by LORRAINE CARPENTER

We first spotted Adam Green as half of the Moldy Peaches, the naïve-folk duo who scored a tour with the Strokes and cult fame forever. Dressed as Robin Hood, he and bunny-eared bandmate Kimya Dawson sang songs about crack, cack and porn. On his humble solo debut, Garfield (2002), and more refined Friends of Mine (2003), Green continued to tackle big issues like depression, awkward lust, "Mozzarella Swastikas" and pop starlet Jessica Simpson - "Where has your love gone?/It's not in your music," he remarks on "Jessica."

He's a visionary for a slack-jawed generation, but Green didn't just wander on stage with Dawson and on tour with the Strokes out of nowhere. He credits the Monday-night "anti-folk" open-mic sessions at NYC's Sidewalk Café with breaking him in, providing a venue, an audience and support from a solid community, whom he and Dawson repaid in 2002 by compiling tunes by open-mic regulars for Rough Trade's Anti-folk Vol. 1. Green spoke to the Mirror about the anti-folk and the Simpson.

Mirror: So, why Jessica Simpson?

Adam Green: Well, about a year and a half ago, I was reading a lot of magazines on tour - I don't know their names but they have glossy pictures of the pop stars who all sort of look the same. Why her? I don't know, maybe she just had the silliest picture in the magazine. It wasn't like I planned to write a song about one of the teen stars and picked her, it's just that I was looking at her picture and, later in the day, my friend was playing the piano and I started singing about her. Then I remember walking around New York, fleshing out the lyrics, and I came up with the chorus.

M: Any reaction from Simpson?

AG: I know she heard it, the guys from MTV told me, but I don't know what she thinks. She never contacted me.

M: Maybe one day she'll show up at that anti-folk night with a song about you. Is that still happening?

AG: Yeah, absolutely. I go hang out sometimes, but it was my ritual when I was a teenager. I'd never miss one.

M: You've complained about the use of "anti-folk" as an adjective, a style of music, but wasn't there a distinct sound in the beginning?

AG: Yeah. It started as a reaction to the cheesy folk scene in Greenwich Village in the early "80s. The kids that played acoustic political punk weren't really appreciated there, so they made their own open mic, but I always saw anti-folk as the name of the community there. Folk also meant something different then. I mean, I went to a couple of those concerts and I had to leave. Now, people think of older, traditional music like Woody Guthrie, or they understand that it can mean a lot of different things.

M: Has the night changed much since you and Kimya Dawson started spreading the word?

AG: I think we've helped it grow in popularity, and it's become far more international since we started touring all over the world and telling people about it. Now, on any given Monday, you might have someone from France or Germany or Japan show up because they read about it in some magazine.

At Petit Campus on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 7:30pm, $12.50

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