Music: Nobody else but Kimya Dawson

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Kimya Dawson seems literally oblivious to her new level of fame.

Sitting on a grassy knoll across from the Austin Convention Center, smack dab in the heart of the South by Southwest fest last month, the "Juno" soundtrack star didn't hear the teenage girl who yelled her name from a passing car. She didn't seem to notice all the passersby who gawked at her unmistakable, finger-in-electric-socket hairdo and unconventional skirt, made with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bedsheets.

And she didn't hesitate to nurse her curly-haired 1 1/2-year-old daughter, Panda Delilah, in the middle of all the hubbub (and the interview).

"All right!" Panda hilariously yelped when she found out it was feeding time.

"All right!" was also more or less the response Dawson had when she first saw "Juno."

"Jason Reitman [the director] gave me a burnt copy of the rough cut of the movie and said, 'Watch it once and then destroy it, so it doesn't get leaked,'" Dawson recalled. "I kept it for a long time, though, and watched it like five more times."

Laden with seven of Dawson's scrappy, lo-fi, off-tune acoustic ditties, the "Juno" CD became an unlikely hit over the winter. It's the first soundtrack to top the Billboard album chart since "Dreamgirls" a year earlier. It also introduced Dawson and her former duo, Moldy Peaches, to a broad, young fan base, much as "Garden State" did for the Shins four years ago.

"The one big difference [since 'Juno'] is I got a booking agent for the first time after five years of booking my own tours, so I'm playing some bigger spaces," said Dawson, who tours with her daughter and her husband, Arlo Spencer, a singer/songwriter who opens the shows.

"Otherwise, I'm doing the same touring and mom-ing like I did before."

'It fell in my lap'

Dawson's so-called anti-folk music came to Reitman's attention via "Juno" star Ellen Page. The actress recommended the Moldy Peaches' ditties -- full of smart-alecky lyrics, whimsical wordplay and outcast viewpoints -- as music that might be favored by the movie's title character, the semi-autobiographical brainchild of then-Twin Cities-based screenwriter Diablo Cody.

Page explained her love of the Peaches to PitchforkMedia.com: "[Their] music is very humorous. I mean, it has a hint of novelty, but it is full of so much heart and so much simplicity and it's so genuine. I loved how it was just bare-boned, and I feel like that is similar to Juno, the film in general and the character."

Not only do Dawson's songs pop up intermittently in the Oscar-winning movie, but the final scene of the movie finds its two young protagonists singing the bittersweet Peaches duet "Anyone Else But You" to each other. It's the most "awww"-inducing moment of the film.

"I was on set when they filmed that scene," Dawson said, beaming. "Everybody was crying by the time they finished.

"It really was the perfect movie for me, and I never looked for it; it just sort of fell in my lap. When I see the movie now, there will be a second or two where I'm like, 'That's me!' but the music is such a part of the movie I'm not even thinking about it, I'm so into the movie."

Dawson said she was just as happy having her music featured in a movie that few people saw: "Glue," by Argentinian filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos (she's contributing songs to another of his films now in the works).

"On one hand, soundtrack work can be a good career move and business venture," she said, "but on the other hand it's also amazing just to be a part of their art."

Hardly a Hollywood insider, Dawson now lives in Olympia, Wash., which is also home to her label, K Records. She said she has no plans to leave the small punk label -- and points to Olympia as a reason she's somewhat ignorant of her recent success.

"I sort of stay out of it in Olympia," she said. "It's a small town. We don't watch TV. I shop at the co-op, hang out with my baby, play some shows. I've done some press, but just doing the same thing I've always done."

Well, that appearance on "The View" was certainly a little out of the norm. Dawson and Green reunited to sing "Anyone Else But You" on the ABC daytime show in January (they were supposed to perform on Conan O'Brien's show but held off because of the writers' strike). In a separate interview with "Juno" star Page, "The View" boss Barbara Walters made it publicly known that she "doesn't get" Dawson or the Peaches.

Dawson laughed off the comment.

"I don't really get her, either," she said, recounting Walters' conversation with the Peaches backstage at the show. "She was giving us all this business advice, and we were like, 'No. No. No.' She probably figured we were a bunch of unambitious slackers."

Her next album will be a kids' CD called "Alphabutt," due out on K this year. She also has a song called "Anthrax" on the soundtrack to the Phil Donahue-produced documentary "Body of War," about Iraq war veterans who oppose U.S. policies there. Both projects are indicative of how commercial success hasn't affected Dawson's do-it-yourself viewpoint.

If she were open to any career advice right now, the best idea might be to reunite with Green for a new Moldy Peaches album and tour. That's not likely, though.

"We're doing such different stuff now, Adam and I, I can't imagine reconnecting in that way," Dawson said. "We're in such a different place than we were in when we wrote those songs, and now we live on opposite ends of the country.

"To be in the space where two people's heads can be put together in that way, it's a pretty intense process and it was a crucial time in both our lives; we can't fake that just to come up with new material. But ... maybe someday."