In 2004 I had just moved to Indianapolis. I was working two jobs, one at the The Children's Museum of Indianapolis performing puppet shows for little kids, and the other in fundraising at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra aka the Magic Circle Symphony. I didn’t really have a friend group yet. I was drifting, honestly. A little lonely in a new city, going through the motions but still waiting for something or someone to click.
On one of my first days at the Symphony, I noticed this girl across the office. She looked like she’d stepped out of an early 2000's indie film. Vintage dress, bangs, the whole early Zooey Deschanel vibe before 500 Days of Summer ever came out. I didn’t know who she was, but she caught my eye. Then, as I walked past her desk to grab a cup of coffee, she glanced up and said, “I like your shirt.” I looked down. It was a Minders shirt. That stopped me in my tracks.
Wait. She knows The Minders?
I told her thanks, that my band had actually played a few shows with them on tour. She smiled, a little impressed. And then she said the words that would change my life FOR-EV-ER:
“That’s one of my boyfriend’s favorite bands.”
Instantly, all my interest in her evaporated. I thought, I need to meet this boyfriend.
That’s how I met Nate Cook.
Nate was easily the coolest person I had ever met.
He had immaculate taste in music. He collected vintage recording gear, had thousands of CDs and records, and looked like a lankier version of Conor Oberst, but even cooler cause he wore Keith Richards type cowboy boots, which somehow made him even cooler. I was smitten, in the most purely platonic way a guy can be smitten with another guy. We became instant friends.
We spent all our free time together, digging through record stores, and fawning over music gear in music and pawn shops. One time, we saw a vintage 12-string electric Fender listed for $1200. I was drooling over it. Nate asked, “Should I buy it?”
I laughed. I was scraping by on $7.50 an hour at the museum and pulling in maybe $15 with my sales commission at the Symphony on a good day. I was broke. He’s bluffing, I thought. So I said, “Yeah. Buy it.”
Then Nate pulled out a gallon-sized Ziploc bag stuffed with $20 bills and bought it right there in cash. My mind reeled. Is my new best friend a drug dealer?
Turns out, no. But as close as you can get... he was a server at a fancy restaurant.
Nate had an obsession with vintage recording equipment. He owned the actual tape machine “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was recorded on. At one point, he even owned the machine that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was mixed on. That’s who Nate was. Part audiophile, part mad collector, full-on music obsessive weirdo.
Naturally and eventually, his girlfriend broke up with him, and the two of us became even closer this little broken hearts club of two. Hopeless romantics with no one to impress but each other.
We did everything together. Road-tripped to Kentucky to see Of Montreal on the night he saw a UFO over my house. On Halloween 2004 he came over to my house with his bootleg VHS of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band: Live in Toronto and I exposed him to my bootleg of Dylan’s Eat the Document. Just the two of us. He showed up wearing a monster mask and he just kept it on. For two full hours. Just me and a silent monster on the couch. Finally I asked, “Why the hell are you still wearing that thing?” He just shrugged his shoulders and said it's Halloween.
Nate is and was the best kind of music fan... a guy who didn’t hoard his discoveries. He shared them. With joy. With purpose. He wanted you to hear what he heard, feel what he felt. He was the one who introduced me to “Whole Wide World” by Wreckless Eric.
That song felt like our anthem. This raw, earnest, perfect track about searching the entire world for someone who you are meant to love and who might just love you back. It became the soundtrack to our little club. Whenever I hear it, I’m right back in my southern Indianapolis house, sitting on the couch with the monster.
When Rudy Fischmann and I talked about the song for the Perfect Songs Forever podcast on Discograffiti, I thought of Nate. And I thought about what it means to have a friend like him. Someone who doesn’t just love music, but who wants to give it away like a gift. Because that’s what it is.
To this day, if someone sends me a song, an album, a link, I always listen. No matter how busy I am or what's on my plate, I will make the time. Because I know how much love is baked into the act of sharing music. It's someone saying, I made this song, or This made me feel something. I want you to feel it too.
We all need friends like Nate Cook. Someone who opens a window and lets the music in. Who reminds you that discovering a song with someone else makes it mean more. Makes life mean more.
I’d search the whole wide world for friends like that.
Listen to this new episode of Perfect Songs Forever Here. - https://www.patreon.com/posts/218a-soldiers-of-135590011...
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By Patrick Tape Fleming