Philadelphia City Paper

Pick of the Week: February 21 - February 28. 2002

The last time I spoke to Kenn Kweder, he was arranging to release his new Indre Sessions CD. While discussing the signposts in his wandering oeuvre--the double-vinyl Pandemonium Years, his self-produced Flesh, Blood & Blue, the lost legendary Torn Rice and his bands Radio Church of God and The Secret Kidds--he mentioned gaining and losing audiences and musicians. "Since I began playing out in '72, I gain and lose--due to marriage, changing musical tastes, hearing problems, AA, NA, prison, total disillusionment and anger with the fraud they think that I am perpetuating--a new audience every three years or so. Luckily, during periods of gain and loss, folks from each period continue to show up at the shows. Some periods have been better than others."

Few from the present know dick about what Kweder meant to this city let alone the lengthy group of talents who played with him. He was more than Philly's Dylan. More than Leonard Cohen meets Bowie. A nasal congested, sex-and-god driven sociologist/quintessentially-early '70s singer-songwriter sort who thought he loved the cabaret-kaboom scene of the Bijou, Artemis or Dobbs. He did not fear the punk scene of the mid-'70s. Rather, he embraced it comically, heroically, drunkenly. The new 37 track/3-CD Kwederology chronicles those years that none of you could ever know. Re-producer George Veck, assembling the essence of all that's Kweder, says "these collections present a few hours with Kweder the poet, Kweder in the 'hood, the consummate showman, singer, songwriter and recording artist...be it an explosive stage performance, ad lib poetic composition, sincere delivery of a favorite song, outrageous intoxicated eruption at a local bar." To hear his mad libs and blustering rants in a local bar is sumptuously perfect and worth your Saturday night.

- A.D. Amorosi


Critic's Pick September 24 - September 30, 1999

Kenn Kweder, the local lord of ironic observational prose and non-weepy folk, is an anomaly. He may be the only non-jazz or soul musician to be out there for so long. Yet he still enthuses about the last 27 years of backing bands (like Secret Kidds and Radio Church of God) and changing trends through which he gains a new audience every three years. He means as much to younger cats like Kevin Karg and Marah as he does to older ones.

"For the last couple of years, so many people requested [old favorites] 'Torn Rice,''Pandemonium' and 'Diablo'" says Kweder about his hard-to-find and completely out-of-print early recordings.

So, though working on new songs, he decided on a "greatest hits" package for his fans' fancy, the brand new Indre Sessions on his own Pandemonium label. With guest musicians Kevin Karg, Jim Fogarty, Ernie Trionfo and Mike Vogleman, Indre Sessions is a moody but brightly lit version of Kweder's music.

Kweder shied away from technological constraints, trying to keep the songs loose and acoustically based, the way they were originally written. "My ears turn backwards when I listen to my stuff from the '80s," he says of his earlier, more produced recordings.

As for his low-key approach, he says "I'm just an older musical cat who doesn't want behavioral constraints. If I was to worry about all that stuff I might as well apply for a real job. I'm just happy playing several nights a week."

- A.D. Amorosi


A Date with Kweder: April 22–29, 1999

For over a decade, Philly's son of sardonic song Kenn Kweder has produced yearly calendars, usually appearing in April or May. Each calendar has been done by a different artist to pay homage to one of Kweder's obsessions, such as Christopher Walken, the Communist Manifesto or Elvis Presley.

"I really do the calendars for three reasons," explains Kweder. "A) To remind people that I am still alive; B) They are great refrigerator art; and C) They actually get me more gigs than my records do."

This time the charge was led by idea man Phil Ciccola, an old pal and photographer known for covering the career of Bruce Springsteen from the Jersey Shore days to the present. Ciccola came up with the Sgt. Pepper parody. Kweder backed the idea up with a personal theme: people who have contributed something significant to the songwriter's career over the past 21 years.

In-jokes also take place within the work. Though he won't name names, musicians, radio folk, managers—people who hate each other are placed next to one another.

Kweder says that he wants this calendar to make people wonder why anyone in their right mind would put something like this out anyway. And to come to the logical conclusion (in Kweder's words): "Ahh, it's Kweder. It fucking figures."

A.D. Amorosi


Big Mouth - Kenn Kweder, Judy Garland and you: May 5 – May 12, 1995

Sunlight screams into Kenn Kweder’s living room, splashing posters of Garland, Poe and DeNiro. In his apartment off South Street, we watch Monti Rock III videos, laugh loudly, talk rapidly and sit in chairs far too comfy for our own good.

“Put your feet up,” says Kweder. “You’ll get lost in that chair.”

 As Philly’s pre-eminent uncomfortable songwriter/big-mouth-almighty, Kweder has been adored and abused, reciprocally though, for over 20 years.

 “I wrote my first song, ‘Amos Maggid’ when I was 18. It was a country/folk song, or at least it was a song about a guy who lived in the country, America, I think, where a guy kills someone over a woman. In the end, the fireplace saves the day.”

 It’s this strange song that defines Kweder’s ethic. 

“Soon afterwards, I found my voice… and a bunch of others as well,” he chuckles imposingly as he continues his tales of madness, perhaps inspired by the giant Poe poster. “I wrote stuff like “Cassidy’s Bible” where if I died after that, I’d known I’d written a great song.”

 Moving beyond the folkish, he traveled deeper into Poedom – “into the well” with Pandemonium Years, an album and an era where getting drunk, he says, would help him write his psychedelized music, “to get closer to where my unconscious was or unlock certain elements within me. I don’t recommend this for everyone, though.

“On the new record, ‘Freedom From Sense’ started that way; that first phrase whoa, “laughs Kweder, “Getting high gets the chalk on the board. Once you get there, then you can go further by being sober.”

 Laugh or breathe, now, g’head folks. Kweder’ll have the last laugh. With the release of his newest eponymously-named record, the Kweder sound – the laughing, the moaning, the twanging, the irony and drama – has come full circle. The music is crystal clear, swinging with pop and country melodies. The sound and the songs are very focused, from the insightful, bitter tale of “Edie Sedgwick” to the well-chosen cover tunes like Joe South’s “Imitation of Living” and Bob Lind’s “World is Just a B-Movie.” The latter is a duet with Ben Vaughn, aided by the crisp playing of youn glocals like Kevin Karg (“I kept running into him at bars, the next thing you know he’s all over the record. The only guy I know who can VISUALIZE harmonies”) Noah Simon, and Philly muso-mafia vets like Ronny Crawford. The album gathers steam and stays on track, though Kweder’s “not really sure how we got there, other than a sober approach” and perhaps the chutzpah of producers Scott Herzog and Al Fichera, infamous for their work with Planet 10 and Flight of Mavis among others.

 “Al had been bugging me for years to get involved in a project. We don’t share much of the same philosophy on mechanical things, but he’s got a lot of great ideas. If Al didn’t like certain songs, he mapped out ideas on stylization, picked covers that were directly related to my life, picked a running order, told me to write a song this way. Hey I’m just a serendipity man – whatever the fuck happens. Al’s a painful, ha ha motivational force, especially when it came to bringing in new players and new ideas. Totally revitalizing.”

 Revitalization is a key to the Kweder legend. As he has played for a number of years. As he has played for a number of years, I wonder aloud (as I have in the past) if Philly is some dark shadowy region from which few souls make it out intact.

 “For some people here, I’m too weird, for some too middle of the road. I stay here because it’s more economically feasible for the time. I play NYC all the time. Some People are lucky and do well. Look at Patty Smythe. When she left here, she was wagging a big middle finger at this whole scene. Going up to NYC, it all becomes part of ‘a real job’. Fuck, if I wanted that type of security, I’d do something else.”

 It has always been Kweder’s unique stance as “the guy who won’t shut up” which has kept him gloriously peripheral. There have been moments throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, with companies like Arista and Elektra, where absolute fame lay right in his hands.

“I didn’t buy into the ‘tone the act down’ routine. My reasoning was that I was only doing THIS because I didn’t have a job,” he laughs hysterically, “Why put your life and identity on the line and become a complete fraud to yourself? That type of thinking has always led to deeper trauma, I’m certain of it.”

 Kweder’s video, filmed live at Walsh’s Tavern, is not some flashy MTV thing, but a prime example of his trouble-making, big-mouth mystique. He mouths off at the crowd after having more then a few shots.

“My humor is most certainly misunderstood. I was drunk, barged my way on stage, trying to be funny, calling these kids ‘fucking-rich-cocksucking-inferior-thinking-white-Catholic-jerkoffs – you’re all going to hell’ and trying to get some respect for the guy onstage.”

 He is no longer allowed back at Walsh’s a primarily Irish American establishment. 

With the first of his new band’s live shows (and a record-release party at J.C.Dobbs on Wed., May 10), Kweder will surely retain his sense of drama as well as that manic sense of humor.

- A.D. Amorosi