No labor for Shaber

New York provides all the comic relief for this songwriter

by Laura Kiritsy

There aren't many independent singer/songwriters who would give away a bootleg tape after sinking their last dime (and maxing their credit card) into a new CD. Never mind having to lug them to gigs, hoping to sell one just to earn subway fare home. Because that's just what Sam Shaber did when a friend requested a soundboard tape after a gig, rather than purchase Shaber's self-produced debut CD, 1997's In The Bunker (Brown Chair Music). After some convincing by friends and fans, Shaber (who appears this Tuesday at the Java Hut) started hawking the live tape for $10, taking the hint that she needed to give the people what they wanted.

"It got to the point where I was selling more of those bootleg tapes than I was of the CD. So I thought, well, this is probably the time," she says of her decision to record and self-produce Perfect (Brown Chair Music), a collection of acoustic tunes culled from performances at New York hot spots CB's Gallery, the Bitter End, and the now-closed Fast Folk Café.

"That's what I do, I play live all the time," explains Shaber from a tour stop in South Bend, Indiana. "I'm not afforded the luxury of making the album and then sitting at home and eating bonbons or whatever it is people do. So the way all of the songs develop is through live performance. And I also play solo all the time, so many of the songs on that CD have never had a band on them, and that really is the way they exist so far. In kind of a musical way, it made sense." The disc also captures the comical, self-deprecating rantings with which Shaber peppers her shows -- like the time she played an entire set with her fly down.

Shaber's depth as a songwriter is strongest on "Rain and Sunshine," an elegy written for her close friend Maribel Garcia, who died about two years ago in a fatal car accident while she and Shaber were on a Midwest tour. Shaber, who was slightly injured in the wreck, penned the song in response to well-intentioned people who attempted to justify her friend's tragic death as "fate" or as an act of God. Shaber, however, sees things differently; her song conveys the pain but also the acceptance of her loss.

"To me the reason that she died was because of chemistry and biology and torque and physics and gravity and all these things, and not because of some outer force that took her away," she explains. "I just have trouble feeling any truth in that idea. So that's kind of what came out."

The strength of "Rain and Sunshine" and another Perfect standout, "All of This," propelled the 26-year-old into a finalist spot in this year's Sierra Songwriters Festival in California, an annual competition showcasing performers on the rise. And she left her mark on the festival by almost getting booted from the competition. Apparently, the contest had a strict rule about performing only the two qualifying songs. But Shaber, after checking with "the woman backstage," stepped up to the mic and sang the title track from her live CD. The judges were not amused when the song's satiric lyrics about unrequited love did not match those on their lyric sheets, so they decided to disqualify her. "They came back and they said, `We need to talk to you.' All the other songwriters were back there making fun of me, saying, `You're in trouble.' And I was like, `Oh no what did I do?'" Shaber explained that she had been given the okay to change her set by the mysterious woman (who turned out to be the festival director's ex-wife) and the judges rescinded their decision to ax her from the contest. As punishment, she had to return to the stage and sing "Rain and Sunshine."

"Leave it to the New Yorker to break the rules," laughs Shaber. Being the guitar-slinging New Yorker that she is, Shaber crafts many of the cuts on Perfect from the city's never-ending assaults on the senses. From a bomb threat on the subway to drag queens in the apartment next door to rooftop serenades, Shaber proves herself a colorful storyteller of urban lore. "New York is like living in warp speed. There's so much going on. It is where I live and where I get inspired. There's just so much there that you can find ironic and funny and sad and painful and frustrating, all the things that you use to write songs."

Sam Shaber appears at 8:30 p.m. on November 9 at the Java Hut. Call 752-1678.