Hot Buttered Rum is going to slow our touring down a bit this winter while BCH has his baby, do a series of smaller "family reunion" shows in the spring, then pick up to full speed again in the summer. I'm looking forward to a winter a little closer to the ground. I'll be taking the Concert Carnival on the road in March, and playing solo, duet, and trio shows. But I'll also spend more time in my cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains, writing music, recording a small album, and fishing from my sea kayak in the Monterey Bay. I really enjoyed producing an album for Fruition in September, and I look forward to more projects like this. I'll probably get to play a few licks on the new Redner album, and support my bandmates in their different endeavors. Erik, Aaron, and I are planning to get together periodically to workshop new songs and ideas. This winter is going to be a time to plant seeds and spread fertilizer.

Hot Buttered Rum is the center of my life. Again and again, when we take time to nurture our creativity, even if it's away from the touring, it reaps huge rewards. It takes fresh air, sunlight, and a little compost sometimes. I think we're going to see some amazing blooms come springtime.

This has been a life-affirming year for me. The beginning of 2009 was daunting, however. Hot Buttered Rum was challenged to rise from the ashes of a sudden major transition. Without much planning, Zac was gone, Matt was there, and we were still at it on the road. Ideally, we would have holed up for a couple months, re-tooled with Matt, and then showed the world our new thing. Instead, audiences in the first half of the year got to be part of the rehearsal/re-invention process! The sounds were sometimes dazzling and sometimes frightening, I must admit. But it was thrilling and challenging to play on that edge of magic/disaster. We've taken some of that focus and the feeling that anything-can-happen into the better-rehearsed Butter.

Again and again it's the people that I enjoy the most. Music is a compelling thing. But it's the combination of music with peoples' lives that sets me on fire. When I was in Ghana, I tried to meet the musicians in every place I went. There, music is an even more inextricable, basic staple of life. People need food, people need clothes, people need music and dance. Musicians provide that. The attitude among many musicians there is more utilitarian, more like a farmer: you use the wisdom of the past to create something fresh for people now.

THANK YOU for letting us be of service to you! To have our music be entwined in your life is the greatest honor.

Cheers to a great 2010!
Nat

P.S. A few visual highlights of the 2009:

• Backpacking with LD/bus-driver Andy Cotton and Sage in Colorado.
• Partying with Montana Slim in Michigan.
• The new Scramble Campbell painting in my cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
• Recording the Limbs Akimbo album. Producer Tim Bluhm and engineer David Simon-Baker.
• My old friend from Ghana, Perry Sayoma Quarshie, laying down percussion parts for the title track of Limbs Akimbo.
• In Portland, OR with Fruition, working on their new album.
• High-altitude gourmet cooking in the backcountry of Yosemite.
• Roof-riding the bus over the Sierra, en route to Colorado.
• The ponies of the Pembrookeshire coast, in Wales.
• The smart-asses of Denver.