Kimya Dawson's charisma woos Pabst audience

The Moldy Peaches took a break in 2004, but Kimya Dawson's career continues with five subsequent albums, and on the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning movie "Juno." She stopped by The Pabst Theater with husband and fellow musician Angelo Spencer and L'Orchidee D'Hawaii in tow.

Earlier this year Molly blogged her thoughts on the controversial movie "Juno," which follows a teenage girl as she plans to adopt out an unexpected baby. Some people loved the super cute story and sketchy design while others found it over-glossy or underdeveloped in all the wrong places. Some people loved the smart wit of Ellen Page while others found her insufferable. But whether or not you enjoyed the movie it'd be hard to argue that Kimya Dawson wasn't the perfect musician for its soundtrack.

From the sketchy, hand-rendered logo to the stripper cum screenwriter Diablo Cody, the movie's production values run against the glamorous style of big budget Hollywood and the pristine clean of the iPod culture and displays itself in a way that says, "Anybody can do this."

Enter, Dawson, a girl with a guitar and a cute, self-consciously quiet and sometimes slightly out of tune voice, whose sweetly poetic lyrics wander like a child's train of thought, from observation to observation, while still holding a very real awareness of her surroundings. In that context, her spotlight in "Juno" just makes sense.

According to Dawson, the last time she played Milwaukee was at a basement show at which the MPD showed up to shut it down, comparing the tiny folk show to the Great White inferno / stampede. The officer acted as a soothsayer, predicting, "You're all going to die!"

At this outing, however, she was treated to a full and vibrant audience at The Pabst Theater; a step in the right direction, it seems. Despite the exponentially larger audience and the Hollywood exposure, Dawson remained gimmick-free and perhaps even more genuine. And why not? Her songs are so unflinchingly honest that there's no further reason to hide.

Dawson started her set with the first song she ever wrote. As the set continued, she stopped periodically between -- and sometimes in the middle of -- songs to address the audience, prefacing her lyrics, telling stories or asking questions. The audience reflected its giddiness by shouting out questions, answers and support.

One story Dawson told was of her mother, who had just entered surgery for a brain tumor that afternoon. Then she plucked the guitar and sang about her mother. Everybody smiled, wishing to be as poetic as she towards our own mothers. She talked about her children's album, which she described as, "Really the same as all my other albums, but with less balls."

Then she played, and everyone agreed with those sentiments (noticing that "balls" was mostly replaced by "farts"). She talked about her interview on "The View," saying, "I would have done a lot grosser sh*t to meet Whoopie Goldberg."

Then she played another song. I don't remember which (many of them are, honestly, quite similar) but I would guess it had a well-placed "c*ck" or "f*ck" and I'm sure we all giggled. She talked about yelling at the manager at the Comfort Inn in Waukegan, who attempted to squeeze some extra money from her French tour mates. With the exception of one song, she played the entire set solo, in the center of a column of light and despite the lack of anything super flashy, no huge amps, no cool dance moves, no flashy lights, we were all captivated and entertained through the whole show.

Angelo Spencer started off the show questioning whether the initially talkative audience was "that kind of audience," an eye-rolling mistake if there ever was one, but he quickly won their ears through his vibrantly slapdash set and a heavy dose of humor. "If you see Pee Wee Herman, tell him to come back. We really need him."

The one-man band primarily played guitar, but on his rowdier numbers, kicked a bass drum with one foot and splashed cymbals and tambourine with the other. The set was entertaining, but he could have benefited from a lot more continuity; the set was punctuated by a series of failures: guitar strings broke, the cymbals came loose and the guitar wouldn't tune. Through it all, however, he managed to hold the attention of the audience until the last few songs of his set.

L'Orchidee D'Hawaii played a mix of chill, lounge and psychedelic surf rock, at one point devolving into an unusual drum solo, holding a drumstick in one hand, jingle bells in the other, and a cowbell in his mouth.

What the show lacked in Hollywood gloss, each act made up for with charisma, reaching out to engage the audience and interact with it. Spencer obliged one fan's request to sit on the stage (until security stepped in) and Dawson invited a small child in the front row to play with her own kid in the green room. It was certainly that attitude, the warmth, the humor and the love that made the show worth it.