I first heard about Neko Case in the October 2004 issue of ChartAttack Magazine when there was a small mention of the CD release, Hard-Headed Woman: A Celebration Of Wanda Jackson, in which Neko performed Wanda Jackson's Brown Eyed Handsome Man. I haven't heard the song, unfortunately, so I can't tell you if it is good or not. But another page of the Oct '04 issue was an advertisement for Neko Case's album, The Tiger's Have Spoken. I wondered to myself if this was her debut album, and with a little research, I found that she had three previous recordings PLUS she is a member of the 'indie rock' group, The New Pornographers. Her debut The Virginian, Furnace Room Lullaby, and Blacklisted. It wasn't until Blacklisted that she begun to achieve true notariety. On the LP she completely changed genres; going from otherworldy blues into soul music with a dash of plain ol' rock n' roll. But whatever the genre, Neko's enormously bold and beautiful voice comes on like Loretta Lynn and a modern-day Patsy Cline. All this combined with great melodies and classic country heartbreak. 

The Tigers Have Spoken is a facet of Case's versatile sound, though crammed into a very short (35) minutes. The album, which was recorded live in Toronto and Chicago, includes new original songs and classic covers including my favourite, Shangri-La's Train From Kansas City; a sad, bittersweet story about unexpected heartbreak. The album is full of the same grim and fragile pain demonstrated by Neko's Favorite; filled with beautiful and morbid imagery: Last night I dreamt that I hit a deer with my car/ Blood from his heart spilled out onto my dress and was warm/ He begged me to follow but legions of sorrow defied me. I was a little disappointed however with how short The Tigers Have Spoken is. I'm not surprised that my favorites are the longest tracks on the album; they last longer and are more full-bodied; like a good wine.

Now that I had sipped a little of this fine country aroma, I felt the need for more. Fortunately, Neko's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood was newly released and the opening track's lyrical empathy for imperfect individuals shows off Case's songstress abilities: Ancient strings set feet a light to speed to her such mild grace/ No monument of tacky gold/ They smoothed her hair with cinnamon waves and they placed an ingot in her breast to burn cool and collected/ Fate holds her firm in its cradle and rolls her for a tender/ Pause to savor/ Everything's so easy for Pauline…

These were the sorrowful and melodic words that filtered through my stereo into my eager ears; the song was Margaret vs Pauline. Neko Case is definitely bringing the flood on Fox Confessor and this is probably her strongest work to-date (in my opinion). It is so much more detailed than her previous albums. The lyrical wonder that echoed through my room, quenched my thirst for good country. I haven't liked country prior to listening to Case, but her version of alt country is to my tastes. I had been deprived of such excellence as I had soaked in the short album of The Tigers Have Spoken. Sorry for going off track, but I have been satisfied like a musical prostitute who can't get enough. All sexual references aside, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is something good to invest in and I suggest listening to tracks from Blacklist, The Tigers Have Spoken, and definitely Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.

Sleepy's Suggested Tracks:                                                                  

Blacklist: Wish I Was the Moon, Pretty Girls, Ladypilot, and Runnin' Out of Fools (angry version of an Elvis Costello original).

The Tigers Have Spoken: Train From Kansas City, If You Knew, and Favorite. 

Fox Confessor Brings the Flood: Hold On, Hold On, Star Witness, Dirty Knife, and Margaret vs. Pauline.

P.S. I suffer from a slight music Compact Disc-buying addiction and even if I haven't heard any prior music from a  certain artist, I still find myself buying their album. Often, I am slightly disappointed and feel surges of regret, but investing in Neko has been a valuable purchase (to me anyway). I hope you agree .

   Breath From Another has less of a hip-hop beat and more of a smooth trip hop sound. However, upon listening to the full album, I noticed that the tracks became repetitive so that the entire album just seemed like it was one big song (a good song) with some variations in between. 

   Her newer album, Wikked Lil' Grrls, has more of an upbeat feel to it, which makes it a better choice for the teen girl-young women persuasion as opposed to Breath From Another. However, I really like Breath From Another's ethereal feel to it and it has more original sounding music. Wikked Lil' Grrls has more variety in the songwriting, but it's less recognisable as Esthero's music. You may have even heard some soundbites on re-runs of Sex & The City commercials so you can kind of get an idea of the sexy, upbeat music. Esthero's formulating "bitch" reputation is also something that I like because that may give her personality and attitude enough to keep her music sounding the way she wants it to sound (which is a sound I like). My reccomendations from these two albums, would be: Beautiful Lie, Melancholy Melody, Wikked Lil' Grrls, If Tha Mood, and Breath From Another. From there you can judge for yourself on Esthero's sacred blend of jazz, hip-hop, soul, funk, and rock music that will keep the headphones on your head.

As I said in the last post, I’ve been on the hunt for the ultimate collection of Tori live performances—there are a lot of great performances, especially since she’s been touring for what, thirteen years? Eight tours with anywhere between 100-200 shows each means a TON of shows to choose from, and that’s not including the promotional appearances and whatnot. Needless to say, my list is about 300 songs long, and that’s after I’ve spent days kicking off the lower-quality ones and choosing the best of certain songs (do you have any idea how hard it is to choose the best versions of such songs as “Sugar”, “Blood Roses”, “Precious Things” and “The Waitress”? If you haven’t, take it from me: it’s painful, especially considering the woman is illustrious for her live performances). But amid the chaos of making a decent mix, there are a few performances that stand out as not only being of my favorite live songs, but of my favorite songs period, including studio recordings. THIS is one of those songs.

That is, until I heard this performance, thanks again to a Miss Molly Knight who, lucky for her, happened to be at the show that night in LA. This is what she posted on her website a while back:

I sent Casey a bunch of choice mp3s from Ms. Amos' Piano Bar segment of this tour thinking he'd be all, fjsdkfjsdklgjklsfj! about it. But instead of being all fsdhjfdshfksdhfjk about it, he's all, "none of this is as good as that 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' cover you sent me ages ago." At first I thought he was like, totally braindead. But then I realized something: he was right.

So I emailed him my apologetic epiphany today, and I'm copying it here because I'm too lazy to post about Coldplay right now. Sue me.

Subject: You're Right.

Tori's cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at the KROQ Acoustic Xmas in 1999 is the best cover she's ever done. Period.

It gets overlooked because, by cover standards, she used to do it ALL the time. Now she rarely does it. But I think people just dismiss it because it's not that *rare*.

Here's why it's unsurpassed:

1. It took place at the Anaheim Pond (read: the O.C). At a Festival. 18,000 people were there to see Bush, Blink-182 and the Foo Fighters etc, NOT her. She could have easily phoned it in, but I think the thought of people ignoring her inspires her to kick some more ass than usual. During her performance you could hear a pin drop. And the reason people shut the fuck up was because when she opened with "Teen Spirit" it scared the shit out of them. I thought I was going to have to warn the 15-year old boys sitting in front of me to keep their traps shut during Amos' performance, but they were mesmerized. Hello Jaw, meet Floor.

2. The performance itself is legendary. They used a revolving stage to keep the show moving quickly despite all the different acts. When the Foo Fighters were performing, Tori was setting up on the backstage half of the circular platform. She began playing piano while it turned to bring her out in front of the audience, but there was one problem—it got stuck. That's why the intro is about 2 minutes long. The audience could hear her, but couldn't see her—but that wasn't calculated. It was pitch dark.

3. She opened her set with a Kurt Cobain song at the event sponsored by the radio station that basically put Nirvana on the map.

4. It was the last show she did before a 2-year hiatus—during which she became a mother. (ED: it was also, according to her book and Molly Knight, not long after her—count ‘em—THIRD miscarrage)

5. Her fire hasn't been the same since. Only rarely (read: Pancake w/Ohio from San Antonio '03) does she ever come close to capturing this kind of intensity*.

*By intensity I do not mean pain**; I mean intensity.
**Many Tori fans claim that people like me who complain about her new album being lifeless argue that I simply want her to be miserable forever. I do not want her to be miserable. I do, however, want her to have a pulse.

And here's Casey's brillers assessment of why her cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is the cat's coked up scratch pad:

I assume you enjoy covers that re-imagine favorite songs in new contexts, and I'd say Amos' rendition meets that test pretty well. Cobain's "SMLT" is defined by its aggression; Amos' version starts out as a sultry come-on and winds up completely unhinged. I love the way she's just moaning at the end—she sounds possessed. So does Cobain, of course—his maniacal chanting of "a denial" at the end is one of those thrilling rock moments that has yet to lose its edge, a decade later. As for Amos, she finds her soul deadened by the same things that ruined Kurt—the guns, the hypocrisy, the madness—but she manages to be dangerously arch about it—listen to the way she sings "Load up on guns and bring your friends": it's the end of the world as she knows it, and guess how she feels?

It's a fresh approach to the song, which she could easily sing as a baleful elegy for Cobain. Instead, she animates it with a dark new life. Amos' version doesn't mourn the fact that Kurt's dead—it mourns the fact that he was RIGHT. And that's what gives it the stature that most of her other covers can only aspire to.

I will, however, say this: hearing this performance not only gave me an even greater respect for Tori (I didn’t actually think that was possible), but it also brings me back to a time when music and the passion behind it actually meant something—and it was powerful. This absolutely proves why Tori Amos is considered one of the most brilliant performers ever, but this performance isn’t even so much JUST about Tori—you know how much Kurt and “Teen Spirit” already means to you, and if you don’t, well there’s hardly a band that has been created since 1991 that wasn’t somehow influenced or otherwise affected by the monster that was Nirvana; this is about saying something and meaning it with every ounce of your essence. Whether you’re a Tori fan or not, you are going to be affected by this performance. Seriously. If you don’t in any way feel somehow emotionally shifted after you’ve reached the end of the song, tell me and I will be for once proven wrong about this.

And for those who really don’t think the current music scene is in a rut and in desperate need of rehabilitating, find me a performance less than five years old that is even close to the intensity of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”—Kurt’s version or Tori’s. There aren’t many, if any. And for the love of good music, I wish there were.

Smells Like Teen Spirit – edited version

Aaaand, the Summer of Sin tour kicked off today. I'm posting some live mp3s from the Original Sinsuality tour from this spring to get you in the mood for this next leg of the 2005 tour. I’ll be at the LA show at the Greek Theatre and possibly at the Santa Barbra show as well in the middle of September, so maybe I’ll see you there!