so white & dry & innocent but evil—the sweetness that creates a sucking sound—a light in every dark heart—candy lives that go down easy  attention spans that spin at the sour—the dirty truth you have to get down on your hands & knees to ride—the faint trail in the dust that leads out through the lines—white footsteps in the green wet grass straight to—SUGAR ISLAND where the deal goes down—kill for a mouthful to bury this turpentine taste—the big size drinks at the asphalt corner stand—in a big plastic sweating cup—each sip leads unbearably to the next ’til yr teeth fall out, your waist is dragging like a swollen hula hoop—yr breath is shorter than a fullback’s book report. Sugar has its spot at the very top of the pyramid, like King Tut or the Sphinx—sugar the universal solvent—more potent than alcohol? A brighter name in the Poison Hall Of Fame—oh we all love to lick the pan—let our tongue lead the way through wisps & crisps of alleys & chiffon floating sweetness—her voice was thin & pinched everybody called HER sugar & she gave them something very sweet that soon rotted their resolve—it’s a ballast without it I fall

After a long day worn out with the guys, rehearsing, yelling, working angles on each other and watching them develop, ducking figurative (and sometimes literal) punches, conforming and rebelling in equally stressed measure to the group think, my head doesn’t ache but my scalp is tight, my face hurts, I’m ready to go back to the second floor motel room I call home—a block and a half from the Capital Records tower—I go in and turn on the black & white—white plastic magnavox TV with the green tube & wobbly knobs—the tube flickers up to life growing from a dot, and reveals, Abbott & Costello fighting the mob, black & white & shades of grey, the actors   beat looking adults, they’ll always seem older than me, slicked back hair and pugnacious expressions with vaudeville timing, my mother told me once she’d seen them go by in Buffalo, a sighting she took seriously, wonder—stars—but—the safety, the comfort, of the late night movies—the plot creeps between used car ads—“come see Cal and his dog Spot!”—and Spot was a lion—a dream link—daydreams at night—relief—a dark room flickered and ghosted by Boston Blackie, the Mob, Detectives, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Natalie Wood, feet

“I tour playing music for a living, have done for years and years. It used to be the records mattered, (and they still do to me and a few others), but basically for most people they seem like an adjunct to the concert line, now. Once upon a time music was a gateway to the forbidden world, to magic, the invisible, to danger too… and the extent to which that is still true is a measure of its worth as a calling. It can’t be about the money. It’s gotta be about love, spells, the feel, where you get ’em, secret knowledge, turning the world around, freedom, true escape and redemption, or there’s no point in playing it, and less than no point for people to listen.”

Peter Case: On The Way Downtown: Recorded Live On FolkScene By DOUG COLLETTE October 28, 2017 Peter Case’s On the Way Downtownreminds how prolific the once and future frontman of the Plimsouls has been during the course of his solo career. Recorded Live On FolkScene captures Case just as he was gaining traction during that phase of his career and offers keen insight into both his writing and performing. What’s most noticeable right away is the ease with which the man sings. Always fluent with his vocal delivery and perhaps never more so than on stage, it’s nevertheless remarkable how effortless he sounds throughout “Spell of Wheels,” just to name one of the eighteen tracks. And while the lack of affectation is notable (and laudable) on its own terms, it’s also important as the foundation for the sound of his music, especially in the stripped-down format of this two part snapshot. Tracks one through nine come from a session on the folk radio program on March 1, 1998 where Peter Case is accompanied by a quintet whose sparse playing is as meticulous as the craft of the frontman’s songwriting. And like all great bands, self-sufficient or in a supplemental role like this, the five

On the Way Downtown to Show Business, Baby Posted By Peter Stone Brown On November 1, 2017 @ 12:36 am In articles 2015 | Comments Disabled Peter Case and Tom Heyman, are both musicians and singer-songwriters who’ve been writing and playing music for decades, who happen to coincidentally currently reside in San Francisco. Both make music that is aware of tradition and musical history, and both have been through the ringer of the music business and keep on doing it anyway. Peter Case’s new album On The Way Downtown (Omnivore Recordings) consists of two live-in-the-studio sets recorded on the radio show, “FolkScene,” broadcast on KPFK in Los Angeles. The first nine tracks recorded in 1998, find Case backed by a small band featuring ace guitarist, Greg Leisz; Andrew Williams, guitar, harmonium, vocals, Tony Marsico, bass; Don Heffington, percussion; and Sandy Chila, drums. They are the perfect backing group for Case, with Leisz’ superb slide work happening at exactly the right moment, creating exactly the right mood. On the remaining nine tunes recorded in 2,000, Case is accompanied by David Perales on violin and vocals who is equally sympathetic. One of the best examples of what this group is capable of happens on “Honey Child,” which continually builds

When I was a kid John Lennon was one of my biggest heros. At 16 years old I read the Rolling Stone interview, and JL said something like ‘I’m the kind of person, when I have a hero, if I find out they wear green socks, I’ll run out and buy green socks’  and  I immediately started to wear green socks myself. Wore ’em for years. I know that’s fucked up. He did a photo spread in Look Magazine, with Yoko, it must have been around the time of  the making of the White Album, and the pictures made a big impression on me. Him and Yoko were posing in a big empty house that they’d just moved into. She was sitting with him and he was playing the guitar, and  I just really admired him, with his girl and guitar in a big house where nobody could tell him what to do. It was one of the things that clarified, at the time, my ideas about life. Of course, my image of him was rubbish. He was mad, painfully insane, destroying his mind with drugs, about to break up his great band. But that flux was part of what

https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/03-Anything-Closing-Credits.mp3 Los Angeles, California: Peter Case in his studio (Photo: Ann Summa).

https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/10-Many-Roads-to-Follow.m4a I learned how to cure the spins. I learned how to split a quarter in half. I learned how to tie my shoes while running. I learned 37 names for the police. (the fuzz, newts, the royals, the peelers, rocket boys, black & whites, G-men boys-in-blue, bobbies, john law, rangers gumshoes, the gang, officer krupke constable, the chaperones, mounties catchpole, beagles, roundsman, feds mace-bearer, tip staves, beadles, coppers blue coats, bull, flatfoot, gendarmes, shamus, dick, pigs, flattie, Dogberry, New York’s finest gestapo & The Man.) names for G-O-N-E: • cheese it! vamoose! head for the hills! scram—make like a tree—jam—vanish alacazam! dive—scat! git—be gone! get along! away with you! get a hot dog! on your way! get out clear out! allez-vous-en shoo! “stand not on the order of your going but go at once” “go and hang yourself” buzz off! skidoo—skedaddle—make yourself scarce—get lost! take a walk! take a hike! go chase yourself—go play in the traffic— shove off—step off—stand off—push off take a powder—blow—& I mean, split! • what kind of magic could I bring to you, who knows all the answers? magic: illustrious, glorious, brilliant radiant, resplendent, bright shining, charismatic, glamorous luminous numinous & alacazam I learned

Peter Case left home when he was 16, taught himself to play country blues on the streets of San Francisco, and was in a couple of signal L.A. rock bands: The Nerves and the Plimsouls . For the last 25 years Case has worked as a singer-songwriter, building a lauded catalog of songs and a reputation as a musician’s musician. Springsteen and Prine and Ely are fans. Sir George Martin tapped him to play Beatles songs at the Hollywood Bowl. He returned from open heart surgery with 2010′s Wig!, a pummeling collection of blues, punk, and garage rock. We talked after a house concert he played at Boston luthier Yukon Stubblebine’s home. Q: Before I turned my tape recorder on you were talking about arthritis. A: Yeah. One of the things you take for granted when you’re younger is how many aspects of your creativity are physical. My problem is in my thumb, and everything I do comes through my thumb. I play guitar, I play piano, I write, I drive, I type, and I experience a lot of pain. Lately I know that there’s a price to pay for sitting down and playing piano, and it does hang me up. I’ll

  https://petercase.com/wp-content/uploads/03-Hanging-On-the-Telephone.m4a ‘Don’t leave me hangin’ on the telephone…’ I was living in San Francisco’s North Beach, and on my spot in front of the Swiss American Hotel one night in 1973, playing the 13th Floor Elevators song ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me, ‘ when I noticed this skinny white guy, about my age, leaning against the no parking sign, smoking a cigarette, watching me. He had short curly hair, wore old blue jeans, white deck sneakers, and a blue/green wooly sweater. At first look, he didn’t really fit in with the scruffy Broadway outlaw scene. I watched as he walked off, and I saw when he came back later, with a big German Shepherd on a short leash, and stopped to listen again. The next evening he passed by, walking, with a pretty, long haired woman, up a few doors to the Condor Club. She was wearing the full length type of overcoat that all the Condor dancers favored wearing to and from work, and after she pushed through the curtains and disappeared into the club, the guy came back, and listened to me play some more. He was definitely checking me out. I took a break, bummed a smoke,