Neko rocks NoHo

It had been quite some time since I was at my old stomping grounds at UMass-Amherst. So long that my favorite old record store, For the Record, is now a distant memory. When I was a jazz/blues writer for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, I would go to the store there on Main Street and jot down the jazz and blues albums for that week (this is before I discovered ICE Magazine's new releases list, and later, Pause and Play's), and then call up the record companies and get the discs for free. Sounds ultimately cheap, but I was 'working,' and I needed some way to find out what was new. PLUS, those guys at the store would quickly tell you I was a very good customer and bought plenty there in my time at UMass-Amherst. They were my store -- that was where I went for CDs, almost exclusively. Now, it's a soup place. For the Record closed down in, from what I heard from someone at the new tenant, the Souper Bowl, they left in about Spring of '06. I wonder if I'd have gone in there, if the guy would have recognized me - after six years of being away from Bellingham, Wash., the proprietor of Henderson's Books recognized me in 2004 - "Haven't seen you in a while," he said. "Yeah, I live on the East Coast again, which is where I came from originally."
"Oh," he replied.

Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, I had a chance to see one of that region's musical treasures down the street (i.e. Route 9) from Amherst, at the Calvin Theater in Northampton: Neko Case. First, a word about the Calvin Theater - you wouldn't think to look at it today, but in my mid-90s day of romping and stomping the Pioneer Valley, the Theater always looked one step away from demolition. But it was saved and very handsomely restored, and on Feb. 2 was a very fun place to see a show.


There's a little bar off to the side for pre-show beverages, and then the place is surprisingly large, based on its small exterior. And what great sound, a perfect showcase for Case's voice. This is a force of nature - her alto is imbued with Patsy Cline's spirit, and she is no 'artsy-girl' - her voice has body, it's the voice of the girl on the basketball team too cool to hang with the rest of the girls; the girl who had a boyfriend and dumped him before the rest of her Middle School classmates even started dating; and the woman who has locked herself in her studio apartment with a bottle of whisky to bemoan the loss of the only man she truly loved, until he comes back from the store with milk and eggs.

The show itself was an introduction to many of her new songs on a forthcoming album - don't remember her saying exactly when it will hit stores. You knew you were in safe territory, though, when old Neko standbys Kelly Hogan (backup vocals and comedy) and Jon Rauhouse (the strings man - pedal steel, banjo, guitar) came out aside the former grrrl punk drummer, now country-rock-folk-(enter vague categorization here) chanteuse.

She took requests - well, one that I can remember: Deep Red Bells off of 2002's Blacklisted. It's a little slice of throbbing dimness from the backroads of a Canadian country town. Her second song of the set was Favorite, one of my all-time, um, songs that I really like (for lack of a better word, or repetition), which sounds like a church dirge from some hymnal based on Loretta Lynn's songwriting. As part of the encore, she even 'previewed' the appearance of Tom Petty at the next night's disappointing (for us New England fans) Super Bowl by including 'Listen to Her Heart.'


And reading the excellent review from the Hartford Courant's Eric R. Danton, I'm reminded she also played newer classics like "John the Baptist," and "Maybe Sparrow." They will likely be in her canon for quite some time.

In the end, I wished I wasn't so shy and maybe shouted out some tunes from way back in her catalog, Bowling Green or South Tacoma Way. Or her incredible covers of Dylan's Buckets of Rain, or Lisa Marr's own In California.

All in all, a great show, and I look forward to the new album, Neko. Stay real. Til later.