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Call it the art of sexual subterfuge -- the act of flying just below the mainstream radar of popular culture but setting off alarm bells nonetheless with a mixture of performance art, provocative imagery and controversial music.

For a former teacher from Canada named Merrill Beth Nisker, combining rock 'n' roll with a desire to explore sexuality and blur gender roles wasn't something she set out to do. But over time, her alternative personality was born, and that woman -- that glorious, dangerous, irreverent and beautiful woman -- she quickly developed her own agenda.

And Peaches, as Knoxville is about to find out, is all about pushing buttons and rattling cages.

"That's exactly what my music is for -- infiltration," Peaches told The Daily Times this week during a phone interview from a New Orleans tour stop. "I want to break through the cracks of the mainstream, to let people know that I won't go toward it, but that it's getting closer and closer to me -- because it has. Look at the way all of these young pop stars -- Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Pink, Christina Aguilera -- whenever they make their 'I'm-a-woman-now' album, I've influenced that."

If that sounds like braggadocio, it is -- but that doesn't make it any less true. Besides, when Madonna, arguably the queen of popular music, sends a representative backstage to a Peaches concert to get a pair of underwear autographed, she's entitled to a little self-congratulation.

At the same time, she's had more than her fair share of detractors over the years. Some popular music critics deride her music as little more than T-and-A wearing a gaudy rock 'n' roll costume; conservatives point to her as another example of the deterioration of popular culture into a smut-filled wasteland.

Peaches, however, takes it all in stride.

"You see 'Girls Gone Wild' advertised every day on mainstream TV, but on the other hand, you have the Christian right telling everyone who they should and shouldn't marry and saying that homosexuality is wrong," she said. "It's so bizarre to me how one-sided it is, and it's so obvious that it's a shield. I'm always surprised when my music freaks some people out, but then again, I'm shocked by things like the Jonas Brothers -- that glossed-over stuff really freaks me out, so I sort of understand where they're coming from."

That lopsided approach to sexuality was the thing that grabbed her attention in the first place. A native of Toronto, she was always a part of that city's local music scene; at one point, according to some people, she roomed with Feist, a singer-songwriter and fellow Canadian.

"I was 20 and needed a job, so I got one as a day care worker," she said. "All of the teachers were so horrible and bored and burnt out, so I decided to just organize the children into groups and develop a program that was kind of a musical drama program so they could role-play.

"I would tell them stories, and it allowed me time to teach myself acoustic guitar and unleash some creative ideas with an organization that didn't make them think they were being dominated or put into a very linear spot, which I was as a kid."

As her program grew, she parlayed that into a consultant career, holding seminars and educating teachers on setting up similar programs. Her success was unexpected, she said, and so was the music career that took off shortly thereafter.

In 1995, she released the album "Fancypants Hoodlum" (under her real name), exploring a style that would later earn her recognition as an "electroclash" artist -- combining New Wave pop of the 1980s with hip-hop and electronica. She played all of her own instruments, programmed her own beats and performed a style of spoken-word/rap over it all.

And it started to catch on. Five years later, she had assumed the identity of Peaches, and her first album under that moniker -- "The Teaches of Peaches" -- was released. And so began a second successful career -- again, totally unexpected, she said -- that gave her an opportunity to explore how mainstream society looks at gender roles and sexuality.

"I want to get to the essence and origin of things," she said. "I grew up with '70s rock and '80s hip-hop, and I found myself asking why only guys were allowed to be sexual. 'Squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg' (from Led Zeppelin's "The Lemon Song") ... 'I like big butts and I cannot lie' (from "Baby Got Back," by Sir Mix-A-Lot) ... I would sing along to those songs, but then I would ask myself why, because obviously I'm not a guy, and it's very clearly from a guy's perspective.

"Why not sing something from a woman's perspective? That's the missing link, the missing voice. Why do women feel like they have to sing along with a male voice? It's illogical to me. It was all about me questioning authority, and instead of being angry finding a creative outlet for it. In some ways it angers people, and in some ways it's humorous to people.

"Personally, I've always been a fan of humor as a means to change," she added.

Other CDs followed -- a sophomore effort in 2003 with a title that's unprintable in a family newspaper; a politically incendiary 2006 record titled "Impeach My Bush"; and "I Feel Cream," released earlier this year. As a whole, she said, "Cream" is an extension of "Bush."

"I've always been associated with the dance world, but always by default," she said. "I've brought dancers to the rock world, and rockers to the dance world. A lot of the guests on 'Impeach My Bush' were rockers -- Joan Jett, Josh Homme (of Queens of the Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal), Feist -- whereas my first record was all me, replacing a rock band with a machine to make it a dance record.

"I wanted to actively make this record without guitars and use other dance influences from the world I'm a part of. Instead of musicians, I had guest producers. And the most shocking part is that I sang for the first time on this album, so I got to show off my vocal chops in an ethereal, soulful setting. Now, if someone ever accuses me of being a one-trick pony, I can say not only am I talented as a producer and a minimal pioneer of the art-electro combo, I also got chops."

In more ways than one. And while she's dismissed by the prurience police as a glorified stripper decked out in glitter and a jock strap, others hail her brilliance as groundbreaking. Whether her music is being discussed in college courses on sexual identity or she's being tapped for collaborations with her fellow rock 'n' rollers (she'll team up with The Flaming Lips for a track on a forthcoming tribute to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"), she's part of the very pop culture fabric she seeks to unravel.

"It's so exciting for me to be honored in something like an episode of 'South Park,' which used my song ("F--- the Pain Away") when a (transvestite) cop jumps out of the fraternity house cake (in the episode titled "Butters' Bottom Bitch")," she said. "Things like that are important to me, because I'm infiltrating male culture right there, just like I did when they used my music in 'Jackass: The Movie.'

"To me, that's just as important as being played in the movie 'Whip It' or Ellen DeGeneres using my song as an entrance on her show. It's just amazing, because most people don't want to acknowledge how much we try to hide anything sexual in this country. And it's more than a little frustrating, because my shows in America are the wildest in the world."