Christina Nelson: Great Gifts Come in Small Packages

By George D’range

(Published, February 2008 issue, The 808 Scene Zine)

The diminutive stature and humble, down-to-earth appearance of Christina Nelson are not to be taken for granted. For this skater girl/folk singer/actress possesses one of the most important attributes any talented artist can have: modesty. In fact, she is not very comfortable with the idea of high-profile fame, or commercial endorsement. She seems to want to keep things at the grass roots level, and has no intention of selling out. What she does she seems to do as much for herself as the friends she writes about, and one gets the distinct impression she does not want to cheapen her art with commercial polish or over-promotion. All this was made clear to me as she unwound after her long month of performing in See Ellauri’s visionary play, “Hip-Hopalypse”.
But the first time I saw her perform, I knew she was the real deal. Her music and sultry vocals went straight for my heart and I was instantly enraptured by her style. “It’s only passion,” she confided to me one night at Ong King Arts Center, as we took a smoke break after one of her most highly charged performances. In this particular instance, her powerful calves were propelling her about eighteen inches off the stage as she strummed her guitar without missing a beat. I have seen Christina perform perhaps a couple of dozen times, having missed only a song or two due to tardiness or negligence, and I always feel somehow deprived at having missed even a small dose of that passion.
Sometimes referred to as “The Ong Queen” by Ong King’s co-proprietor Jonathan Heraux, she is also known as the “house rock star”, and has definitely earned these honors. She is quite simply the embodiment of raw talent and originality that seems to have become a rare commodity in today’s commercial music scene. The late great comedian Bill Hicks pointed out that heart and soul was what was missing from so much modern music, and I’m forced to agree! Like home cooked meals, —minus the love— listening to some of the banal, pre-processed pop music of today can be a bit like sinking one’s teeth into a rubbery frozen dinner that’s been left in the microwave oven too long. By contrast, listening to one of Christina’s home-baked performances is like being cordially invited to enjoy a Thanksgiving Dinner at Alice’s Restaurant with all the trimmings, prepared and served by Alice herself!
There is warmth and informality, an acknowledgement of the human element, and a blatant disregard for any incidental errors, be they pilot or equipment related. In fact, there is an outright disdain for the amplification equipment! “I hate technology!” Christina once quipped as the uncooperative microphone stand continued to sag down, like a sad metal phallus. This drew laughs from her regular audience, we of the initiated who know of the sexually ambiguous nature of many of Christina’s songs.
Recently, her music has gained another dimension entirely, with the recent acquisition of a piano at Ong King, an instrument procured by and set aside for Christina’s shows. “The eighty-eight string guitar”, as comedic folk legend Tom Lehrer once referred to it, is actually a very logical addition to Christina’s repertoire, which also includes the ukulele and mandolin. She is also no stranger to the rock bass, and was once the bass player for a local metal band called “Mindshed”. But it is the addition of the piano to Christina’s act has led Alice down a whole new rabbit hole, filled with an even richer emotional landscape of dreams.
It was during one such performance that I first got the idea to write about her, so I emailed her, praising her performance, and proposing a meeting to hash out the details of this article. Even her response was a mind-blowing example of her humble prose:
“Last night was an explosion. Turning the heart lament into healing musical explosives blasting the infectious walls from my wounds so they can heal properly. That's all...”
That’s it, huh? That’s ALL? Take a bow, girl! I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the Creative process put so eloquently. Once again, her final comment is a disclaimer testifying the overall spirit of her endearing humility, which makes her such an approachable and emotionally accessible artist.
Ironically, Christina has a very low profile on the World Wide Web, and she’d like to keep it that way, with the exception of a few online videos, which can be seen on the Youtube profile: youtube.com/OngKingLive. If anyone out there has videos of her they’d like to post, they are encouraged to contact the Youtube profile or write to: OngKingLive@musician.org, but please, no unauthorized fan pages! After all, she just wants to keep it real…