Bitch
Bitch, who is about to release her self-produced album, “Blasted!” has stepped to the forefront of artists who are taking matters into their own hands and going directly to their fans to back them. By making videos of tap-dancing with her English mother, or doing a wild acoustic version of her electric violin dervish, “Afghanistan,” Bitch raised $12,000 from her fans so she could self-release “Blasted!” which she describes as “electric violin poetic rock.”
Being radical is not something new for Bitch, who not only plays violin, but bass, ukulele and keyboards. She has worked with some of the most risk-taking artists of our time, including Ani Difranco, John Cameron Mitchell and her old co-hort, Animal, who was often chased down by police at their live shows for exposing what Bitch and Animal called her “Man boobs.”
A first generation American, Bitch was born a 10.5 pound Aries to English parents, and came about her name honestly.
Bitch started tap dancing at 3, and began a serious classical violin training at 4. She was on stage from a very young age as a chorus girl in the musicals that her Mom choreographed in suburban Detroit. She also developed a secret habit of writing poetry at age 11.
Perhaps the free-ness of the form of poetry, combined with the rigid classical violin training, compelled her to go study acting--less to be an actress but more to figure out how to meld those two worlds into the certain type of theater she was imagining.
At acting school, Bitch not only took fiddle lessons from a then-unknown Andrew Bird, but also met Animal. They didn’t even start considering the music they wrote as songs until years into it--after Ani, who described them to the LA times as “sex positive muppets” took them on tour with her and released two of their records on her label, Righteous Babe Records.
Bitch and Animal became notorious for their live shows that introduced off-the-wall feminist politics with songs like “Best Cock on the Block” and “Pussy Manifesto.”
From there, Bitch jumped into recording her first solo album, “Make This/Break This” that was released on the legendary Kill Rock Stars. Since that took 2 years to make, Bitch, a “constant maker,” was anxious to get something else off her chest, and made “Be-sides (one take wonders and poems)” in one day from her apartment in NYC and self-released it.
Bitch went on to play herself in John Cameron Mitchell’s feature film “Shortbus,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival the same year “MakeThisBreakThis” came out.
From there, she jumped into a side project, Bitch +The Exciting Conclusion, an electric violin-centric rock three piece, made an ep, “B+TEC” which she named “Short Story #1” and launched her new record label, Short Story Records.
That same year, (2007) Bitch convinced one of her idols and elders, Ferron—the reclusive “dyke Johhny Cash”—to let her park her RV outside Ferron’s house and record the legend as she wanted to hear her recorded. That tenacity resulted in a star-studded album, “Boulder”—Short Story #2---that visits all of Bitch’s favorite Ferron songs, with guest appearances by what reads as a ‘who’s who’ of famous lady musicians who cite Ferron as an influence.
“Blasted!” will be Bitch’s Short Story #3.