Her G-rated show isn't aimed at general public

Kimya Dawson is formerly half of Moldly Peaches. (Rhett Nelson)

SOMERVILLE - In Kimya Dawson's cosmos, babies attend concerts. If they start to cry, the singer sends them backstage to play with her baby. The accompanist sits cross-legged on the floor strumming ukulele and dreamy young things twirl in the back of the theater. Fans don't call out song titles. They yell, "I love your blue socks!"

Dawson, formerly half of the anti-folk duo Moldly Peaches, is a 35-year-old Olympia, Wash.,-based artist whose preternaturally simple, wildly wordy songs made an unlikely excursion into multiplexes and the Billboard charts via the "Juno" soundtrack. But her music is not for mass consumption, as discovered by the dozens of concertgoers who bolted for the door before the concert was over.

Despite her awkwardly nurturing aura of inclusion, Dawson presides over a members-only club. And members must be inclined to sit through 90 unvarying minutes of childlike strumming, sheepish banter, and primal paeans to rain and pain and anthrax and infants and politics and beer.

"When I saw Geneviève, I really liked it when she said/ What she said about the giant and the lemmings on the cliff/ She said, 'I like giants/Especially girl giants/Cause all girls feel too big sometimes/Regardless of their size,' " Dawson sang on "I Like Giants."

Such impish clarity in the service of difficult emotions has made Dawson a cult hero. There's succor to be had from her plainspoken poetry and a kind of primitive charm in the way she scratches at her guitar strings like an intense toddler. But for people outside the circle - those who showed up not for a group hug but for a concert - the relentlessness of Dawson's guilelessness grew tedious.

Tellingly, the handful of songs Dawson performed from her forthcoming children's album, "Alphabutt," were nearly indistinguishable from the rest of her material. She pared down the breakneck verbiage a bit, and the kids' songs addressed a different set of life issues, like the hungry tigers that live in dresser drawers and growing hair "down there."

On second thought, the themes aren't so new - just skewed a little younger. And it brought Dawson's job description into bold relief: Pied Piper to frightened children of all ages. Hats off to her for leading them someplace sweet and safe. Those of us looking for a little craft will have to keep looking.