Neal Casal, Vintage Inn, Shedfield, 30/10/98
Neal Casal - Rain, Wind and Speed
'Then it hit me right there
it came from out of nowhere'
The ladies that put this tour together for him, Pierangela and Vicki, are hearing this stuff every night, every night from Aberdeen in Scotland on the 18th right down to Shedfield in Hampshire. Such an obscure place that you will never find it on a map. "He does a different set every night," one of them exclaims wrapped tight into his songs. Being on the road night after night listening to a musician unfurl stuff as good as this has got to be better than being handed a lottery cheque. And I know what I'd spend that on.
Picture the scene. The Vintage Inn, Shedfield, just up the road from the tiny provincial nowhereville that is Bishop's Waltham. An old British pub whose big main bar has room enough for a brace of pool tables. There's a stage tucked in one corner. Only a part wall divides the music area from the chime of the eight ball.
Steve and Jim are more used to putting Status Quo clone bands. There's one here on Saturday night. They got the T Rex wannabe's soon. Occasionally, I'm told, old John Mayall apprentices, like Miller Anderson, come through. Otherwise it is a pile of local bands with engaging names. They don't entice you out. You fear they are going to be as bad as the you know the clone bands will be. You can't argue with the policy. It's the stuff that sells.
The only thing you've heard of Neal Casal comes from Uncut magazine's free CD. One song crammed in amongst the odd classic like Hazeldine's Tarmac, the Buritto's Sin City and some oh so average stuff. Casal's Today I'm Gonna Bleed has not grabbed you but you don't need a second call to be in Shedfield tonight.
The soundcheck consists of snatches a song that Townes Van Zandt used to do, the FFV. Casal perched on a stool stops, starts, the song like you might push in the pause button on the CD player. The sound guy adjusts the levels. He suggests using a different mike. The tone is cleaner if mellow. Casals rejects it in favour of the one he's comfortable with. Cue some more bars of the FFV. Right in the Townes mould.
I can't resist asking Neal Casals, as he finishes the soundcheck, "What Townes songs do you do?" Stupid question and he gives me about the best answer to it. "I'm not going to tell you, wait and see." I'm sure glad I did. For they came like a pair of pearls in this diamond set of songs.
Casals crowd tonight is small but most it seems have travelled from Bristol or London to be here. The rest of the bar is filled with a gaggle of regular punters around the pool tables. The second set competes against a woman who don't need an amplifier to be heard through the brick partition between the pool tables and the stage area.
So it's a bawling, boozy crowd and us the people who come to this pub only because on the sign outside says 'Fri Neal Casal'. Listening now, to a magpie's nest of curios and out takes that make up Casals demos CD Field Recordings, I fancy tonight would have made a fitting inclusion. Particularly that point towards the of end of the last set when Big Jim sidles over with the raffle bucket, plants it in Vicki's hand with a loud "Here's the raffle". As subtle as a sledgehammer. Right in midsong. Classic.
By now Casals is resigned to it, joking mercilessly about 'snucker players' and saying "Hell this is what I come out on the road and do this stuff for." More material for songs, no doubt. What has him fired tonight is an attentive and appreciative audience. One that rocks their shoes through every song. One that shuts the intrusions from the pool table, the seagulls squawking and stays wrapped up in the magic of the songs.
So what's special about Neal Casal? Well tonight he pares all his songs right down to the floorboards. Just him and a guitar. Sings so beautifully. Weaves his voice around his deceptive, subtle guitar work. He made it all sound as natural as breathing. I had ten songs in my head as I drove home last night. Passed the Old Grey Whistle Test with flying colours.
To quote one of the Townes songs he sang: "The bass is low and the treble is clear". I'm thinking this is like being sat inside a Cohen brothers masterpiece like Fargo or The Big Lebowski. It's like expecting someone to reach over to turn on the car radio. That point at which you get hooked by a singer soaring over the crackle of the airwaves. Neal Casal is one of those singers.
You get the feeling sat here that, like Robyn Hitchcock, Neal Casal doesn't need an arsenal of keyboards and a studio of switches. Sit him down on a stool and he just breathes music. A voice that rolls so easy, up, down, floats like ether over the surefooted guitar playing.
Cinncinatti Motel he explained was about a duo "who went from rags to riches and back to rags again." It was a toe tapping testimony to the weariness of the road. Today I'm Gonna Bleed, shorn of the band tonight, was as emotive as a song can get. Blew me away. As did Best To Believe, The Last of My Connections, Weighs Heavy On My Mind, Keep The Peace, Fell On Hard Times, Pray To Home, On The Mend, Angels On Hold, Reason, St. Cloud (dedicated to Pierangela and Vicki, wow what a song, weren't they all) and all the rest I didn't have a clue what they were tonight.
Perhaps the one that fully defined where Casals is coming from was a request from the floor. A guy, who obviously knew Casal's music well, called for Midway. "Phew," he said, "I'll try" Then Neal Casal proceeded to tell a story about how the song was written.
To paraphrase. He and his band were on their way from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia on highway 78 (I think) during a blizzard. "If you know it, you'll know it's not the place to be in a blizzard." The story unfolds like those great scenes from Trains, Planes and Automobiles when Steve Martin's trip home to Chicago becomes chaos thanks to the late and very superb actor John Candy.
Casal and band are stuck in a motel with the snow getting deeper around them. The band decide it would be a good idea to get moving out into the snow. Casal is not so sure but goes with the majority. Climbs into the van, takes the wheel and heads for Philadelphia. As the day rolls on, it is only trucks and their van out of the highway. Casal is driving peering through a tiny gap in a snow covered screen. "We have a hair band wrapped around the wiper, it's still there." The audience sits spellbound by the story. Only the pool balls still rattle and the women squawk like seagulls.
The highway has become just one truck ahead and them. "And finally it's just us." They are about forty miles short of Philadelphia, somewhere close to Allentown. The drummer or the bass player has leaned over to ask "Neal are we going to make it? Sure we're going to make it, I'm going to get you home." The snow is thick, the van is starting to lose it when Casal spots an exit sign and a motel. He pulls the van hard for the exit, comes off the highway and piles into three foot of snow.
The band clambers out, not dressed for a winter walk at all. They make the motel, get rooms and share the only food to be had there. One big bag of potato chips (crisps to we English). "I swear the gap between the door and floor is that wide (Casal holds his index and thumb apart by a couple of inches). In the morning the snow is that deep (spreads his hands a foot apart) and that's was on the inside."
When Neal Casal sings Midway it has a beautiful rolling lilt to it. Perfect for watching the miles go by on the endless highways of America. Casal reflects:
"What made you stop here anyway?
and what really brought you to this place?
Oh midway, just forty miles before you stop again
With no questions asked about the where and when
Because some big idea brought you to where you were
And like a fool you ask just how far?"
Beautiful stuff, give the man a drink who shouted for him to sing it tonight. And the covers? A great old trucker's song called the Widow Maker. Perfect for this noisey old pub. Two from Townes, Rex's Blues and To Live Is To Fly. Casal delivers Townes Van Zandt's lines, by now oblivious to the six pack mentality, for those who came for the beat from a different drum. Lines like "There ain't no darkness till something shines", "Days they come like rain on a conga drum" in a bloody Shedfield pub. I nearly wept.
So just these three covers and a whole pile of self penned beauties from Casal himself. First time, save for I'm Gonna Bleed, that I have heard any of them. I'm still shaking my head at the end that such a talent is playing in a Shedfield pub more renowned as venue for tribute bands and local talent.
Neal Casal finished off with an accapella thing. Just put his guitar down after a very long set. Smiled, thanked everybody, looked like he was right on the buzz of his reception. Took a drink of whiskey, a quick swill of water before leaning himself into the microphone for the last time.
The pool tables had long since closed down and the drunks were wendling home. And here he was with not one of his audience moving from their spots. He sang with passion. Whew. He got up with the crowd grinning like bears and applauding him down from his stool. He was fired up. My eyes met his and he stuck out his hand. I shook it. He'd shaken my senses all night.
I drove home to put on Field Recordings, determined to find another pared to the floor boards album of his, Rain, Wind and Speed. It's been raining in my head ever since.
Mike Plumbley