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Profiles in Awesomeness: Neko Case

This is a new feature where I will bestow the title of “Awesome” onto certain individuals and groups, and then back up my decision.

The first profile in this series, and the very inspiration for the series itself, is the stunning “honorary Canadian,” Neko Case. The red-haired maiden has been enchanting audiences for years, and it’s about time she got some official recognition for being Awesome.

After leaving her professed hometown of Tacoma at the age of fifteen, she wandered the country until moving to Vancouver for art school and to play drums in several punk bands (there are at least four things awesome about that very sentence, and that’s before she even started singing).

After graduating (and thus being effectively forced out of Canada), she moved to debatably the most kick-ass city on Earth: Seattle. Here she honed her signature “country noir” sound, something that has Awesome written all over it. But her best was yet to come.

It’s hard to select Neko’s most awesome moment. Could it be when she was voted “Sexiest Babe of Indie Rock?” Or perhaps when her breakthrough album Fox Confessor Brings the Blood was selected as the #1 editors pick at Amazon.com? Or what about providing her vocal talents to the Adult Swim show Aqua Teen Hunger Force? With all of those things in mind, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to choose her greatest moment. Luckily, I’m not anyone and this is up to me.

I believe that Neko was at her most Awesome when, during a recent show with New Pornographers (a Canadian supergroup she is a member of), she fell and injured her ankle. While this action is not inherently amazing, in and of itself, her subsequent actions were. After her fall, she elected to continue playing on the tour for two more dates before finally succumbing to what turned out to be a fractured ankle and damaged ligaments. That folks is Awesome, and why Neko is so deserving of this title.

Congratulations, Neko. We’ll see you at Bumbershoot.

posted July 15 '08 at 01:26PM by Evan in ,

Discussion — Add to it

  1. cindi said…

    wowza, thats some girl, hero stuff, no really if i had to be friends with someone it would be neko, hell my sons name is nico, she has the voice of an echos shadow, i did see the new pornographers when they visited missoula and i must say i was very pleased, and thrilled especially to see and hear neko case,

    on Jul 19, 11:40 PM

Commenting is closed for this article.

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