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Neko Case

Neko Case is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers

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Neko Case Biography

There's a special challenge to being an artist in this increasingly fractured cultural age; a delicate balancing act, between being of your time, and striving for timelessness. Few contemporary artists even try. Neko Case is an exception.

Case's last album, 2006's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, brought her to that nexus where critical acclaim meets commercial success. But Case's impact can't be measured merely in chart placements or press plaudits. It's her ability to connect - on an uncommonly deep and meaningful level - with her audience. She's one those artists, you see: the kind whose songs linger in your head, your heart and soul long after the record has stopped spinning. While Case's creative evolution has made for an impressive story so far, she's about to write the most remarkable chapter in that continuing saga with the release of her sixth studio album, Middle Cyclone.

The tornado that blows through the title and several songs on Middle Cyclone is an apt metaphor. Neko has famously taken her own twisted route, lighting for a time in the South, in the West, in the Northwest, in Canada, flirting with as many musical styles as homes. She is settled-or unsettled-in Tucson for the moment, with dreams of moving full-time to the former dairy farm she owns in Vermont. She recorded the new album in both locations, as well as studios in Toronto and Brooklyn.

For Case, the beauty of making music, of creating, is that it remains a mysterious, confounding and, occasionally, contradictory process. 'When I toured for Fox Confessor one of the things I said in interviews about that record was that I don't like writing love songs, that I can't write them,' she recalls. 'Of course, as soon as I said that, I ended up writing a bunch of love songs.'

It should be noted here that Case's 'love songs' are not the typical boy- meets-girl variety, as the opening track, 'This Tornado Loves You,' dramatically attests. 'What would it be like to be pursued by a force of nature' asks Case. 'That's a frightening and exciting prospect.'

Case resists the temptation to see the tornado as metaphor for something more personal, like a destructive relationship from her past. 'Of course, I'm fine if people want to interpret it that way, but for me, the song is very literal,' she says.

Neko is equally earnest when she sings exultantly about the revenge of caged animals on their keepers, in the polemic 'People Got A Lotta Nerve.' The lyrics we're tempted to read as ambiguous and layered ('But you seemed surprised when it pinned you down/ to the bottom of the tank... I'm a man-eater, and still you're surprised when I eat you') are in reality the plainest. Neko's killer whales and elephants really are killer whales and elephants. But with a magician's gift for misdirection, she keeps us off balance, questing and questioning.

Like the old tale of the scorpion and the frog, Case's message here seems to be that instinct is immutable. It's an idea she explores further on the anthemic 'I'm An Animal.'

'I feel like one of the real tragedies is that, as a species, human beings are constantly trying to deny or sublimate our natural instincts,' says Case. 'And I've made a conscious effort not to do that, but to trust myself, both in my life and in my work.'

Instinct runs through Middle Cyclone as a theme and a goal, most often and most forcefully as the instinct for love. 'But,' notes Case, 'only in the sense that the songs are about the need for love -- no matter how cool you think you are. What other people might call 'love songs' I think of as homages. They can be to a person, a region, a feeling, even sad feelings.'

That notion is captured vividly on 'Pharaohs' - a kind of cousin to Fox Confessor's 'That Teenage Feeling' - as Case's character pines wistfully for an idealized romance that seems to exist only in the imagination: 'You kept me wanting...like the wanting in the movies and the hymns,' she sings, 'I want the Pharoahs, but there's only men.' As you listen to the album, Case's evolution as a writer is, at times, almost overwhelming. The modest lyrical aims of her debut LP - - released just over a decade ago - - have been continually outstripped with each successive effort, and Middle Cyclone continues that trend in spectacular fashion.

And then there are the songs she didn't write. Having covered everyone from Bob Dylan to Aretha Franklin, Case's ability to re-make the material of others has long been celebrated. On Middle Cyclone she again flexes her interpretive muscles re-imagining a pair of early-'70s gems: Sparks' 'Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth' and Harry Nilsson's 'Don't Forget Me.'

Sparks' 1974 song was an obvious choice, fitting perfectly into the foreboding nature-oriented theme of the album. 'Plus, I just love Ron Mael's lyrics,' says Case. 'Sometimes I go to the Sparks website and just read their songs as poetry. 'Cause they're bizarre and really controversial, and tongue-in-cheek and funny - all at once.'

With the Nilsson tune - an emotional farewell to his ex-wife originally included on his 1974 party album Pussycats - Case felt a deep tug in funny-sad couplets like: 'I'll miss you when I'm lonely, I'll miss the alimony too/Don't forget me...just for a little while.'

'The song has a Roger Miller and Ray Davies quality to it,' says Case. 'That heartbreaking comedy line that punches you in the gut and makes you cry that much harder.'

Case decided the only way to record 'Don't Forget Me' was to turn the original's grand orchestral arrangement on its head. She began answering ads on Craigslist advertising free pianos, gathered half a dozen of them up in her disused Vermont barn, and invited a group of friends and fellow musicians to form a ragtag 'piano orchestra' to play on the song.

Middle Cyclone is awash in similar moments of sonic inspiration and homespun creativity. In one magical interlude we hear the sound of birds chirping, just as Los Lobos' Steve Berlin begins a midi sax solo. 'Which I think is so hilarious,' says Case of the charmed collision. 'We've got natural robins and unnatural midi sax. But somehow they work perfectly together.'

With Neko's indefatigable touring band (guitarist Paul Rigby, bassist Tom V. Ray, vocalist Kelly Hogan, multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse and drummer Barry Mirochnick) building the bedrock of the tracks, Case was able to bring in a collection of friends and fellow travelers including M. Ward, Garth Hudson, Sarah Harmer, and members of The New Pornographers, Los Lobos, Calexico, The Sadies, Visqueen, The Lilys, and Giant Sand, among others. 'Everyone who worked on the record had their input and sculpted things,' says Case.

Ultimately, for Case, the songs and themes on Middle Cyclone express a long internal struggle, a pitched battle between nature and nurture. 'Things like animals and nature, they're located in the tender receptor of my brain. And I'm just now trying to come to terms with the notion of loving people as much as I love those other things - because I grew up in a way that made me love the one but not the other.'

'So, I guess I've been working that out for myself, and these songs are my way of reconciling those feelings.'

FAQs
  • HOW TO BOOK Neko Case?

    Our booking agents have successfully helped clients around the world secure talent like Neko Case for both live and virtual events for over 15 years. The team at All American Entertainment represents and listens to the needs of organizations and corporations seeking to hire keynote speakers, celebrities or entertainers for speaking engagements, personal appearances, product endorsements, or corporate entertainment. Fill out a booking request form for Neko Case, or call our office at 1.800.698.2536 to discuss your upcoming event. One of our experienced agents will be happy to help you get pricing information and check availability for Neko Case or any other celebrity of your choice.
  • HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO BOOK Neko Case?

    Booking fees for Neko Case, or any other speakers and celebrities, are determined based on a number of factors and may change without notice. Pricing often varies between live and virtual events. Other factors that can affect speaker fees include the talent's schedule, market conditions, length of presentation, and the location of the event. The live and virtual event speaking fees listed on this website are intended to serve as a guideline only. In some cases, the actual quote may be above or below the stated range. For the most current fee to hire Neko Case, please fill out the booking request form or call our office at 1.800.698.2536 to speak with an experienced booking agent.
  • WHO IS THE AGENT FOR Neko Case?

    All American Entertainment has successfully secured celebrity talent like Neko Case for clients worldwide for more than 15 years. As a full-service talent booking agency, we have access to virtually any speaker or celebrity in the world. Our agents are happy and able to submit an offer to the speaker or celebrity of your choice, letting you benefit from our reputation and long-standing relationships in the industry. Fill out the booking request form or call our office at 1.800.698.2536, and one of our agents will assist you to book Neko Case for your next private or corporate function.
  • WHAT IS A FULL-SERVICE TALENT BOOKING AGENCY?

    All American Speakers is a "buyers agent" and exclusively represents talent buyers, meeting planners and event professionals, who are looking to secure celebrities and speakers for personal appearances, speaking engagements, corporate entertainment, public relations campaigns, commercials, or endorsements. We do not exclusively represent Neko Case or claim ourselves as the exclusive booking agency, business manager, publicist, speakers bureau or management for Neko Case or any other speaker or celebrity on this website. For more information on how we work and what makes us unique, please read the AAE Advantage.
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This website is a resource for event professionals and strives to provide the most comprehensive catalog of thought leaders and industry experts to consider for speaking engagements. A listing or profile on this website does not imply an agency affiliation or endorsement by the talent.

All American Entertainment (AAE) exclusively represents the interests of talent buyers, and does not claim to be the agency or management for any speaker or artist on this site. AAE is a talent booking agency for paid events only. We do not handle requests for donation of time or media requests for interviews, and cannot provide celebrity contact information.

If you are the talent and wish to request a profile update or removal from our online directory, please submit a profile request form.

Neko Case is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers

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Neko Case Biography

There's a special challenge to being an artist in this increasingly fractured cultural age; a delicate balancing act, between being of your time, and striving for timelessness. Few contemporary artists even try. Neko Case is an exception.

Case's last album, 2006's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, brought her to that nexus where critical acclaim meets commercial success. But Case's impact can't be measured merely in chart placements or press plaudits. It's her ability to connect - on an uncommonly deep and meaningful level - with her audience. She's one those artists, you see: the kind whose songs linger in your head, your heart and soul long after the record has stopped spinning. While Case's creative evolution has made for an impressive story so far, she's about to write the most remarkable chapter in that continuing saga with the release of her sixth studio album, Middle Cyclone.

The tornado that blows through the title and several songs on Middle Cyclone is an apt metaphor. Neko has famously taken her own twisted route, lighting for a time in the South, in the West, in the Northwest, in Canada, flirting with as many musical styles as homes. She is settled-or unsettled-in Tucson for the moment, with dreams of moving full-time to the former dairy farm she owns in Vermont. She recorded the new album in both locations, as well as studios in Toronto and Brooklyn.

For Case, the beauty of making music, of creating, is that it remains a mysterious, confounding and, occasionally, contradictory process. 'When I toured for Fox Confessor one of the things I said in interviews about that record was that I don't like writing love songs, that I can't write them,' she recalls. 'Of course, as soon as I said that, I ended up writing a bunch of love songs.'

It should be noted here that Case's 'love songs' are not the typical boy- meets-girl variety, as the opening track, 'This Tornado Loves You,' dramatically attests. 'What would it be like to be pursued by a force of nature' asks Case. 'That's a frightening and exciting prospect.'

Case resists the temptation to see the tornado as metaphor for something more personal, like a destructive relationship from her past. 'Of course, I'm fine if people want to interpret it that way, but for me, the song is very literal,' she says.

Neko is equally earnest when she sings exultantly about the revenge of caged animals on their keepers, in the polemic 'People Got A Lotta Nerve.' The lyrics we're tempted to read as ambiguous and layered ('But you seemed surprised when it pinned you down/ to the bottom of the tank... I'm a man-eater, and still you're surprised when I eat you') are in reality the plainest. Neko's killer whales and elephants really are killer whales and elephants. But with a magician's gift for misdirection, she keeps us off balance, questing and questioning.

Like the old tale of the scorpion and the frog, Case's message here seems to be that instinct is immutable. It's an idea she explores further on the anthemic 'I'm An Animal.'

'I feel like one of the real tragedies is that, as a species, human beings are constantly trying to deny or sublimate our natural instincts,' says Case. 'And I've made a conscious effort not to do that, but to trust myself, both in my life and in my work.'

Instinct runs through Middle Cyclone as a theme and a goal, most often and most forcefully as the instinct for love. 'But,' notes Case, 'only in the sense that the songs are about the need for love -- no matter how cool you think you are. What other people might call 'love songs' I think of as homages. They can be to a person, a region, a feeling, even sad feelings.'

That notion is captured vividly on 'Pharaohs' - a kind of cousin to Fox Confessor's 'That Teenage Feeling' - as Case's character pines wistfully for an idealized romance that seems to exist only in the imagination: 'You kept me wanting...like the wanting in the movies and the hymns,' she sings, 'I want the Pharoahs, but there's only men.' As you listen to the album, Case's evolution as a writer is, at times, almost overwhelming. The modest lyrical aims of her debut LP - - released just over a decade ago - - have been continually outstripped with each successive effort, and Middle Cyclone continues that trend in spectacular fashion.

And then there are the songs she didn't write. Having covered everyone from Bob Dylan to Aretha Franklin, Case's ability to re-make the material of others has long been celebrated. On Middle Cyclone she again flexes her interpretive muscles re-imagining a pair of early-'70s gems: Sparks' 'Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth' and Harry Nilsson's 'Don't Forget Me.'

Sparks' 1974 song was an obvious choice, fitting perfectly into the foreboding nature-oriented theme of the album. 'Plus, I just love Ron Mael's lyrics,' says Case. 'Sometimes I go to the Sparks website and just read their songs as poetry. 'Cause they're bizarre and really controversial, and tongue-in-cheek and funny - all at once.'

With the Nilsson tune - an emotional farewell to his ex-wife originally included on his 1974 party album Pussycats - Case felt a deep tug in funny-sad couplets like: 'I'll miss you when I'm lonely, I'll miss the alimony too/Don't forget me...just for a little while.'

'The song has a Roger Miller and Ray Davies quality to it,' says Case. 'That heartbreaking comedy line that punches you in the gut and makes you cry that much harder.'

Case decided the only way to record 'Don't Forget Me' was to turn the original's grand orchestral arrangement on its head. She began answering ads on Craigslist advertising free pianos, gathered half a dozen of them up in her disused Vermont barn, and invited a group of friends and fellow musicians to form a ragtag 'piano orchestra' to play on the song.

Middle Cyclone is awash in similar moments of sonic inspiration and homespun creativity. In one magical interlude we hear the sound of birds chirping, just as Los Lobos' Steve Berlin begins a midi sax solo. 'Which I think is so hilarious,' says Case of the charmed collision. 'We've got natural robins and unnatural midi sax. But somehow they work perfectly together.'

With Neko's indefatigable touring band (guitarist Paul Rigby, bassist Tom V. Ray, vocalist Kelly Hogan, multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse and drummer Barry Mirochnick) building the bedrock of the tracks, Case was able to bring in a collection of friends and fellow travelers including M. Ward, Garth Hudson, Sarah Harmer, and members of The New Pornographers, Los Lobos, Calexico, The Sadies, Visqueen, The Lilys, and Giant Sand, among others. 'Everyone who worked on the record had their input and sculpted things,' says Case.

Ultimately, for Case, the songs and themes on Middle Cyclone express a long internal struggle, a pitched battle between nature and nurture. 'Things like animals and nature, they're located in the tender receptor of my brain. And I'm just now trying to come to terms with the notion of loving people as much as I love those other things - because I grew up in a way that made me love the one but not the other.'

'So, I guess I've been working that out for myself, and these songs are my way of reconciling those feelings.'

FAQs on booking Neko Case

  • How to book Neko Case?

    Our booking agents have successfully helped clients around the world secure talent like Neko Case for both live and virtual events for over 20 years. The team at All American Entertainment represents and listens to the needs of organizations and corporations seeking to hire keynote speakers, celebrities or entertainers for speaking engagements, personal appearances, product endorsements, or corporate entertainment. Fill out a booking request form for Neko Case, or call our office at 1.800.698.2536 to discuss your upcoming event. One of our experienced agents will be happy to help you get pricing information and check availability for Neko Case or any other celebrity of your choice.
  • How much does it cost to book Neko Case?

    Booking fees for Neko Case, or any other speakers and celebrities, are determined based on a number of factors and may change without notice. Pricing often varies between live and virtual events. Other factors that can affect speaker fees include the talent's schedule, market conditions, length of presentation, and the location of the event. The live and virtual event speaking fees listed on this website are intended to serve as a guideline only. In some cases, the actual quote may be above or below the stated range. For the most current fee to hire Neko Case, please fill out the booking request form or call our office at 1.800.698.2536 to speak with an experienced booking agent.
  • Who is the agent for Neko Case?

    All American Entertainment has successfully secured celebrity talent like Neko Case for clients worldwide for more than 20 years. As a full-service talent booking agency, we have access to virtually any speaker or celebrity in the world. Our agents are happy and able to submit an offer to the speaker or celebrity of your choice, letting you benefit from our reputation and long-standing relationships in the industry. Fill out the booking request form or call our office at 1.800.698.2536, and one of our agents will assist you to book Neko Case for your next private or corporate function.
  • What is a full-service talent booking agency?

    All American Speakers is a "buyers agent" and exclusively represents talent buyers, meeting planners and event professionals, who are looking to secure celebrities and speakers for personal appearances, speaking engagements, corporate entertainment, public relations campaigns, commercials, or endorsements. We do not exclusively represent Neko Case or claim ourselves as the exclusive booking agency, business manager, publicist, speakers bureau or management for Neko Case or any other speaker or celebrity on this website. For more information on how we work and what makes us unique, please read the AAE Advantage.

Neko Case is a keynote speaker and industry expert who speaks on a wide range of topics . The estimated speaking fee range to book Neko Case for your event is $100,000 - $200,000. Neko Case generally travels from USA and can be booked for (private) corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. Similar motivational celebrity speakers are Pink, Patty Griffin, Mason Jennings, The Pretty Reckless and Delta Spirit. Contact All American Speakers for ratings, reviews, videos and information on scheduling Neko Case for an upcoming live or virtual event.

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Speakers Similar to Neko Case

This website is a resource for event professionals and strives to provide the most comprehensive catalog of thought leaders and industry experts to consider for speaking engagements. A listing or profile on this website does not imply an agency affiliation or endorsement by the talent.

All American Entertainment (AAE) exclusively represents the interests of talent buyers, and does not claim to be the agency or management for any speaker or artist on this site. AAE is a talent booking agency for paid events only. We do not handle requests for donation of time or media requests for interviews, and cannot provide celebrity contact information.

If you are the talent and wish to request a profile update or removal from our online directory, please submit a profile request form.

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