furnace room lullaby

Neko Case and Her Boyfriends tenderly twisted the knife over and under to break us with tales of heartbreak, murder, and loss.  In the years since her debut album 'The Virginian' Case had played with  the Corn Sisters and the New Pornographerswhile working on the followup.  The sessions for 'Furnace Room Lullaby' featured Scott Betts on bass;   Neko Case on art direction, photography, production, tambourine, vocal harmony, and vocals;   Brian Connelly on guitar, baritone guitar, and electric guitar;  Bob Egan on lap steel guitar, national steel guitar, and pedal steel;  Dallas Good on guitar;  Travis Good on upright bass, fiddle, 8 string guitar, acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, electric guitar, tenor guitar, and mandolin;  Mike Grier on vocals;  Kelly Hogan on vocals and background vocals;  Evan Johns (and his H-Bombs) on electric guitar and steel guitar;  Kevin Kane on 12 string guitar;  Don Kerr on snare drum and guitar; Linda McRae on accordion;  Darryl Neudorf on acoustic guitar;  Carl Newman on vocals;  Ford Pier on organ and piano;  John Ramberg on baritone guitar, electric guitar, and background vocals;  Henri Sangalang on bass;  Ron Sexsmith on acoustic guitar and vocals;  and Joel Trueblood on drums and snare.  

Case says: "You're not supposed to totally know what's happening. The songs are supposed to give you clues so you can fill in the blanks. I don't know if I'm good at this or not, but I try. I started out trying to write songs that were more straightforward but it didn't really work. And I'm particularly not good at writing love songs. Maybe if something comes to be, but I can't just whip one up. Unless it's about loving dogs, then I'll sound like a kook. Maybe I do now ... It was weird how the Corn Sisters and the [New] Pornographers and my record [2000's Furnace Room Lullaby] all came out at the same time, because we'd been working on those projects three years prior. People would probably make the mistake that I'm super-prolific, but I'd just been working on them for a long time... I'm not super-slow, but I'm not super-prolific, either. Especially with the Pornographers, it's a lot easier, because I don't actually write the songs. [mock-announcer's voice] "There are a team of songwriters working around the clock in my absence!" They do all the songwriting, Dan [Bejar] and Carl [Newman], and then I come in and sing, which is a nice holiday for me. The Corn Sisters, we do a lot of old songs, a lot of covers, we do some songs we've written, some songs Carolyn has written herself. That's a very low-pressure band."









http://nekocase.com/









"Mood to Burn Bridges"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AJtJtJW-38



"Thrice All American" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AXVBtBJjLw





"Furnace Room Lullaby"  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jttWyvL6iIM





'Furnace Room Lullaby'
full album:




1. "Set Out Running"   Neko Case 3:00
2. "Guided by Wire"   Scott Betts, Case, John Ramberg, Joel Trueblood 3:21
3. "Porchlight"   Case, Brian Connelly, Don Kerr, Ron Sexsmith 3:35
4. "Mood to Burn Bridges"   Betts, Case, Connelly, Trueblood 2:53
5. "No Need to Cry"   Betts, Case, Connelly, Trueblood 2:16
6. "Twist the Knife"   Ryan Adams, Case, Mike Daley, Ramberg 2:34
7. "Thrice All American"   Betts, Case, Connelly, Ramberg, Trueblood 3:13
8. "We've Never Met"   Case, Kerr, Sexsmith 2:52
9. "Whip the Blankets"   Betts, Case, Connelly, Trueblood 2:43
10. "South Tacoma Way"   Betts, Case, Connelly, Trueblood 4:51
11. "Bought and Sold"   Case, Ramberg 2:09
12. "Furnace Room Lullaby"   Case, Travis Good 2:53

blacklisted

Neko Case shed her boyfriends for this devastatingly beautiful country noir landmark.  'Blacklisted' was recorded at Wavelab Studios in Tucson, Arizona and produced, engineered, and mixed by Darryl Neudorf and Craig Schumacher.  The guest musicians at the sessions included Joey Burns on acoustic, electric, & tenor guitars, accordion, upright & electric bass, cello, vibraphone, and pump organ; Brian Connelly on guitar; John Convertino on drums; Howe Gelb on organ, piano, and wurlitzer; Dallas Good on acoustic, electric, 12 string, & baritone guitars; Kelly Hogan on background vocals; Mary Margaret O'Hara on background vocals and vocal harmony; Jon Rauhouse on banjo, pedal steel, and Hawaiian guitar; and Tom V. Ray on upright bass.  Arrangements were also done by Rauhouse and Ray.  

Case had recorded the 'Canadian Amp' mini album on her own during the tour for 'Furnace Room Lullaby'.  Because of that experience, she says:  "I went into the studio feeling more confident to record 'Blacklisted', but I was also in an environment with people I knew I’d feel comfortable with. It helped a bit though...I knew who I wanted to play on it, but I didn’t know how it was going to sound. I had an idea of what I wanted, yes. It’s a bit an abstract concept I suppose...I wanted to do it analog, and I had already recorded with Craig Schumacher, John, Joe, and Howe because of our other recordings we haven’t yet released. It was really gratifying and everything worked really nicely...It’s kind of intimate, but it’s spacious at the same time. It’s giving the illusion of spaciousness. People tend to think it’s sparse. But actually there’s a lot going on all the time. To make it more spacious, you take all the music and make it much quieter than the vocals. You put the vocals way up and use a bit of reverb. I did that because I really admire old recordings by people like Owen Bradley. I admire old recordings, like those old Platters records, stuff where they would use a giant orchestra and make it subservient to the vocal. This creates this remarkable tension, that gives it the spaciousness it has. And using the analog format helps that too. I think tape hiss is almost atmosphere in itself...It’s certainly not as immediate as the last one. It’s kind of a slow-burner."








http://nekocase.com/










'Things That Scare Me'
Case says: "I live in a country that holds up values as something that’s branded on Americans and people don’t really live by them. And the so called 'American Dream' is a pretty all-consuming monster. People can’t step back from it enough to see that they need to calm down a little bit and focus on much smaller things. I don’t know, it’s just a little thing that means a lot of big things."




According to Case, 'Deep Red Bells' "has a lot to do with growing up in Washington state during the time when the Green River Killer was active, when I was in junior high. It's frightening. It has a lot to do with when you're a kid and you see that stuff on TV all the time---the news definitely made the distinction that these women were prostitutes, in fact they didn't talk about them like they were women much at all, which made me feel really bad for the women. Myself and many, many other young women that I knew at the time were very, very scared of the Green River Killer. It was very much a part of our psyche, and it still is, when you grow up with that kind of stuff. Washington had a lot of serial killers---a lot. The whole time I was growing up, there was Ted Bundy, or the guy in Spokane. And when I was in Vancouver, they finally caught the guy---all these prostitutes were disappearing from downtown, and nobody gave a shit about it. Actually, the people of Vancouver gave a shit about it, but the local government didn't, because a lot of them were prostitutes, some of them were drug addicts, so they figured they were lost anyway. I actually think there's a civil suit in Vancouver---you might want to check on the facts on that---because they could have figured out who this guy was a long time ago, and they didn't bother to do it. The government would make up these wild claims---'Well, we might think it might be a white slavery ring', blamed it on Asian gangs---it was really gross. Same thing with the Green River Killer: they knew who he was for a long time, but they couldn't bring him in on technicalities. I'm sure that it upset the people who had been looking for him that long just as much as the parents of the people he had killed. These women's lives just never seemed that important; they weren't really made that important on the news. It was all about fear. I guess the song is basically me just thinking, 'What are their lives? What would their families do?'"




Case explains the inspiration for 'Lady Pilot':  "I was getting on a plane going to Tuscon, Arizona, to do some recording. I was really happy, and I thought, 'My life is so good, this is gonna be the part when the plane crashes.' I was feeling ultra-superstitious. And then I got on the plane, and the pilot was a woman, and she was wearing a skirt, she had red hair, and she was foxy. And I thought, 'Oh, cool, I've got a lady pilot. I'm not gonna die!'"






Case says 'Stinging Velvet' "is just a sort of love song about missing the rain."






'I Missed the Point'




Case says the title of the album doesn't have anything to do with her only performance at the Grand Ole Opry where she took off her shirt and kept playing in her brassiere because it was so hot:  "I had heatstroke. People would love it to be a 'fuck you' punk thing. But it was actually a physical ailment thing...'Blacklisted' is just a name of a song. It encapsulated the theme of the album. It’s an evocative word. The Grand Ole Opry thing has been overblown. I didn’t tell the Opry to fuck off. There was a misunderstanding. It has happened to Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, and Johnny Cash, I think. Some of the people who work there were great, treated us nice, and showed us stuff we’d never see. Like being backstage and seeing Jimmy Dickens walk by and say 'how’s it going.'"



'I Wish I Was the Moon'











'Blacklisted'
full album:




All songs written by Case, except where noted.

"Things That Scare Me" (Case, Tom Ray) – 2:30
"Deep Red Bells" – 4:03
"Outro with Bees" – 1:35
"Lady Pilot" – 2:26
"Tightly" – 2:16
"Look for Me (I'll Be Around)" (Sylvia Dee, Guy Wood) – 3:21
"Stinging Velvet" – 2:55
"Pretty Girls" – 3:25
"I Missed the Point" – 1:52
"Blacklisted" – 2:22
"I Wish I Was the Moon" – 3:34
"Runnin' Out of Fools" (Richard Ahlert, Kay Rogers) – 3:05
"Ghost Wiring" – 3:54
"Outro with Bees (Reprise)" – 2:24

the virginian

Neko Case made the move from punk rock drummer to alternative country chanteuse with this mix of honky tonk covers and originals.  Case was born in Virginia, but moved around as a child because her dad was in the Air Force.  The family settled in Tacoma, Washington; and Case left home at the age of fifteen to go to school in Vancouver, British Columbia.  While there she became involved as a drummer in several local bands including Del Logs, the Propanes, the Weasels, Cub, and Maow.  Case says:  

"I didn't start singing in front of anybody until I was twenty-five or twenty-six...I started playing drums in punk bands as early as seventeen; I was shy, and drums are a good thing to hide behind. And it's really fun to play drums. I went to so many shows, and finally somebody suggested starting a band, and I was right there. There's a point where you just have to say, 'If these other people are willing to look stupid, I'm willing to look stupid.' And also getting older and having more confidence. I didn't really come from a place with a lot of confidence." 

'The Virginian' was recorded with Brian Connelly as producer with musicians Carl Newman, Carolyn Mark, Rose Melberg, Matt Murphy, and Darryl Neudorf, all listed on the album as "Her Boyfriends".  She recalls:  "I had written a bunch of songs that were country and weren't right for Maow. Maow didn't want to be a country band, so I decided to record them myself...It was a haphazard process of calling people that I admired and asking them to play on my record, and most of them did. I couldn't believe it...There's an incredibly supportive music scene in Canada. A lot of that has to do with the Canadian government being so supportive of the arts in general. It's a great place to play music."  

'The Virginian' is divided between originals co-written by Case and a variety of covers of classic and obscure songs by the likes of the Everly Brothers, Matt Murphy, Scott Walker, Loretta Lynn, Ernest Tubb, and Queen's John Deacon.  The sound is classic country; and Case's voice evokes Wanda Jackson and Patsy Cline.  She says:  "I don't like being pigeonholed like that, at all. I don't play 'alternative country' music; I just play country music. I want to have the same outlets, the same goals that all my heroes in country/western music have had. I want to play the Grand Old Opry in my grandmother's lifetime, you know what I mean? I want to be played on mainstream radio. I'm not willing to change my music to get there faster, but I'll fight for it anyway. I don't think anyone gives a shit about country radio. It's bullshit. It just makes me mad that country radio is using the term 'country music', when it doesn't belong to them...I'm not a fan of that. I think now is the time for change in country music; hopefully it'll change for the better. It really burns that all the bands that inspired me were part of a national country music culture that was really admirable and fairly diverse at one time. I want to have the same avenues open to me. It's like having this beautiful old building in your neighborhood and coming back to find that they've torn it down and built a Wal-Mart in its place."

http://nekocase.com/


@NekoCase










'Timber' was written by Neko Case, Brad Lambert, and Eric Napier.  




'Bowling Green' was written and performed by the Everly Brothers.







'Lonely Old Lies'  was co-composed by Case, Lambert, Napier, and Carl Newman.  








'The Virginian' is another Case, Lambert, Napier, Newman composition. 




'Duchess' was composed by Scott Engel who recorded it under his pseudonym Scott Walker.




'Thanks a Lot' was originally done by Ernest Tubb and written by Eddie Miller and Don Sessions.








John Deacon wrote 'Misfire', which originally appeared on Queen's 'Sheer Heart Attack' album.



'The Virginian'
full album:




"Timber" – 2:45 (Neko Case, Brad Lambert, Eric Napier)
"Bowling Green" – 2:16 (Terry Slater, Jacqueline Ertel)
"Jettison" – 3:13 (Case, Ford Pier)
"High on Cruel" – 2:02 (Case, David Carswell)
"Karoline" – 2:24 (Case, Carswell)
"Lonely Old Lies" – 3:34 (Case, Lambert, Napier, Carl Newman)
"Honky Tonk Hiccups" – 2:22 (Matt Murphy)
"The Virginian" – 3:29 (Case, Lambert, Napier, Newman)
"Duchess" – 2:55 (Scott Engel)
"Thanks a Lot" – 2:35 (Eddie Miller, Don Sessions)
"Somebody Led Me Away" – 2:46 (Lola Jean Dillion)
"Misfire" – 2:10 (John Deacon)

fox confessor brings the flood

Neko Case's haunting voice sang of orphaned blues even as she surrounded herself with a crack team of musicians for the sadly beautiful 'Fox Confessor Brings the Flood'. It was recorded over two years, while she released the live 'The Tigers Have Spoken' with the Sadies and toured with the New Pornographers and sang on their 'Twin Cinema' album. During that time she brought in Kelly Hogan, Jon Rauhouse, Tom V. Ray, Brian Connelly, and Paul Rigby; as well as members of The Sadies, Giant Sand, Calexico, Visqueen, and The Band. The music is atmospheric and understated, providing a perfect backdrop to her unique and powerful voice. In the words of the Fox Confessor:

"It's not for you to know, but for you to weep and wonder."

http://nekocase.com/

'Maybe Sparrow'

Maybe sparrow you should wait

The hawks alight till' morning

You'll never pass beyond the gate

If you don't hear my warning

'John Saw That Number'

God told the angel "Go see about John"

So he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist

Gathered wind in his fists and the stars round his wrists

Cryin' holy, holy to the Lord

'That Teenage Feeling'

And nothing comforts me the same

As my brave friend who says,

"I don't care if forever never comes

Cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling"

'Star Witness'

"Hey when she sings, when she sings when she moves like she runs"

'Hold On'

Compared to some I've been around

But I really tried so hard

That echo chorus lied to me with its "Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on"

'The Needle Has Landed'

The needle's the same that recorded and played

When you left me at the greyhound the year I moved away

And if I knew then whats so obvious now

You'd still be here...Baby

'Fox Confessor Brings the Flood'full album:




All songs written by Neko Case, except where noted.

"Margaret vs. Pauline" – 2:52
"Star Witness" – 5:16
"Hold On, Hold On" (Case, The Sadies) – 2:46
"A Widow's Toast" – 1:36
"That Teenage Feeling" – 2:42
"Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" (Case, Paul Rigby) – 2:42
"John Saw That Number" (traditional, Case) – 4:06
"Dirty Knife" – 3:18
"Lion's Jaws" (Case, The Sadies) – 2:28
"Maybe Sparrow" – 2:37
"At Last" – 1:35
"The Needle Has Landed" (Case, The Sadies) – 3:45