SUNY Oswego director of news and media busy off campus, performing in many local venues
By Stefan Yablonski
With more than two decades at SUNY Oswego, Tim Nekritz has journeyed from associate director of public affairs to his current role as director of news and media.
Renowned for his expertise in student storytelling, his career has seen him speak at international conferences, contribute to industry publications and evolve into a pivotal figure in the university’s public relations narrative.
He has also taken to various stages in Central New York to showcase his musical talents.
Prior to the college he worked at The Palladium-Times and Harborfest.
“Then 2001 here. It’s been evolving over the years what I do here,” he explained. “I started [music] when I was in college. I didn’t really have a traditional music background. In college I briefly joined my best friend’s band, Blizzard. Some of them live on in a Cayuga County-based band called Sloppy Joe’s. I served as the bass player for a grand total of two weeks. I didn’t pass the audition, but I stayed friends with him [laughs].”
He took it up once in a while and then it just kind of sat there for decades, he said.
“What really got me back into it was in Fair Haven at the Sterling Cidery they have what they call a Cider Jam. I’d go there. I bought a very cheap acoustic bass and I’d play. What’s interesting about that is there is all levels of players there.”
The Sterling Cidery Cider Jam allowed Nekritz to play with folks like Dan Duggan, Nashville recording artist Pat Kane, who summers in the Fair Haven area, local blues legend Larry Kyle and others.
“That these tremendously talented musicians didn’t mind somebody with a thin resume like me sitting in with them and leading an occasional tune and they were happy to solo on songs where I was lead still boggles my mind and gives me perspective on helping others looking to start playing out and interested in making music connections,” he said.
Duggan is known nationally for his wizardry on hammered dulcimer and Flat picking guitar. He has won national awards for playing the dulcimer.
“He’d take the lead and I’d sing a Johnny Cash song. They always treated me as an equal. They’d give me tips and some pointers. Didn’t say, ‘he’s a new kid, doesn’t know what he’s doing,’” Nekritz recalled. “That made me more comfortable. When you grow up not playing music — my kid is in school band, jazz band — he’s growing up with music — I kind of backed into it.”
And then he went to open mic at Old City Hall; would have been right around the turn of the decade about January 2020.
“A couple of my friends said, ‘are you performing tonight?’ I thought ‘why on earth would I perform?’ I got home and thought about it. Decided I’m just going to try it, get up there and sing, play the bass — and not screw up too much. In tuning I broke one of my strings, the G string. I was very nervous. A bunch of my friends showed up, supported me. It wasn’t that horrible. I was trying,” he said.
Now that he is in the role hosting, he tries to pay that forward as much as possible.
“If someone comes to open mic for their first time — that’s a huge accomplishment in itself,” he said. “For me it’s about taking that first step, finding yourself and getting out of your comfort zone.”
In March 2020 he was at Old City Hall and a group came in called the Condescenders — siblings Kellen Bassette (guitar/mandolin/harmonica/vocals) and Majken Mashaw (lead vocals/keyboard) are Mexico-area folks who founded the band. They came back in the fall of 2020.
“The first time I saw them I was like, ‘you guys are amazing.’ I did not see them for months. When I saw them again I went over and we just started talking. I said, ‘hey can I come over and jam at some point?’ They were agreeable. We started playing out in 2021 I think; just this rag tag bunch of musicians. I started jamming with them on bass and we became a working band in 2021, adding their brother Jack as a drummer. After a few personnel changes, Kellen, Majken and I remain together with Billy Meggison now on drums,” he said.
They gained more and more of an audience. So now they play some pretty decent-sized shows, he said, adding, “It’s kind of like a party rock and soul I call it. A lot of well-known covers you can dance to.”
And then there is Whiskey Spirits with his friend, Gina Mazzoli. Whiskey Spirits is Mazzoli on vocals and Nekritz on dobro, playing classic country, rock, pop and generally songs by awesome women (and sometimes men), according to their Facebook page.
“After one of the Condescenders shows I was talking to her at Bridie Manor and she said she’d like to sing more and I had started playing the lap steel guitar. I said, ‘hey if you want to get together some time we can try a few tunes.’ That went well. It kept building and building. So now we have a whole bunch of upcoming gigs,” he said.
They played at Old City Hall in Oswego on Saturday July 26 just before the Harborfest fireworks.
“They asked us and I was incredibly flattered. Having that kind of opportunity is fantastic. Gina has a great voice,” he added.
The interesting thing about the two groups is you can’t book a four-piece with drums in a lot of places — don’t have the space; they aren’t set up for it. So there are places where Condescenders play and makes more sense and places where Whiskey Spirits plays that make more sense, he explained.
Songwriter’s Circle
Nekritz also founded the Songwriter’s Circle about three years ago.
“It started in my house,” he said. “Basically there were a lot of people I talked to about song writing, but there wasn’t a lot of help for someone to become a songwriter.
“The 26-foot-by-26-foot space on the second (and main) floor was home to a barber shop. With its dimensions and high wooden ceiling, it possesses excellent acoustics. I want to say we started May 2022; we started a monthly session there. Now it’s moved at the Arts Center in Fulton and the Fair Haven Arts Center. It’s just really cool because I have seen people do some great things.
“A friend came, he’d never written a song with lyrics. He had never sung and played an instrument at the same time. Now he has like 22 songs and they are all good. As a songwriter not all mine are so good. So I am a little jealous. I have him showing up; I have people who have been writing songs for 30 years. I have people who have gotten back into open mics and performing because they came to the Songwriters’ Circle and they loved it. It has been really cool to watch the growth the evolution. And it helps me too because I get a lot of inspiration and tips.”
He teaches, too
Nekritz teaches a couple communications classes including one on digital storytelling.
“I also teach a course on blues history. I use the history of the blues to show the history of America in the 1900s. For example, you have Blacks coming back from World War I. The Great Migration, so many millions of Black Americans moved north to Chicago and other places. Blacks were involved in the blues resurgence and the folk resurgence and Civil Rights in the 1960s. Rock and roll basically is founded on the blues.”
When did rock and roll start?
“Depends on who you talk to. The rock era began in 1955 — it was attributed to Bill Haley and the Comets’ ‘Rock Around The Clock,’” he said. “What’s interesting about that I tell my students is that Elvis was a fan of Black R&B. However, at the time, white radio wasn’t going to play a Black artist. Elvis goes to Sam Phillips at Sun Studios to record a song for his mom’s birthday. Sam hears him and says he’s talented. He realizes what’s called R&B can reach a white audience — it just needs a white person to do it. And so Elvis ends up recording ‘Hound Dog’ and it becomes a big hit. He records all these R&B hits; Elvis loves these songs so he’s happy to record them. Sam Phillips sees dollar signs in his eyes. So Elvis really bridged R&B into rock and roll. Rock and roll has been a huge genre ever since. Rock and roll has evolved.”
