Neko Case @ Joe's Pub, November 17, 2005

Neko Case is probably most famous as a member of the pop band, The New Pornographers, but over the past few years she's struck out on her own an made a name for herself as an alt-country singer/songwriter. I had the opportunity to catch The New Pornographers' Bowery Ballroom show at this year's CMJ (without Neko, as it seems she's only in the band in the studio and doesn't tour with them anymore), and I found myself asking a similar set of questions after Neko's show at Joe's Pub as I did after the Bowery show.

Why isn't Neko Case exploding all over the place? Why is she considered an "indie rock" artist? Now, don't get me wrong, this music isn't exactly my thing. I was even a little bored at the show; however, the songs I heard seemed like they could be as huge on country radio as they were on college radio...And a trillion other mainstream radio genres (what do they call it now, Adult Contemporary Hits Radio?). Maybe Anti doesn't have the power to push their artists onto pop radio, but pop radio needs to listen up.

The crowd ranged from young to old, from hip to er, not so hip; even the venue staff on hand seemed transfixed by Neko's performance, but as I looked around the crowd I noticed there did seem to be a large number of females (hey, I notice these kind of things, I am recently single). This brought me to a revelation. Earlier in the year, I had heard that radio simply abandoned the female demographic. Apparently some marketing asshole believes that testosterone driven 18-34 year olds have money to spend on things music related while estrogen driven 18-34 year olds must spend things related to, I don't know, ponies, rainbows, and Lifetime. Am I suggesting a vast conspiracy against estrogen? Yeah, probably.

I kind of wish I was more familar with Neko Case so I could describe the show a little better, though I'm not sure it would've helped since apparently she played a lot of new material. There was also a lot of talk about french fries (though I left before the encore, she seemed hesitant about playing the "song about french fries to the tune of 'Born To Be Wild'"). Does that make any sense? Or maybe it all makes perfect sense as the quirkiness is what turns country into alt-country/indie rock.