FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 2000. All Rights Reserved

Music by Aubrey McInnis NEKO CASE with National Dust March 30 Republik Out of all the musicians to research, Neko Case is definitely one of the more exciting. Her gig reviews are nothing short of fantastic, her quotes reveal a straightforward attitude and a brassy, smart sense of humour. She currently appears in a Sympathy for the Record Industry calendar as Miss February (that’s Pinkie Valentina to you), and at the moment she’s the cover story for two magazines (provocatively dolled up like old-fashioned eye candy on CMJ and like a rollerskating gal on Exclaim!). This is one busy 29-year-old. Most importantly, Neko’s stunning new album, Furnace Room Lullaby, has officially penetrated the mainstream media. In fact, music critics everywhere are thumbing through a thesaurus, competing to compose a squirtier review of her impressive sophomore album. "I think it’s kinda surreal really," she says about the mainstream coverage, including glowing reviews in Entertainment Weekly and People. Along with her bandmates – or her Boyfriends – Neko is at a truck stop en route to a show in New Orleans. She’s talking about everything from her move from Seattle to Chicago (home of Bloodshot Records), to how she feels like a "dorky boy," and that her life without singing would not be a pretty sight. "(Singing) makes my life OK. If I didn’t do it, I’d probably be really depressed. I think maybe if more people did it, they’d be less depressed," she says. "When I was growing up, music was a really inaccessible thing to do ’cause you see it on TV and it’s a very ritzy, expensive thing and if you’re poor, y’know, that doesn’t seem like an accessible thing. And people always say things like, ‘Oh, being a musician or an actor or an artist is really in the vein of pipe dreams.’ People don’t really encourage you to do that kind of stuff." But thankfully, being part of the Seattle rock group Girl Trouble did encourage Case. Through the nonstop fun of go-go dancing, tight friendship and spectacular live shows, she chose to pursue music which led her to the Vancouver trio, Maow, and later to record her solo debut, The Virginian, and guest star on far too many recordings to list here. And now, years later, she learns that the glitzy spectacle of a career in music isn’t always self-created. "Oh, I’ve had the worst experience with people wanting to take my picture and wanting me to dress up, like in that Pinkie Valentina calendar," she says, obviously tired of the country sexpot persona that the press keeps perpetuating. "The Pinkie Valentina calendar was a favour to my friend. And then CMJ is like, ‘We basically want you naked.’ "I’m like, ‘Fuck off.’" Despite presumptuous pinheads who think they have her character pegged down to a sexy little stereotype, it’s her voice that draws attention. She is the golden voice of independent music, specifically, one that gracefully rejuvenates country music. When Neko Case belts out a song, you don’t want to blink or breathe for fear of missing one of the nuances which leap out of her album. But she’s impressed with the actual plate reverb (as in a classic Owen Bradley recording) throughout Furnace Room Lullaby. She was able to spend a lot of time in the studio after the half-autobiographical and half-fictional songs were conceived during long road trips to different clubs. She has already written material for her third album and has a single partially recorded for release, but she admittedly hasn’t begun thinking about who her next lineup of Boyfriends will be. She’s just relieved that this recording is out. And for a couple people who end up listening to Furnace Room Lullaby after being lured by the deliciously twisted Cindy Sherman-styled still on the album cover, or by the CMJ cover featuring her reading pulp fiction while naked in a bathtub, well, once they listen to her sophomore delight, they’ll be ooh-ing all over her for a different and valid reason.

| Back To This Issue Table of Contents | Back To Main Index |