, as the device at Mike’s place broke immediately after our first endeavor with this set-up. That singular piece was the December Roses demo.

In that first attempt, my ambitious structure for the song ran close to eight minutes long, and incorporated a short section entitled Thunderstruck. (The demo is still in our vault, and I intend to put it out in a future Nativology post.)

The band thought the whole thing a bit, shall we say, lugubrious and not unjustifiably so. It featured a long verse section before getting to what was for all intents and purposes two back-to-back choruses – plus the aforementioned secondary song in the place of what normally would have been a bridge of no more than eight bars.

The first thing cut was the verse, which admittedly was very autobiographical on my part. The next section that got axed was the lyric to Thunderstruck which was quite good, but had the sad distinction of sharing a title with a famous AC/DC song. So long, Thunderstruck!

What was left was the two choruses, the first of which became the verse, while the now-wordless chords to Thunderstruck remained as a bridge.

This is what we recorded in 2001.

Now, jump-cut to 2004, wherein Mike & I have revived the project. Not much was done to the track with the exception of adding some background voices (myself & guest star Lizzie Loves). At the mixing stage, engineer extraordinaire Craig Randall and I noticed that there was a very good acoustic version of the song laying there under the electric version. In a fit of genius, we made a mix of the under-mix. That became what we now have —

December Roses (Blue)

December Roses Is Here!

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December Roses cover

Just in time for the festive season, Native is releasing an all-new mini-album — December Roses!

Recorded by the full band linep-up: Mat Hutt (Vocals, Guitar), John Wood, (Vocals, Percussion), Mike Jaimes (Vocals, Lead Guitar), Matt Lyons (Bass), Chris Wyckoff (Keyboards), and David Thomas (Drums, Vocals).

Produced by John Fitzwater & David Thomas, December Roses displays a band at the peak of its powers. The performances are stellar, with Mat, Woody & Mike harmonizing better than ever, the rhythm section of Mat Lyons and Dave Thomas cooking up one hot groove after another, & the extraordinary flights of incendiary, cosmic guitar virtuosity of Mike Jaimes at his apex. Throw in the Cajun-infused piano of Chris Wyckoff, and wonderful guest appearances by Catherine Russell and Lizzie Friel (aka, Lizzie Love), and you have the perfect choice for holiday listening. Or, any day, for that matter.

December Roses is not a Christmas album, per se, but rather a meditation on the feelings one gets this time of year, which in the contradictory-logic of Native, makes it a perfect summer album as well.

Check it out today! And, remember — there’s no better holiday gift than December Roses.

Buy Now at Bandcamp

Coming soon to all other online music retailers.

Love Will Leave You Mystified!!

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Mystified is a song Native played a lot right before we made the recordings that would become And Then What and December Roses. It quickly became a fan favorite, and a band favorite. It’s rousing, rambunctious, has great sing-a-long harmonies, and it modulates!!! There’s nothing like a good modulation.

When I wrote it, I was writing to myself, trying to pep myself up after a very trying period where my marriage fell apart — so it’s not a diatribe against the fine institution of wedlock — just the words one says to make a friend feel better by downplaying the importance of it. Matrimony does not suck — I want to be on the record about that.

And now I am!!

With the release of December Roses I can finally rest easy, knowing that such a great song is out there, after such a long waiting period.

Why did it take so long to get it out?

Well, the whole history of these recordings is one fraught with delays, disaster, distractions, more delays, and finally — dismay.

We started to make an album in late 2000, convening at our Marmfington Farm Studio located in a top secret location everybody knew about on 26th Street, NYC. Our long-suffering soundman, John Fitzwater helmed the Producers seat and the band proceeded to enthusiastically lay down the many new songs developed since 1998’s Exhale On Spring Street.

Things went great, then things went bad.

Mat moved to California, something we knew was coming, but he and we did not want to break up, and the proof is this stellar set of recordings, surely our best.

When Mat moved away (after an epic gig at Wetlands) the rest of us continued on with completing the record, such was our love of the music.

But, Marmfington Farm was not a fully air-conditioned studio and we made the fateful decision to take a hiatus on recording for what was expected to be a long, and very hot summer.

Indeed, it was. But we scheduled a session with Mike to do his guitar leads. The day we scheduled it was September 11, 2001.

Next week, the story of the amazing journey to finishing the album continues… till then — remember,

Love will leave you —

Mystified