Kapital Ink.

When I planned to meet Colleen Green before her show at the Middle East's ZuZu on August 23, I was smacked with a sinking realization - I don't know what she looks like.

Yes, I'd been to her Myspace and her Facebook page. I'd watched live footage and listened to her limited-edition cassette. But the youtube videos were darkly lit and showed her in sunglasses. And the image on her Facebook profile and her cassette was a simple cartoon drawing (also with sunglasses, natch). I'd have to wait until after her set to approach her.

Taking things back a step, the songs I'd heard on her tape, "Milo Goes to Compton", and her CD-R, "4 Loko 2 Kayla", were sparkling soundscapes brimming with hip grit and bubble gum pep - like Bratmobile going on a joy ride with The Jesus and Mary Chain, smoking a blunt with Veronica Mars in the back seat while blasting a bootleg soundtrack to the Fabulous Stains. Green's tunes are densely layered, irresistibly catchy, and - here's the clincher - surprisingly, refreshingly, completely unpretentious.

When Green takes the stage, she's got her signature shades on, and announces bewilderedly like an un-ironic 7th grader (and she does in fact look much younger than her real 25), "It's dark as fuck in here." She keeps the fake Ray-Bans on for the full performance.

The performance itself is incredible, and yet totally different from the recordings. Gone are the lush layers and ethereal harmonies. In a mint-green tank top (sans iron maiden), she stares straight ahead (at least I think she does - I can't quite follow her likely dilated eyeballs), jacks up the drum machine, and sings along unaffectedly, with her equally straight-ahead, fuzzed-out guitar strumming. It is unadulterated '70s PUNK. And it fucking rules.

The eclipse of recorded + live demonstrations then causes me to realize how brilliant of a rarity I have standing 3 feet in front of me. She is the equivalent of a sonic unicorn - a hip youngster who isn't a trendy poser and isn't doing something totally dumbheadedly off-kilter for the sake of seeming cool. For Colleen Green, what's cool is simply what's cool to her, and you're invited to smoke a bowl and love it along with her.

Afterward, I think more about how Green is such an anti-pop-icon marketeer. Would fellow Californian Katy Perry dare release her music without her big-boobed likeness affixed? Green is cute as a button and smart as a whip, but she doesn't give a flying fuck about pasting her hot self on her products. She works from the gut and does whatever she fancies, keeping it real - to sometimes hilarious logic. And it all works.

The CD-R she sells at her shows is not intended as a vehicle for her music - she made it partly as a physical means to distribute her indie comic tucked inside (and, btw, her comics are DOPE, so check out more on her Facebook page). The CD itself is not even a promo item for herself. It's dedicated to her best friend Kayla - a personal shout out to friendship and sisterhood; an unsappy BFF necklace of which we all get to keep half.

The stand-out is her killer cover of "Leaving it Up to You" (the cheesetastic 1963 Dale and Grace song later covered by Donnie & Marie Osmond, among others). Listening to her EP for the first time, this was the track that caused me to take notice, that caused my near still-beating indie heart to flutter 'gain. It was achingly beautiful and completely sincere. I'd try to make a humorous analogy, but it seems disrespectful.

Given how masterfully she tackles covers, I was tempted to suggest other songs to process through the Green Machine (From Bubblegum to Sky's "Hello Hello Hi", pleez?). When we met up so I could interview her for this article, I thought of making outright suggestions, then considered sending youtube links as a subtler approach. Finally, I realized that tampering with her artistic purity would be presumptuous. I must just trust Green to do as she will. And I do.

Fortunately, others (with money and power) also maintain this faith. Hardly Art (the Sub Pop spin-off label) recently contacted Green with a contract.

The fact that someone completely doing her own thing, almost in defiance of "the machine", can get recognized and supported is enough to make me believe in something, ANYTHING, again. After years of jaded cynicism about my generation and the state of American art, I feel like maybe, possibly, talent CAN exist - and be rewarded.

I can't wait til one of her songs gets picked up for a "90210" promo and she makes a million bucks.


-Allison Tanenhaus