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Who's Here, Nancy Atlas
Singer/Songwriter Nancy Atlas has a dog in need of a one-night stand, a dentist's
bill for that unknown girl with the beer bottle, a deep-seated grudge against
the folks who let Georgica Pond, and a ton of work to do. She also has a
Zen-like, live-and-let-live, we're-here-to-have-a-goodtime-dammit,
so-let's-rock-and-roll attitude about life, writing music, playing with her
band, The Nancy Atlas Project, and pursuing Kraft American cheese. "Im so busy, Atlas laughs as she falls into a chair outside
Java Nation in Sag Harbor. "I'm sick, I'm putting together the band's
next album, booking shows, managing the band, writing songs and running my
little Shuckergirl raw bar business" -- think hot, young ladies shucking
clams for profit. Nancy Atlas: Singer. Songwriter. Clam shucker? "I worked at The Clam Bar in Napeague during the summer for
years and I used to shuck two or three bags of clams a day. That's like 1,000
to 1,500 clams," she says. "I guess it's just my fate in life to be
an established singer/songwriter and a kick-ass clam shucker. I don't do as
much shucking anymore" -- a couple weeks ago in Sag Harbor she won the
clam-shucking contest at Harborfest -- "but it's like riding a bike. Put
a clam in my hand, and I'll make you blush," she laughs (she laughs a
lot) before leaning close to the tape recorder on the table and screaming,
"It's the medicine. Pay no attention. It's the medicine!" Atlas made her first East End appearance a few months after she
was born. Growing up in Commack, her father, a fisherman, and the rest of the
family -- two older brothers, an older sister, and mom -- would spend their
summers in a little cottage on Lazy Point. She would go clamming and crabbing
and generally have good time. A "good, but not great" student, she
decided that going to college in the States wasn't appealing, so she headed
off to England, attending first Cambridge University and then Richmond
College which has campuses in England, Italy, Cairo and other spots. "I was going to be a painter," she explains.
"Then, three months before graduation, I picked up a guitar and that was
it. I was done. Three weeks with the guitar and I was writing songs. Three
months after that I was playing covers -- very bad covers -- in bars. I call
that period the 'February Versions.' It would be snowing and there'd be a
bunch of guys with no teeth cheering me on." Back in the Hamptons, Atlas began playing acoustic sets at the
local bars and clubs. "A couple of years later, Peter from the Talkhouse
said to me, 'Look, I want you to play Friday and Saturday nights, but you
can't do it without a band because they'll start throwing beer bottles at
you.' So that's when I started putting the band together," says Atlas. A
few fits and starts and now, twelve years after she first picked up a guitar,
and six years after getting the band together, The Nancy Atlas Project is
packing the house -- setting the Talkhouse record for attendance along the
way -- playing bars, clubs, parties and getting into their stride on the
road. "We went on our first tour last April. We got in my '91
mint-green, extended Dodge van, 'Large Marge', and drove 4,000 miles all
through the South," says Atlas. "Me and four guys" -- Johnny
Blood, Rich Rosch, Neil Surreal and Brett King -- "nine pieces of
luggage and all of our gear. And just one breakdown, on Elvis Presley
Boulevard in Memphis -- we even breakdown in style," she laughs. Atlas truly loves Large Marge, and includes it among the things
that she can't live without. Also making the list are her boyfriend Tom, her
Martin guitar, which she's named Al Martino (and refuses to explain the back
story), tea with sugar and milk, matching white socks, her dog and a notebook
and pen. And a note to all those with a mind towards buying Atlas a notebook
-- don't do it. "I have to buy my own notebooks. I live with it for a year,
or a year and a half and I need to pick out the size, and the texture -- it's
like buying a blanket." Yelling at the tape recorder again, she adds for
emphasis, "Don't buy me notebooks." Among the other scream-at-the-tape-recorder topics on Atlas' mind
are the aforementioned letting of Georgica Pond, the girl that chipped her
tooth with a beer bottle while attempting a hug, finding a lover for her dog
before he gets "snipped," and Dunehampton. Here, unedited, are her
rants for each topic: "I'm very angry at you people who let Georgica Pond. You
have personally ruined my crabbing and beach plum picking. Couldn't you have
just lived with the flooding, the rats and the mosquitoes? Misery is
memories. You would have had so many great memories from this summer -- days
wondering where the ham sandwich went before realizing that the rats got it.
But now all you'll have are memories of going to Barefoot Contessa for potato
salad." "To the girl who chipped my tooth with a beer bottle while
trying to give me a hug, I'll find you someday and I have a really big
dentist bill for you." "I need to stud my dog. I'll pay you; I'll pay you good
money. I'll even bring the Barry White -- just let my dog get down." "To the Dunehampton people, watch out. You're stepping in deep
water." And that's all that Atlas has to get riled up about. She really
seems to have that monk-like outlook that says "Life's all good, and I
like where I am. "The biggest transition for me has been not having
everything be so precious. It used to be that every song was me and me
singing it, and it's really liberating across the board not to feel that way
anymore. I'm still really sincere, and devote the same care and craftsmanship
to the process of writing, but now I feel like if someone wants to sing my
songs or use them, then that's fine," she says. It's an attitude that
was borne of the battles with radio stations to get her music played and her
CDs sold -- a situation that has really changed and is making headlines with
the rise of music sharing on the Internet. "One of the biggest Radio DJs around who works for a
station in Connecticut sat me down after he saw a show where we opened for
John Hiatt," she says. "And he said to me, 'Look, you can bang your
head against the wall trying to get your record on the radio, but I'm one of
the most established DJs around and even I can't play your stuff.' He said to
go through the independent channels and get our music out there that way, and
it was really amazing because I realized that, wow, I could have spent three
years charging like an angry bull and have been exactly where I am
today." And it's a good place that she's in. "I gave up on fame and
fortune, and really I never craved fame at all to begin with. I've never
understood people that go for fame. They probably think that it'll be
something that it's not. And from the small, small taste of it that I've had
-- which is, like, getting recognized at the dump while I'm pulling a chair
out of a pile of junk -- it's not that great. People say, 'How do you know
you're getting famous?' And I can say, 'Oh, I got recognized at the dump
while I was stealing a chair.' It's like, 'Hey, Atlas, things tough?' And the
fortune part? Well, that wouldn't be too bad," she says with a laugh. "A few months ago I sat down and said to myself, 'Look, if
I was making $30,000 more then I'd have the perfect life. Then I said, 'Wait,
I already have the perfect life.' I live where I want to live, I love what
I'm doing, I have great friends and family here. If you want to go for the money,
fine. But I still just want to be writing my songs, and going to bed and
giving the guy I love a kiss, and I don't want to sound hokey, but that's
really just what it's all about. "I'm one of those people who came here and just knew this
was home. I still know it and I know that I'll travel and be away from here
but I'll always come back. The saltwater is in my veins, and it just gives me
a sense of joy to go clamming and crabbing and picking beach plums. Living
like this is perfect." "And, of course, the most important thing is feeding my dog
cheese. If living like this means I have to flick him a piece of pecorino
romano instead of Kraft American Singles, then I'm all right," she says
with a smile. "But I'm definitely in a Kraft American phase right now."
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