“I’d never left the country before,” Mark Schwaber tells me.
All the more remarkable, then, that we were chatting in the brief span of days between episodes of globe-trotting which brought him as far afield as New Zealand.
At the end of the yellow brick road that demands of musicians many a hauling of heavy gear, hours of practicing and years of general meritoriousness is the ultimate reward: touring the world to the accolades of adoring fans. That is, of course, a rare outcome, far outnumbered by instances of touring a circuit of 10-12 miles.
In a couple of decades of playing, I’ve had friends and bandmates who’ve graduated to that rare world-tour circumstance, and talking to them about their experiences has usually meant catching up to them in mid-tour at a show. Invariably, such visits have revealed a brand of epic fatigue among those friends that seems to be equal parts otherworldliness, boredom, and sleepwalking. It’s hardly made me pine for the experience.
Schwaber, on the other hand, seems rested, ready, and completely enthusiastic about his musical travels. He’s smiling, full of glowing reports about farflung destinations.
If you don’t know his music, you should—Schwaber is a songwriter of interesting proclivities. He’s played solo a lot, but his recorded output employs multi-layered soundscapes that take the same simply played material into expansive realms of sound and fury. He’s as liable to lean on the sounds of folk as those of metal—the day we chatted about his current (acoustic) touring, he sported a Metallica T-shirt.
Schwaber’s touring has come courtesy of Valley resident and British pop icon Lloyd Cole. Cole’s Small Ensemble, which also includes former Valley resident Matt Cullen, has offered audiences an acoustic, even bluegrass-tinged, version of Cole’s catalogue of tunes. Both Schwaber and Cullen play primarily guitar with Cole.
The Small Ensemble has been to many a stop in Europe, to Australia and New Zealand, and to much of the U.S. The final leg takes place in Spain and Portugal.
Schwaber tells me that he’d never been out of the country, and he’d also never flown anywhere. He was a little anxious, he says, about that part of his new job, but an early test trip to Baltimore showed him that he’d be up to the task. Good thing—he says he’s now been on 40 or so plane trips.
Touring the world has, for Schwaber, settled into a predictable pattern of setting up equipment, playing shows, and, interestingly enough, dining well. “Lloyd’s been at this a long time,” Schwaber says, “so he really knows how to do it well at this point.”
The experience follows a low-key sequence of events—Schwaber, while tending bar at Easthampton’s Brass Cat, struck up a friendship with Cole. That led to informal playing, and eventually a formal invitation to be part of the Ensemble.
Schwaber seems pleased to be learning from a musical and touring veteran, and expresses his respect for Cole’s ability to arrange songs and deftly orchestrate parts. Having someone else guide his playing isn’t par for the course for Schwaber, and the whole experience of travelling the world to make music seems to have propelled him into interesting territory as a songwriter and performer.
He tells plenty of tales of travel and travail, but one in particular hits home. “I was in Australia,” says Schwaber, “and I was taking a different route home from everybody else.”
None of his other musical trips had been solo endeavors, and Schwaber says he suddenly felt the oddness of being a globe-trotter at large: “I was by myself, literally on the other side of the world from all the people and all the places I know.” He smiles when he tells me, “It was pretty strange!”
The Small Ensemble experience is wrapping up soon, so I ask Schwaber what happens next. He seems pleased with the new perspective he’s gained, even with the break from his own playing and writing. Having gained that perspective, he’s obviously enthusiastic, even if it isn’t an experience writ large like a world tour, about making music of his own back in the Valley.
“I’ve been interested in all things musical since I was maybe 13,” he says. Schwaber talks about taking apart the sounds he found on records, about trying to reproduce things that he heard with an instrument in hand, even illustrating his point with some air guitar, singing a metal guitar part as he plays. He’s long been one of the most interesting songwriters in the Valley. Now, after sojourns as a bartender, as owner of Night Owl Records in Easthampton, and as a touring musician, he seems primed to make music infused with a new set of sensibilities.
