Peaches with Mignon at
the El Mocambo (464 Spadina), tonight
(Thursday, October 18). $10.
416-968-2001. Rating: NNNNN
Some of you may be scratching your heads wondering what the hell a Peaches is.
Well, you could say she’s the new pussy power leader who conducts the Teaches of Peaches, often in tight pink shorts, accompanied by music emitted by a Roland MC-505 and slapping you with a whole whack of 80s-revival licks updated for added enjoyment.
Her album, released on German indie label Kitty-Yo, reached number 1 in Russian Playboy. Her song Fuck The Pain Away has been used on the runways of Prada and Givenchy. Her tits were plaster-casted by Cynthia Plaster Caster (world-famous plaster-caster of rock-star cocks).
It ain’t everyone’s bag watching a petite 30-something woman lasso her head with the microphone cord as she tells you she’s “only a double A, thinking triple X.”
And if you ask her, it wasn’t folks’ bag in Toronto, the place from which Peaches (aka Merrill Nisker) originally hails. She left a little over a year ago for Berlin, for what you could call greener pastures.
“My main motivation to go to Berlin was the great scene, and I wanted to be in the centre of Europe,” she explains in a groggy voice from her New York hotel room.
“I didn’t feel guilty about doing what I wanted to do — which is not at all like Toronto, where everyone is self-conscious about what they’re doing.”
This is the main reason she turned down playing the Horseshoe this tour.
“Before I moved to Berlin I was supposed to play the Horseshoe, opening up for the Super Furry Animals, but the club cancelled me because I’m too dirty,” recalls Peaches.
“The only time they paid any attention to me was when they threw me out for smoking a joint.”
The Horseshoe’s Craig Laskey doesn’t remember it that way. He doesn’t remember it at all. “That’s a good one,” he says when asked about the incidents. “I don’t remember anything about it.”
Not everyone in Toronto missed the Peaches craze that’s buzzing through Europe and the States. Local label Teenage USA released a six-song LP at the end of 99, and El Mo booker Dan Burke has been a supporter.
“Dan’s into music, and he’s the only guy in Toronto who knows anything about it. He’s really helped me out,” she says gratefully. “He got me in touch with Stereo Total (a Berlin band playing the El Mo October 29), and they passed around my CD in Berlin.
“I love the El Mo and hope it doesn’t close.”
