Merrill Nisker (born 11 November 1966), better known by her stage name Peaches, is a Canadian electroclash musician and producer.
Born in Ontario, Peaches began her musical career in the 1990s as part of a folk trio, Mermaid Cafe. In 1995, she established a rock band, the Shit. That year she also released her first solo album, Fancypants Hoodlum. After moving to Berlin, Germany, she was signed to the Kitty-Yo label and released her second album, The Teaches of Peaches (2000).[1] Touring as the opening act for bands like Marilyn Manson and Queens of the Stone Age, she subsequently released her third album, Fatherfucker (2003).
In an interview in URB magazine, she recounted how growing up she experienced antisemitism; on her walks home from school, students from a nearby Catholic school would throw stones at her and call her a "dirty Jew".[7]
As a teenager, Nisker appeared in two plays alongside future Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page, including a musical, My Brother's Keeper. She shared this story with Damian Abraham on his Turned Out a Punk podcast.[8]
Career
1990–1999: Mermaid Cafe, Fancypants Hoodlum, The Shit
During the early 1990s, Nisker was part of folk trio Mermaid Cafe. The name was taken from the Joni Mitchell song "Carey". She later released her first solo album, Fancypants Hoodlum, under the name Merrill Nisker in 1995, and subsequently developed the style and persona known as Peaches. In 1995, Peaches was in The Shit - a noisy four-piece combo with Chilly Gonzales (a.k.a. Jason Beck), bassist Sticky Henderson (later of Weeping Tile and Music Maul), and Dominique Salole (a.k.a. Mocky). Their absurd, highly sexual rock music was a harbinger for what Nisker would become, as it was during this time that she adopted the Peaches name. The Peaches moniker was taken from the Nina Simone song "Four Women" where Simone screams at the end, "My name is Peaches!"[9] In Toronto, before rising to fame, she lived above the sex shop Come as You Are with fellow recording artist Feist.[10][11] Feist worked the back of the stage at Peaches' shows, using a sock puppet and calling herself "Bitch Lap Lap".[12] The two toured together in England from 2000 to 2001, staying with Justine Frischmann of Elastica and M.I.A.[13] M.I.A. went on to video-document Peaches' 2000 US tour and made clothes for the musician, while Peaches inspired M.I.A. to use the Roland MC-505 in her own compositions.[14][15]
2000–2002: The Teaches of Peaches
After creating a six-track EP, Lovertits, Peaches moved to Berlin, Germany. While visiting her old friend Jason Beck, who was enjoying modest European success as Chilly Gonzales in his new home base of Berlin, Peaches landed a one-night gig. On the merits of that show alone, Berlin's Kitty-Yo label signed her on the spot. The label offered her the chance to record a new album, The Teaches of Peaches, back home in Toronto, and the already-completed Lovertits EP was released in the summer of 2000. The full-length album The Teaches of Peaches was released that fall.[16] The album contains her signature song "Fuck the Pain Away".[17]
Peaches appeared on the British TV show Top of the Pops, but her performance was deemed too racy to be aired.[18]
Nisker signed a European contract with Sony following the release of The Teaches of Peaches. She later made a big-budget video for the song "Set It Off", in which she sat in a locker room as her pubic and armpit hair grew to Rapunzel length. Sony subsequently dropped her. "Now they want their money back," Peaches said.[18]
In 2001, Nisker's 34AA bust was one of the first female busts cast by famous 1960s groupie Cynthia Plaster Caster, who was better known for making molds of male rockers' genitalia.[19][20]
In 2002, Peaches appeared in "Hideous Man", a short film directed by John Malkovich. The short was created as a showcase for clothing designed by Bella Freud and featured the poetry of Gary Sinise.[21]
2003–2005: Fatherfucker
In 2003, Peaches released her second album Fatherfucker on XL/Kitty-Yo after years of touring and opening for artists like Marilyn Manson and Queens of the Stone Age. She once again wrote and programmed all of the album's music herself. The single "Kick It", which features Iggy Pop, was described by Peaches to Rolling Stone as "more about rock 'n' roll than sex."[22]
Peaches' song "Boys Wanna Be Her" is featured in an online teaser for the live-action feature film Bad Kids Go to Hell (2012), based on the best-selling graphic novel of the same name. It also serves as the theme music for the late-night television series Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.[25][26] It was also featured in an episode of Orphan Black.
2009–2012: I Feel Cream and other work
Peaches' fourth album I Feel Cream, was released on 4 May 2009, in Europe, and 5 May in North America.[27] The first single from the album is a double A-side of "Talk to Me" and "More".[28] Peaches enlisted some of her contemporaries to co-produce a number of tracks including Simian Mobile Disco, Soulwax, Digitalism and Shapemod. Long time friend and collaborator Chilly Gonzales co-wrote some of the songs on I Feel Cream and Shunda K (the voice of Yo Majesty) featured on the track "Billionaire".[29]
Peaches has been noted for her stage costumes and flamboyant sense of style. Her looks are often both nostalgic and futuristic; aggressive and glamorous; and push the limits of gender identity. Peaches and her band Sweet Machine wear costumes from a variety of designers but most notably she works closely with stylist/designer Vaughan Alexander, celebrity hairstylist Charlie Le Mindu, and young American fashion designer, John Renaud.
In 2010, Peaches and backing band Sweet Machine once again toured Australia performing at the sold out Big Day Out (BDO) festivals and at a series of sideshows. Peaches was supported on this tour by Shunda K who performed her collaboration "Billionaire" at BDO festivals and at the sideshows,[29] and was also the opening act at the sideshows along with Evil Beaver in Melbourne.[citation needed]
On 14 March 2010, Peaches won the 'Electronic Artist of the Year' award at the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards held in Toronto, Canada.[30][31]
Peaches performing in 2009
In March 2010, the copyright owners of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar denied Peaches permission to perform her one-woman version that she was planning to stage in Berlin. After receiving the attention of several media outlets, Peaches successfully negotiated with those rights-holders, and the musical was performed on 25–27 March at Berlin's HAU1.[32] Gonzales accompanied Peaches on piano.[33]Travis Jeppesen stated in his review for Artforum, "Not only did Peaches set it off, she managed to surprise us all by showing off an expansive vocal range, a musician's natural sensitivity to the dynamics of Andrew Lloyd Webber's score, and an emotive prowess that is rarely if ever displayed in her own, less holy, music."[34]
Peaches appeared in a film called Ivory Tower, which also includes spots from Feist, Chilly Gonzales, Tiga and Gonzales' mother. Peaches stars as Marsha, a performance artist engaged to a man named Thaddeus (Tiga). Things get complicated when her ex, Hershall (Gonzales) comes back into her life. The film is set in Toronto and was shot over 13 days in late winter and early spring 2010. It was co-written by Gonzales and Céline Sciamma (who directed/wrote Water Lilies and Portrait of a Lady on Fire) was directed by Adam Traynor and produced by Nicolas Kazarnia. Ivory Tower was given a limited theatrical release in August 2010.[35]
In May 2010, Christina Aguilera announced that Peaches was among the collaborators on her fourth studio album Bionic. Peaches is featured on a track called "My Girls".[36][37] The song was co-written and produced by Le Tigre.
Peaches also appears as a guest musician on R.E.M.'s 2011 release Collapse into Now, contributing vocals to the song "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter".[40]
2012: New music and Peaches Does Herself
It was announced in 2012 that a semi-biographical musical/concert film would be premièred at the Toronto Film Festival, utilising 22 songs from Peaches' back catalog and backed by her band the Sweet Machine.
Peaches Does Herself premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 13 September 2012.
On 2 October 2012, Peaches released her new single "Burst!" as a digital single backed with several remixes.
2015–2021: What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches and Rub
Peaches performing in 2016
Photographer Holger Talinski collaborated with Peaches on a book of photographs, What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches, released on 2 June 2015. The book, published by Akashic Books, also includes text written by Peaches, R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe, artist and singer Yoko Ono and actor Elliot Page.
Peaches' sixth studio album, Rub, was released 25 September 2015. It was produced by Vice Cooler with Peaches in her Los Angeles garage. In June 2015 it was announced to contain guest vocal appearances by Kim Gordon, Feist, and Simonne Jones.[41]
An unused track from the Rub sessions titled "Bodyline" was released by Adult Swim on 20 July 2015. The Vice Cooler-produced track features Nick Zinner on guitar and was described as "a heavy, chugging guitar line over which Peaches half raps, half sings a high-octane space jam."[42] In May 2016, Peaches appeared in a fourth-season episode of the Canadian TV series Orphan Black as herself, performing "Bodyline" in a club. She performed "Boys Wanna Be Her" at the Not the White House Correspondents' Dinner on 29 April 2017. In February 2019, Peaches made her debut with the Staatstheater Stuttgart, co-directing and performing as Anna I in Kurt Weill's/Bertolt Brecht's Die sieben Todsünden.[43]
2022: Documentaries and upcoming seventh studio album
In 2022, Peaches went on tour to mark the 20th anniversary of The Teaches of Peaches. She is currently working on her seventh studio album.[44] Peaches' song "Boys Wanna Be Her" is featured in the 2022 film The 355 starring Jessica Chastain and Diane Kruger.[45]
The 2022 tour was profiled in the documentary film Teaches of Peaches, which premiered at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.[46] In the same year, she was the subject of Marie Losier's documentary Peaches Goes Bananas.[2] Peaches described the two films as very different from each other, stating that "one is more of a documentary of a certain album at a certain place in time, [whereas] Marie’s film – well, I don’t even consider it documentary. It’s more of a painting, a portrait. Marie gets excited about an artist and then goes her own way."[47]
Peaches opened her first institutional solo art exhibition "Whose Jizz Is This?" at the Kunstverein in Hamburg [de] on 10 August 2019 (through 20 October 2019). Taking a bold and unexpected approach to the topics of sex, feminism, queerness, gender, and new millennium politics, Peaches calls her WJIT presentation "a deconstructed musical in 14 scenes". At the heart of this presentation are the "Fleshies", who have renamed themselves as such to rewrite their narrative, break away from humans and human interactions, do away with words like "sex toys" and "masturbators" in a quest to find sexual equality amongst themselves.[50]
Themes
Gender identity is one theme of Peaches' music, often playing with traditional notions of gender roles representation. Her lyrics and live shows consciously blur the distinction between male and female; for example, she appears on the cover of her album Fatherfucker with a full beard. When asked if she had chosen the title for shock value, she commented:
Motherfucker's so over. You call everybody a motherfucker – you call your mother a motherfucker. It's a pretty extreme and intense word. Instead of shying away from that, I thought I'd bring the fact that we're using the word motherfucker in a really mainstream way to the fore.[51]
She disputes accusations of "penis envy", preferring the term "hermaphrodite envy",[52] since "there is so much male and female in us all."[53]
Age has been another theme of Peaches' music in recent years. The lyrics from several songs from her 2009 album I Feel Cream tackle the issue of age, including "Trick or Treat" ("you lick my crow's feet"), "Show Stopper" ("Never mind my age, it's like we're breaking out of a cage") and "Mommy Complex". Peaches has criticized ageism directed against her,[54] telling the New York Daily News that "I'm going to make aging cool."[55]
Nisker has criticized the "censorship" of pro-Palestinian progressive Jews in Germany. She believes that many Germans "can't separate Israeli politics from Jewish feelings" and that diverse Jewish opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not "honored" in Germany, telling the New York Times that "For any progressive Jewish person who is thinking about what is going on, and understanding the history of what is going on, to be called antisemitic — by Germans — is ridiculous. Never did I think in 2024 that I would be thinking about that."[56]
"This filmed version of Peaches' epic stage performance in Berlin tells the loosely biographical tale of her rise to stardom and a romance that ends in heartbreak. Bursting with nudity, strap-on dildos, pink underwear, and shocking cameos by stripper Sandy Kane and transsexual porn star Dannii Daniels, Peaches Does Herself brings the star's unique brand of post-feminist, shock-rock cabaret to shameless cinematic life."[58]
^"Retrieved 2010-04-03". Chartattack.com. 24 April 2010. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 9 June 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Kitty Empire (17 August 2003). "Ripe for stardom". The Observer. London: The Guardian. Retrieved 9 June 2010.
^"She tells interviewers she has hermaphrodite envy, not penis envy." Jessica Suarez, ReviewArchived 19 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine: "Peaches – Impeach My Bush (XL)", Rhino Review.
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