Songs matter most: Bitch still pushing buttons, but in a different way

By Steve Wildsmith
of The Daily Times Staff

Go ahead — say it to her face.

It’s her name, after all. It isn’t a dare, and it isn’t a trick — she’s not going to hose you down with pepper spray or call in the hounds of the National Organization for Women on you.

It’s just a word — and if calling Bitch by her name makes you a little uncomfortable ... if it makes you think ... well, then it’s served its purpose. She’s guarded about her birth name, and since her days as a recording artist for singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe record label, she’s gone by that moniker.

So say it.

“Oh, if they really have a hard time calling me that, I’ll let them off the hook and let them call me ‘B,’” she told The Daily Times this week with a laugh. “Or ‘ma’am’ — I don’t have a single problem with being called ma’am. But really, people who come to my shows these days are used to it. It just sort of flows out of their mouths. Occasionally, you get the excited boyfriend of one of my fans who giggles every time he says my name.”

As a teenager, Bitch was influenced by the feminist folk icon DiFranco, and as a recording artist, she was part of the duo Bitch and Animal, which recorded on DiFranco’s label. After that outfit parted ways, she took up the mantle of singer-songwriter herself, adding other instruments to her electric violin and creating an aggressive, rocking sound most recently defined on the album “Make This/Break This,” which was released on the Kill Rock Stars label.

Along with her band, The Exciting Conclusion, she’s built her own mini-empire in the same vein as DiFranco’s Righteous Babe organization.

“One thing I love about Ani is that she’s created this forum for herself, where she can be this prolific artist and doesn’t have to spend time shopping things around to various labels,” Bitch said. “That’s definitely something I’m looking forward to (with her new company, Short Story Records). I’ve got another album I want to make this winter, and now that I’ve got that forum set up, I can just fly.”

One of the first projects for Short Story is the album “Boulder,” an ethereal, ghostly thing of beauty by Canadian neo-folk hero Ferron. Ferron and Bitch — both of whom will perform at downtown Knoxville’s Preservation Pub on Wednesday — first met at a festival several years ago. Despite the disparity in their styles — Ferron’s songs are introspective, Bitch’s are aggressive; Ferron draws you into her world with gentle beacons of songwriting gold, where Bitch prefers to pull out the full-on rock ‘n’ roll assault rifle and hunt you down — they hit it off.

“I had been nagging Ferron for years to met me record her because I had been such a fan for such a long time, and I was longing to hear her recorded in a way that made you feel like you were sitting next to her,” Bitch said. “I wanted it to be very intimate and sparse, to let you get into her work, but she was definitely hot and cold about the whole thing. I would get her nailed down, and she would supposed to be coming to my house, and then the night before she would call and say, ‘I’m not getting on the plane.’”

Finally, Bitch scheduled her tour to accommodate Ferron. Last summer, Bitch and The Exciting Conclusion rolled up to Ferron’s house in the backwoods of Michigan, and Bitch parked her RV beside the house. The two proceeded to record “Boulder,” which succeeds in capturing Bitch’s vision and more. It’s the little details — Bitch’s violin fills and backup vocals, the guests who add their angelic harmonies — that elevate Ferron’s songs to clouds of aching beauty hanging low over a landscape of melancholy and heartache and the unending optimism of a jaded romantic.

Along the way, Bitch discovered a new way of making her own music.

“I’ve never solely produced myself, so now I’m really excited to try this technique — just being alone in the woods by myself and seeing what comes out, every decision left up to me,” she said. “It took me working on someone else’s songs to understand what goes into producing, and now I’m really excited to try it on my own. It was a great exercise in self-determination.”

What will emerge as Bitch’s next album is a mystery. Fans needn’t worry, however — the woman who prides herself on the no-holds-barred approach to live performance, who relishes the exquisite blend of classical sensibility with primal rock ‘n’ roll fury, won’t be recording something most fans would consider laid-back. And even if it sounds that way on record, the live setting is another monster entirely.

“I still hold that no-holds-barred in a live setting; I still have that element to me on stage, and I’m still very interested in exercising a sense of freedom on stage,” she said. “It’s very liberating for people to see, I think, but when it comes to songwriting, I consider myself more of a craftswoman now. I do find that as I’ve gotten more and more into my own skin, my art and grown and changed.

“If anything, I feel it’s more accessible to people. When people see the name ‘Bitch,’ they probably think, ‘God — it’s going to be an angry, screaming woman who hates men.’ But I think they’re going to be pleasantly surprised.”