Debora Iyall and Romeo Void represented the artiest arm of new wave, with smart, tartly delivered lyrics, in songs such as "Never Say Never" ("I might like you better if we slept together") suggesting Iyall was not to be messed with.

So it's a bit of a surprise that Iyall comes off as so immediately affable during an interview at her art-filled Sacramento home. Youthful looking despite a streak of gray framing her face, Iyall, 57, is exuberant and quick to laugh.

"I think I am a little more positive (now)," Iyall said. "I used to be a lot more cynical."

Iyall, who headlines tonight's free Concert in the Park at Cesar Chavez Plaza, has spent the decades since Romeo Void's mid-1980s breakup as a freelance art teacher – in San Francisco, San Bernardino County and on Navajo land in Arizona.

"My reality is that I turn to what is working – I am like a plant with the light," said Iyall, a American Indian from the Cowlitz tribe who a few years ago earned a master's degree in art at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., through a tribal educators grant.

"Music was costing me money, and a lot of time organizing and asking for attention. … I like the role of an art teacher, as an older person. I know the kids can tell I am not the average bear."

When Iyall's husband, audio engineer Patrick Haight, 39, got a job in Sacramento, Iyall sought a full-time teaching gig. But a bad economy rendered such jobs scarce.

Instead, she's teaching freelance again, through the Very Special Arts program for people with disabilities, and this summer, at the Crocker Art Museum and a camp run by Capital Area Indian Resources.

The freelance gigs have kept her close to art and young people, but left space for a return to music. Judging by the Romeo Void bumper sticker on the same aging Honda in which she carts around art supplies, it never was too far from her mind.

Iyall collaborated with guitarist and fellow songwriter Peter Dunne, formerly of Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, on the 2010 album "Stay Strong."

"Doing music again … sort of reignited my passion to do the very unique thing I do, which is to write songs, and sing the way I sing," Iyall said. "I am taking the advice I always gave my students, which is emphasize the most unique thing you do, and go with that. So I guess I can thank the economy for helping give me the courageousness (to try music again)."

Such positive thinking underscored the Romeo Void hit "Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)," in which the female protagonist knows, Iyall's lyrics tell us, "There's a way to walk that says, 'stay away!'/And a time to go round the long way."

"Girl in Trouble" brings to mind a woman walking the sidewalks of a big city like San Francisco, where Iyall co-founded Romeo Void as a student at the Art Institute. The song "99," on "Stay Strong," reflects more recent geographical observations.

Iyall's lyrical references to "pumpkins plowed under" and a "ghost mall" allude to the agricultural legacy and economic strife evident on the route Iyall drives to Fresno, where she grew up.

"It is so evocative – I felt it really deserved a song," she said of Highway 99.

A mix of danceable new wave elements, and acoustic and distorted rock guitar, "Stay Strong" makes more overt the subtler empowerment messages of "Girl in Trouble."

On "Bring It," Iyall sings "You may not think too much of me, just to look at me/All I can say is just you wait and see."

The lyrics were inspired by a quote from "Precious" actress Gabourey Sidibe: "People look at me and don't expect much. I expect a lot."

"I felt for her getting all the attention she did in the press for her performance and her physicality," Iyall said. "Certainly people have noticed that I am not a teen waif."

During her time in the spotlight, there likely was talk at the label about her appearance, she said, "but I didn't have to hear about those things."

Always unconventional (she quit high school but earned two college degrees), Iyall never set out to be a pop star, anyhow.

"Her concerns are really those of an artist, but she is really quite accessible at the same time," collaborator Dunne said. "She's also sort of fun-loving, which are not words often associated with artists. No one says, 'Tolstoy was so fun-loving!' "

Concerts in the Park booker Jerry Perry was impressed by Iyall when she was a judge at the youth-oriented Jammies music awards.

"She is the sweetest thing in the world, and very nurturing of new bands," Perry said.

Yet Perry remains a bit star-struck.

"Debora and Romeo Void were kind of a cool, big deal for me as a teenager growing up in Rancho Cordova" with an awareness of the hot San Francisco bands, Perry said. "Punk and new wave were still so new at the time."

It has been a while since Iyall, whose band is composed of Bay Area musicians, has faced a crowd as large as a Concerts in the Park audience. But she still knows how to work a crowd. Her set will mix new material, some of which she has recorded with her band for a fall EP release to coincide with a September Palms Playhouse appearance, with Romeo Void songs.

"If you hear a couple of songs in a row you don't know, don't worry," Iyall said with a smile. "We will play something familiar after that."

DEBORA IYALL AT CONCERTS IN THE PARK

When: 5 p.m. today (with Exquisite Corps, the Generals and Breaking Glass)

Where: Cesar Chavez Plaza, 10th and I streets, downtown Sacramento

Cost: Free

Information: (916) 442-8575, www.downtownsac.org, www.deboraiyall.com

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Call The Bee's Carla Meyer, (916) 321-1118.

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