And Then What – Episode 4 – Beat Generation

Posted by davenative on August 12, 2014

Nineteen hundreds and ninety-nine ones – add them together and you get one of the craziest years on record —

Massive earthquakes killed tens of thousands in Turkey.

Two sitting presidents (American & Russian) were under impeachment trials.

John F. Kennedy, Jr., Stanley Kubrick, and Joe DiMaggio passed away.

Y2K fears had gripped the world in a paroxysm of fear.

Taylor Swift was born.

It was a crazy year.

For us who were stuck in this thing called The Music Business – we had gone beyond crazyville, and it was scary times indeed – corporate mergers had left Universal with 25% of the marketshare, which was confined to about three musical acts, all of whom were named Britney Spears.

For Native – the dream of a record deal had turned into a reality where we had been judged by the men in suits to have too much variety — we crossed genres, we experimented with new styles, and we failed to follow the dictates of the marketplace. In short, we had evolved into something the corporate heads didn’t want, and we did not want to change – we liked being Native.

So, we followed Prince’s dictate, instead. But, not only did we party like it was 1999, during 1999, we would continue to do so right up until our last gig at Wetlands in late spring 2000. It was an on-going party at Marmfington Farm, night and day, seven days a week, in perpetuity.

Amazingly, whilst partying our selves silly, we also were often sat in our studio, working out new songs. Today’s tune is one I hadn’t finished the lyric for when this rehearsal took place. Perhaps, I was weary of all the bad news, I had regressed back to my college days, and my love of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassidy, and the San Francisco Beats. Now, I was about to rhyme Ferlinghetti with confetti.

All I know is that during that tumultuous year — having this on a tape to listen to gave us a lot of joy, and it went on to be one of the best tracks on the highly under-rated Native album – And Then What.

(BTW – we know Taylor Swift wasn’t born in 1999, that would make her fourteen, and we all know she’s sixteen!)

Beat Generation

The Long Road To And Then What! Part One

Posted by davenative on July 21, 2014

If you are puzzled by this week’s blog title – it refers to Native’s biggest, most ambitious album project. The title, And Then What, was derived from something once said by Sam Hutt (Mat’s dad – better known as Hank Wangford), whilst on a visit during the early days of Native’s existence.

We were watching a serial (you know, the pre-television episodic cliffhangers that thrilled movie audiences in those days of yore when everything was better?), I believe it was Dick Tracy, starring the great Ralph Byrd, made by my favorite studio – Republic Pictures.

In the serial, there was a moment where the evil ringleader of The Spider Gang, tells a henchman something like this – “Go down there, catch that guy, then take him to the river and drown him.” The incredibly compliant henchman nods in obeiance, and off he goes on his murderous task.

Sam’s cogent question was, “Why do the henchmen never say ‘And then what?'”

We had not yet recorded our first record, but the long road to And Then What began at that moment.

Jump cut to early 1999, Native has been touring for a year in support of our second studio album, Exhale On Spring Street (on which we churlishly got Sam’s credit for Wild Atlantic Sea wrong!), Keyboardist and botany expert Chris Wyckoff had settled in as a full member of the band, Woody had built a spiffing studio for us to rehearse, and the often-acerbic John Fitzwater had outfitted that space with a Pro Tools set up.

We were now fully capable of producing our next album, and had built up a large reservoir of new material, so we immediately set to work with surprising alacrity and slothfulness.

One of the very first songs we undertook was written by your humble narrator, and played with great vigor by my bandmates.

I don’t remember writing it, but the lyrics are at variance with those on my own demo of the song, so there must have been an great deal of collaboration on it, which I assume I enjoyed.

Get ready for quite a few more oddities like this in the next few week’s thrilling chapters – we wrote way more than what ended up on the album, and like this submission, the material was very strong, and the henchmen were compliant, and unquestioning.

(Note: The vocals start out quiet, but get louder on this demo – there is nothing wrong with your system!)
Everyday

We Want Our Native!

Posted by davenative on January 29, 2014

Greetings, O minion of the greatest unknown band of the Rock era – Native!

Firstly, let us utter unto thy eyes our wishes, e’er so sincere, that thou hath observed a wonderful holiday season, with many blessings and thithings. May you, and your children, and their children’s children, and all of your long line find peace, love, drinkiness, and smokiness in this new year of our lord and taskmaster, Mat Hutt, who was born on December 25, 1237 b.c.

We are tardy in these betidings because of that recalcitrant knave, Dave, who lives in a cave, and will not behave, or make time between lashings to fulfill his quota of blogs. Scurrilous cur that he is, the feeble phrases of excusitude he offered gave us no recourse but to increase his torture. His words were anathema to our covenant — he’d been busying himself not on our behalf, but plying his efforts to the pursuit of making something called, “New music.” In shock, horror, and inertia, we digressed!

How, sayeth we, canst thy talents be cast so, in the vain quest for that which is not the true Native agenda? How canst thy already abhorrent countenance grow e’er more vile?

Sayeth his tongue with a smirk, “O reader of blogs, O members of the greatest band that no one but a chosen few hath witnessed – forgive my pleadings with more turns from your merciful whip, for I have strayed!

While the flock were still, I sallied forth and made music with shepherds from the nearby hills of Brooklyn, Bronx, and Hastings-On-Hudson. My co-conspirators also beg a lenient thirty lashings for laying down tracks in Satan’s Protools. My mixing and mastering cohort in evil has dethroned to the fallow basements of the New Hope Church, near Gowanus — working unto my songs a sound so pleasing, the angels will weep with antipathy.

Pray, my masters, you will forswear against reprisal upon our mistress of the internets, the crafty lass who has suffered to create a veritable portal to the stars — a website for my own domain in which I lurk and debauche with impunity and justice.

Click not this link, lest thy eyes behold the wonder of these labours:

www.davecave.me

The music, literature, art, and comic books found there will dazzle the soul of e’en the most tireless miscreant.

Do so in the faith and scepticism I have earned in my weekly vault-raiding, bloviating, humble servitude, and reverence to your memory. Hallowed be thy name – Native.

Knowest thou in thy hearts, O readers, that ‘pon the morn of Wednesday next, ye shall see revealed another piece of the puzzle – make that two pieces – in the enigmatic wonder, and conclusion, of the John Watts era as found in Nativology Vol. 3.

And we looked upon this work, and intoned in our least silly voice, “It is good.”

A Tale From Long Ago

Posted by craftlass on October 9, 2013

Editor’s Note: We are absolutely thrilled to put the frontman back at the front today with the first Nativology post by Mat Hutt. Please give him a warm welcome, and if you enjoy this post, make sure to give his blog a gander as well.

***

Let’s just jump right in shall we? We can say hello in a bit.

Rover is a story about abandonment and confronting demons of the past and future.

It became a song that always felt to me like it wielded tangible power. Here’s the story of James MacKinlay…

Rover was one of those songs that kind of wrote itself. It just happened.

Now, there are quite a few elements that led up to writing it, so Iʼll do my best to keep things moving.

This is how I remember it –

I was visiting my Dad and family in London whilst on a quick Native break.

My Scottish Granny told me this weirdly sweet little story.

My Granny: My grandfather was a wee little man, very sweet you know Pet, but he liked to have quite a few nips of whiskey. I would say to my Nana ʻWhy is Granpa walking like that?’ and my Nana would say ʻOch Pet, he’s just got sore feet.ʼ His name was James MacKinlay, but everyone called him Rover. Rover MacKinlay.

On this trip, I had two really cool/intense/cool conversations with my Dad.

My Dad is an accomplished songwriter and musician, and he told me to “write a story song.”

“Songs can’t always be about feelings, Mathew. People want to hear a good story from time to time.” I logged that advice away, because he was right.

The second conversation was a bit heavier. We talked about my Mum and Dad’s divorce, and about why he wasn’t around for a while when I was a kid. Big stuff, ya know? Tears, hugs, laughter and a long time coming. It was a milestone in our relationship.

This is where it gets a bit, well… cosmic. Stay with me.

The conversation took place at the top of an Iron Age earth works fort. It was a powerful place. Full on Celt action.

We were staying with some old school hippie friends. At the inevitable after dinner jam session one of the old hippies showed me this incredible chord that oozed Celtic goodness.

Old Hippie: You can move that form up and down the neck, it’s one of my favorites. Pass the spliff.

The next day, I sat down with a guitar and everything clicked – the story, the name, the lyrics, and the music. Like it was supposed to happen. I know, I know. But I was raised by hippies.

When I got back to New York, I showed it to the band. And again it just clicked. Everyone played the part that the song called for. It was really cool.

From Dave, Woody and Mattʼs driving, hypnotic rhythm, the wonderful pads of organ from whomever was gracing the ivories for us at the time, and finally to Mike’s raw, powerful, and other-worldly guitar work, Rover just… rocked.

There were times when we played live that Mike would grab the song with both hands, and wield it like a mighty Celtic battle club, his slide work literally bludgeoning the audience- and his band mates – with itʼs power and beauty. He brought tears to my eyes on many a night.

Rover was about the fear of being left alone, of having the one you love leave you. It was about the fear of becoming “that” person who leaves and causes the pain – we often become what we know. These are fairly universal feelings, we’ve all felt this way before.

Maybe that’s why Rover carried so much weight. Maybe that’s why it was a band and fan favorite. It sure is one of mine.

Here’s a tale from long ago

Of a man who lived to roam

He liked his drink he liked his song

He always left to be alone

He had a wife so young and fine

He didn’t only drink her wine

Story of James MacKinlay

And Roverʼs blood is pumping in me

Man, it’s really cool to be back on another Cornbread Wednesday! Big props to Dave Thomas for bringing us all this vaulty goodness!

Hey, come check out my blog at huttsez.com – life, kids, wife, sex, kids. Yeah, that pretty much covers it.

Drinky Drinky, Smoky Smoky!

Rover v.1

Diamonds are a girl’s best frenemy

Posted by davenative on September 24, 2013

The quest for economic security leads us all in strange directions. The question soon becomes, “How much of yourself are you willing to give away for that security?”

When Mat Hutt sat down and wrote this week’s featured tune, he would dig a bit deeper into his own experience, as he would do with all his songs from this period, and delve into issues that were gnawing at him in a way that he’d not previously done.

The subject of this song is not conveyed in the title, it’s about a girl who we all knew. A victim of the false quest.

Beautiful, poised, excellently coutured, and always perfect. A bit too perfect, as it turned out, for she was acting the whole time. She was leading a double life.

Her quest had been fulfilled — she had all the glitter, gold, and diamonds she wanted. But, they were empty baubles and trinkets. They were in no way any way a substitute for what she now knew she really wanted. Once you’ve given away your most precious possession – you – the accumulation of wealth and lies becomes an impossible-to-escape vortex.

When the truth came out, it was too late, the vortex would never let her go. The pearls and earrings were now shackles.

We all knew her, and we all felt the deep twinge one gets when remembering an absent and well-loved friend.

She hadn’t died. Her two lives had merely converged for a moment, only to wend away in opposing directions, leaving us wondering what might have been a better life for her.

A life with real love, real people, and nowhere in sight – the vain lure of —

Diamonds

Nativology Pt 3 – The Origin Continues!

Posted by davenative on August 20, 2012

Mat Hutt, Dave Thomas, Matt Lyons, and Mike Jaimes had been jamming in the Mott Street Studio during the wintery months of early 1992. Somewhere along the line, for some obscure reason lost in the smoke-rings of time, it was decided that the nascent ensemble still required the presence of a lead singer to complete the picture.

The band got a timely tip that one of the door men at Wetlands was someone worth talking to. His lead singer potential was readily apparent: possessing a throaty roar, a mastodon-like physique, the longest mane of hair in all humankind, and one of the most rock-star-sounding names, ever — Anthony Balsley.

Despite being more than a bit dubious about the entire project, to his great credit Anthony joined us, and we quickly set about working up new songs to accommodate his style. Anthony was listening to a harder brand of rock than we’d been playing heretofore, but we quickly fell into the new spirit he brought to the table.

The addition of Anthony gave us the chance to rock, and rock we did. The tracks you are about to hear sometimes reach a furious level of rocking. The band was veering closer toward the sound of, say, Alice In Chains, and who knows how things might have gone had he stayed on.

Oh yeah… Anthony, in his brief reign, gave the band something else of great worth — a name. It was Anthony who dubbed the band Native, and that appellation would stay in place even as he departed in December.

But we wrote some great tunes in the preceding months. Here’s four of them:

Next week: Mat Hutt, Ascendant.

Nativology: Pt 2 – The Origin Continues

Posted by davenative on August 15, 2012

In our last installment we saw Mike Jaimes and myself collaborating on Something Worth Remembering, a song that gave us the good idea to get a band together that could play it.

Meanwhile, I was playing in a band called Gods & Goddesses with Mat Hutt.

photo by Dean Thomas

Mat was living downstairs from me at the Clinton Arms (or, ‘The Hippie Hotel, as we called it) on 99th Street. We had lots of mutual friends and musical influences, and I was chuffed when he got me into the band. But, before long, tensions formed within the group. Mat had lots of good musical ideas that were passed over, and quite unfairly, I thought. To my surprise, I got fired, despite Mat’s strong support, and then a couple of weeks later – he got fired. As we commiserated, I thought of Something Worth Remembering, then I thought of Mat’s demos. He had made a slew of recordings on his Tascam 8-track which were very good.

Here’s one — I Am v.1

Mat, Mike, & I took the decision to talk to Matt Lyons, a bassist who played in yet another band I was in — the ever-fabulous Big Whiskey (featuring Pete Russell and Joel Buckley). Mike was the keyboardist in this group and we knew if Matt was our bassist, no matter what we did – it would have balls, big hairy balls.

photo by Dean Thomas

Meanwhile, John Wood lived across the hall from me at the Hippie Hotel, and was endeavoring to write & record songs on the most primitive set-up this side of Barney Rubble. It would be awhile before he became a factor in the band, but he was there at the inception, and stuck around for a very long time. From the beginning I loved his completely original compositions.

Here’s a really great Woody tune — Change Storm

Next week, and every Wednesday till December (Cornbread Wednesdays – Yay!) I’ll be continuing the excavation of Native’s tape vault whereupon one Anthony Balsley enters the picture, and makes a lasting impact on the band.

Till then — Drinky Drinky, Smokey Smokey!

Nativology: Digging through the Native Vault

Posted by davenative on August 8, 2012

Hippie Urban Funk is how Native’s sound is oft described.

But Native was so much more than that — everything they were listening to at the time became a part of their sound. The big ticket influences: The Beatles, The Meters, and The Grateful Dead, could easily switch tracks into realms as diverse as Sun Ra at his most out-there, to Buck Owens’ Buckaroos at their Buckarooniest.

For nigh on ten years, Native toured the northeast relentlessly, wrote, rehearsed and recorded constantly, and lived furiously… with fun being the better part of the equation. That translated directly to their demo tapes, which will be the subject of this examination of their vault.

Formed by Mat Hutt, Mike Jaimes, Matt Lyons, Dave Thomas, and Anthony Balsley in the Spring of 1992, when they convened with a series of late-night jams in a deep underground studio on Mott Street, near Chinatown NYC they shared with The Spin Doctors & others.

A testing-of-the-waters gig was arranged in Mat’s home town of Bar Harbor, Maine, and followed with a steady stream of shows at New York nightspots, mainly Nightengale Bar in the Village, Ruby’s on the upper east side, the newly-opened Wetlands in Tribeca, and the place we would call home-base for several years, McGovern’s Bar on Spring Street.

Anthony departed after six months, but John Wood showed up and played, and never stopped playing. Native quickly developed from sounding like a disparate collection of individuals into a unified whole. Paul Ducharme soon came aboard as Manager.

Over the years, Native was joined by a succession of fine keyboardists: John McGann, John Epstein, John Watts, and the ever-gregarious Chris Wyckoff., all will be featured in this excursion.

Now, guided by Dave Thomas, we’ll delve into that journey, when Native became an ‘it’, a band, as we listen to the multi-track demo’s they made during their heyday. Think of these as bonus tracks to the official albums (all available on the Bandcamp link, as well as iTunes and most other mp3 sites).

This will all lead up to the release of Native’s last studio recordings, December Roses, to commemorate the anniversary of Woody joining and thus creating the core-quintet – the heart of Native for the next decade.

Native’s sound men: Robert Smith, and John Fitzwater engineered them on primitive 20th Century equipment, variable sound quality is to be expected.
This should be a lot of fun! So stay tuned as we travel through the history of Native, and don’t forget…

Drinky, Drinky, Smokey, Smokey!!