That was my advice in 2001.
I still think it’s a pretty good way to go about things, even though my outlook on life is less jaded than it was then, in my post-divorce mood.
Hey ho!
This is Native in our studio, Marmfington Farm, totally live. This was done in preparation of recording the And Then What album.
Hope you’re enjoying the weather, and not writing love letters to the one that got away. It almost goes without saying that love will leave you —
Hey, hey! We’re back, and look – it’s 2015!
We’ve been working on this Nativology project for over two years, now. Hard to believe that when Dave Thomas cued up the four-track demo he and Mike Jaimes made in November 1992 that we’d have come through four volumes of rarities from our vaults!
But, hey, we’ve always been very productive, as evidenced by today’s offering.
When John Fitzwater undertook the production of the album that would come to be known as And Then What, his first act was to get our studio, Marmfington Farm, into the twenty-first century. Gone were the easily-mangled eight track cassettes that had been our mainstay for years. Computer-based recording was the wave, and we were going to ride that wave like raving ninja surfers!
Sadly, we were not ninjas or surfers, and our relationship with technology was pretty much the same one the Frankenstein monster had with fire.
Fire bad!!
To ease the sitch, Fitz wisely led us through some sessions that were not meant for release, but were aimed at allaying our primitive fears, and getting the ninja-thing happening.
So, the new ProTools set-up’s maiden voyage culminated in today’s tune – a classic Grateful Dead song playfully reworked by Mat Hutt. (Note: Version 1, performed by Mike at the same session, appeared on Nativology Vol. 2)
In and waaaaaay out of the garden he goes —
And Then What was planned as an album, knowing that it would be our last one. We wanted to get all the latest material, developed during Chris Wyckoff‘s reign on keyboards, circa 1997-2000.
But, we also wanted to do a few tracks of songs that had fallen between the cracks, so to speak. As seen in this Nativology series, we left a lot of songs on the cutting room floor.
Good songs, we were thinking, as with today’s entry, which we offer as proof that we were a very good band in the studio -tight, but without rigidness, or semblance of restraint.
Listen to how Mike, knowing he will redub his guitar later, plays around with several musical ideas and motifs, switching like a gadfly from one to the next.
And then there Mat Hutt‘s startling- spine-tingling, powerhouse vocal!
Mat really dug deep when he wrote the song, based on an experience from some year’s hence, but no less painful for time’s passage.
In this passionate take, Mat summons up everything he was feeling when he wrote it, and in the process gives us one of his best-ever performances!
This song would see it’s final form take shape during the sessions at Marmfington Farm in 2005, when Mike would finally redub his guitar, Woody would add his harmony, Chris would add piano, and Dave would roll the doobies!
But, here it is in the rough mix John Fitzwater did the day we recorded it in late 2000.
Native 