Neko Case at the Roxy, April 5, 2006

I used to write concert reviews all the time for a now-defunct e-zine. For some reason, I seldom do it anymore, unless the spirit moves me. Well, after Wednesday, my spirit was officially moved.

These days, Xteen and I go to a few shows and while I am stoked as hell leading up the concert date, I usually lose steam when the actual day rolls around. Chances are, it's during the week, we have to coordinate schedules to get into the city so we can get something to eat in time, have to worry about parking and getting home at a reasonable hour, so we aren't draggin' ass the next day. That sort of stuff.

I didn't lose any steam leading up to the Neko Case show. And the fact that I have an undeniable crush on her has nothing to do with it.

A little history...Neko was born in 1970 in Virginia and ended up settling in Tacoma, Washington as a teen. She considers Tacoma her hometown and went so far as to pen a touching, if not humorous, ode to it on her wonderful Furnace Room Lullaby CD ("Thrice All American"). She spent a lot of time in the Vancouver area attending art school as well and it was here that she really developed her musical talent, playing drums in mostly punk bands.

While in Canada, she met up with A.C. (Carl) Newman, a tremendous pop songwriter and musician, which led to Neko's frequent and brilliant contributions to Newman's The New Pornographers (THE quintessential power pop band).

She moved to Seattle for awhile and now calls Chicago her home, though her touring and recording schedules don't seem to allow her a lot of time there.

To categorize Neko's music is to do her a grave injustice. It's easy to call her "alt-country", but her style just transcends description. It is influenced by many styles, but ultimately comes to something that is so unique and undeniably her own. Sure, one can say that she sounds like this singer or that singer on a particular tune, but when one hears Neko as a complete artist, I think it is damn hard to say she sounds like anyone other than herself.

Her first disc, The Virginian, was 1997 with a collection of musicians dubbed Her Boyfriends. The Virginian was a mish-mash of cover tunes and originals that, while far from flawless, showed a glimpse of what was to come.

In 2000, Case (again with her Boyfriends) released the stunningly haunting Furnace Room Lullaby. Mixing alt-county, pop, and Appalachian folk tales of murder and deceit, Furnace Room created a peculiar mood. Case's voice booms and soothes. Smooth and strong, and complemented by excellent musicianship, her vocals manage to keep you enraptured in her story while still allowing you to marvel at how great a singer she is.

The next year came a self-produced E.P. called Canadian Amp and then 2002 heralded the arrival of Blacklisted, her most consistent and striking disc to date. Opening with the spooky banjo-driven "Things That Scare Me", the album is an emotional roller coaster, with Case's songwriting clearly growing by leaps and bounds.

Early in 2002 was the first time I saw (or even heard of) Neko Case. Xteen and I went to a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show and saw her and the Boyfriends play a captivating opening set. I loved the sparseness of the music, the upright bass, the pedal steel and banjo (which never sound twangy). But I was completely hooked on Neko's amazingly strong vocals (and the fact that she looked like a seven foot tall redhead didn't hurt either). We pretty much vowed to catch her again the next time she came around.

A few more shows followed: at the House of Blues with Her Boyfriends and last year's tremendous performance with the excellent Toronto-based band, The Sadies, in support of her jaw-dropping, but all-too-brief, live effort, The Tigers Have Spoken.

On Wednesday, Xteen, Jesus Joe and I made our way to the Roxy in Boston in anticipation of another great Neko show on the heels of her musically mature and amazing new disc, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.

On with the 3 negatives right off the bat:

1. The ticket said that the show started at 8:30. We got in a line at 8:25 roughly the length of a line in the Soviet Union if they announced they were giving out free Scorpions cassettes circa 1984. By the time we made it into the venue, we missed like 15 minutes of the opener, Martha Wainwright.
2. The muscle head checking ID's stamped me on the underside of my wrist with indelible black ink that read "OVER 2". Awesome. Can I have my binky now? When we got to the second muscle head again checking ID's, he told muscle head #1 that he has to stamp people on the top of the hand, NOT where he stamped me. So, I had to be stamped again and just now regained use of my right hand after needing steel wool and caustic lye to remove most of the ink stain. Then, we get into the venue and they check our hands and give us a bracelet. This is all so we can spend $7 on a bottle of Miller Lite. I'm surprised they didn't gather us all up together, shave a 21 into our heads, put yokes on us all and forced us to go till the field.
3. My Concert-Going Guide for Dummies is all for naught. Two really annoying women talked through the whole set. We moved away, quite far away actually, and Xteen remarked "I can still hear them." It was like the Tell-Tale Heart.

OK, so around 9:45, Neko comes out and she looks fantastic. Again, she appears to be about 7 feet tall wearing a black top (I'm certain she was wearing pants of some kind, but we were a little far back and couldn't get a good look at her gams) and flowing red locks. She is flanked on all sides by her band: the sublimely wonderul Jon Rauhouse on pedal steel and banjo, Tom Ray on upright bass, Paul Rigby on electric guitar, Jason Creps on drums and the absolutely divine Kelly Hogan on background vocals. Neko herself picks up her now-trademarked four-stringed tenor guitar and launched immediately into "Favorite" from Canadian Amp.

The wonderful thing about Neko is that, in comparison to her discs, she sings songs one of two ways: She either reproduces the song on the disc flawlessly to let you know that no studio machinations help her out, or instead, she absolutely wails the living ass out of the studio version. Her live rendition of "Favorite", particularly on this night, did the latter.

Neko wonderfully balanced old tunes and new ones throughout her set. Various styles were showcased, be it the dreaded "alt-country" tab, or blues, or even jazzy-type numbers. The crowd went crazy for such recognizable songs as the gorgeous "I Wish I Was The Moon", "If You Knew", and the vocal tour-de-force, "Deep Red Bells". But the new songs, from Fox Confessor, were equally impressive, both vocally and musically. The title track, as well as "Star Witness" and the first single, "Hold On, Hold On", seem to buck traditional songwriting standards (there's hardly a formulaic song structure to be found on the new CD), yet the songs are every bit enchanting as live staples like the traditional, shuffling "Wayfaring Stranger" and the sultry ode to stalking, "Look For Me (I'll Be Around)".

(photo courtesy brooklynvegan.com)

The key to me enjoying this show unlike any of hers I have seen before wasn't Neko, however. In the four times I have seen her, she has been nothing short of brilliant and this show, she was absolutely perfect. But what made this show so impeccable was the talent of the backing band. Now, Her Boyfriends and especially the Sadies, were more than capable...even excellent, but something about this group of musicians just made it all click. The unsung (pardon the pun) hero of the show was undoubtedly backing vocalist Kelly Hogan, who added a magnificent depth to Neko's lead vocals, especially on the melancholy "The Tigers Have Spoken" and the disturbingly catchy "Furnace Room Lullaby" (which Neko has previously casually described as "a song about killing your boyfriend and burying him in the basement").

Neko's wonderfully dry sense of humor was on display, egged on by the equally dry Hogan. Case lamented the long rides on the tour bus by telling the huge crowd that she smelled like "a salmon" and even playfully mentioned her impended menses, which was actually more humorous than gross.

We stuck around after the show for a bit and chatted up Kelly Hogan, who was a complete sweetheart. We purchased a tour poster which Neko signed for us in the middle of a crowd of admirers and when Xteen asked if we could get a picture, Neko was very accommodating, provided we could hold off til the crowd thinned out.

We waited for a bit and when the crowd dissipated, she remembered and immediately came around the merchandise table and talked with us for a few minutes. She was very down-to-earth and genuinely very nice and appreciative of all the accolades we were throwing at her. Surprisingly, though, she is not 7 feet tall at all. She's rather petite. I guess it is something about that voice of hers that makes her seem larger than life.

And she didn't smell like a salmon.

If you are looking to broaden your musical horizons, I implore you to check out some Neko. I can't see how you would be disappointed. Better yet, come see her when she comes to your town.

Click here to see Neko and the band play "Hold On, Hold On" on the Tonight Show.

**Note: If you want to hear more Neko, click on the names of her album titles in the blog. With the exception of The Virginian, if you click on them, it will take you to her website, where you can listen to 2 songs from each of the albums you click on.**

- Dim.