by LORRAINE CARPENTER

Moving from Toronto to Berlin, from Merrill Nisker to Peaches, from karaoke queen to electro-rock overlord, this Peach fell far from the tree and she's not nearly done rolling. Whether all alone or alongside her dildo-sporting dancers (who Montrealers will meet for the first time next week), Peaches has thrilled, scared, seduced and offended audiences all over the Western world. Like most performers, she prefers a negative reaction to no reaction at all, but her recent tour with Marilyn Manson put her tolerance to the test.

"Paris was the worst," says Peaches. "I had a lot of problems in France starting out, they just didn't get me, so it was my way of getting back. About half of them hated me and they're really vocal, so I was feeding off that, but then I just got mad and started attacking them, saying, ‘You French people suck! Parisians suck!' Then they started spitting on me, I had disgusting horks all over my body, so I jumped in and started beating people up, and I really meant it - I was smashing heads with the microphone."

By the time she hit the U.K., Peaches was prepared for the rain of plastic that Manson fans had in store. "I was whipping their water bottles back at them so there was a huge, huge bottle fight going on," she says. "By the end, I was like, ‘I'm not scared, you guys throw like girls,' goading them on, and during the last song, I picked up this huge water cooler I had just off stage and I was like, ‘You want a bottle, I got a big bottle!'"

Size matters when you're a 5-foot-2-inch 36-year-old with conspicuous body hair and a filthy mouth, the latter two traits displayed on her sophomore LP Fatherfucker. Okay, the beard is fake, but the attitude's not. Peaches challenges misogynists, misandrists and the all-around uptight with explicit words and images about fairer sex ("Back It Up Boys") and equal objectification ("Shake Yer Tits, Shake Yer Dix"), prompting a once-cool rock magazine to say she's purposely sabotaging a potential pop career.

"That's definitely an attitude amongst people about me, and there's another one: ‘You're not underground anymore.' The thing is, I never changed and I don't want to, but I would love to be accepted in the mainstream as is."

It's hard to imagine that happening in the States, where she draws her biggest crowds (in the big cities, that is) but has been unofficially banned from network TV, even from the late-night talk shows. Maybe next year's Superbowl half-time show?

"Unbelievably ridiculous," says Peaches of Nipplegate. "Three years ago, Li'l Kim wears a pasty to the Grammys and this year Janet Jackson is banned from the Grammys for wearing a pasty. I have a theory that Janet works for the government and they just needed three days out of the media."

Upon hearing that U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to cover the bare breast on the Statue of Justice, Peaches makes a noise best written: "Aw-ugh-wa."

"What is going on? It's like they want to take away everybody's body and sell it back to them as fake, as silicone or whatever. I mean, it's the human body - it's where we live."

With Young Heart Attack and the World Provider at Club Soda on Tuesday, May 4, 8:30pm, $20, all ages

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