Dirty dives, upscale boîtes and singing to the answering machine.

Broadway is all about big budgets, name brands and corporate entertainment, but any night of the week in New York City, in dirty dives and upscale boîtes you can catch unique performers and performances that are quintessentially “New York” – stylish, smart and often a bit startling. Angela DiCarlo has been serving this kind of entertainment for years with a steady stream of songs that stick like Krazy Glue. An antic glamour gal with a punk streak, DiCarlo is like a refugee from TCM that went to the John Waters finishing school. When she barnstorms the stage you are definitely in for a scream, whether of horror or drink-spitting laughter depends on your sensibility.

August saw the release of “Just to be Polite,” a raucous collection of her cracked compositions including “Why Do You Have to be Gay” – a straight girl’s ballad to all the homo boys she loved before – and the Zeppelin-esque “Big Black Dawg.” If you are lucky enough to catch her live show, there are plenty more delirious melodies like, “Don’t Touch the Fat on the Back of My Arm” and “Senior Driver.” The dichotomy of seeing a beautiful lady decked out like a Mad Men cocktail queen belting out a cracked show tune with the strength of a gale force hurricane is always worth the price of admission.

Who are your inspirations?

Strong women, lots of strong women!! Nina Simone is a great influence, she didn’t write a ton of stuff, but what she wrote (“To Be Young, Gifted and Black”) was brilliant. She was a great arranger; I especially love the pop songs from the Sixties and Seventies she made her own. Her version of Hall & Oates' “Rich Girl” is one of my favorites. Of course, her shooting at kids playing by the garbage cans by her house in France is pretty good too, I mean come on! She had a real vulnerability in her voice that I love in songs like “Wild is the Wind,” scary, yet tender when she could be, I love that dichotomy. The same could be said of Joan Crawford, who’s another huge influence of mine, especially the meticulousness of her appearance. Not the clean house thing, though, most people know I am a shoddy housekeeper at best.

You have such a distinctive look, what era are you inspired by?

Right now I’m obsessed with the early Sixties. When I was in my twenties I was a little more into the Forties and Fifties. Anything but the present, that is for sure. Sometimes it’s painful for me that I was born so late. I blame it all on my mother of course. I’ve always had my own style, which I don’t know quite how to describe. I would say I dress feminine, I usually don’t wear trousers because my butt is too big. I heard Helen Mirren say that about herself in an interview, so I can relate, although I don’t think she has a big butt. My wardrobe is a mixture of vintage and modern clothes that look vintage. I always have my makeup done that is for sure and at night I always have a false pair of lashes on and some lipstick. I once read that Isabella Blow said to someone, ‘If you are not wearing lipstick, I can’t even LOOK at you,’ so I can relate to that.

This summer also marked the debut of “The Mad World of Miss Hathaway,” DiCarlo’s original stage musical serial based on Mad Men. Starring herself as the red-headed nosy queen of the Spencer-Colfax secretarial pool, it is a spot-on skewering of the television show with twisted show tunes like “The Stigma of the Unwed Mother” and a heavy of dose of 1960s glamour.

The different thing about a Miss Hathaway show is that I write songs for other people to sing, which is something I’d never done before – then they end up being my favorite songs and I don’t get to sing them! Also with that show I throw in some cover songs from the period, mostly Bacharach. My favorite one is “Wives and Lovers” because it’s so sexist and it was sung by Jack Jones who also sang the theme song from “The Love Boat,” which was one of my all time favorite shows as a kid.

How do you write your songs?

I usually will get a tune in my head while I’m walking around the city, I’ll hum it over and over and then stop in a little corner and try to discreetly sing it into the recorder on my phone so I don’t forget. Before I could record on my phone I would call my answering machine at home and sing it on the answering machine. That was a little distracting for my husband because he worked at home. Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a song and the whole thing just comes together. Once I have the basic melody and the breakdown of chorus-verse-bridge I’ll flush out the lyrics. I think the hardest thing for me is finishing a song. Sometimes I keep tweaking and I need to just let it go, but because it’s yours you can keep going.

I don’t want to explore my inner emotions or get self-indulgent with sad ballads, which is not me AT ALL. I like to get in there, do some strike force entertaining, maybe embarrass a few of the guys in the band, you know, make them laugh and hopefully they will be singing the songs on the way out. I just want you to sit there and be so entertained that your mind never wanders and when it’s done I just want you to think – ‘That was fun. I’d pay fifteen bucks to see that crazy bitch again!’

Angela DiCarlo “Just to be Polite” is available on iTunes.