Peter Case

PC Blog

https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/Dangerous-Book.mp3 Kool Trash (1998) When I was a kid I read for hours in the local bookstores, working my way through the Hardy Boys detective series, then moving on to Ian Fleming’s secret service novels. I didn’t understand anything about detectives or spies, so it was strictly fill-in-the-blanks, piecing together a picture of the world from bookrack to bookrack, unguided, racing through the set-ups to the death-defying sex scenes. I loved the nearest branch of the public library too, ever since the Friday night when I was six, in 1960: My pal Pete Damon and I had our first sleepover and brought five or six picture books about bugs back to the house to study by flashlight, all night in bed. That’s still one of the best times I ever had in my life, it was so much fun, reading about walking sticks, and praying mantises, sharing the pictures of anthills and beehives. Life seemed huge, friendly, ancient, inexhaustible. But the reading experience at Ulbrich’s Books at the local suburban plaza, was different. They had popular titles, the latest things, like The Sport Of Judo by Kiyoshi Kobayashi and Harold Sharp. Me and Pete poured over that and eventually brought
The complications in any discussion of The Birth of Tragedy are overwhelming at this point.  I’ve been looking at the companion piece he wrote later, An Attempt At Self- Criticism.  Have you folks seen that? He’s opposed the idea of the Christian with Dionysian. He thinks Christianity is anti-art, anti-life, the desire for a “sabbath of sabbaths.”  I agree that the Christian message has at its root a disgust with the ways of the world. But there’s more to it. It’s also about seeing all with the eyes of love. As usual, what is desirable is not black and white thinking , but a mixing of the viewpoints. Christianity versus Art!  Apollonian versus Dionysian! And a genius philosopher who went mad. But there is something to his probes into these phenomena and their effect on culture. Ok lawyers have at it!     “Nieztsche never wore an umpire’s suit” — (Highway 61 Revisited liner notes)  
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/08-One-More-Heartache-Live.mp3 Live in Cleveland. 1981!   The great Motown/Marvin Gaye hit “One More Heartache” from the live LP “One Night In America.”   Later that same night the legendary “Swingo’s Incident!” Yipes! One Night in America (1981)
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/Peter-Case-Hide-In-Gout-mix-150104b_02.m4a with Ben Harper, guitar, DJ Bonebreak, drums, Cindy Wasserman & Eva DeRoovere, background vocals, David J Carpenter, bass, Jebin Bruni, keyboards Recorded by Sheldon Gomberg at the Carriage House, in Los Angeles Inspired by the Richard Wright novel The Outsider.
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/Peter-Case-The-Plane-That-Never-Dies-m150102_03.mp3 The Plane That Never Flies https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/wig-.mp3 Mr. Wig! Brotherman Rock ‘n’ Roll https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/PC-Blind-Lemon_02.mp3 Blind Lemon
Allen The Frozen Chosen were playing every night on the corner of Broadway and Columbus, across from City Lights books, and Allen Ginsberg started coming out. We spotted him walking across the street towards us, he stepped right up and said “Hey guys, I’m Allen. Mind if I sit in?” We knew who he was, and said “sure.”  He said “Can you play some country blues?”  And we said yeah and went into a blues, and he started making up a song right there on the corner, singing to the people passing by. It was sailors and hookers and tourists and kids and nobody ever stopped but he made up these incredible songs. They’d go on and on, and were funny and moving, goofy and angry at the same time. The best one had a refrain of “Stay Away From The White House” and it was a commentary  on the Nixon scandals, barbed, surrealistic and hilarious. And he was out there performing with the guys on the bottom of the musical totem pole in San Francisco at the time, the Frozen Chosen, probably the least respected group in a fifty mile radius. But he hung with us and was a
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/07-Million-Miles-Away.mp3 Barry Rose, the music director at the local rock ‘n’ roll radio station KBOP, happened to live in Joey’s building. Every so often he and his wife came out to the pool and Joey’d smoke a joint with them in the Jacuzzi. Joey got to know him a bit, so after we had the record finished and had an acetate, we decided to give Barry a preview. Joey set it up for the next night at 7pm, in Joey’s apartment. We’d all be there, the writer’s, Joey, Chris, and me. Supplies were ready, all the Gold, Ludes, Courvosier, Heinikens, and whatever else Joey figured Barry might need to get in the mood to listen. Barry came to the door a half hour late. He had long, straight black hair, and wore mirrored aviator shades and a leather jacket and pants. He was all in black, and slurring his words already. After offering a little of this and a sniff or two of that, we positioned him in a chair at the center of the room between the stereo speakers. He was leaning back in the chair with one booted foot up on the table. When everything was ready, we
This song was recorded by a band we had that never really got off the ground, the Drawing Blanks. It was me, Eddie Munoz, Tony Marsico, and the late Michael Bannister. We made some demos, and it didn’t go anywhere. But I always loved this one. https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/03-Anything-Closing-Credits.mp3   The Case Files (2011) Anything resurfaced on Torn Again, slightly re-written, and this version came out on the compilation, The Case Files, released on Alive/Naturalsound records as a cd, or vinyl. You can buy The Case Files here.
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/05-Pile-Up.mp3 I needed some dough bad, so I told our manager Danny Hollyway I was ready to do a publishing deal. He set a meeting up with the wigs over at A&M Publishing. I wasn’t too keen on going, but Danny told me I better if I wanted to do the business, so I said okay. It was a morning meeting, and I wasn’t in the greatest shape. I was psychedelically hungover. I had an urge to cancel the meeting, but instead, I tried to pull myself together. I got up and put my shades on, and went outside to wait for Danny to show up. We always rode to these things in his car, and I was in no condition to drive. In the meeting I shook hands with a couple guys. One, a serious man in an elegant suit, youngish looking, but with well-cut grey hair, seemed to be in charge. As we were introduced, I felt nervous and started to have an almost out-of-body anxiety experience, a real existential crisis that I was trying to keep a lid on. The old short term memory was out of order or something, so the names were gone from my
https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/02-Baltimore.mp3 Torn Again (1995) with Don Heffington, drums, Jerry Scheff, bass, Greg Leisz, lap steel guitar, Steven Soles, harmony, produced by Case, Soles and Larry Hirsch.        

2 comments

  1. I remember having that book, ‘Folk-Rock: The Bob Dylan Story’ – not the best Dylan book, but the first one I read!