Review: New Heathens Debut Pulls Up a Bootful of Great Songs

By Bob Wire, 6-22-06

	Caption: The New Heathens

Nate Schweber -- he's one of a kind, with a lot on his mind. The sprawling subject matter on the New Heathens' debut disc, "Heathens Like Me," will attest to that. From the autobiographical "141," to the topical "Kansas Romeo," to the wistful "Goodnight Paterson," he's all over the map with nine original tunes and one cover of a Yayhoos song.

The scarves-to-riches story of Missoula's Favorite Son is well known to a lot of us here in his hometown: Journalism school wünderkind embraces gonzo writing in the college paper, hijacks the airwaves of KBGA (winning Best of Missoula polls in the process), creates a bizarre spectacle at U of M Grizzly games by dancing, half-naked, in the stands while playing his tuba with the pep band, and fronting various rock bands with an outrageous, flamboyant, Bowiesque persona that has half the town buzzing.

And like Bowie, Nate has reinvented himself, emerging fully formed as a swaggering, sweaty alt-country rocker with an ass kicking band and a bootful of great songs. Since relocating to New York City to serve an internship with Rolling Stone magazine (where his duties included sniffing the grapefruit juice before he delivered it to some effete editor), Nate has bounced around the Northeast, cranking out stories for the Village Voice, a handful of New Jersey papers and currently is a stringer for the New York Times, their little local daily. He's been rocking out and writing it down the whole time, playing in as many as three bands simultaneously. Now he's poured it all into the New Heathens, a classic lineup of young East Coast bucks who bring Nate's songs to life with plenty of snarl and style.

"Heathens Like Me" was self-released by the New Heathens in May of this year, and it shows a lot of promise, a lot of heart, and knocks at least one song completely out of the park.

The album is all the more impressive when you take into account the fact that this is a bunch of under-30 dudes singing and playing about some very world-weary subjects, and -- in most cases -- it's difficult to pull that off convincingly unless you've lived it.

Lyrically, "Heathens Like Me" is very ambitious, especially for a debut. While it's only ten songs long, there's no filler here. Every song is arranged and performed earnestly. The band believes in these songs, and it shows. It's a fascinating, and largely successful collection of thoughtfully written, thoroughly American music.

It barrels out of the chute with "Getaway Baby," which chronicles a well-worn story of abuse. But lines like "It was love at first sight / After her last Bud Light" bring a witty freshness to the story. The catchy chorus is lifted by a sweet harmony and a light, simple guitar figure that sets it apart nicely from the verse. It's touches like this that reveal a well-rehearsed, committed band that puts a lot of thought into arrangement and dynamics.
"When She's Wasted" has been getting a lot of play on alt-country internet radio, and it deserves the attention. The standout track on the album, "Wasted" evokes Slobberbone and other southern rock guitar bands with its layers of rough ‘n ready chords and undercarriage of melancholy organ. Guitarists Butch Phelps and Dominick Tiziano display a masterful interplay that never sounds muddy, even when there are four or five electric guitars on the track. In a deft twist on the stereotype, Schweber casts the woman as the drunken abuser -- she oozes disdain when she's sober, but "loves me when she's wasted." How can you not like a song with the line "…and we loved like rabbits, velveteen"?

You might soon be hearing more of his valentine to errant Montana youth, "July 1, Near Helena, MT." Seems Nate is launching a serious campaign, directly to Gov. Schweitzer, to make this the official Song of Montana. It's a straightforward story of a few high school buddies who had a close encounter out in the boonies. From "Flying Saucer Rock and Roll" to "It Came Out of the Sky," the UFO song has been a staple of goofy rock for 40 years. But Schweber puts his unique, local slant on this one, and it's worth a listen (are you listening, Gov. Schweitzer?)

"Doomed Generation" is an elegant and sincere elegy for Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, but the bass line follows the vocal melody so closely that it smothers the words, rendering them nearly unintelligible. That's a shame, because this is a touching goodbye from a Thompson aficionado who was deeply influenced by the work of the Godfather of Gonzo. "He went the way of the dodo and Nixon / When he made his last deadline" shows the level of sophistication you don't expect to flow from the pen of a 26-year-old.

"Kansas Romeo" tells the tale of Matthew Limon, who was imprisoned under Kansas' "Romeo and Juliet" law, for performing consensual oral sex on a 14-year-old boy, when Limon was 18. Tagged a homosexual, Limon received a much harsher sentence than a straight man would have gotten for the same offense. I would have liked to see a little more lyrical flesh on the bones of the chorus, where Schweber simply repeats the title phrase a few times. Musically, though, it's classic. A desultory acoustic guitar drives the ballad, while the electric guitars elbow in here and there with some power chords or some tasty sustained feedback.

Like "Kansas Romeo," many songs on the album reflect Schweber's journalistic roots, and have a ripped-from-today's-headlines feel. There are exceptions, though. My favorite, "141," is a simple, heartfelt love note to his salad days in NYC, when he lived on 141st St. in Harlem. Nate paints a beautiful picture of a neighborhood crawling with Technicolor life, and you can almost smell the barbecue. It wraps up with a triumphant "Take me back" singalong chorus. Who'd a thunk our little whitebread tuba player would be so taken with the rich culture of Harlem? That's always been one of the most appealing things about Nate: his fearless, almost naïve curiosity about What Lies Ahead.

Schweber has so much to say that sometimes there's just not enough room in a musical phrase for all the syllables he's written. Consequently, his phrasing can occasionally sound a bit rushed, leaving my ears feeling breathless. But as he matures as a singer and writer, his phrasing will doubtless become more natural, and he's already got a foot so far in the door that his next release will surely be a quantum leap forward.
My only other quibble with the CD is the printed lyrics. Writing this interesting needs to be read, but it's nearly impossible as the tiny type runs across three panels of the booklet, with no formatting at all. It's a giant block of text in 4 point size that (especially for 40-somethings like me) is very difficult to read. But at least it's there.

Overall, it's an impressive debut. Like Oscar Wilde, Jack Kerouac, Tom Wolfe and countless other iconoclastic scribes before him, Nate Schweber burns with an original inner fire that, coupled with his no-holds-barred performance style, will continue to bring great music from the New Heathens.
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