On the case

Songwriter Peter Case likes to write story songs, has an affection for word play and he likes to get his point across. Lately he's been touring to support his nine solo album, Beeline, which was released last fall on Vanguards Record. He's performed in Italy, France, England, Ireland, Canada and around the Lower 48. Some shows he performs solo, some with a band. On Saturday, Case will perform in Palmer at Vagabond Blues at 7:30 p.m.

In an interview last Tuesday, Case said enjoys coffee house shows, both as a performer and an audience member. It's an atmosphere where the performer can look people in the eye while they sing and let the audience hear the story in the song. In short, it's an opportunity for the performer to get their point across.

"I'm a fan of people who play acoustic solo music and those are the kinds of places they play," Case said.

He has released nine solo albums since the mid 1980s. Beeline is the third he's recorded for Vanguard. His current label has also re-released his album "Sings Like Hell," a 1994 effort on which Case mines the veins of traditional American blues and folk. He comes out with songs such as Brokedown Engine and Well Runs Dry and Walking Bum. It's a distinctly American record and the songs have stories behind them and characters in them.

Stories and characters are targets Case seems to be aiming for -- and for the most part hitting -- in the songs on "Beeline."

"Getting story songs across is sort of what led me to [performing solo]," Case said. "You couldn't really do that with a loud rock band," Case said.

His loud rock band career peaked twice with The Nerves and The Plimsouls, bands that bridged the 1970s and 80s West Coast rock scene with straight forward music labeled punk by some, power pop by others and new wave by an industry that didn't want to frighten parents.

When Case growled "Mini-skirt Mini, oh, I love the way that you walk," on the Plimsouls' first album, it was clear that this man in his mid-20s had a sincere appreciation for the girl in the song. It was also clear that the band rocked. What wasn't so clear was whether or not Case ever got to know the girl.

This year there's "Beeline," Case is about 20 years wiser and his songs are pointedly personal with characters -- still unnamed -- that Case either knows very well or at least has spent a lot more time crafting. He said he called the record "Beeline" because its an album are about going straight after important things such as love, hope and survival in world that could take those things away if they're not grabbed.

"Go straight for the things that are important to you right away," he said.

Three of the songs, I Hear Your Voice, It's Cold Inside, and Gone, present masterfully written, first-person takes on lonesomeness. It's Cold Inside is downright haunting. A honking, lonely harmonica foreshadows the feeling before Case starts singing. Then he takes the listener straight into a cold, dark place. There's someone else there. The song's hero needs to warm himself. He's hopeful, but past experience makes him fearful too.

"I desperately need,

You know that I must,

Something happened so long ago,

Now I canât recognize,

The best friend that Iâve never known,

The love I see in you eyes"

There's also a lighter side to "Beeline." It's Cold Inside, is followed by the peppy pop song Manana Champeen, in which Case toasts "the procrastination champions of the world." He asks them what they're going to do and tells them that someday they'll be free if they make the best of every day. The phrase "you only live once or twice" appears here and earlier in I Hear Your Voice.

It's a hopeful mantra, one worth repeating.

Case is visiting the Valley to teach at the 2003 Midnight Sun Songwriter's Camp in Palmer. He said he avoided procrastination while writing for "Beeline." He also avoided pen and paper, something he hasn't always done in the past.

"This time, I didn't so much write with a paper and pen," he said. "I would just keep a tape recorder and a guitar around and make up songs right then -- I would only do it when I really felt like doing it, when I thought I had something to say."

Perhaps he was taking his own advice by writing in the moment without waiting for Manana.

However Case found the technique, it has worked for him on "Beeline." To these ears, each song sounds like it was born from a genuine moment and Case tries to take his listeners into that moment. More often than not, he is successful at getting his point across.

If past reviews are any indication, he'll get a few points across in person on Friday night in Anchorage and on Saturday night in Palmer.