"What's up man? you ready to do this?" this short, intense guy with bugged-out eyes and an unlit cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth said to me. He was somehow stocky yet scrawny, slightly dark, yet pale as a corpse at the same time. He smelled like cologne, cigarettes, and dirty jeans. "Who in the living hell is this guy?" I thought to myself. I nodded and we walked up the stairs and onto the stage in the big room at Buster's in Lexington, Kentucky at the first Squallfest. Right on queue, Those Crosstown Rivals ripped into "Bastards of Young" by The Replacements. We traded verses, shook hands, and didn't see each other for a year. I didn't even get his name.
Squallfest, Buster’s - Lexington, Kentucky, 2014
“Jeremy this is Nate. He loves you guys." Bryan Minks from TCR said, this time at the Green Lantern in Lexington, a year later at the second Squallfest. I thought I'd seen him before, but the haze and hangover of the first Squallfest had long faded. "Yeah whassup man grumble grumble love your stuff grumble show me your merch grumble." I couldn't make out but about every 3rd word between my tinnitus and his growling and the blaring house music. "Yeah man, good to meet ya. Here's what we got." My band The Tucos is nothing if not over-ambitious with the amount of merch we have for sale. Nate whipped out a wad of bills that would make Tony Montana drool, peeled off a couple Benjamins, threw them on the table and told me to give him whatever I could for that. I gave him one of everything and two of some things and told him half that amount was more than enough. "Bullshit. You guys are on the road I want to make sure you stay on the road." he said, scolding me for wanting less money.
That was Nate. Whipping bills off a wad of cash, half to impress the people he loved, and half to perpetuate their joy and happiness and willingness to love him back. For the next decade he stood right in front of me at every set we played in Lexington or with him in Michigan, singing the songs he knew, and headbanging to the ones he didn't, as if he'd been listening to them since he was 10 years old.
A year later, Nate and his ramshackle crew pulled into Ypsilanti in their beat up, smoke filled Econoline with "Elvis Impersonator Inside" scratched into the dirt on the side. He was so happy I was there. I've seen Mick Jagger treated like less of a celebrity than I was that night, and I ain't shit compared to Nasty Nate from Infected. He marched me over to their merch table and barked at their merch guy "This guy gets anything he wants." I'd expected as much and planned for the occasion, emptying my wallet of a similar amount that he had done in Lexington, and still wear those shirts constantly.
West Cross Station, Ypsilanti, Michigan - 2016 (Photo: Jason Bowes)
That was Nate. Making you feel like YOU were the important one. Like YOU were the rockstar. Nate was the rock star, always and forever. Making people feel important seemed to make him happy.
We became close in the years after that. We'd talk on the phone for an hour every few weeks, and I don't talk on the phone to anyone. But that's what it took to get to Nate; he didn't like to text at length, and I don't think I ever got an email from him. And I had to talk to Nate – because I needed the details for the show we were playing in Kentucky in a couple weeks, or needed to know what he needed for a show I was helping him with in Michigan that summer, or to talk him off a cliff after a scary Facebook post that I read into that indicated there was something seriously wrong. There was no other way to get that information. And the conversation was about 90:10 Nate. I didn't get many words in, and I had to work pretty hard for the ones I did, but that was ok. I loved talking to him. Every time we hung up I was exhausted. I thought “Goddamn. I am glad that guy is my friend. But that was a lot of work.”
Nate moved through women like I change guitar strings. Not to say he was promiscuous - they were bonafide relationships - but he was never single for long. I didn't know them all during the time we were friends, but I at least met or knew most of them to varying degrees, and they were all special, patient, loving, and once in a while as crazy as Nate himself. I say this in the most loving and complimentary way and I hope none of them take it otherwise. It could not have been easy for them. I know people near him probably have their opinions and insight that I might not, but I'm not going to get into any of that. Each of them was very cool to me every single time we hung out, and when things were good, they were very good, but it always went to hell at some point.
One cold, grey New Year's day a few years back Nate called me from bed in the middle of the afternoon. No “hello,” no small talk. Just "You need to come to Las Vegas in two weeks and be my best man. We’re getting married." There was no irony, humor, or hesitation in his words, his girlfriend's muffled voice mostly inaudible in the background. I'd introduced them to each other at a show we'd played together in mid-December. "Dude you are fucking crazy." I said. "I love you both but it's been 2 weeks. How about wait a year and let's see what happens?" He cut me off. "No fucking way brother - this is IT." I looked at my wife, rolled my eyes, and took a deep breath. "Ok man. I'm there. Keep me informed on the details. Love ya." I didn’t book the flight. It wasn't it. It ended poorly, and a little later there was someone new, who was equally as amazing, and absolutely it. But had it gone down, I would have met them in Vegas, despite my reservations about the whole thing, just to see Nate happy and experience that guaranteed circus.
That was Nate. So desperate to love and be loved that he was ALL IN every time. It was always IT within days. And not for one second do I doubt that he loved each of them with everything he had and believed they were the one with every fiber of his being. I'd love to get them all together in a circle of chairs, in a support-group setting with cookies, coffee, and cigarettes, and hear the stories. Or maybe not.
In the fall of 2021, fresh out of the Pandemic, we were heading north from Knoxville back home up I-75 and stopped at a Liquor Barn in Lexington to stock up on the good stuff you can't find in Michigan. I’d texted Nate when we crossed into Kentucky from Tennessee and asked him if he wanted to meet up and say hello. I didn't know he lived almost an hour away. "I'll be there." he replied, 15 seconds after I hit send. He had no reason to carve out half of his day and drop what he was doing but to see me.
I found him in the champagne aisle talking to an old acquaintance he randomly ran into who owed him a significant amount of money from some time ago. I stumbled into and then got the hell out of that uncomfortable conversation as quickly as I possibly could. He meandered over to me in the whiskey aisle a couple minutes later and muttered something unintelligible about the encounter. I gave him a hug and said "Jesus Christ man, you look like absolute shit." He was skinnier and paler than I'd ever seen him. His hair was matted and dirty, and his eyes were sunk into his skull. He looked like he hadn't slept in a month, that unlit cigarette still hanging from the side of his mouth, exactly as it did in 2014. He grumbled something about shit being not great and I couldn't make out most of it, but I got the point. “I’m not sure he’s gonna be around for too long.” I told my band mates with a lump in my throat as we exited the parking lot and turned onto the north-bound ramp.
Liquor Barn parking lot - Lexington, Kentucky - 2021
We kept in touch, but not as often over the last year or two. An occasional text, plans for a split 7" where he'd do one of my songs and I'd do one of his. Side A and Side 1 we said, just like the first Cheap Trick record. "I'm gonna do 'Blue Letter'!" he enthusiastically declared. He’d obviously put some thought into it. The wind left his sails when I told him that obscure B-side of ours was a Fleetwood Mac cover, and not a JP original. He didn't know where to go from there, and the project never got off the ground. We were going to do "Only Time Will Tell" from day one. My all-time favorite Nate song.
The last time I saw him was December 2024. He threw together a last-minute show at the Fishtank in Lexington to help me out with a gap in a solo-acoustic tour with our mutual friend Ben Aubry. It was winter and the show wasn't well attended, but we were all grateful to be together and hanging out. His band Mayking was headlining. The moniker on the poster read "You deserve a shitty Christmas." Nate looked significantly better than he did at the Liquor Barn a couple years prior. He was in love big time and engaged to be married. Again. Things were great.
The Green Lantern - Lexington, Kentucky - December 2024
Last week I saw a nostalgic post from one of his ex-girlfriends. That's odd, I thought, because kind words in the aftermath aren’t really something you see from his past flames. The next morning, as I was preparing to hit the road again, the news hit. I called Tex, Nate's right-hand man in rock and roll, and a good friend of mine, at 7am (an hour Tex doesn't see very often). "Dude." I said. That was it. "Nate's gone man." Tex said dryly. My heart sank and it's still sunk. We listened to Broken Fantasy, my favorite thing he’s done, on Friday during a long drive through Illinois, and for the first time in over a hundred listens, it didn't make me happy.
Photos of Nate with or by me - 2017-2021:
There is so much more to tell. So many stories. Other great bands he was was in. How he was a punk legend with Infected. How folklore has it that his mom was a relative of Elvis and part of his 70s touring party. How he drove up to Detroit to see us play with Soul Asylum. How I surprised him when they did an in-store in Lexington on Record Store Day. How mad he was at me when I slipped the waitress my credit card on the sly at some diner in south Lexington so he couldn’t pay the band’s breakfast tab. How I introduced him to my mom at a show in Grand Rapids and he was so worried about how he couldn’t cuss in any of his songs with her there. “Nah man, she’s fine, she gets it.” I assured him. “I ain’t cussing in front of your mom, man.” he pointed in my face and said defiantly. Of course he cussed. That was Nate.
How baffled he was and the perplexed look on his face as he tried to process the logic I was explaining behind my stage-set-list acronym language, equating it to keeping my band mates engaged like giving polar bears at the zoo buckets of frozen water with dead fish in them to keep them occupied. That moment and that look was one of my favorites. I think it was the only time I ever got the upper hand on him in a conversation. He shook his head and walked away, mumbling to himself like he’d just been hit by a car.
Lexington, Kentucky - 2017
But we’re going long for a Pencil Storm article, and Nate wasn’t one for nostalgia. He was finishing up a new record and had some shows booked. Like Nate being stocky yet scrawny, dark yet pale, I am both shocked and not surprised that he’s gone. There’s a hole in my life and in my heart. I’ll never forget him. Lexington will never be the same.
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit, fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos, and plays acoustic shows all over the place. Follow him and them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
www.jeremyportermusic.com | www.blog.jeremyportermusic.com
www.thetucos.com
www.facebook.com/jeremyportermusic
www.rockandrollrestrooms.com
Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic
