On Monday, March 15^th 2010, I found myself in the inti­mate front lobby of New York venue Joe’s Pub (4^th Avenue between 7^th and 8^th Street, New York), standing around awk­wardly bumping into patrons on the top tier of the jazz club-y space with my media jug­ger­naut BFF Rohin. He did his best to remain cool and aloof as we waited; I did my best to bump into everyone and spill snacks from my bag onto the floor (gen­er­ally in public, I’m like a soccer mom only without the kids). But even­tu­ally we over­flowed into some seats. Joe’s Pub is meant for an audi­ence of a cer­tain size; any­thing beyond that, and things get uncom­fort­able, but for Brisbane-based singer-songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke’s US opener it was almost cer­tainly the per­fect venue. Tuesday marked the begin­ning of Miller-Heidke’s Amer­ican tour, and the day before, her album Curi­ouser was also released here.

Joe’s Pub is part dinner the­atre, part dark night­club, part music venue, and (unlike most New York venues), they like to keep things on the clock. There was no opening act, and Kate got onstage promptly at 7:30 with her gui­tarist (and, mixing busi­ness and plea­sure, her hus­band) Kier Nut­tall. Awash with the gor­geous lighting of the venue and clearly stoked about the recep­tive crowd, the pair opened with “Pol­i­tics in Space.” This song is agree­ably per­cus­sive and funny and a great opener. Listen here:

Kate Miller-Heidke — “Pol­i­tics in Space”

It is true that Miller-Heidke is quirky and deserves the com­par­isons to famous alien pop lady weirdos (cheap com­par­isons I’ll save for other blogs, really). But she also has her own pecu­liar­i­ties: her voice changes pitch and octave in unpre­dictable and inter­esting ways, and she’s really used to using it as an instru­ment (like on her single “Can’t Shake It”). She also gets down­right gritty some­times, banging fever­ishly on the piano keys and roaring like a demon, or unleashing oper­atic notes as her tam­bourine breaks on her hip. These moments are when I like Miller-Heidke best (but everyone who knows me knows that I have always been one for Vegas-lounge-queen-grade melo­drama). This is why it sur­prised me when­ever she show­cased one of her more tra­di­tion­ally written songs – pre­dictably pro­gressing piano bal­lads with emo­tional lyrics, lovely but some­what too Lilith Fair (songs like “Caught in the Crowd” and the platinum-going “Last Day On Earth”, both tidy and nice but not for me).

But I don’t want to quibble. The set was clever, well played, inter­esting, and great fun to listen to. Miller-Heidke’s stage banter (some­thing that I usu­ally cringe about *cough* TORIAMOS *cough*) is absolutely endearing and won’t pander to anyone, including the audi­ence or the venue – at one point she stopped and pro­claimed that she had never before played any­where that smelled of “such pun­gent fish,” refer­ring to the food a patron in front was enjoying. And we got to hear her excel­lent Britney Spears cover, com­plete with the afore­men­tioned opera flour­ishes. Really, if you like music with per­son­ality (and clearly you do or you wouldn’t be here at Griz­zly­pants), and you are lucky enough to be in one of the towns Miller-Heidke and Nut­tall will be hit­ting on their tour, you should go hear out their rather incom­pa­rable pop brand.

Finally, for some top­ical humor (as opposed to the “trop­ical humor” of the malaria-related prac­tical joke Mike tried to play on the office after one of his Africa jaunts), hear out this little ditty: