By Chris Nixon
December 2, 2004
San Diego Union-Tribune
What happens when you get some of the world's top minds together to talk about their work? If you're vocalist Neko Case, you engage the group by getting them to sing along with an old-time hymn.
In June 2003, Case recorded a version of the traditional song "Wayfaring Stranger" along with 300 audience members of the ideaCity Conference.
"You get 20 minutes to be a genius about something," says Case, taking a break from recording her upcoming studio album. "I'm not even closely related to a genius, so I had to trick them by making them participate in some singing. I wanted to show them what making a recording was like and how easy it was to make music."
Captured live at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto, "Wayfaring Stranger" is the final track on Case's newly released collection of 11 live performances titled "The Tigers Have Spoken." Recorded over seven nights in Chicago and Toronto during 2003 and 2004, the process of making a live album turned out to be anything but easy for the fiery singer.
Neko Case
Neko Case, with the Sadies and Dexter Romweber
8 p.m. Sunday; Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave., Bay Park; $15; (619) 275-5483
Born: Sept. 8, 1970 in Alexandria, Va.
Raised: Tacoma, Wash.
School: Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Has worked with: the Sadies, Calexico, the New Pornographers, the Corn Sisters
Discography:
"The Virginian" – 1998
"Furnace Room Lullaby" – 2000
"Blacklisted" – 2002
"The Tigers Have Spoken" – 2004
Influences:
Hometown heroes
"There was a band called Girl Trouble in my hometown, which was a big influence on me. They were one of the first bands that I hung out with, and they had a lady who was a drummer in their band and I thought they were the coolest. They weren't the bad macho punk rock going on at the time. It was so self-conscious and uptight and lame. There was no melody left. And Girl Trouble was like this bright shining star. They were so unself-conscious that they would spontaneously start dancing during their concerts and be silly and just have fun. Ladies were invited, for a change. They seemed to get a lot of joy out of everything involved with being in their band. So they were a big deal to me."
Banded together
"I was heavily influenced by all the bands I was in, especially Maow. I learned everything about being in the music business from Maow, those tough ladies. We all sang, we all played instruments. We all chopped the wood, you know?"
Hallelujah
"I was really influenced by gospel music, which is weird I guess because I'm not really a religious person. But I love the passion of it. Bessie Griffin and the Staple Singers are a really big deal to me. I love a lot of really obscure records too, like the Gospelaires of Dayton, Ohio."
"I went into the project thinking it was going to be quite easy, but soon thereafter I was struck with terror," admits Case. "I didn't think I'd be nervous at the shows, but I guess whenever there's a giant recording truck outside, I get nervous. We were all nervous. We wanted to do a good job."
Born in Virginia and raised in Tacoma, Wash., Case developed her artistry while living in Vancouver. While attending art school in Canada, she first hit the music scene as drummer and vocalist for the punk trio Maow. Punk-rock drummers tend to be fierce and passionate by nature. So when Case decided to tackle the role of country singer-songwriter, her intense approach and her firebrand voice set her apart from the crowd.
"I think a lot of this music wasn't made in an attempt to get something for it; it was made to express something genuinely," says Case. "It's a very satisfied kind of music ... very uniting and universal. And I don't really think you have to translate it. The way it's sung and the way it's performed, people can relate."
Case fired her first shots in the roots revolution with "The Virginian" in 1998, followed by 2000's "Furnace Room Lullaby" and the top-notch album "Blacklisted" in 2002. Both her solo albums and her work with Canadian retro-popsters the New Pornographers have won Case the adoration of fans and critical raves.
And now Case is lazing about in her pajamas on a sunny day in Tucson, Ariz., hanging out with her dog, Lloyd, and reflecting on the experience of recording a live album.
"You can never really be objective about your sound," says Case, who recorded the disc with the Toronto band the Sadies ("my favorite live band ever"). "So that was another thing: I had to let go of a lot of control. I'm a big control freak in the studio. Not like a tyrant or anything, but I'm kind of hard on myself.
"So there are parts of my performance where I have to say, 'Well, it's live.' There are errors in it, but it's what I wanted to make. I wanted to make a live record and not cheat. And I feel proud that we all accomplished that."
Chris Nixon is a San Diego writer.
