By the time you read this, it's become clear that the first truly highly anticipated release of 2006, kooky and talented chanteuse Nellie McKay's Pretty Little Head, will not hit stores today. (It's also no longer available to pre-order on Amazon, and her personal site seems to have gone black, though the mini-site hosted by Columbia/Sony is still up.) A NYC-dwelling ex-boyfriend told me about Ms. McKay in 2003, but I didn't have a chance to see her until I (literally) sat at her feet at the very first showcase of SXSW 2004, an event that was the front end of the publicity blitz (which positioned her as the anti-Norah Jones) that powered her first release, Get Away From Me. She was nervous, which surprised me, having heard sparkling live bootlegs, but she charmed us anyway, giving a tight and rather long-ish set for a SXSW slot. I spent a rather fruitless amount of time last night trying to track down hard copies of her songs that appear on the Rumour Has It soundtrack, which was supposedly to be released exclusively on iTunes on December 27, but that didn't happen either as she and label Columbia officially called it quits on December 23, supposedly over the length of Pretty Little Head, which Nellie wanted to be another double album like her debut, with 23 tracks. Colombia, apparently, had other ideas -- so much so that they only sent out a 16-track promo. We have really tentative plans to go see the previews of Nellie's appearance in a new Broadway production of the Brecht/Weill masterpiece The Threepenny Opera (along with Alan Cumming and Cyndi Lauper --who's replacing Edie Falco) as Polly Peachum this spring, but that's reallytentative at this point because of cash liquidity issues. So, in the immortal words of the old district attorney on "Law and Order:" So whaddya gonna do about it? Well, how about sharing some tracks from that promo? It took me a while to warm to these new songs, but then I remembered that the key thing to keep in mind when listening to Ms. McKay is that she resides in her own musical universe, where influences (pop, jazz, hip-hop, showtunes) collide deliriously with her sense of humor and political ideology. Sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't -- I'd be interested to hear what you all think. Personally, I'm addicted. Meanwhile, maybe I'll work the fact that I have one degree of separation from Ms. McKay and see if we can get some kind of Fiona Apple action going and "leak" the missing tracks. No really! I will. No promises, though... Nellie McKay -- Cupcake. Nellie McKay -- Columbia is Bleeding. Nellie McKay -- Long and Lazy River. Nellie McKay -- There You Are in Me. Nellie McKay -- The Big One. Nellie McKay (with KD Lang) -- We Got it Right. Nellie McKay (with Cyndi Lauper) Bee Charmer. (links removed due to DMCA complaint) Bonus: Nellie interviewed on NPR, with live tracks. (Buy Get Away From Me at Insound.)