Now that's one fine looking Cougar!

By the title of this post and the picture above, I could be talking about two things - the 1967 Mercury Cougar or Neko Case perched on top of the hood ready to pounce. Case is just a few years older than me and she is very pretty, but I promise I was talking about the car. I digress...

On March 3, 2009, Case released her new album titled Middle Cyclone on Anti Records. While the album makes no reference to a Mercury Cougar in the lyrics or the album title, the cover artwork for the album (above) features Neko Case perched prominently on top of her own personal 1967 Mercury Cougar while the car sits front and center. (In case you're interested Case does mention a 1969 Ford Falcon in her song "Star Witness" from her previous album Fox Confessor Brings The Flood.) I found my Cougar on Craigslist and Neko Case found a bunch of old pianos on that same website to record parts of this new album. For a sampling of the album here's some of the songs from a live performance on Mountain Stage posted today on the NPR website.

While shopping at Borders, my wife and I had seen a promotional poster for the new album taken from the photo session for the album cover, but the poster featured a real life background rather than the white/gray background pictured above. We asked the people at Borders if we could have the poster, but they seemed wishy-washy on the subject. They said they would put our name on it if none of the store employees wanted the poster.

However, my wife had something else up her sleeve though. Prior to Father's Day, she wrote an e-mail to Anti Records, Neko Case's record label, asking them if they had any promotional posters that she could buy me for Father's Day. She explained that not only did I love Neko Case's music, but that I also had a 1967 Mercury Cougar. The nice people at Anti Records came through in a big way! Not only did they send her a copy of the poster for free, they sent her four copies of the poster!

Later, my wanted to have a photo session with our daughter to send to the people at Anti Records as a thank you. We got the little one up on the hood of my 1967 Cougar and I became staff photographer as my daughter pranced around and made funny faces on the hood of the car. Very cute!

Next up: I intend to frame a copy of the poster to add to our other music posters in the back hall including BR-549, Bob Dylan, Not Quite Nashville, and Uncle Tupelo. I also want to frame a copy to place in the garage!

Thanks sweetie! I love you!

http://www.nekocase.com/

http://www.anti.com