A musician’s life is a strange one: small wonder there's a tendency for their type to live in a bubble, a state of perpetual arrested development. Plus, nostalgia is now big business, and how could anyone refuse the lure of reliving one’s youth for bucks? Peter Case is a man who knows that pop and punk music is the music of youth, and that commercial success is overrated. Unlike so many of his peers, Peter Case has grown into his crumpled black jeans, jacket and battered hat perfectly and plays music befitting not only of his years, but his wealth of experience. Consequently, don’t expect to hear ‘Hanging on the Telephone’.
Before Case treads the boards, though, we’re treated to the musical stylings of Frontier Ruckus, who play good, honest, yet quirky US folk-rock, with the aid of banjo, brass and saw. The name’s entirely befitting of their spirited performance, made all the more refreshing for their unpretentious manner.
Peter Case has a new album to plug (or two, if you count his selection of demos, outtakes and rarities, ‘The Case Files’), and sure enough, he plays a selection of numbers from ‘Wig!’, but starts his set with a trio of tracks from his first solo album. His brand of blues rock ain’t lacking balls and while he plays with the assurance of an old hand, he also plays with the energy of a younger man: in fact, ‘Steel Strings’ combines passion and a no-messin’ delivery that puts so many of today's younger singer-songwriters, these so-called troubadours, to shame. he’s lived it, and plays with fire in his belly. And far from going through the motions, he works hard.
In contrast, and one of the factors that makes Case particularly cool, is his laid-back manner, the naturalness of his playing, and the between-song banter. The guy can sure spin an anecdote – he should put some of these recollections into a book. Wait, he did – and while he might not be reliving his youth musically, his experiences, adventures and misadventures all provide the material for his songs.
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He performs the title track from the new album and it’s an object lesson in quality songwriting: he’s got that down-beat, gritty, low-living thing nailed. He’s been taking notes from the greats, of course, and acknowledges his debt with the covers that are interspersed between the original songs: Blind Willie McTell, Nick Jones and Leadbelly are all in there (‘Banks of the River’ is the opening track on ‘Wig!’). I’m a sucker for a spot of raw blues played on a 12-string with some monster growl thanks to detuning the bottom-end strings.
Case is overrunning his allotted time, but hey, who cares? Clearly not him, as he announces – in place of the customary ‘this is the last song’ – three more songs. And without any further ado, he kicks out ‘Put Down the Gun’ and ‘Two Angels’ from 1989’s ‘The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar’ and wraps up with ‘Dig What You're Putting Down’ from ‘Wig!’. With that, Case calls it a night and we leave tied but happy in the knowledge we’ve seen a true entertainer at work.
Peter Case Online
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