The Not So Secret Kid
During the late seventies, while I was working as a singing waiter in Los Angeles and cutting my own teeth as a performer, I was missing a phenomenon in my own home town of Philadelphia… a guy by the name of Kenn Kweder. While I was bartending, bussing, waiting, and singing Beatles songs tableside to my customers, Kenn Kweder and the Secret Kids was taking Philly by storm on every stage in town.
Now here we are in 2019 and, Kenn Kweder, like me, is still actively gigging all over the tri-state area. He sometimes performs solo, sometimes accompanied by a friend or two, and occasionally with his full band, the Men From Wawa.
It wasn’t until the the past year or so that I became aware of Kenn Kweder, but through a mutual friend, Jim Fogarty, who occasionally accompanies Kenn, I began seeing his name in Facebook posts and reading about him online. Eventually, I checked out some of the Youtube videos posted by his friends and fans – and I knew I had to talk to this guy.
This conversation barely scratches the surface of the nearl y mythological figure that is Kweder. There are much more in depth interviews, music videos and even a documentary or two you could find floating around cyberspace. Just be prepared to be awestruck if you go down that rabbit hole.
In this episode of Tales of the Road Warriors, Kweder delivers some Kweder history and I did learn a thing or two about the East coast during the years I was out on the West Coast. Kenn recounted some very trippy times he spent driving Tom Waits around. We also swapped a few stories about playing different types of gigs and venues. Of course I was a much smaller fish in a much larger pond, so I can’t really compare notes on the same level. But I can tell you this, we had a great talk and hopefully, we’ll do it again, because, as i said, we barely scratched the surface. Even now, Kweder 2.0 is making Kweder history.