The Moldy Peaches

 

By Herb Reichert
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CD Stock Number: Rough Trade Records B000059TMZ

  The Moldy Peaches are rising fast. They have just released their first CD -- it cost $5 two weeks ago and the price just went up to $15 (at Kim's in NYC, $17.99 at CDNow and Amazon.com) because now, they are all the rage. Two weeks ago, they were making these CDs in their bedroom in Mt. Kisco NY -- two weeks ago they were labeling them with a felt tip pen -- now they almost look like regular, small label CDs. They just opened their first tour (in England) on June 10th and here in the city the buzz is a roar about the beguiling charm and profound songwriting talents of Peaches' principals Kimya Dawson and Adam Green. 

Their music is cunning but childlike and funny and romantic as well as satirical and ironic. (They sing duets that sound like two little kids singing but meanwhile, they are number #2 on Yale's WYBC radio station.) You can write term papers and eat chips to their music or, you can hold hands and get drunk and party to it. But the big surprise and the most important thing about the Moldy Peaches is this: They make exactly the kind of music that the last two decades of punk, folk, progressive rock and jazz promised to give you -- but never actually delivered. 

(Listen now, you tell me, how could anyone not fall in love with a group that sings lyrics like, "Don Quixote was a steel-driving man... my name is Adam I'm his biggest fan" or "Who mistook the stake for chicken... whom I gonna stick my dick in?" or, " scrunched up your face and did a little dance -- shook a little turd out the bottom of your pants") 

It is absurd and impossible to try and categorize this group. (They have song titles like, "Downloading Porn with Davo", "Who's Got the Crack?" and "These Burgers are Crazy") They are more what they aren't than what they are. ("We hate rap and we hate dance, but we like to contradict ourselves -- that's 'r rap!") The only thing I can say for sure about the Peaches is; they write plunky, almost danceable love songs for young people that are sensitive and intelligent and loving but might be living outside of our regular quotidian social framework. They are poet minstrels writing the best songs they can -- to impress other poet minstrels.

Hidden beneath the Peaches' obvious East Village ennui, is the fact that Dawson and Green have invented an extremely catchy and tuneful new form of romantic musical comedy. The Peaches are not about rebellion and solitude. They about getting together with people and letting high-level sentiments flow. ("I kiss you on the brain in the shadow of the train") Their talent for high smart romance not only gives them tremendous mainstream music industry potential but, I also think their ability to write these wacky-funny-wizardly love songs might just allow them to skip very quickly past their present-day bohemian angst (" sleeping in vans between B and C... and sucking dick for ecstasy") and evolve into total multi-platinum Grammy award winners. (Kimya sings, "we both have shiny happy fits of rage... you want more fans I want more stage") For a week after you buy this CD you will hum and sing and think of nothing else. But most importantly, you will think about what love is ("I just want to watch cartoons with you…Jose and the Pussycats and Skoobie-doo... I guess I'm just your average Thundercats whore.") and what is important about relationships between people. ("My name is Jorge Regula - I am walking down the street - I love you - let's go to sleep") Because that is exactly what their lyrics make you do.

The Moldy Peaches never take a pose or fake it -- they are consistently authentic and provocative. They make music that takes the art of songwriting extremely seriously. Their lyrics my be silly and catchy, but their songs are never corny or sappy. If you like Bob Dylan, you'll totally love the Peaches. Like Big Bobby Z, there is always a quasi-philosophical subtext that artfully reflects upon the human condition. Every song has a kind of poetry that we recognize as self-consciously original but the music remains unpretentious and humble in the extreme. Like Dylan, I go to their music over and over again -- to refresh my spirit and improve the condition of my own heart. ("You're a part time lover and a full time friend…the monkey on your back is the latest trend... here is the church and here is the steeple... we sure are cute for two ugly people") 

I promise you that the Moldy Peaches make a radically new kind of music that is never boring or difficult to listen to. Their premiere musical goal is to keep it real and their method is to write highly creative catchy tunes that seduce you like a lover and make you fall in love with how they feel, and consequently -- how you feel. ("I don't see what anyone can see in anyone else... but you.")