PEACHES DOES HERSELF: 5 Videos By Peaches

For those of you who have not yet experienced Peaches, you're in for a treat! Here's a quick primer on some of her music, in video form, to prepare you for the spectacle of Peaches Does Herself.
"Relax": Science Fiction plus Peaches equals AWESOMENESS.

"I Feel Cream": This video is sparkly, glittery, and multicolored, just like the song. It also showcases what a gorgeous voice she has. Plus, Peaches raps are always amazing.

"Serpentine": Peaches gives us her version of the "found footage" trend, tearing off the layers (literally) to reveal serious attitude. She has the best hairstyles and outfits ever. WARNING: THERE ARE SWEARS IN THIS SONG.

"Sex (I'm a…)": Who else could do a better cover of Berlin's iconic song than Peaches? And she sings both the male and female parts. The video is fantastic, too.

For more Peaches videos, go to her Official YouTube Channel, Peaches TV.

PEACHES DOES HERSELF Screening Times:
Thur., Sept. 13th, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA 9:00PM
Sat., Sept. 15th, TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 4 3:15PM
Sun., Sept. 16th, JACKMAN HALL (AGO) 4:00PM

PEACHES DOES HERSELF: Who Is Peaches?

With all of her talents and accomplishments—singer, songwriter, musician, DJ, performer, provocateur—maybe a better question would be, who ISN'T Peaches? At one point, she even had her own action figure, but her career didn't fully explode until she was in her early thirties.

Peaches, born Merrill Nisker in Toronto, graduated from Toronto's York University. For nearly a decade afterwards, she educated kids—first at a local YMCA, and later at private schools and homes—through a self-designed program she developed to "cultivate children's creativity outside of the established structure of music and drama classes."

All the while, she was honing her skills, germinating the seeds of what would eventually explode into the Peaches persona.

She began her musical career with folk songs, but soon developed her own unique sound and style: rapping over a Roland MC505 sequencer. Frustrated with her prospects in Toronto, and with hardly any radio support, she moved to Berlin. After one gig performing the tracks from an EP she'd recorded, the Kitty-Yo label signed her immediately. That EP (Lovertits) and an album (The Teaches Of Peaches) soon followed.

Her subsequent four albums (Fatherfucker, Impeach My Bush, I Feel Cream) ran the gamut from rapping over heavy synths and samples to a full rock band sound and then onwards to pure dance music complemented by Peaches' astonishing vocal range (a skill she held back on revealing until she felt people had already accepted her musical skills). Her 2010 one-woman production of Peaches Christ Superstar, a reimagining of the '70s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, was another success.

The Guardian once proclaimed, "as a pop star, Peaches is so niche she needs a category of her own."
 Peaches' music and live performances push boundaries, combining theater, burlesque, and cabaret, while addressing beauty, feminism, mainstream and alternative culture, gender identity, sexual politics, and well, regular politics.

A January 2012 interview with Typewriter Trasher posed this question to Peaches: "What does it take to have longevity at a time when everyone is so obsessed with what’s new?" Her response?

"I think you just have to go along and keep doing whatever it is that you’re doing, and realize that there are times when it’s going to click with people and there are times when, even if you think it’s your best work, it’s just not going to. And that can’t discourage you."

Viva la Peaches, the epitome of not just DIY but also Do What You Want. Her latest creation, Peaches Does Herself, is screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.

PEACHES DOES HERSELF Screening Times:
Thur., Sept. 13th, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA 9:00PM
Sat., Sept. 15th, TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 4 3:15PM
Sun., Sept. 16th, JACKMAN HALL (AGO) 4:00PM

PEACHES DOES HERSELF: Director profile: Peaches

Would you believe that Peaches Does Herself is not the first film from the Toronto-born singer/songwriter/musician/performance artist/force of nature known as Peaches?

True to her gender-busting and genre-bending nature, Peaches wrote, directed, and starred in a Super-8 "bike porn" film called Chromosome XXX. Although much of her career has been theatrical, in both the visual and aural sense, it wasn't until 2010 that she took her act from the rock stage to the rock opera stage with a one-woman reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar, christened (what else?) Peaches Christ Superstar.

Yes, you read that right. Peaches played all the characters and sang all the songs, accompanied only on piano played by her frequent collaborator, Chilly Gonzales.

If that wasn't enough of a career-defining accomplishment, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of her album The Teaches Of Peaches, she then embarked on a new theatrical production, Peaches Does Herself, transitioning from playing all the roles herself to gathering a full cast and crew for an epic stage presentation spanning her entire career and incorporating twenty of her songs.

"Peaches Does Herself," swooned Expatriarch, "is a balls-out extravagasmic stage production: Half send-up of Mamma Mia!-style pop musicals and half rock concert."

Now this rollicking, raunchy extravaganza has been transformed further into a concert movie of the same name that will be playing at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The title might be a pun on Debbie Does Dallas as well as self-love, but it's also a statement of purpose: No one can do Peaches better than Peaches herself. Peaches Does Herself is a must-see movie!

PEACHES DOES HERSELF Screening Times:
Thur., Sept. 13th, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA  9:00PM
Sat., Sept. 15th, TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 4  3:15PM
Sun., Sept. 16th, JACKMAN HALL (AGO)  4:00PM