Peter Case - Wig!

An old power-popper has a intrusive heart operation and comes back with an unexpected response. A bare-bones garage blues rock recording from one day-long session.

It's hard to differentiate these recordings when talking about this album project. There's not a lot of room for experimentation during a day-long session. "New Old Blue Car" for example is an update from Case's own "Old Blue Car" from 1986 but ends up sounding like Tom Waits' "Goin' Out West" with Robin Zander on vocals.

A lot of the album has that same feel. Electric blues, electric piano, amplified/distorted harmonica. You can imagine Case sweating these out live and it feels great. I also just wondered then why he didn't cross the line and record it in front of a barroom full of friends.

The slow, acoustic Lead Belly cover, "Thirty Days in the Workhouse" breaks up the album into halves before we enter "Ain't Got No Dough", which (purposefully?) rips off the piano riff to "Money (That's What I Want)".

The album's end gets acoustic again with "House Rent Party", which may be my favorite of the set. The whole thing was great fun, and I'm sure I'd love to see Case live at the Slippery Noodle. But from an album, point of view, it will suffer in my eyes to what all of modern electric blues suffers from. Sameness in style that unless your adding an element to get lost in, can lose you. This is better than most, though. Don't let me fool you. (3.5 of 5 stars)