“At McCabe’s/My Life To Live” (Sunset Blvd. Records)
By Eleni P. Austin
Peter Case first tasted mainstream success back in 1982, as front-man and sonic architect of The Plimsouls. Their infectious single “A Million Miles Away” landed in the Billboard Top 100. But his musical journey first began in the mid 1950s.
Born in 1954, Peter grew up in Hamburg, New York. His older sisters turned him on to the primitive cool of early Rock & Roll, and his first instrument was a Mickey Mouse Ukulele purchased with Green Stamps. Of course, Elvis Presley and The Beatles became early touchstones, but his young mind was blown the first time he heard Bob Dylan and Mississippi John Hurt. At 16, he hitchhiked to Boston to see Lightnin Hopkins, and the die was cast. He knew that music was his future. Once he quit high school, he cycled through a series of nascent bands. Eventually, he ended up in San Francisco and began earning his keep busking, along with other street musicians.
In the early ‘70s, San Francisco was a musical Wild West, and it felt like anything was possible, Punk Rock rebellion was in it’s infancy. In 1974, he connected with like-minded musicians like Paul Collins and Jack Lee. Together, they formed The Nerves. The proto-Power Pop/Punk trio first made their bones gigging around San Francisco and Los Angeles.
They recorded an EP and wound up touring the country as the opening act for The Ramones. But it soon became clear that three talented singer-songwriters were having trouble co-existing within the tight confines of a three-piece band. BY 1978, they amicably parted ways. Although their existence was short-lived, they ended up influencing countless bands. Not long after their demise, Blondie recorded a super-charged version of the Jack Lee composition, Hangin’ On The Telephone,” it reached the Top 5 on the U.K. charts and garnered mainstream radio airplay at home.
Peter and Paul briefly reassembled as The Breakaways. They recorded a clutch of demos (that finally saw the light of day in 2009), but soon enough, Peter was on his own again. He immediately recruited drummer Louis Ramirez and bassist David Pahoa and began working their way through the thriving L.A. club scene as The Tone-Dogs. With the addition of guitarist Eddie Munoz, all the puzzle pieces fell in place, and they became The Plimsouls.
Peter’s myriad influences, from primitive Rock & Roll and British Invasion sounds to Folk, R&B, Power Pop, Blues and Punk, alchemized into their signature sound. They began making a name for themselves and cultivated a passionate fan base.
Between 1980 and 1984, the band released an EP, an eponymous debut and a second long-player, Everywhere At Once. In a perfect world, all three records should have topped the charts. The adventurous KROQ radio station played their music relentlessly, and for a time, they were Kings of the L.A. scene. But on a national level, their music got lost in the shuffle. Luckily, they scored a respectable hit single, “A Million Miles Away.” Then they raised their profile exponentially by appearing as themselves in the film Valley Girl. A surprisingly whip-smart, sweet and funny teen movie (essentially, the polar opposite of prurient shite like Porky’s), it featured Nicolas Cage in his first starring role.
Despite rave reviews, and a legion of devoted fans, Peter was getting restless. The Plimsouls quietly called it quits and he jump-started a solo career. T-Bone Burnett was on-hand to produce his self-titled debut, which arrived in 1986. The music industry finally took notice of his protean talent and he received his first Grammy nod.
For the last 40 years, he has released a string of excellent solo efforts, including The Man With The Blue Post-Modern, Fragmented, Neo-Traditional Guitar, Six Pack Of Love, Sings Like Hell, Torn Again, Full-Service, No Waiting, Tank You St. Jude, “Beeline, Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John Estes, Wig!, Hwy 62 and Doctor Moon.
The Plimsouls briefly reunited in 1998, resulting in their wildly underrated fourth record, Kool Trash. Three years later, he produced Avalon Blues, a various artists tribute to his Blues hero, Mississippi John Hurt, which earned him another Grammy nomination. In 2007, he wrote a memoir, As Far As You Can Get Without A Passport. It covered his childhood, as well as his hitchhiking adventures as a teen, concluding with his move to San Francisco.
Two years later, he was briefly sidelined by a heart surgery, but he rebounded. In 2012, he participated in a short-lived reunion tour with Paul Collins. The old band-mates shared a stage, flipping between songs by The Nerves, The Breakaways, Paul Collins’ Beat and The Plimsouls. 2017 saw the release of On The Way Downtown, a live set culled from a couple of sessions recorded for KPFK’s Folkscene program. Midnight Broadcast, an album of cover songs arrived four years later. All of these facts are presented in more pithy and compelling terms in Fred Parnes’ trenchant documentary: Peter Case: A Million Miles Away.
Now he has returned with a new live effort, Peter Case At McCabe’s/ My Live To Live, recorded last year at McCabe’s Guitar Shop. The storied music store and concert venue in Santa Monica has been a home away from home for Peter since the ‘80s. A true listening room, it holds 150 people, guaranteeing intimate and special shows.
Armed only with his trusty acoustic guitar, Peter opens the set with a tart trifecta of songs. First up first is a rambling take Black Ivory King’s Depression-era train saga, “Flying Crow Blues.” He quickly shifts gears with a couple of Let Us Praise Sleepy John Estes tracks. Rippling guitar licks uncoil on “Underneath The Stars.” Peter’s rough-hewn tenor wraps around lyrics that offer a compassionate character study of a homeless encampment: “Some drink wine, some are smokin’ crack, this lady all alone wants none of that, in a park with a cart and a sack, afraid she’s gonna drown/A choice she made not long ago has led to this, how could you know? The door slammed shut, her children go to whatever life they found.”
“Every 24 Hours” is a bit more insular. Peter’s internal monologue is fueled by slashing guitar chords that shapeshift from sunshiny to sinewy. The life of a touring musician often time comes down to the nuts and bolts slog of a road-weary warrior just trying to get from one gig to the next: “Driving twelve hours after the show, hit the border at dawn and kept on going, as the moon crossed my path, I was doing the math, will I make it, there’s no way of knowing. ”Sugary guitar runs bookend each verse before he shares an epiphany of sorts: “Life’s opportunity, moves with great speed, pay close attention, it’s not guaranteed, we live in a world of wonder and greed, and it turns every 24 hours.”
Reaching back to his second album, “Entella Hotel” is a richly nuanced narrative based on his early experiences living in The City By The Bay. Fluttery guitar riffs envelope lyrics that chronicle lives that are lived on the margins: “Well there was no way of telling on his first day in town how far it was from the Greyhound station to midnight and always, he checked into the Entella hotel, got used to the gloom and the smell, and the thrill of the sight of the old men laying in hallways/So you go up Broadway where the sailors all roam, and the girls give themselves names like Lola, Estelle and Nicole, they work at a place called the Garden Of Earthly Delights, and the tourists come in from all over to take in the sights.” His keening vocals navigate the subtleties , with humor and pathos.
For part of the set, Peter switches to piano. He acquits himself beautifully on a graceful version of John Coltrane’s “Naima” before launching into a couple songs off his most recent album, Doctor Moan. He begins with “Have You Ever Been In Trouble,” which is anchored by a pounding refrain. Tough-minded lyrics teeter between moral bankruptcy and spiritual salvation: “Have you ever been in trouble, have you ever run at night, the streets a maze beneath your feet, your heart concealed in fright?” The answer is eventually revealed: “There’s only one thing I know for sure is real, the moment you surrender, the wounds begin to heal, here’s your reprieve, ask and you’ll receive.”
Meanwhile, things take an introspective turn on “Girl In Love With A Shadow.” Opening with a majestic piano fanfare, his willowy croon feels haunted by the one that got away. Lyrics mine the eternal ache of unrequited love: “Pencil numbers on the wall, that night I must have tried them all, a voice said ‘she’s not around, she’s gone out to the edge of town to chase a ghost where shadows fall, can’t say if she’s coming back at all,’ that girl in love with a shadow.” Piano notes sidle between the verses, quietly building to an ornate crescendo ahead of the melancholy coda: “I had no way of keeping track, though I’m still trying to bring her back, through the years that come and go, pulled out in the undertow, that girl’s in love with a shadow, that girl’s in love with a shadow.”
The subterranean electric Blues of “Somebody Told The Truth” (originally found on his Wig! album), is re-fashioned as a rollicking rave-up. Peter multi-tasks, banging churchy chords on the piano, blowing wheezy harmonica notes, and soulfully barking out the lyrics. Each side of the room belts out their parts as hand-claps keep time.
Peter’s in-between patter included wry asides, trenchant quips and anecdotes that were equal parts apocryphal and authentic. That part of the evening is as intriguing as his songs.
Even though his band days are in the rearview, the highlight of the set happens toward the end of show when Peter delights the crowd by included a couple of Plimsouls favorites. “A Million Miles Away” and “Oldest Story In The World.” He gets by with some help from his friends, Henri Cash and Sophie Skye (Strarcrawler, Cash & Skye) on bass and vocals, Buddy Zapata on guitar and Bill Stock on pedal steel. On the former, flowery piano notes dovetail with searing pedal steel on an extended intro that folds into the iconic single. Locking into the familiar chord cluster, he is augmented by vroom-y guitar and roiling bass. Peter’s vocal attack mirrors the homesick heartbreak of original: “I’m at the wrong end of your looking glass, just trying to hold on to the hands of the past and you, and there was nothing left to bring me back.” High lonesome pedal steel darts between verses, magnifying the melancholy. By the break, piano, bass and guitar intertwine with steadfast precision, ambivalence cloaking every note.
Bluesy piano chords unfurl slowly on the latter, adding a layer of gravitas to another sad-sack saga of failed romance. Shivery pedal steel shadows the piano, as bendy guitar connects with sinewy bass. Jaded lyrics parse a past romance, assigning blame to circumstance: “Did we have it made, somehow I thought we could remain, if nothing lasts, no one’s to blame, and you can’t look back, to where you got off the track, that’s a mystery that we’ll never crack/It’s the oldest story in the world, lost the key to paradise, that’s the oldest in the world, today we gotta set it right, and that’s the oldest story in the world, you’ll hear it again and again, that’s the oldest story in the world.” On the break, smoky harmonica and weepy pedal steel overlap.
Left, once again, to his own devices, Peter dipped back to his eponymous solo debut for the Starkweather-esque outlaw tale, “Small Town Spree.” Shifting gears, “I Shook His Hand,” from the same record, recalls the optimistic New Frontier era and President Kennedy’s promise of a bright future.
As the set winds down, he offers up a couple from his 2015 album, HWY 62. The chugging Folk/Blues of “If I Go Crazy” unspools a series of down-at-heel vignettes, but still finds a moment to find faith in humanity: “Now the Mayor’s on the downtown stage, looking like he’s half-asleep, the President’s walking on the golf course now I think he’s in too deep, but I have got the super powers that everybody does, whoever helps somebody else and does it ‘just because, ‘who never answered ‘later,’ when asked to lend a hand, who never turns their eyes away when asked to understand.”
Even though the album was released a decade before, the centerpiece, “Water From A Stone,” resonates now, more than ever. A dour chronicle of injustice shot through with grace and grit, it’s powered by bramble-thick acoustic licks that bob and weave. Lyrics remind closed-minded “patriots” of this inalienable fact: “All the streets paved with diamonds and gold, your head held high, but the future is sold, the temperature’s rising way up in the sky, this is Indian land, only yours by a lie.”
Closing with a song from the Sleepy John Estes record, Peter offers a sliver of cautious optimism with “Ain’t Gonna Worry No More.” Finger-picked, filigreed fretwork enclose cheerful lyrics that kinda-sorta encourage us to forget our troubles and c’mon, get happy (with as much verve as Judy Garland or The Partridge Family): “C’mon down, I ain’t gonna worry no more, everybody’s laughin’ now it won’t be long, we’ve seen a lot of troubles now the ghost is gone, I ain’t gonna worry no more.” It’s a cheerful finish to an expansive show.
Listening to his songs, it feels as though Peter Case has lived a thousand lifetimes, and in some ways he has. From itinerant street musician, to front-man for one of the best bands of the ‘80s, to a sweetly satisfying solo career, he has followed his muse down a meandering musical path. He’s always travelled to the beat of a different drum, and his fans have reaped the rewards. Peter Case At McCabe’s/My Life To Live offers a snapshot, a moment in time. Let us now praise Peter Case.
