Written by:
Julia Bloch
Photographer:
Amy T. Zielinski
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 14#5
Graduation is coming up, and 19-year-old Nellie McKay says she’s been having nightmares all week. “I’m back in class and I keep getting the answer wrong, and everybody keeps laughing at me.” Sure, we’ve all had those dreams, right? Sometimes we’re naked, even? But McKay’s are way worse. “My mom calls it my Vietnam. I feel like I should go to a shrink or something.”
So does she mind that she’s famous for having dropped out of the prestigious Manhattan School of Music? “Oh, I love it! I do, because I feel like a loser! I don’t know — I don’t want to be just an angry singer-songwriter, but I do have a lot of anger. So I guess I’m an angry loser in quotes.”
McKay sings like the love child of Doris Day and Eminem. No, wait — she’s Ella Fitzgerald crossed with Ani DiFranco. Scratch that; she’s a little bit Chet Baker, a little bit Elvis Costello, with lyrics that are one part Tori Amos, one part They Might Be Giants and one part Bitch and Animal (“If you would sit/Oh so close to me/That would be nice/Like it’s supposed to be/If you don’t/I’ll slit your throat/So won’t u please b nice?”). Her hybrid music defies easy description but has engendered a seemingly neverending series of compound modifiers; Time Out New York gushed that she is “like a living, breathing White Album.” The brainy teenager has quickly made a huge impression on the music world, from her music to her wardrobe and right down to her cover art: McKay against a drab piece of graffito, standing in a fire-engine-red coat with matching lipstick and fuzzy black gloves, arms flung wide, face looking skyward with a huge grin. There’s a “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” label just to her left, as if she were giving it a little bump with her hip.
The ex-schoolgirl who dresses like Audrey Hepburn and raps like Rosemary Clooney doing an Eve impression has obviously thought a lot about her image. Since she’s a pianist, I tell McKay about this story I heard about President Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, who also happens to be a pianist. According to rumors, Rice is a complete nightmare in ensemble work. She doesn’t cooperate with other musicians, doesn’t wait for her cues. She plows ahead. McKay says she can understand that. “I am completely a control freak. I think it has something to do with being a successful person. I think a lot of people leave their careers up to chance more than I ever could.” She gets a little distracted. “Wait a second. I’m looking at one of those guys that dresses in all silver and you put money in his box? The box he’s standing on says Always Think Positive. It’s really sad — all these people walk by, you know, all these valley girls, creepy businessmen with gel in their hair, and New Yorkers wearing all black. They don’t care. People chewing gum. And he’s, you know, really working. Sometimes I hate show business.”
I want to hear about how she got her start playing gay clubs in New York. It’s a long story, one that involves her lesbian friend Rose and a former musical director for the Fantastics and a fateful ride in a white Jetta. The crux of the matter is, McKay walked past the Stonewall Inn, saw a piano and an empty mic, took her chances and started to play. One gig led to another, critics caught on to her quirky mix of show tunes, Bush-bashing and feminist ire, and not quite but nearly by chance, she wound up with a daring two-CD album from Epic, Get Away From Me.
Do scads of queer fans know something I don’t?
McKay is a bit slippery on the topic. “Yeah, there was one woman in high school that I would have married.” Although she says she’s recording a song about same-sex marriage for her next album, she doesn’t actually use the l-word when it comes to identifying herself. She doesn’t use the s-word, either. However, she’s refreshingly candid about flinging around the f-word — this is the girl who recently performed her feminist hit “I Wanna Get Married” on pseudo-pro-woman talk show The View (“I wanna get married/I need to cook meals/I wanna pack cute little lunches/For my Brady bunches/Then read Danielle Steel”). Legend has it that when McKay was a wee thing, her mother held up her baby fist in a sort of salute, with a rousing cry of “Lesbian nation!” Did that really happen?
McKay, a proud performer at last spring’s women’s march on Washington, says the rumors are true. “Oh, yeah — my mom is an extremely liberated woman, especially when it comes to me. I think she’s been victimized a lot in her life, and doesn’t want that to happen to me. She’s always encouraged me to see myself as a person and not just as a woman. I wish that some people, when they say you’re spouting feminist clichés, could understand that the reason people turn to feminism and identify with feminism is because there’s a problem. I mean, it’s not brainwashing. There’s a reason why people want to find out more and understand more.”
Back to the impending graduation of her former classmates. “I’m very happy that all those people that laughed their asses off at me are getting a little diploma in two weeks, and I’m opening up for Sting.”
To keep up, visit http://www.nelliemckay.com . |
