I guess the best way to describe Nellie McKay’s show last night is this: in one minute, she pounded the hell out of her keyboard and screamed into the microphone, “Die, motherfucker, die!!” And in the next minute, she picked up a tiny ukelele and sang a beautiful, you-can-hear-a-pin-drop version of the jazz standard, “If I Had You.”
To a half-full house, Nellie McKay thrilled the Mystic Theater with a firestorm show of original songs from all ends of the spectrum, proving herself yet again as one of the craziest and talented songwriters around today. But it was McKay’s selection of cover songs that offset her quirky material in perfect fashion. “Feed the Birds,” from Mary Poppins, was sung in an amazingly authentic old-British-lady voice, along with “I Love to Laugh,” from the same soundtrack.
After her own topical songs about gay marriage, animal rights and feminism, McKay turned to the crowd and announced, “Here’s a song about illegal immigration!”
The song? “Don’t Fence Me In.”
In a similar sly maneuver, McKay performed the old Ella Fitzgerald tune “Vote for Mr. Rhythm,” with the lines: “Vote for Mr. Rhythm / Let freedom ring / Then we’ll all be singing / Of thee I swing.” This led into a mild he’ll-have-to-do endorsement of Obama—which then mutated into a ferociously passionate endorsement of Ralph Nader (??!). McKay even gyrated with mock lust when she described talking to Nader on the phone, and went on and on about how he’s full of great ideas, and sort of, like, failed to mention his overshadowing legacy to this country of viciously crippling the Democratic Party in the most important election ever. “Oh. Hey!” McKay exclaimed, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Does anyone here have chipmunks?”
As those who’ve seen her before can attest, McKay is plainly talented. . . and firmly sardonic about it. At one point, the crowd began hooting at a particularly flashy piano solo. “Oh, I’m just faking it!” McKay protested, and then went into a series of famous piano quotes—“Für Elise,” “Take the A Train”—to demonstrate? To refute? Who can tell?
Dressed in a red tasseled flapper dress and playing a Roland keyboard, McKay also told the crowd a long story—in a zombie voice, no less—about her grandma who used to drive up from the armpit of the Bay Area known as Milpitas after it took that title from Pacifica to come to Petaluma to sell Tupperware to ladies in Petaluma and she’d drive her Ford Galaxie which ran so smooth you could balance a dime on the hood and it was the same car her mom would drive years later when she was on acid and it was a great car but the terrible thing is that when her grandma left the ladies from Petaluma said they’d send her the money for the Tupperware but then they never did.
McKay’s own material, like set opener “Ding Dong” and encore “Clonie,” was brilliant as always. “Mother of Pearl,” with its 5,000 tongues in cheek about feminists not having a sense of humor, brought the house down, and “Work Song” turned into a three-part audience sing-along at the end. Nice also to hear “I Wanna Get Married,” previously discussed as a possible Gertrude Niesen tribute, and probably my favorite Nellie McKay song of all time, “Manhattan Avenue.”
Nellie McKay plays this Saturday at the Outside Lands Fetsival; be sure to haul ass from the Lupe Fiasco stage to catch her set.
1-2-3 Billiards: The rumor on the street from those in the know is that 1-2-3 Billiards, Santa Rosa’s oldest pool hall, is slated to close. This is a heavy blow to Santa Rosa’s working class, especially after the shuttering two years ago of our last remaining bowling alley, Continental Lanes in Roseland. There’s whispers that the building will be converted into a Trek Bicycle concept store, which seems superfluous considering the great job the Bike Peddler does. To us, it’ll always be 1-2-3 Billiards. File next to: The Wherehouse, Leatherby’s, Acapulco.
Longs Drugs: Now that the little drug store chain that could has been sold to CVS Pharmacy, one can only imagine what’s going to happen to the old spot on Mendocino Avenue. Will the checkout lady who always asks what “treasures” you found still be there? Will they replace the late ’60s shingles on the roof? Will they still stock 900 different pairs of flip-flops in May? I know, I know. . . it’s a chain, and two of the best things about the place are already gone (the drop-cup vending machine for 35-cent soda and the great jingle, “Take the Longs way home, Longs belongs to everyone”). But no matter what kind of overly sterile environment moves in, to us, it’ll always be Longs Drugs. File next to: MacFrugal’s, Rainbow Records, Arctic Circle.
Traverso’s: It makes sense for them to be across the street from 
Kinko’sCopies: A tough one here, on two levels. First of all, the real Kinko’s location is on Third and D, no doubt. And secondly, its current location on Fourth and D, according to the game, should always be called the Brothers 4, or the Rosenberg’s Men’s Department, or, by all means, Copperfield’s. So what of the announcement that Kinko’s is changing its name to “FedEx Office?” And of the fact that their company policy has been restructured over and over again to inconvenience the customer? Tell you what: let’s not even honor ‘em in the old-name game. File next to: Farmers Drug, Prez Records, Fourth Street Franks.
China Light: And so it is closed, the dingiest little Chinese restaurant in Santa Rosa. The best thing about China Light, of course, was the beautiful misspelling on its corner sign: “Lunch Specil.” Anyone remember when a car crashed through the front of the building, and it took the owners 8 months to patch up the gigantic hole? Seriously, for 8 months there was just a pile of bricks and a sheet of cardboard covering the wall. I checked their health code violations on the Sonoma County Food Inspection website once, and they had about 5 or 6 critical violations. No matter—the corner of College and Cleveland Avenues will always belong to China Light. File next to: Black Sparrow Press, Yardbirds’ Distribution Warehouse.
The Astro Motel: It is, by far, the funniest sign we’ve seen in a long, long time. Currently posted outside of the Astro Motel, well-known as a hotbed of illicit activity, is this gem: “Coming in 2009! The Wine Country Inn and Suites!” For real! Never mind that the last time I was there, there were razor blade chop marks on the nightstand and a syringe behind the TV, or that people have tried to jump off the roof, or that the cops show up there on a weekly basis. “The Wine Country Inn and Suites”—sounds classy. To us, it’ll always be the Astro Motel. File next to: Brother Juniper’s, Me & Em’s Liquors.
“I spent most of the late ’90s in a methamphetamine haze,” Dictor announced to the crowd, about 4 or 5 songs into the set. “Walking around the streets of San Francisco, wearing this big yellow rubber poncho, pushing a shopping cart. Those were my peeps. But you know, I got into rehab“—spitting out the word like it was an obscenity—”and got myself straightened out.”
Personal data: One of the first shows I ever went to, at the River Theater in Guerneville, was MDC playing with All, Nuisance, and a very young and very stoned opening band called Green Day. It was September 23, 1989. I was 13.
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