Just Getting Started

You might want to check out the song here first.

The year was 1998. I had moved back to Louisville from New York City (for the second time).  I had wrapped up recording my first album Who Are The Navigators, and I was all set to promote the album.  I had had some positive reviews, and I had played on several local television stations, and WFPK started spinning the album.  For me, the next logical step was to take the show on the road. I wanted to start playing nearby cities like Cincy, Lexington and Indy.  I figured if I could make all that happen in Louisville, I could do the same in other cities.

I had a label of sorts- Snug Records. The label had managed to put up the money to record the album, and it might be interested in putting some money into promoting the damn thing. I also had a band, but the band had day-jobs that they were really invested in, so the goal was to stay close to Louisville, so they might have a few sleepless nights, but that they would be able to pull it off.  I had played a gig with a pickup band in New York City and had a release party of sorts.  The whole thing went pretty well.

Then the plug was pulled.  The only possible way to make this whole thing was an investment, and Snug Records effectively stopped putting money into it.  I was confused by the whole thing. At the very moment we were building momentum, we stopped.  I felt frustrated and angry, and I wrote "Just Getting Started." It was kind of a grungy Crazy Horse type song, and I began writing more like it. Pretty soon I had a whole set of angry rock songs, which didn't exactly gel well with my rootsier singer-songwriter stuff, so I started a new band- The Money Shots.

The Money Shots recorded it, but the Money Shots only played one show. We were mostly a studio band. Oddly enough, the same group (Colin Brown and Dave Humphries) were the ones who layed the foundation for Lost and Found. 

At any rate, fast forward several years later, and I'm back in New York, and I'm playing with Phelim White and Andrew Emer in the Navigators.  We managed to mix the singer-songwritery stuff with the more aggressive songs pretty well.  Something about a trio made us able to pull that off.  We had fewer tricks to rely on, and so we could move through several different sounds in a set, but they would all sound like us.

We recorded this twice.  The first version was recorded in Graham Hawthorne's studio with Charlie Martinez.  It sounds a lot like we sounded live.  There was an instrumental bridge that we ended up ditching, but I think that was mainly a chance for me to catch my breath live. Even with Phelim's help that song always wore me out. We later recorded it at Threshold Studios with James Walsh.  That version went to 11.  It probably should have made its way onto our album Glory, Glory, but Velour and Threshold couldn't agree on much of anything. James felt that the label should put up money for the recording, and Velour felt like they needed every penny, if they were going to promote the album. Shoulda woulda coulda.