PragueDJ.com

Adam Green's in Prague.

This stuff's so strange you have to like it!  At least that's what they were saying back when Adam Green was paired with Kimya Dawson

as the whimsically crude anti-folk act, The Moldy Peaches.

From their humble beginnings as upstate New York record store employees, the young duo gained a cult-like following of keds-shoe clad kids by strumming singsong acoustic arrangements with the lyrics “I like it when my hair is poofy; I like it when you slip me a roofy” la la la… wait, huh?

What could easily have been a fun song about apple pie and mama’s home cookin’ takes a nosedive when Green and Dawson break into queasy Raffie-esque harmonies about crack, porn, Lucky Charms cereal, and 70 year old hookers. Earthy Northwestern hipsters delight in the kitsch humor which every once in a while inadvertently bumps into genius, but after a few plays gets old pretty fast. They boast substantial notoriety among college radio disc jockeys, not to mention an unusually large following in the country, Germany. In fact, Green’s current solo tour finishes with stops in Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Hannover, and Heidelberg, oh mein!

That being said, ever since their mega success with the track “Anyone Else But You” from the Juno soundtrack, both Green and Dawson have flown out of the Moldy pigeonhole in pursuit of vibrant solo careers. Green, who swoops into Lucerna Music Bar on Thurs. July 8th, just released his seventh solo album Musik For A Play, which was written as musical accompaniment to a theatrical adaptation of Paul Auster’s book Timbuktu. The story follows the internal monologues of a dog, Mr. Bones worrying about the impending death of his homeless master, Willy G Christmas as they embark on their final journey together to Baltimore.

Leaving behind the soft-spoken style of his lo-fi Peaches days, Green now croons with his rich baritone like Bing Crosby at a cocktail party. Pan flutes, piano, string arrangements and even some tuba bring to life his unconventional compositions that mimic 50s rock and chamber pop, yet still retain the quirky flairs of his older material. No doubt Green still plays with crude humor to shock his listeners, but there’s a subtle maturity that comes through on tracks like “Carolina,” where he sings “Carolina she’s from Texas; red bricks drop from her vagina.” What first sounds like a gross adolescent nursery rhyme actually turns out to be a cryptic metaphor for a girl’s abortion.

Expect to hear a wide range of tracks from Green’s recent work – particularly from the recent release Minor Love, however it’s highly unlikely he’ll strum any Moldy Peaches material as him and Dawson have agreed not to play them while touring solo. Interesting Tidbit: Green’s great grandmother was once engaged to Franz Kafka until she fled with her family from the Nazis and went to New York