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Nellie McKay
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Nellie McKay:
A Wunderkind Who Speaks Her Mind
by David Chiu
Most rock and pop stars, especially the
established ones, are usually ambivalent and cynical towards
celebrity. Artists like Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder have been
known to regard such things with disdain, while other stars like
Madonna have celebrated the notion of fame in a cheeky yet mocking
way.
However if you bring up fame with Nellie
McKay, she genuinely loves the trappings of celebrity unapologetically,
almost shockingly, as a means to promote herself and to impart
social change.
"The more fame and money you acquire,
it gives you more power," says the engaging singer, "and
there are a lot of things, I'd like to change about this world.
Celebrity and wealth are some of the biggest weapons for social
change because most people who have them don't use them for anything
but Versace."
If you haven't heard of Nellie McKay, you
probably will soon. McKay is a 19- year-old singer-pianist-songwriter
whose musical instincts lie more in Tin Pan Alley pop, Kurt Weill,
and Randy Newman than the pop songwriting teams of the Matrix
and the Neptunes. Her melodic pop and jazz-styled tunes make
her sort of the anti-Norah Jones; while Jones makes romantic
stately music, McKay's approach is more quirky, sarcastic, and
sometimes scathing. On stage, McKay performs solo on piano tackling
her original material and covers from the past like "Body
and Soul," "These Boots are Made for Walking,"
and "San Francisco."
"I was influenced a lot early on by
the women of the big band era," she says of her musical
inspirations. " I really liked the spirit of the '60s and
the pop music of that era. If you mix that all up and you throw
in politics and nostalgia and being generally a kid growing up,
yeah-that's basically it. McKay says that she is influenced
by classic pop and jazz music more than contemporary music. "I
really haven't gone much beyond 1970. I listen to a little Eminem,
[and] stuff like [the Bangles'] "Walk Like an Egyptian."
I've been trying for a while to write my own "Walk Like
an Egyptian."
McKay is like no other artist, especially
in terms of songwriting. Some of her songs provide a soapbox
of her views such as in the political and social realm. Proof
is a song of hers called "Sari" (a jazz-meets-hip-hop
hybrid of a song) in which she rails against things in the news
and in pop culture such as the Oxygen Network and the memorial
service of the late Senator Paul Wellstone (and not to mention,
herself). "I feel everything is political--love, sex, life.
I don't see how people can be unaffected by politics or the current
events of the world. I get impatient with love songs, especially
when they are written in a more modern style."
Another song of hers "I Wanna Get
Married," is a sad ballad laced with self-deprecation and
irony. It begs the question whether McKay is already thinking
about the ball and chain even when her career is just getting
started. The singer explains that the song was born out of her
her perception of romantic and domestic bliss via television
shows like Bewitched. "I just wanted to have a nice normal
life, and that's never going to happen for me. At the same time
you can't help romanticizing especially the further removed you
are from it. Basically I'm mocking my own infatuation with matrimony.
McKay's music is sophisticated and smart,
but the artist herself is very self-deprecating about her approach
to songwriting, especially when it comes to the words. McKay
is not ashamed to admit she borrows from contemporary pop music
in the process. "I write the melody first and usually before
the melody is done, I'm copping chords from an N'Sync CD, then
I'll make the bridge from a Shania Twain CD. Then I'd write a
melody over it and then I try to decide what's it going to be
about."
A dazzling pianist who possesses a cool
and seductive vocal delivery, McKay had played at the Antihoot,
an open stage Sidewalk Café. The newcomer impressed many
folks in attendance, most notably Lach, who runs the Antihoot.
It would set the wheels in motion for her burgeoning career.
"He proposed 'manage' to me," cleverly puns McKay.
"We get a long really well. I really like it when people
encourage me."
McKay's mannered, articulate, and slightly-accented
speech might be due to the fact that she was born in London.
During her childhood, she has traveled around when she emigrated
with her mother to the States, first to California, then living
in New York City's Harlem; then moving to Olympia, Washington
and later Pennsylvania, and then back to New York again. In New
York, she studied jazz voice at the Manhattan School of Music
before dropping out (she admits has no regrets). Surrounded by
Columbia University students in the area, she is now on her own
and in debt like every other artist living in the Big Apple.
"I really think the reason I'm 19 is that in some ways I'm
40 and a toddler. I had to boil water the other day-my mother
never taught me how to cook or clean or do anything. Emotionally
I'm totally a baby."
For someone who has yet to release a full-length
record. McKay has already garnered praise. A recent Time Out
New York piece on her says she is fast proving to be one
of New York's most intriguing performers. Jason Trachtenberg
of Trachtenberg Sideshow Players called her an absolute phenomenon.
Lach himself has dubbed McKay as one of the most important artist
of today. Does such attention and kudos fazes this wunderkind?
"I take it as a compliment," she says. "Seriously
they're expecting that much from me, and I'm going to try to
fulfill it."
When asked how would she change things
once she has fame and money, McKay threw some memorable examples,
one of which included the state of carriage horses-yes, the ones
you see riding the tourists around Central Park. "They're
there for no reason. I don't see why they can't be in a field
somewhere. I don't think that it's beautiful in New York when
you got a cold wet horse picking his hoof out of his own manure.
I don't think that's charming."
McKay continues on the topic of social
issues and is not afraid to speak her mind. "People are
complaining about celebrities getting involved in politics,"
says McKay. "I'm trying to find a benign way you can do
that without people criticizing you for that.
"It's unbelievable the political infrastructure
in this city. Or like the homeless. Why would you cut education?
There's so many things I want to change, and there's no way I'll
ever do it."
The singer/songwriter is having a great
last couple of months playing live to people and getting noticed
by the record labels, several of which are trying to covet her.
Although she loves the attention, she hates the whole tug of
war nature of the biz. "I feel like I'm suddenly the popular
kid in school who's gonna like be my partner. I just want to
take everyone home with me. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
My manager Lach is enjoying this very much." (As of this
writing, McKay recently inked a deal with Columbia Records; her
major-label debut is scheduled to be released this fall).
The ultimate goal for McKay, with the exception
of her desire to achieve fame and fortune, is to bring happiness
through her music. "If everybody tried to be happy in life,
then the world would be a better place. My concept of happiness
is to make other people feel content.
"If you can achieve change I think
that's the greatest happiness you can have. There's no great
pleasure. If I can have Mother Theresa with my hedonistic streak,
than that's what I like to do with my life."
While other emerging artists might have
an inner struggle in dealing with fame and the problems that
comes with it, McKay has absolutely no problem in handling them-her
attitude is 'bring it on!'. Part of
her ambition to make it comes from having worked menial odd jobs
that included being a secretary and a stint at the supermarket
Gristedes, which she disliked. "I have a great respect for
teachers but everyone says, 'Get a college diploma so you'll
be able to teach and have security.' I think I would rather live
on the street. There's nothing worse than working for pennies
for the boss man."
However, when this interviewer mentioned
wouldn't that be the same scenario working for a corporate record
label, she acknowledged that fact with a wry sensibility that
makes her all the more endearing. "But you are doing work
that you love for the boss man. That's a very good point.
Even if you are a product, it's so much less dehumanizing than
checking bags. I get a great pleasure out of what I do."
http://www.nelliemckay.com
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