As Far As You Can Get Without A Passport Author:Peter Case Legendary folk-rocker Peter Case is documenting his trailblazing life in a full-length memoir. Case's bands The Nerves and The Plimsouls helped define the LA punk and alternative rock scenes, and his solo work helped usher in the Americana music phenomenon. The beginning of Cases story is As Far As You Can Get Without a Passport, which will be p... more »ublished in December 2006 by Everthemore Books' new imprint For Now.
The Grammy-nominated musician has written and recorded with such artists as John Prine, John Hiatt, T-Bone Burnett and members of Los Lobos. Whether hes addressing the political or the personal, Cases searing and intensely visual songs deliver a punch that is rare in todays coffee bar-crowded world of singer-songwriters. Now hes taken his talents for words and translated them into a powerful piece of prose.
These are stories I've been carrying in my head for a long time," said Case. "When the time was right to set them down, they just poured out. Some people think it's my version of Bob Dylan's Chronicles, but it's really the anti-Chronicles--a tale of the streets."
As Far As You Can Get Without a Passport covers Cases very early days playing music from the time he left his native upstate New York and wound up singing and playing on the streets of North Beach in San Francisco. Case fans know about this period of his life through such well-loved songs as "Entella Hotel" and "Travellin' Light", among others.
John Doe, co-leader of the legendary LA punk band X, who wrote the introduction, sums up the book well here: "Perhaps the most appealing aspect of this story is that it isnt some glorified nostalgia trip starring the bohemian hero striking out to find his version of On the Road. There is simplicity of style and purposeful avoidance of artifice in his writing, so that the reader can just sit back and listen as Case and his confreres roll across the country."« less