Peter Case
Flying Saucer Blues
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Peter Case opened his recent set at IOTA with two of his best road songs. "Travellin’ Light" from 1989’s Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo Traditionalist Guitar is the story of a "mixed-up kid" with "a hole in his soul where the wind blows through." "Spell of Wheels" from 1998’s Full Service No Waiting is about "five kids in a beat up car kicking up their heels" who get into a knife fight before finally making it to Minnesota.

The two songs are indicative of the kind of nicely understated, character-driven folk and roots-rock Case has produced over the course of seven albums since disbanding the seminal power-pop outfit the Plimsouls in 1984. Prior to that he was in the San Francisco punk band the Nerves from 1976-78.

These days, he draws mostly on country, blues and folk to put across his tales of dreamers, wanderers and beautiful losers. Case wears his acoustic guitar strapped up high and hunches over as he plays. A chiropractor would probably hate his posture but in an odd way it sort of adds to his anachronistic image as the travelling folkie, hitting the road with just a guitar and a handful of harmonicas.

Case told the IOTA crowd it was only the second date on his current tour. "Only 98 more to go," he joked. "This is our favorite show so far."

Case is accompanied on the tour by David Perales on violin, mandolin and vocal harmonies. The pair performed five songs from the newly released Flying Saucer Blues including "Coulda Shoulda Woulda," which sounds like the sort of country rave-up Garth Brooks favors when he’s not doing the Chris Gaines thing or trying to play baseball. The song details the regrets of an underachiever: "Could, shoulda, woulda stayed in school/James Brown was right, I was a fool/I wish I woulda got a G.E.D./You want fries with that BLT?"

The pretty new ballad "Blue Distance" was also a highlight with nice harmonies from Perales. It has a melody and cadence familiar to anyone who has heard Case’s other recordings and beautiful lyrics about contemplating the leap into the great unknown.

He also performed "Walking Home Late," a song Case wrote after hearing a family of gospel singers in a Memphis park. And Case referred to "Paradise, Etc." as a song of "daily survival" while longing for the "cloudland, dreamland, fairyland" of the title. "The road I’ve been on since I was two. Well I just found out that it don’t go through," he sings in one of the album’s charming, homespun couplets.

The new record is a worthy successor to Full Service with many of the same players Case has used for awhile, including the excellent pedal-steel session player Greg Liesz. Producer Andrew Williams also returns. In him, Case seems to have found a kindred spirit who understands how to make his organic, acoustic sound modern yet timeless without resorting to studio tricks.

Case took on several songs from Full Service including a nicely harmonized "Until the Next Time" and "On the Way Downtown," which is about his favorite corner in his upstate New York hometown. He reached back to his 1986 self-titled solo debut for a spare version of "More Than Curious" and a gutsy and energetic vocal take on the bluesy "Icewater," which was a bit sloppy musically. Also featured were several songs from his 1994 album of covers of old folk, blues and rock songs Peter Case Sings Like Hell.

In what has become a tradition at his shows, Case also came out into the audience for unplugged versions of a couple of songs. "Beyond the Blues" from 1992’s Six-Pack of Love was beautiful stripped of that album’s botched production job by the normally reliable Mitchell Froom. And "A Little Wind (Could Blow Me Away)" from 1995’s Torn Again is a great little rave-up regardless of the volume it’s played at. Unfortunately, Case broke not one but two strings during the closing part of the set. But opener Mike Lane came to the rescue with a loaner guitar which allowed Case to come back for three encores, highlighted by a requested version of the lengthy ballad "Entella Hotel" and even a bit of yodeling on one song.

Lane’s opening set with a cellist and a keyboard player featured the deliberate, earnest, occasionally psychedelic pop heard on records like the newly released Starshine EP and 1998’s Good Luck With Electricity. He’s a Minneapolis singer-songwriter who spent time in the Baltimore area and who bears an unfortunate resemblance to Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. Vocally he sounds a bit like ex-Waterboy Mike Scott on a handful of songs.

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