i'm working on this.. new things coming soon. promise :)
BIO:
Nathan K. is my name. The "K" stands for Klages, which rhymes I have been told is some kind of lithuanian musical instrument - a horn of some sort. I have also been told that my last name sounds like a disease. The first time I ever heard a song of mine on the radio the dj messed up my name so badly that I have gone by Nathan K. ever since. I think it suits me just fine. My grandfather was a truck-driver, a road builder, a soldier, and one of the men who built the seven-mile bridge in Florida. Despite his toughness, he was, and still is, the nicest, kindest, most genuine person i've ever known. He and my grandmother gave birth to my mother, who later gave birth to me. My mom is the worst singer i have ever heard, but most of my favorite memories of my life so far are as a little kid singing as loud as i could with her, driving South to visit far-off relatives, such as my grandmother in Alabama, who because of health problems spent much time in a hospital, where i would sit and sing for her and play guitar as a youngster. It always made her happy. These memories are etched in my mind, along with long summer days sitting on my front porch singing Blue Moon of KY for the horses across the street, who always seemed very appreciative. In turn, i appreciated having an attentive audience. Pricilla, the gentle farmer always told me that the horses loved to hear me sing, and everytime i'd go out to the porch and strum that first chord, they'd turn their heads and line up against the fence to watch.
It was with that in my blood that i went down to Nashville, TN - far away from home - to try to learn a thing or two about the real world. I heard many amazing an inspiring songwriters and singers, singing real songs about real things, sitting on the filthy dirty sidewalk begging for change, and i heard singers and songwriters writing songs about nothing that were living in big houses on Hillsboro road. After a few years of this, I packed my suitcase full of songs and headed around the country, eventually ending back where i started, Michigan - the mitten. A place where art and beauty and inspiration is all around.
PLEASE READ (Mission Statement) :
If you think of something new to say, if a cyclone comes, or a flood wrecks the country, or if a bus load of school children freeze to death along the road, if a big ship goes down, and an airplane falls in your neighborhood, an outlaw shoots it out with the deputies, or the working people go out to win a war, yes, you'll find a train load of things you can set down and make up a song about. You'll hear people singing your words around over the country, and you'll sing their songs everywhere you travel or everywhere you live; and THESE are the only kind of songs my head or my memory or my guitar has got any room for.
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.
- Woody Guthrie
CONTACT:
general inquiries/booking/press/other: dearnathank[at]gmail[dot]com
It's your good old myspace follower from Louisiana. I found your myspace page about 3 years ago I guess, and your music still makes my toes tap. And you are more than just a glass of lemonade. You're like a frozen pink lemonade in a mug that is sipped on a porch swing during the hottest day of a southern August. It makes me want to pull out my ladybug kite or my old skip-it or one of those dancing streamer things and parade through town. Your music makes me as happy as a piece of funfetti cake, a 94 pack of crayola crayons, and my pink flying-v ukulele. I hope you will always make beautiful music and never give up on your dreams. You inspire me to achieve my dreams. And I've already established this, but you make me happy. May sound simple but it feels great!
I hope you have a great day!
P.S.- If you ever came to Ruston, Louisiana, you would be welcomed with open arms! I think the good old people down here would love to hear your tunes!
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