The twang thang

The indie rock nation goes Nashville

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

"Most country music is stereotyped as being hick and stupid," states B.C.-based musician Neko Case, whose Montreal appearance was cancelled at the last minute but whose new album, The Virginian, will be released next week on Mint Records. "But the fact is that older country isn't that way at all. It's actually quite a beautiful and eloquent voice." Case cut her teeth on the garage rock circuit as the drummer of surly girl group Maow. When she approached her label, Mint, about doing an album of country music, she found them surprisingly receptive.

Perhaps one thing that helped is the spread of band members that Case calls her "Boyfriends," who she has rounded up to play on the album. Alongside old-schoolers like bluegrass legend John Reischman are members of Superfriendz, Zumpano, Tiger Trap and Superconductor. One-time Shadowy Man Brian Connelly makes a notable contribution, giving the album its share of surfy echoes. The bottom line is that everyone involved shares Case's genuine affection for country music.

Members of Montreal's own Sackville are a little more hesitant to fly the purist flag. "We don't sound like Johnny Cash or Hank Williams," says bassist Harris Newman.

Sackville's lineup is clearly culled from the ranks of Montreal's hard rock intelligentsia, with members of Sofa, Tinker, Pest 5000 and the now-defunct mathpunk unit Howard North (Newman's alma mater) present and accounted for. What Sackville were after was not an about-face toward classic country, though, but rather a quieter, roomier space in which to articulate emotions and ideas that often got lost in the roar of guitar rock. "I know that Tom Waits and Nick Cave were a big influence on Gabe [Levine, Sackville's lead vocalist and guitarist, also of Howard North]. These artists aren't country, but they've had their effect on what Sackville is doing."

In Neko's... uh, case, the inspiration is far more personal. And it's not just a birthday shared with Patsy Cline we're talking about here. "I wouldn't have had female musical role models as a kid were it not for Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn." Heart and Joan Jett do get their nods, but Case believes that country music, while hardly a post-patriarchal paradise, does offer women substantial room for self-expression. Lynn, for example, could give the grouchiest riot grrrl a run for her money. "Her songs, like 'The Pill,' even when we hear them now, they're shocking. She is utterly liberal and unapologetic and frank in singing from a woman's point of view."

The woman to whom Case owes her strongest debt, though, isn't a musician at all. "I grew up with my grandmother, who listened to country all the time," she says. "I remember Elvis, George Jones, Jim Reeves, Patsy Cline. It was like the soundtrack to my life. My grandma is the coolest person in the world and I wanted to make an album for her."

Line 3 open for Six Finger Satellite at Jailhouse Rock Café this Saturday, Aug. 16 (Neko Case and her Boyfriends are cancelled). 9pm, $7. Sackville have an CD cooking with local label Mag Wheel. It should be out in the fall