Neko Case

All aging rebels yearn to showcase their latent songwriting chops in a more traditional genre; Neko Case is way ahead of the curve. At 27, the former punk quit those dilapidated hovels to build ornate mansions of traditional country with her Boyfriends and to punch out award-winning power pop with The New Pornographers. As she works on her fourth solo album, due out this spring, Anti- Records is releasing The Tigers Have Spoken, a live document recorded over seven nights in Chicago and Toronto with longtime collaborators The Sadies, Jon Rauhouse, Kelly Hogan, Carolyn Mark and the Pinetops. The album has several quirks that should quell any suspicions of back-catalog milking.

Only two songs on the album are part of Case’s previously recorded oeuvre. The rest are new originals, old standards like “This Little Light,” and a variety of covers, from Loretta Lynn to The Shangri-Las. “I didn’t want to rehash the old songs,” Case explains. “I wouldn’t want to buy a live record with a bunch of songs I already have on it.”

And instead of stuffing a double-disc with hours of material, Case kept The Tigers Have Spoken to a lean 35 minutes. “I have a 33-rpm, two-sided vinyl style attention span,” she says. “Just because a CD can hold more doesn’t mean it should. I didn’t want to overdo it; it seems incredibly self-indulgent.”

In a world where live albums often sound suspiciously studio, The Tigers Have Spoken remains gloriously raw. “It’s hardly touched-up at all,” Case says. “There’s a couple moments that sound messy, but I kind of like the messiness.”

On most live albums, audience participation amounts to little more than applause. But on “Wayfaring Stranger,” Case enjoins the audience to get involved in a more meaningful way. “It was recorded at the ideaCity conference in Toronto,” she says. “We recorded ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ right there in front of [the audience of 300], and asked them to sing along with the chorus. Those people did such a great job, I really wanted them on the record.”

And hey, that’s at least 300 people who are guaranteed to buy it. Popularity-wise, Case admits she’s “not Britney Spears . . . and thank God,” but she’s doing just fine—no disposable bubblegum diva, Case continues to defy expectations and build her fan base song by heartfelt song. Now that’s kinda punk.