Nathan’s “Do Ya” strips the song down to its elements: aching melody, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ, and piano. The singer’s plaintive, empathetic reading of the song brings the two characters to life in vivid color – he’s lovelorn, smitten, unmoored by desire, while she’s dazzling, captivating, and maybe unattainable, too. It’s a dramatic performance, and television producers have noticed: Nathan’s “Do Ya” was featured in Showtime’s Californication, and appears on the soundtrack to the show’s second season alongside tracks by Nick Cave, Sheryl Crow, Warren Zevon, and many other notables. Jeff Lynn himself had to approve the song, and was an immediate fan, giving his seal of approval.
The Californication soundtrack, which drops on August 19th, served as Neil Nathan’s introduction to a mass audience, but stunning interpretations of classic pop songs are nothing new for this NYC-based artist. On his solo recordings, he’s proven himself a sensitive, imaginative, risk-taking performer, and one with an exhaustive knowledge of rock history to draw upon. His original material has been likened to that of Chris Isaak, Steve Marriott, and “Maggie May”-era Rod Stewart, and the occasional theatricality of his live sets has drawn him merited comparisons to Marc Bolan and T-Rex. Produced by Bobby Harlow of The Go, The Distance Calls, Nathan’s latest set that features members of The Dead Weather, Kid Rock and Queens of The Stone Age, seems guaranteed to establish the young singer-songwriter as a rising star in Gotham and beyond.
He’s comfortable in front of the camera, too. In the Brian Goodwin-directed clip for “Do Ya”, he plays it romantic, posing for still shots with his acoustic guitar, and, only a few frames later, hiding in the tall grass with a beautiful girl. The women of the “Do Ya” video are impossibly fetching; Goodwin even slows the footage down from time to time to capture the feel of a love-drunk reverie. Each image in the video is perfectly-framed – not only are the girls captured in their full radiance, but ordinary objects are granted a kind of magical luminescence. Symbols repeat: the keyhole shape, in particular, reoccurs throughout the video. In one startling sequence, Nathan peers through the keyhole of a gigantic door in a darkened room. On the other side, he sees a woman dancing through the forest with a parasol, blithe, poised, and always a step out of reach.
It’s a huge pleasure for us to be working directly with Neil Nathan to bring you this beautiful new clip and we’re sure you’ll love it! If you need more info. livemusicmedia@optonline.net
