Neko Case, Crooked Fingers - Newport Music Hall (last Thursday)

Singers with alt-country panache are a dime a dozen these days. Much of it is pretty, pleasant, safe and, to be honest, quite average. And I say that as someone who’s drawn to that stuff more than most.

On the surface, Neko Case doesn’t seem to have much that sets her apart from all the others in this loosely defined genre. She sings with vague country overtones that convey deference to the rich history of the American South, yet it’s subtle enough that an adjective like “twangy” would be jarringly inappropriate. Plus, her band incorporates lap-steel guitar, and Case herself often plays a four-string tenor guitar, an instrument long associated with country music (along with jazz and, later, folk).

And yet a Neko Case song is unmistakable, often executed with a brilliance that has rightly expanded her fan base far beyond the NPR-and-latte set. It all starts with her voice, which was in full force at the Newport last Thursday. One of my fellow reviewers has stated his disdain for Neko’s singing. To each his own, because I found Case’s bold, open-throated vocals a thing of beauty live, just as it is on record.

The Newport’s muddy sound system and generally talkative crowds don’t make for an ideal atmosphere in which to soak in all that good stuff, but it didn’t ruin the experience by any means. It did, however, make it difficult to decipher some of the words, which is a shame because her imagistic lyrics often get overlooked amid all the gushing over her voice.

“I Wish I Was the Moon,” a fan favorite from 2002’s Blacklisted, showed her sweet balladeer side, with the lonesome refrain “I’m so tired, I wish I was the moon tonight.” At the end of the set, “Dirty Knife” revealed a more disturbing side (“He laid down on the floor and he slept like iron/While the dirty knife worked deep into his spine/The blood runs crazy”). Both fit Case like a glove, effortlessly transitioning from pining to haunting.

The female backup vocalist filled out the sound nicely, though she was way too talkative between songs. Someone needs to remind her she’s a backup singer.

About halfway through the set, I got a little impatient for more Fox Confessor Brings the Flood tunes, but overall there was a pretty good mix of songs both new (“Middle Cyclone,” “People Got a Lotta Nerve”) and old (“Deep Red Bells”).

It’s rare to read anything about Case without mention of her long, red hair, and most of the press photos have only served to further her image as a sex symbol. But in concert Case came off like the farm girl that she is (she’s an animal lover with 100 acres in Vermont), devoid of anything diva. She even self-deprecatingly displayed her oddly shaped navel to the crowd, explaining that someone told her it looked like a dolphin.

Case excels outside the alt-country ghetto, too, adding her pipes to the New Pornographers, as well as guesting on a recent song by Crooked Fingers, who opened the show. Bandleader Eric Bachmann, who helmed influential mid-’90s indie darlings Archers of Loaf, suffered from a worse sound mix, but nevertheless played a good, short set that left me craving a full Crooked Fingers show.

While it’s doubtful that Archers of Loaf would have shared the stage with Case, Bachmann has become more entranced with folk structures and Springsteen since starting Crooked Fingers. (“Sleep All Summer” was a good example of the former, “You Can Never Leave” of the latter.) I missed the string and horn arrangements that a three-piece with keys and a half-kit couldn’t offer, especially on “Phony Revolutions,” but the songs still held up.

One thing, though. If you decide to play a song that, on record, is a duet with Neko Case, why wouldn’t you work it out so that she could come out and sing it live? What a missed opportunity.

(Also at The Other Paper)

Staying relevant

Neko Case has a new album out, and if you liked Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, you'll like this one. Same vivid, bizarre songwriting, same terrific voice. Same electric-red hair, too, judging by the album cover and features in Paste and Spin. In fact, she graced the cover of Paste's February issue.

Before hearing the album, I was pretty excited to read about Neko, the making of Middle Cyclone, etc. But, to my disappointment, Paste decided to do a "50th Issue Lovefest"-themed issue, which I guess was also some sort of Valentine's day tie-in. This also meant the cover story on Neko Case ended up being a list of her favorite things ("17 Things I <3"). There's a reason most good, long-form feature stories rely on more than a Q&A with the artist, just like there's a reason good stories aren't made up entirely of quotes. Generally, I learn more about an artist and his/her music by reading about a writer's experiences with that artist rather than a string of quotes. Some of my favorite music journalism is such because of what a writer perceives behind and between the quotes--the way someone's face twitches, the way she gets visibly awkward when addressing a certain subject, how she holds her spoon, interactions with strangers, etc.

Which is why I enjoyed Ellen Carpenter's Spin profile of Neko far more. While it may seem counterintuitive, I don't care about Neko describing her favorite things in her own words. I want to hear a good writer describe her favorite things, how that conclusion was made and why they're her favorite things. Not to mention that what she hates is probably far more interesting.

One example. Both stories talk about how much Neko loves her grehounds. In Case's words (from Paste): "Dogs live for today. I love them for that."

In Carpenter's words (from Spin): "Neko Case's biggest fans bum-rush her at her front door. 'Hi, guys!' she singsongs as four large dogs come clattering over floorboards to fill the entrance of her Tuscon, Arizona home with sheer body-wiggling desperation. You'd think she'd been on tour for weeks, not at a local cafe for two hours."

Which is better?

All this to say, the use of gimmicks in music magazines seems to be on the rise, and Paste is certainly not the only guilty party. (This little case study could be easily reversed in a different issue.) I understand that print publications are suffering right now, which I presume is why the newest issue of Paste is the March/April edition. Guess it's back to bi-monthly. But if print publications are trying to compete with free information on the Internet, then they should be emphasizing what makes a print publication different. Not to say that this is the only struggle print publications have (horrible economy, dwindling advertising dollars, etc.), but adapting to the age of the Internet doesn't mean restyling a magazine so it's more like a webzine or a blog. Any number of music blogs have Q&As with artists every day, and they're rarely interesting.

Readers of print publications want more. They want the writing to be a cut above what they speed through on their Google Readers every day. So make it worthwhile, music mags. Adapt, don't conform. And stay away from shallow gimmicks.