The New Pornographers

“Seriously, whoever threw that, come up here and I will fucking fight you,” Neko Case threatened at a New Pornographers show in Boston last month. She went off when an audience member hurled one of the band’s CDs onstage, whacking Carl Newman’s guitar: “I am a piece-of-shit white trash and I will fuck you up.” Even if wanting to rile Case, why the assailant would want to throw away a New Pornographers disc remains a mystery. There’s nary a dud in the band’s catalog, full of chief songwriter Carl Newman’s super-hooky, ultra-crunchy power pop. And anyway, Case notwithstanding, the disc lobber should probably watch out for Dan Bejar. Contributing a couple of the more esoteric songs on each record, Bejar is quiet, keeps to himself, and seems like the kind of person you should avoid making eye contact with. (You know, all the things people usually say about serial killers.)