Peter Case

Notebook

Have You Ever Been In Trouble?

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Jail

When the door clanks shut that’s jail—in the dark body boiling heart beating fast—trapped in anxiety—the bench is a bed there’s no one through the bars—nowhere to go—waiting is all—the concrete—hard & cold—the door is solid wood with a little window that slides back to reveal eyes the sink & toilet unused five feet to pace in the vibrating memory of all who’ve stood here in guilt and fear—my frail flesh contained by steel—anger directed by dead eyes—my voice surprises me & no one hears it—I’m a mystery to myself—and there’s no one else in sight—listening waiting & reading the nothing scratched on the wall—talk outside approaching steps echo in the hall key in the back with a hollow ring.

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Many Roads To Follow–The Nerves–San Francisco–’70’s

• As Far As You Can Get Without A Passport, Notebook • 1 Comment

a beat up building on Folsom Street
cars rush by late for the freeway
late for the bridge
trash in the street cracks in the window
& every player in the band
lives on a separate floor
aligned by the window well
A bass amp on the floor
pressed into service as a coffee table
linoleum asbestos & an old junk tv
tuned to the all night movies (movies ’til dawn)
a beat up record player & speakers
& kitty cats torment the puppy
(who howls when they slap him
with their claws out stretched)
someone upstairs is yelling again fighting again
round & round shouts down the well
I had an onion Paul had a spud
& we fried ‘em up in oil
with catsup borrowed from Clown Alley
San Francisco—the ’70’s—a city of outlaws
the West—drifters & outsiders
rents are cheap & we’re passing the days
in a basement
hours of rehearsal while
the clock tower on a downtown bank
ticking the hours by ten or sixteen
nothing in the fridge nothing in the cupboard
no books on the shelf
no money but time
dreaming up songs that somehow limp back
we laugh together it works sometimes
working hard for hours but it’s a lonely group
something out of nothing that’s how to write songs
it’s always amazing when something happens
& I hear them laughing.

 

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Banging the Piano, part 1

• Doctor Moan & The Midnight Broadcast, Music, Notebook • No Comments

Courage is who you stood up to while your back ached your heart beat your breath galloped your heartbeat doubled—he got next to me and I could see murder in his eyes—he wanted to teach me a lesson—he growled and ordered me to sit down– in a chair he threw into the middle of the room—I knew what his intentions were and I ran—he couldn’t catch me and I hid—soon after that I began to stand up to him— when I stopped running and turned around he wept–the real father and son night—courage is of the heart—it’s not just resistance but resistance for a heart-felt cause—we never discussed the heart—I did a lot of things other people are scared of—did they take courage? I know I’ve shown some—but you have to know your heart to defeat cowardice—you gotta believe—standing up to a beating—I’ve never been good at but I kept my terror in check a couple times—they say what I did took courage—but I don’t know only the individual can know about themselves—Lord Jim—hitch hiking when I was a kid? say what you gotta say—do what you gotta do—fear is always there but “take away my fear and direct my attention towards what you would have me do” let me stand up step forward reach out—”save the boy! save the boy!”

 

Dr Moan is my new album and will be released March 31 on Sunset Blvd Records.

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Jumbo Twelve

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Discolored from rain on the tarmac near Detroit—TSA left the snaps half undone—and now it looks bruised—the old jumbo twelve string—called it “the cannon”—it’s loud and deep—feels alive in my hands—a sound I’ve developed to express the american red brick honky tonk beauty I’ve been feeling since 1970 or so—the twelve string is a spiritual  instrument—I said it for laughs but it’s got a lot of truth to it—the thinner octave strings suggest a parallel dimension—the realm that follows and corresponds to this one—the plonk and jangle–boom and chime quicksilver brightness—

The deep notes with their higher twins—cut through the air–through depression, despair and boredom—objectivity and abjectivity—the twelve string brings extra arms in the fight for light—harder to bend—but more rewarding—still pliant—people say “oh, it’s samey I wouldn’t want it on every song” and I don’t either but it helps me make the most of a simple phrase—always the ghost—the top-end reminder of the spiritual—twelve gates to the city—my protector—a wall of sound?—blues on the twelve—Hendrix—Leadbelly—Keith Richards—it’s heroic—John Hammond Jr. at McCabe’s that night on a guitar just like this one—maple—blonde—tuned way down to C—to see—needs to be treated with blessings, gratitude and respect.

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The Gifts (some notes on Bob Dylan’s 80th Birthday)

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Thanks to Bob Dylan, on his 80th birthday for all the gifts he gave to us. Personally, I always feel like it’s Christmas on Earth (as Rimbaud coined it) when I experience Bob singing, speaking, writing, acting, painting and drawing, most whatever he does has been illuminating. I learned about American music and America itself. For me, time stopped when I heard Mr. Tambourine Man for the first time, and shortly after read “Folk-Rock: the Bob Dylan Story” in paperback, (which was very misleading in, but also enlightening in some ways.) By the time I was 14 I’d heard his first several albums, read the poems enclosed with the third album, 11 Outlined Epitaphs, started learning the songs in the Bob Dylan Songbook I received as a gift in 1966, listened over and over to HWY 61 through John Wesley Harding, then read Tarantula from a mimeograph while high on mescaline, and weeping, in 1971, in my first room away from home, with the Dont Look Back poster on the wall, hidden when the door opened, that movie, then companionship on the bank of sand Watching The River Flow, later the generational tale of Tangled Up In Blue, and all the others—Dignity–I pulled the car over when I first heard it on the radio—Jokerman–I brought home and alone listening was transfixed—it was riveting—so alive—earlier he taught us that all the American folk music belongs together—that the sound of the words is as important as anything—somehow it led me to Shakespeare—Kerouac also a part of this—the WORD—to Eliot when I was a kid—Stevens–Ginsberg–Kaufman—now Notley–Tongo Eiesen-Martin-—that life is an adventure, an opportunity, is important.    Life—is holy—Death so powerful—the mystery—anima—the invisible world—the champions of civil rights—the dignity and value and stature he brought to rock n’roll and folk—music, etc—is no small thing—he made me want to live, to strive, to contend—wisdom of the street—the vision, the powerful sweep and scope—Chimes of Freedom—It’s All Right, Ma—Baby Blue—he sang for freedom of the spirit and the soul—”the guardians and protectors of the mind”–“it is not he or she or them or it that you belong to”– ““an’ mine shall be a strong loneliness dissolvin’ deep/t’ the depths of my freedom/an’ that, then, shall/
remain my song.”

–“don’t put on any airs when you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue”—“when you ain’t got nothing, you ain’t got nothing to lose” —“she’s got everything she needs she’s an artist, she don’t look back” —“she never stumbles, she’s got no place to fall”–  like Bob in ’64-’65—(“he never stumbled” said Penny)– when I was a teen—“somebody got lucky but it was an accident”–  “goin’ back to New York City I do believe I’ve had enough”– (marvelling at the chaos of life and New York.) The beauty of Girl From The North Country—Went To See The Gypsy hit me in my 1971 isolation—at my biker friend Rose’s Cadillac dealership, waiting in the parking lot for her to get off work– in the days before I left town for good—the last song that moved me like that for a while—’til Billy—which also I loved and identified with–Billy’s trouble as I was on the lam 70’s style—so vivid and finally got that great inscription in the pink lyrics book perused at the SF bookstore two thousand miles from my home—“to all those high on life—from all corners of the wild blue yonder.”

–PC 2016

*  Long Time Gone, an early Dylan song, from my cd “HWY 62” on Omnivore Recordings, 2016.

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Fifty Years Since “Let It Be”

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the priest who never slept

was our favorite

you could talk to him

he was always there alone

smoking and writing

equations on the board

but poor Gaynel

took her own life

at sixteen

and the little longhaired girl

with glasses

cried for her

and got out of that

stuck up school

I never wanted to go

that’s how we met

in a suburban development

with no trees

called Forest Glen

not far from the Thruway

the priest had theories

that’d scare you

if you ever thought of ‘em

and the little longhaired girl

with glasses was very thin

and very sad

in the spring

the snow was filthy

still in melting piles

shrinking

the earth smelled

like an open wound

wet clay and rotten leaves

trees still bare

on Pleasant Avenue

I smell the raindrops

in her hair

she’s my best friend

and we both

wear long coats.

debris in the gutter

broken plastic toys

shreds of colorful

garbage

in the living

room we watched

he held a gun

to the man’s head

and blew his brains out

everybody saw

and soon

a few minutes later

the Beatles

were somberly singing

let it be.

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for Crazy Horse Danny Schrimsher

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For my old street singing buddy

Crazy Horse Danny

no reunions on stage for

us/ the ‘Frozen Chosen”

we never played much

on stages anyways/ 1973

usually a streetcorner/ a

telephone + a

parking meter were all

we needed  to put on a

show: a couple winos

would glare red faced +

itchy

from the curbstones/

leaning on a letter box while

the neon flashed/ + the

headlights crashed/ the cop

on the sidewalk/ sends

for the paddywagon/ so we

had

to dash/ How is a life like

this pieced together? You

worked

on the black market +

fringe/ jobs like guarding

the pot fields

for the jungle growers in

Hawaii/ hustles/ rock +roll

cover

bands for Honolulu

tourists. Our secrets +

dreams were

looked up + mixed in

poverty’s ferocious history/

always

one step in back// so if

we get weak/ too lonely/or

drunk on cheap

fireworks. If his eyes are

swollen from a

brawl on Broadway/ with

usurpers who had the nerve

to

pull a swithchblade/

Danny reached into the the

trash

bin  + pulled out a

weapon: a coke bottle/ one

of the

ones made of glass/

boink! boink! boink! on the

guys head

the fight then garbage

canned right across the

street through

nightclub traffic + into

the Garcia Vega Cigar store

+ here comes

Nick the Cop. We split up

the alleys–reconvene at the

Coffee

Gallery. Later we follow a

drunken man who  flashes

a roll of

bills at us/ while throwing

a tip in our case/ all the way

to

Washington Park/ but we

decide not to roll him/ what

if he

yells + we have to hit

him? “I can’t do that for

money, man.”

we’re broke + hungry/

with nowhere to go/ but

Heaven.

 

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 Courage

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Who you stood up to while your back ached yr heart beat yr breath galloped yr heartbeat doubled—he got next to me & I could see murder in his eyes—I know he wanted to teach me a lesson—he ordered me to “sit down” in a chair he threw into the middle of the room—he was going to terrorize me & I ran—he couldn’t catch me & I hid—soon after that I began to stand up to him—I stopped running & turned around & he wept—courage is off the heart—its not just resistance but resistance for a heart-felt cause—we never discussed the heart—I did a lot of things OTHER people are scared of—did they take courage? I know I’ve shown some but I also suspect my cowardice—you have to know your heart to defeat cowardice—you gotta believe—standing up to a beating—I’ve never been good at but I kept my terror in check a couple times—they say what I did took courage—but I don’t know  only the individual knows about themselves—Lord Jim—hitch hiking when I was a kid? say what you gotta say—do what you gotta do—fear is always there but “take away my fear & direct my attention towards what you would have me do.”  :et me stand up step forward reach out—save the boy!

 

 

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Staying Out All Night

• Music, Notebook • 1 Comment

 

Tour dates: www.petercase.com/gigs

summertime

the stillness at the crossroads all you hear is the signal box knocking as the light turns & turns—headlights & taillights red & blocks away the cities still alive but it’s somewhere else it’s late—a deep conversation sitting on the curb elbows on the grass there’s still a couple places open—July & the air is sweet the temperature of skin—“the night is ours but the day belongs to God”—we’re staying out all night—it’s not a bad thing—there ain’t no trouble but I don’t wanna go back—I don’t wanna go in—love ain’t a sin—no matter where ya  begin—the street lights—the curbstones—the cars roll by—there’s nowhere else that’s right for us but out here on the street—stayin’ out all night—later on spinning records in her room—forever changes & avalon—walking home before the birds start singing—July is the one in the middle of the summer & the night before you know it—I’m in love with you—we’ve got to be free—stayin’ out all night & there was another song that complained about me—but I’ve got to be free—it’s the way that I see—stayin’ out all night—the morning has a charge—a change.

 

clip above filmed by The Dark Bob

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