Steve Martorano 

The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens

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The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner. You're invited to hang with us as we discuss how we live today, the choices we make, what we do, and how they affect our health and well-being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around for a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hi, everybody, welcome to the Behavioral Corner. It's me, Steve Martorano, hanging as I do here on the Behavioral Corner. If you're just joining us for the first time, shame on you, real quickly, what we are about is the business of everything. Because after all, everything affects our behavioral health. It's all made possible by our underwriting partners Retreat Behavioral Health, you'll find out more about them down the road. We have just completed having a theme concerning behavioral health that center on music, we've touched upon music and show business many times here on the Corner. And this is sort of the third in a set of three that talk about music and what it means to people and their behavior, and their mental health and well-being. So if you haven't heard the other two, they are up on the website. By the way, the website is more than a website, it is a library. And there's you know, over 150 of our previous programs. Please at your at your leisure, behavioralcorner.com. Go into the library, go through the shelves, and you'll see pictures, and little descriptions, some of those shows may mean nothing to you. We hope many others do. Avail yourself to them. It's a free library. Okay? Behavioralcorner.com .Okay, the third in our trilogy of music has charms to sooth the savage...it's its breast by the way, not beast, and joining us talk about his life and music, Kenn Kweder. Real quickly, there's a Kenn Kweder, I would guess in most cities, not to say that Kenn Kweder is not unique, but all Kenn Kweder is unique. Kenny is among those groups of people who have and we'll find out why chose to sing for their supper. He's a troubadour in the truest and oldest sense of that word. He has been for 30 years, performing in venues large and small in his home area, which is Philadelphia in the Delaware Valley, but all over the world and country as well. And he joins us now to talk about a life in music. Hello Kenn.

Kenn Kweder 
Hey, Steve. Great to reconnect with you. Very good.

Steve Martorano 
Well, yeah, Thanks, Kenn and I passed briefly, but closely longer than we care to remember a long time ago. And for a lot of different reasons. There's sort of been a psychic connection over the years at least I think there's been so I'm glad to have him on the program after a long time. You know, what we do we talk about our behavioral health, it sometimes seems like the golden age of crazy. So anything we can do to help people make their way through? And often not each time we do and we think music is an important part we know it is. In any event, let's begin with for those people who do not know who Kenn Kweder is. Tell me who Kenn Kweder is.

Kenn Kweder 
Well, I'm a musician, presently, I have been for 47 years. I started off back in like 1970, or something like that, again, the early 70s. And I was a folk singer, I tried to be a poet. That didn't work out too well. Then I got back to folk music, then all of a sudden, someone convinced me to do rock and roll. And that would be like the mid-70s. And I started writing a lot of songs and put out a lot of different independently produced albums and CDs, whatever. And I've been performing almost nonstop since the mid-70s. In the general Philadelphia area, sometimes New York, lots of times in Jersey, Maryland, Delaware on occasion, in Europe pretty much being my own manager, which is sort of when you manage yourself. It's like a two-headed project. One, there's one Kenn Kweder, who performs then as the other guy who's pretty detail oriented, to make sure they can quit it performs. So it's a juggling act. Yeah.

Steve Martorano 
Being your own manager, remember the thing about lawyers, a lawyer who is his own representative is a fool for a client. It's a rare guy that can both manage the career and have the career. Congratulations.

Kenn Kweder 
Yeah, I think...

Steve Martorano 
Does your manager... do your manage yourself always make the right decisions?

Kenn Kweder 
Not at all. I made a couple of wrong decisions, you know, but the thing is you, it wouldn't behoove anybody to manage me, because the amount of money is not exactly going to break the Fort Knox bank. It's still pretty much on the financial level as it was, you know, 30,40 years ago. But that's why I work five nights.

Steve Martorano 
Well, I'll tell you something. And that's one of the reasons I find what you do is interesting. And I think, you know, look would be great if Taylor Swift wanted to come on my podcast, that'd be good, or Bruce or any of those people. And I would get that kind of mega mega mega take on what you do, but there's really no difference between what you do and what they do. Except for several hundreds of millions of dollars. And with worldwide wide fame, he's still doing the same, basically the same thing. So I appreciate the fact that you're close to the ground. You manage yourself. And you are there's no other word for it the hardest-working man in show business. You aren't working. You don't care where the gig is. If it suits you, you're there playing. I really do think you're in your element for sure. Let me back up though. To what inspired a life in music where you musical as a kid it was there music in the family and musicians what?

Kenn Kweder 
Well, I mean, you know, from the beginnings of my ability to perceive reality, or whatever you want to call it, like five years old six, both my parents were very much into music. My mother, to be honest with you pretty much thought she was Judy Garland, my father was completely enamored by Frank Sinatra. So I on the weekends, I heard a lot of Sinatra and Judy Carlin being sung every weekend and through the week, my mother, of course, was really liking that Judy Garland thing. So I thought that it was kind of silly in the beginning. But as I was growing up, I my first love and passion was basketball as a basketball player. But when that fell apart, I just decided to just kind of emulate my parents in terms of what they found meaningful, which was they both love music, you know, they weren't musicians. They were my mother was a homemaker. My father had a scrap metal business and, but on the weekend, they really kind of, like, acted out their own fantasies and music. So I get by, I was like, you know, the trickle-down effect from the tree and my parents became a musician full fledge.

Steve Martorano 
So you're self-taught in terms of playing guitar,

Kenn Kweder 
I literally memorized a program on PBS in, 1967. Once I finished my dream of being a basketball player there was a program every Wednesday night at 8 pm, there was a woman named Laura Weber, who taught folk guitar, and I memorized it was a half-hour show, and I memorized those shows. And they finally, that was without a guitar, I bought a guitar with SMH green stamps, if they saved them up until like the fourth or fifth program, and then went to work just going to my memory, what she was teaching, and continuing to watch our show for a solid year, I was religiously devoted to learning folk guitar, you know.

Steve Martorano 
Wow. SMH green stamps. That was a cryptocurrency before the term had been. I don't know if anybody outside of our area knows, but you used to get these little stickers at the supermarket after your purchases. You had a little book, and you pasted them in the book. And when you had probably in your case, 50 completed books, and 4000 stickers, you got yourself a guitar.

Kenn Kweder 
I got myself an inexpensive guitar, which I played constantly, it was like, you know, it was my, you know, once a basketball dream ended, I was like, I got to I have to have some kind of identity in this planet earth, you know, it wasn't a philosophical decision, you know,

Steve Martorano 
What croaked, the hoops career, the fact that you didn't crack six-five?.

Kenn Kweder 
And you know what happened? I was pretty good in my neighborhood. I was more like, there was a ..like I was kind of a hot dog player. You know, Errol Monroe used to play near me. And if we remember him? He was there. I put no matter how good I was. I practice like, four or five hours a day, seven days a week---wore sneakers out every two weeks. Once I started playing within the city, and different zip codes of the city, I was going up against some guys that were just beyond my neighborhood. At that point, I got, you know, I got the memo that I wasn't going to go anywhere. So I was sad, but that's why I started saving up those S&H green stamps to go into the music thing. The first place I played with the guitar was I went to basketball courts, and I would play on the basketball courts with my guitar and I would sometimes climb up on the basketball. Do you know where the rim was the backboard, I would stand on the rim and play. I really was too. I was trying to announce my brand-new identity. So all the basketball hoop players in my neighborhood, you know?

Steve Martorano 
I would guess that sort of hasted your departure from the courts to like, "Get Kweder off the goddamn hoop and let's, let's play some ball here." You were like, you know, I mean, you know, mom and dad, were, you know, regular folks are working for a living, mom's at home, whatever. But you obviously have some kind of gene or spark that says, I need...I need to entertain I need to perform. You were looking for a spotlight early on.

Kenn Kweder 
Y'all want to take yourself, you've heard this a million times and I mean, what's I saw, like, I had already seen a Beatles in 64 Ed Sullivan. And, um, you know, I was still doing the basketball thing or whatever. But that was always in the back of my mind. Roger Miller was really huge with me. Gene Chandler, like the Duke of Earl, like, these early things are always in the back of my mind. And then along comes this guy, Bob Dylan. And I'm like, Oh, my God, you know, I'm still playing basketball. But I'm really stoked while I'm playing basketball. I'm reciting Desolation Row, like on the basketball court. And, you know, like, the thing finally just was like, just took over my brain wants to basketball gym evaporated. And so the Dylan thing, Roger Miller, those things just came to the forefront. And the first songs I learned were like Dying Me. King of the Road, and Mr. Tambourine Man, and stuff like that. So, you know, it just was one of those things that just took over. Do you know?

Steve Martorano  
It's hard to tell people, younger people anyway, the impact of seeing being made aware of somebody like Dylan, or in my case, and certainly the Beatles, you know, there these are, these were inflection points in the culture. For me, I remember Presley. Yeah, I remember coming home from catechism class because I went to public school, and sitting down and saying, you know, this guy's going to be on the Sullivan Show this week. I didn't know really who they were talking about. But I remember the Monsignor coming to the class and saying, when you go home tell your parents not to put the program on "This guy is the devil. So at the dinner table, my father who didn't take a great deal of interest in music or anything, was minding his own business when I announced, Monsignor says we shouldn't watch the Sullivan Show. In fact, we can good Catholics. And he looked after me, he went, who the hell was he to tell us what to watch and tell him even watch anything you want? Alright, so that night, I watched a little bit, which changed my life. It didn't drive me towards music, but I mean, performing, but it drove me to the music business. But I remember I'm watching him captivated just like you and you realize Dylan's there. And my father enters the room and goes, What the hell is that? Shut it off. Anyway. Like, what is that idiot? Get him off. But yeah, these were big things. I mean, they, they were some people, they set you on paths of just pure enjoyment. I'm going to be into Dylan, or I'm going to be into the Beatles, and for many other people to change their lives. Certainly, in your case,. Have you...and so you went on a really interesting trajectory. Lots of attention in the middle 70s. As I recall, it, is potential record deals looming right in front of you very big star locally, you were on the cusp of something big, correct? Did you feel that way?

Kenn Kweder  
Well, yeah, I mean, I struggled for a long time as a folk singer, then once I put together a band with a bunch of original songs, for whatever reason, whatever style I was presenting, at that time, I got a lot of recognition. And I got it from not just well, you know, people in my neighborhood, center city, Philadelphia, kind of unusual, I guess. And then I got a manager named Bill Ive, who guided me in the band into some really nice clubs that were listening rooms so people could hear what I was trying to say, musically. And the next thing, you know, the word spread to New York, and then people came down from New York and came to see me and everything was going...going according to plan, you know, and, but then, there was some kind of a hiccup, Clive Davis came down from Arista records, and he really enjoyed the show. But he and I had a difference of opinion on the quality of the songs I was writing. He felt that I should be less complex and more simple. And I said to him, I said, Well, this is the way I write. I would feel very disingenuous to my calling in life, to simplify stuff, and I don't think he was too excited about a tight response. I wasn't rude. I was just explaining my point of view. We kept in touch and I sent him some other stuff but then it didn't work out, you know?

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it stands in stark contrast to those other moments that you're familiar with where a person in that position gets in front of the decision maker and because of the planets line up, they get their deal. They get their deal. I mean, John Hammond, the legendary A&R guy at Columbia Records, who signed everybody from Billie Holiday to Bruce Springsteen...when Dylan's in front of them, okay, sign them. Springsteen gets in front of them, bangs, and signs them. You had that moment, by the way, you had that moment, and many, many, many other people in your position, did not get that far. And for a number of reasons, as you say,, there's that moment when the planets do not line up, and the brass ring slips out of your grasp. But you kept doing well tell me what happens after that. I don't mean to dwell on, you know, you didn't make it to the bigs. But it's a, it's a key moment about how music sustained you after that. So tell me about that moment when it begins is sort of slip away?

Kenn Kweder 
Well, that was a difficult time, because I really thought that, you know, Clive Davis wasn't the only one. There were other people that came along within 12 to 18 months after that. And I went to New York, I did a lot of showcases. And we got close a couple of times. I mean, the biggest one, of course, was Clive Davis, but when it was totally when I absolutely had to accept the fact that it probably wasn't going to happen...wanted it to happen...that was a difficult time for me because I was extremely broke. And I was living in a flop house. And you know, ended up being a parking lot attendant. And, still, even though as a parking lot attendant, I still believed in myself, I parked cars thinkin' sooner or later, the rhythms going to come back in my direction. But I did the parking lot attendant thing, and then I bartended but I still continued to play but very little, because it's almost like it's almost like a prize, but it gets to the championship, the opportunity to not get the champion and gets floored. And then you have to pick yourself up for a long time here tonight, to get the chance to do it again. So I continued to believe in myself, although it was a lot of difficult times, you know. I got back to full steam and put together a brand new band Kenn Kweader and the Men from Kweader, stuff like that. But it took like, you know, two more years to really get back full steam ahead and from that point, I really haven't stopped. Do you know?

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Well, that period of time is I want to talk about the other continuing and successful arc of your career because you were almost 50 years now. And you haven't stopped. But that moment, that moment when you're struggling to recapture something, not specifically fame and fortune, but something that was you felt that moment when you're trying to get back to that point. You say you're parking cars and doing this. Were you still playing? Was music, the thing that sustained you during that period?

Kenn Kweder 
I still played playing music. I had burned out...you have to understand. I was a loudmouth, fairly arrogant guy back then. So I burned out a lot of relationships with different clubs, plus Bill Ive and I were no longer working together. I had no manager. I did...I ended up getting some management up in New York. But I continued to believe in myself. But there were a lot of doors shut. There actually was a few years later, there was a poster going around on South Street, a girl designer because I was only doing about maybe seven gigs a year at that point. And a poster said "Kenn Kweder The Easiest Working Guy in Showbiz". Because that was like, there was no I couldn't play anywhere because I was like not working, you know? So, but in the meantime, I still believe that the rhythm was going to come around again, you know. So the music did sustain me I was still a big believer in Kenn Kweder, but my allies and band members people were going they couldn't take the poverty scene. You know, they got real jobs or whatever. But I still believe that it no matter it's almost was almost like a religious thing if that makes it like it was almost like religious zealotry or something.

Steve Martorano 
You know, again, what's fascinating about this is that you know, most people I think, just find themselves where they are, you know, oh, here I am. Here I am. This is what I have done, and others seem to have had a calling. Even if they weren't consciously aware of it. They wound up where they're saying was to wind up because of this calling is that what was it like that for you felt this, I gotta do this because I got to do this right?

Kenn Kweder 
The calling concept is absolutely central to my life. I believe that, you know, that I you know, because I had taught them you have to understand. I also at some point was working for the government, you could imagine that?

Steve Martorano 
What were doing for the government?

Kenn Kweder 
I was making decisions in people's lives. I was making decisions about people paying their heating bills, and, you know, visiting people, you know, like it was, you know, it was pretty cool. I mean, there are a lot of stories that went on with that gig. And, but I had to make a living because I was, you know, no longer in the flophouse I was in like, like a sub-flop path. So but I mean, no matter where I lived, I still believe, you know, my guitar was my cross, like, Christ on the cross was like, that was my thing. And so I do, I'm a huge believer in calling, you know, what the tribulations are, I just believe I was going to come out on the other side, no matter what. And I think, in the beginning, the other side was worldwide fame. But as I got older and older, as a good, whatever, just local fame, or, or just doing what you want to do, no matter how much rain comes down without an umbrella on my head, I'm just going to keep going. Because I don't know how the universe is designed or threaded. But there are these things that are completely illogical that when you struggle, sometimes these beautiful things come, you know, and there were I literally had, what you might metaphorically say, guardian angels enter my life, just when I was ready, just throw the towel and someone would come in and buy me breakfast somewhere. And then they would get me a gig. Like, I didn't even know who these people were. Right when I was ready to throw in a towel. It happened many times.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, every now and then the universe stops whatever it's doing it goes. Give Kweder a break here for a second just throw...throw Kweder a bone here...throw Kweder a bone. You gotta keep going. Well, you know what? I mean, it really is remarkable. Because again, as you approach you are, you know, 50th anniversary doing this, there was a period of time where your dream looked like it was shattered. You would also I'm sure you can't be in the business you were in and not have been subjected is not the right not in contact with the, you know, cliche about the business, which is Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll particularly focusing on the drug portion, drugs and alcohol. You did not have a problem with drugs and alcohol during your run-up, or the rough period. Have you thought about it because you've seen casualties right? You thought about why that didn't happen to you, you didn't have a substance abuse problem.

Kenn Kweder 
I never the thing is I did all that stuff. And I you know, I'm not a saint, but I was episodically like, I would just if I was bored, I might hang out with some guys doing what they're doing. You know, one thing like, I was never, like, I would do this episodically or whatever. But once that episode was a thing, right back to the music, I saw guys over the years, who got into the episode, and they never got out of it. And these guys I looked up to were much better than me. And I'm like, What do you mean, you're not playing? Like, you know, I just like to me, they like I say, I'm just not a saint. I'm still not a saint, or whatever. But like, the drug thing was never, I never was in...like I did them. But like, it was so nice. I did them to try, like, you have to understand I'm sure you probably read a lot of stories about like all the old jazz guys. And they got inspiration, which gave them the opportunity to enter, you know, through the doors of perception and write a great song. That of course, happened or whatever. But that was the mythology that kind of like tantalized all of us rockers, Jimi Hendrix was doing acid. And then he wrote this song. And we believed it, you know, but at some point, that only exists for a brief while you stay on the drugs. And next thing that door shuts permanently. So I never wanted to do it a shut permanently, you know, so because I looked at guys who I looked up to who were done, and I like 29 years old. 33 I'm like, I'm not me, you know. And I, you know,

Steve Martorano 
It's, it's happened to very, very, very successful people who struggled through it, and then some made it and others that you point out did not, but that's a great and deep insight where it's tantalizing. Yes, all those geniuses seem to have been doing different substances. But if you played the tape all the way out the end is always the same. It's always a train wreck or death. It's certainly a collapse of creativity. If you've ever given any I know, I'll ask you flat out have you ever given any thought to the therapeutic nature of music? Does it ever occur to you that not only is your music therapeutic to you but maybe to your audiences?

Kenn Kweder 
Absolutely, because I can tell you a couple of things. I remember seeing Kris Kristofferson at Irvine Auditorium in 1970, or 1971. And he said it may not seem like anybody's listening to you when you're playing gigs. But somewhere all the way in a bathroom, you're making somebody fall in love. And if you're, and you're removing somebody from boredom, or the horror of something that took place earlier in your day, so I have always believed that I have to give 100% because even if I'm an I play, a lot of people don't necessarily look like they're listening. But you know, at the end of the night, that people come up to you and take a minute, you made my night. And I'm like because I'm not going to phone it in because you don't know there might be somebody in the back room like Kristofferson said, who you just saved from jumping off a bridge, you know, and I do believe like, I'm not saying I am I'm saying a lot of us guys, troubadours, robo-troopers who never stop are like modern-day witch doctors, you know, sort of like we don't even know what the medicine is we're giving, which is storming a guitar, or we're saying that it's reaching somebody, maybe it's only 8% of the audience, but they're gonna...they're gonna go home, and you're gonna feel really good about something.

Steve Martorano 
Even somebody is brilliant, obviously, is Dylan who, who kind of pushes those notions away. you know, "I'm just a songwriter." "I'm just a singer songwriter," must know, deep, obviously, in his soul, that if you were not giving something wonderful to people, he would stop doing it. Right? Why would...you know?

Kenn Kweder 
I think that's why he's on tour, like relentlessly. You know, I think he's inscrutable anyway.

Steve Martorano 
So yeah, you can't explain him. But, it's interesting. I think most entertainers, particularly musicians, understand that there is something deep well, you know, look there...there's the I don't know if you're familiar with a place called the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. It's a huge division of Mount Sinai, Beth Israel Hospital that is dedicated to music and medicine and how the two are intimately involved in one another. And they do all kinds of research on this. And one of the researchers said, that sums it all up by saying, look, there's just something essential about music. And she said particularly live music that can help people. You feel that when you're in some bar playing in front of 15...15 people.

Kenn Kweder 
Yeah, I'm always invested in the present tense, you know. So like, I mean, I'm always gigging right? So if I do 10 gigs in the next 14 days, which is normal, each gig it's affected by the present tense, and there's no setlist. There's, I look at people and I, I look at I feel the temperature of the room. And I immediately try to go along with the temperature, or what kind of faces I'm looking at. And so the present tense, the live performance, to me is, is a living arrangement of atoms, that everybody in that room is whether even consciously aware unconscious when I'm trying to like work with them, you know, you're not receiving me. I mean, it's like I, I tend not to listen to my own music that's recorded on occasion, maybe just to relearn something I wrote. But I'm a big guy, and I love the live stuff. I like to see people like it, this sounds completely bizarre and crazy. But to me, like one of the greatest performers of all time, because he was so unpredictable. Monty Rock III, like, like, I put mine, I don't know if you remember Monty Rock.

Steve Martorano 
Oh, yeah.

Kenn Kweder 
To me, Monty Rock is like my hero, right? So every show he ever did, and I've ever seen on video, it's never the same. So I'm kinda like, like, it did a Monty Rock thing. And so, like, going back to Louis Armstrong, what they said about live music. I'm a big believer that, you know, I believe it's, like, you know, a big believer, you know?

Steve Martorano 
It's astonishing. If you look at what the deep research is, in the areas in which they're using it, we're familiar with a lot of them. I mean, they use it in the treatment of cancer treatment in lots of mental health contexts. And yeah, that's a medical context, it kind of it can kind of suck the juice out of live performing, but it's the same process going on, whether it's a hospital or a bar, where a guy's playing and he's tearing up a handful of people who might otherwise have had a bad evening, Kenn does that for a living. You do that for a living, right?

Kenn Kweder 
That's really true. You know, I said, we're like troubadours or bands, whatever kind of like I don't use a metaphor like loose. I mean, like modern-day witch doctors, you know without zeros and ones. I mean, I just don't know. It's like, like I said, get back to the concept of the calling. I am I told you a religious trick, I just feel like my job is to do that. Do you know?

Steve Martorano 
Tell me about your audience ...Kenn has a devoted just an absolutely devoted following. You can see it on social media. Or if you go to one of the shows, I mean, they just...they just love Kenn. They're making some deep connections with you and your music. Have you?...are they...are they the same people you've been playing to all along? Are they...are they aging with the rest of us? They are new kids who are they?

Kenn Kweder 
First of all the people from way back a lot of them, you know, they don't, you can't play him and they're not coming out of their house. Because it's late...a lot of these gigs are late, you know, and some of the bars are nasty. So some of those people still come out and I am so...if I see them, I hug every one of them, you know, and I hang on to them, you know. And then you have people that just bumped into me 20 years ago, and they will come out like every couple of months, they'll see your show, then I have this younger generation at the University of Penn. I had been there for 30 over 30 straight years. One night a week. And I have played to I guess, so many different graduating classes from 1991 out there. What do I do if they make a request, like I do my goofy songs, whatever, and then no request? Do you know like, Tyler Childers he's like a newer...he's like a John Prineish newer guy, country guy. And Zac Brown. I learned the songs. You know, I learned about Miley Cyrus. I mean, I have fun with it. I have a good time.

Steve Martorano 
You have a residency there at that bar on the Penn campus right Smokey Joe's?

Kenn Kweder 
Once a week in there for over 30 years. So I communicate with the kids I hand out like goofy Kweder stuff, stickers, magnets, Kenn Kweder Pez, you know, and they...

Steve Martorano 
Show me the pez You got it as a dispenser with you.

Kenn Kweder 
Ready?

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, let's see it.

Kenn Kweder 
There he is!

Steve Martorano 
You know what people get bobbleheads. Now you can get them online. But how many people have their own Pez dispenser? I'm impressed. The older guys...the older crowd that's following you. My guess are you correct me if I'm wrong, is that you are a link to their youth. And as long as you're up there singing and playing they can remember 1974. There's some of that going on? Right?

Kenn Kweder 
Depending on which audience...

Steve Martorano  
Yeah, the old-timers.

Kenn Kweder 
And they feel a spark of youth for a brief period there. Yeah, cuz anytime I do like until like a special event or something whatever it is. You know, like I have a band called Kenn Kweder and The Men from Wawa. So we do like the whole, like 40 years of queer writing, you know, we whittle it down. And then you look at the audience and see people having seen from 1981, 1977, you know, so that's they're out there. And these people, man are like in the '70s or something. I'm like worried they're going to get hurt!

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, I read it the other day. Now, there's a whole group of us who are our age, who take drugs after concerts rather than before. So you know, there's a lot of that going on. But now I do see that in folks like you. And anybody that goes to concerts, they're holding on to something precious. And again, it's why we've been talking about music for the past couple of weeks here on the show. It is, you know, we can get lost up in the glitz and the glamour and the $4,000 tickets and all that stuff. But there's something deeper and very important about what you do, and what music musics effect on people is. And you know, it's like, well, things are crazy. And I didn't have a great week. But you know what, somewhere Kweder's playing tonight.

Kenn Kweder 
I sort of represent chaos and like primal urge and like unstructured stuff, people like that for like, all week long. They're paying bills at work and doing it. Let's go see, like what it was like 10,000 years ago before there were gas companies and electric companies.

Steve Martorano 
You know, you are, by the way for folks who are following along at home and are looking up Wawa. Wawa is a gigantic convenience store here in the Northeast, and I guess they're spreading all over the place, but they're, you know, uniquely Delaware Valley thing. Men from Wawa is a great title. You have all kinds of you throw everything up at the wall and see what will stick and some do and some don't. But you got to big and I hope to get this up on the website before it happens. But even if we don't tell us about the king quitter, press conference

Kenn Kweder 
That's coming up this Saturday, it's going to come up in a couple of days.

Steve Martorano 
So the 17th. Is it the 17th?

Kenn Kweder 
June 17 at 7 pm at a beautiful little theater, called the Living Room Cricket Ave in Ardmore. I'll be doing it a 90-minute show. I wrote the entire show. Finishing up the editing now. I wrote over 500 questions. And it's like 500 crazy answers, and whittling it down to like 75 of the most ridiculous questions, but actually philosophical to some, and then result from there's going to be a poor result, then it'll be a part where people are going to actually, like, put me on the spot and ask me probably painful questions that I'll try to mix that in with the stuff that I wrote. So but it's a theatrical thing. We have like a guy coming out, who's going to get you to sort of give people information about who I am, who I was. And then I come out there's a big press table microphones backdrop, like New York Times and Washington Post, Rolling Stone, all that. And then the show begins and it's getting a lot of people you won't be handed out questions. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I, I don't know anyone who has ever done this pull this kind of stuff. It's like a stunt, you know.

Steve Martorano 
Well, you know, faux news conferences, you're, you're on the cutting edge of a lot of that stuff. This is a ridiculous question. You see yourself playing until you just can't stand up anymore, right?

Kenn Kweder 
I do. Because a lot of people I run into who are my age I see him at a bus stop. And they go, Are you stop playing? I go, Yeah, I'm on a comeback. And everybody's in her third dream or whatever. So of course, you get into a conversation. I go, they go, what do you do? And like, I go, I go, I'll stop. Here's my answer. I'll stop when I can't get out of my house.

Steve Martorano 
Well, there you go, I'm telling you there...there are lots and lots and lots of people who are trudging their way towards the end of the line but gained some comfort and solace. And as I said, people are saying, is Kweder playing anywhere this weekend? Let's go get a beer and see what Kenny's up to. Ken thanks so much. You've rounded out nicely our look at music and what it can mean to people and how life-affirming it can be and how, you know, keep somebody like you out of trouble. And happy and happy seemed like a happy guy.

Kenn Kweder 
Apparently. It doesn't cost anything to spread it around.

Steve Martorano 
Good for you, Kenny. Thanks so much, man. You know, this is the first we've done this virtually we got to do it for real for real.

Kenn Kweder 
Absolutely. I love you so much. Thank you for having me on. Thank you.

Steve Martorano 
Our pleasure. Thank you all as well. Don't forget, like us, follow us. Subscribe to the whole social media thing. It's the Behavioral Corner. We'll catch you next time. Take care. Bye bye.

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