Nowhere Zen New Jersey Pt. 1
Sunday, August 30, 2009

Somewhere in Newark, NJ...


"Who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous
picture postcards" -- from "Howl"

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Asking Not
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

In case you didn't notice, I try to keep this blog about music. And trout. (Sometimes buffalo and sharks too.) Point is I try to stick with topics that would cause the least fights at the most dinner tables.

But sometimes a headline is so big that not saying something speaks louder than saying something.

Ted Kennedy died today, finally joining his three brothers Joseph, who was shot down in World War II, John, murdered in Dallas in 1963, and Robert, assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968.

The Kennedys have been on my mind a lot lately because last week I read a biography of Robert F. Kennedy called The Last Campaign. Every page broke my heart, but one story hit me hardest. Bobby Kennedy visited the impoverished Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota during his 1968 run for president, despite it being of little political benefit. There he befriended a 10-year-old Sioux orphan named Christopher Pretty Boy.

RFK spent hours with the boy, talking with him, holding his hand. Then he invited Christopher Pretty Boy and his sister to spend the summer at his house in Hyannispoint, Mass. He would take those two children into his own family.

Bobby, paraphrasing the Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus, said, "Perhaps we can not prevent this world from being a world in which children are suffering, but we can reduce the number of suffering children."

Tragically, neither Robert Kennedy nor Christopher Pretty Boy survived the year. But then, the name "Kennedy" is synonymous with "tragedy."

Teddy never lived down Chappaquiddick, nor should he have. He killed Mary Jo Kopechne and didn't tell police until her body was discovered. Maybe grief drove him to drink. Maybe cowardice kept him alive and not her.

Teddy then went on to have one of the most distinguished senatorial careers of anyone in the last century. He gave Americans more civil rights, women's rights, health insurance, paid maternity leave, health care for poor kids, and immigration reform, among countless other things.

A lot of people hated him for it.

Driving around New Jersey for work today all the talk shows were about Kennedy. One man told how after he broke his neck Teddy handwrote him a letter about courage and healing. Another woman said that when her father was in the hospital Teddy called him almost daily. A 9/11 widow said that Ted Kennedy called her in the midst of her grief and invited her sailing on his yacht in Massachusetts.

It's reminiscent of RFK inviting Christopher Pretty Boy to spend the summer with his family.

Despite their enormous inherited fortunes, the Kennedy brothers were shot through with the value that people with the most have a moral responsibility to give the most -- in service and comfort -- to the people with least. The Kennedys not only preached that from the political pulpit, they did it. Two examples are the orphan in South Dakota and the widow in New York.

The Kennedys never, ever asked anybody to do anything that they would not do themselves.

I think that's their family's legacy.

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Mr. Zero
Tuesday, August 25, 2009

This is my friend Alex Battles. He and I talk about songwriting online all day every day. Though he makes it seem like being a DJ is more glamorous than being a songsmith.

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Me & My "Little" Brother Andrew
Monday, August 24, 2009

Gold Flat Creek, Idaho, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009

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Having a splendid time here in Idaho...
Friday, August 21, 2009

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Good Guitarma!
Thursday, August 20, 2009

Hey! Guess what I got back? Yep! My purty, black, 12-string guitar that I (idiotically) left in the trunk of a taxi.

Hot damn! Those folks at the Taxi & Limousine Commission do awesome work. Via GPS they were able to track down the exact taxi I rode in and then contact both the daytime and nighttime driver.

Mr. Singh, the daytime driver, kept my guitar safely in his home, expecting that I'd come looking for it.

Thanks Mr. Singh.

And thanks, as ever, to Kristen for fetching it for me.

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Redband Rainbow, Check!
Monday, August 17, 2009

Nine hours after my moronathon move, leaving my guitar in a taxi, I flew out to Idaho to visit my dad, kid brother and stepmom. And flyfish.

Devoted readers of this blog (mom) know I'm a nerd for native trout, that is trout that evolved in North American lakes and streams instead of ones stocked there by man.

I found out that in this part of Idaho there are native Redband Rainbow Trout. Rainbow trout are native to the West Coast but have subsequently been planted all over the United States. Special Redband Rainbows are native to a swath of the Northern Rockies just west of the Continental Divide. These fish are the evolutionary bridge between the West Coast's rainbows and the Rocky Mountain's cutthroats.

I'd never caught a Redband before and I was ecstatic to have the chance.

Mercy were they beautiful, all green and gold with a pink stripe, tan fins tipped with white, and pepper spots all over. I caught about 20 of 'em in a little mountain stream called Goose Creek. Used my first favorite fly, the Royal Wulff.

Thanks Dad for the pic.

Oh yes, making lots of long distance calls to New York's Taxi & Limousine Commission. Sigh.

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Bad Guitarma

Anybody who reads this blog not know I'm a complete f*#@!ng idiot?

I left my guitar in the trunk of a taxi.

She was a bit of a beater, so if the cab driver (who I tipped well) doesn't turn it in to the Taxi and Limousine Commission, I will be out more pride than money. But of the two, in New York, pride's harder to come by.

Ironically, I never played her better...

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Is "PLAY THE WEIGHT" the New "Freebird," Or Just Some Annoying Guy?
Monday, August 10, 2009

Can't believe I almost went the whole summer without seeing a "proper" concert and when I did, boy was it a good 'un.

Saw Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Old Crow Medicine Show and Justin Townes Earle at the beautiful Beacon Theater last Thursday. Went with a handfull of great friends and it was a wonderful evening.

The only ominous part was some dude with a bullhorn of a voice behind me who kept yelling, "PLAY THE WEIGHT!!!" in between, during the intros and during the outros of every song.

I got the vile creep of deja vu when from this chucklehead. Last summer I walked out of an acoustic Black Crowes show at Town Hall because I was seated right in front of a some jackass who in between, during the intros and during the outros of every song shouted, "PLAY THE WEIGHT!!!"

Do we have a new and novel annoying trend on our hands here, something to overtake "Freebird?" Or is there one dude, a singular fount of obnoxious, fingerpainting with verbal feces on the canvas of concerts in New York?

It's OK to yell, "PLAY THE WEIGHT" if you're trying to coax Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Mavis Staples or Van Morrison back for an encore. Having sung the song in a bunch of bars with coverbands like The Goods, I'll give a pass to anybody who yells at me to sing it (beats being asked to sing AC/DC [who I love but can't] or John Denver [who I hate and won't]).

When they were unmarred by "Weight Guy," Gillian and David were my favorites. When they played "Miss Ohio" I got the chills and their cover of Dylan's "Queen Jane Approximately" stuck in my head for days.

Old Crow were damn fun and writing about them gives me an opportunity to re-tell the story of the night the New Heathens jammed with their main singer dude.

We were playing the only straight bar in Provincetown, Mass. and we covered Old Crow's "Tell It To Me." Some guy sitting at the bar perked right up and sang along with every word. I kept thinking onstage, "Why does that guy look so familiar?"

During a setbreak I walked over to him and said, "Hey, looks like you really enjoyed that Old Crow Medicine Show song."

He shot back, "I'm IN Old Crow Medicine Show! I sing that song! That's MY band!"

Holy shit! It was none other than Ketch Secor, fiddleman, harpman, guitarman and writer for Old Crow. He was up visiting his lady, who was studying creative writing at the university in P-town.

I told Ketch we HAD to have him up with us to do that song again.

"Great!" he said. "Do you guys know Wagon Wheel too?"

When I told him that, sorry, we didn't Ketch said, "Oh it's real easy, I'll show it to you."

And he did. We had a ball. It's even on YouTube, though I apologize for the video and audio not being in sync.

That show was so much fun, in fact, nobody even shouted for us to "PLAY THE WEIGHT!!!"

Tell It To Me:


Wagon Wheel

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Yeah, but what really sucks is...

Cynically, jadedly and insensitively, I just gotta' say that in addition to killing nine people while destroying a plane and a helicopter, this pilot guy totally ruined my weekend plans to go flyfishing.

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Quick Bits:
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

1. Played a couple songs on RewBee's live radio show today. Stay tuned for a rumored YouTube clip next week.

2. Gonna' play a solo gig at Googie's Lounge on Saturday, Aug. 15 at 8:30 p.m.

3. I write about one allegedly corrupt New Jersey mayor after another, interspersed with this upsetting story about the woman who killed eight people, four of them kids, after driving 1.7 miles the wrong way on a highway at 1:35 p.m. on a Sunday. Toxicology showed this week that she had a blood alcohol content of .19 percent, roughly equivalent to ten shots of whiskey. And she was also stoned. What was going on there?

4. Really Montana Stockgrowers Association? A few buffalo wandering around some land that borders Yellowstone jeopardizes an entire statewide industry. Really?

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Rock, Brought
Saturday, August 1, 2009

Played my first all-original electric rock show in New York in almost a year last night. Closed out my Banjo Jim's residency loud and proud. Felt good.
(The dreaded "singer just stubbed his toe" shot.)

Had a dynamo band backing me up. I basically cherry-picked from three of my favorite NYC bands & put 'em all together. Left to right that's John from the Madison Square Gardeners on guitar, Tim from The Izzys on drums & Alison Jones from Spanking Charlene & The Roscoe Trio on bass.

Banjo Drina, who booked me for the residency, helped me out on Proud Highway (Alison laid down the law on bass.) Drina wrote on my Facebook page, "Nate Schweber brought out both kinds of music last night... Rock AND Roll!"
Thanks to everyone for your support! (Thanks to Dave Seay for the pix!)

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