**Bitch and Animal are performing as part of the Queer Is Folk Festival at the Old Town School
of Folk Music June 7.
by Gregg Shapiro
With the new album, Sour Juice And Rhyme (Righteous Babe), lesbian duo Bitch and Animal
have released their most mature and effecting work. Opening with 'Pac Man,' which contains
the lines 'There's smoke on the island/And all five boroughs are watching,' and continuing later
with 'WTC,' both of which sound like the pair are making reference to the events of 9/11 on
the city in which they live. That's pretty serious stuff from this musical twosome who are
probably best known for a song such as 'Best Cock On The Block.' Have no fear because
Bitch and Animal haven't lost their sense of humor as you can hear, loud and clear, on the Soul
Coughing-esque 'Croquet' (with the chorus, 'Back in the day/people used to get dressed up/to
play croquet') and 'Feminist Housewives,' the 'story of Betty and Sue, two women who left
their husbands … for each other.' I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Bitch, and here is
what she had to say.
Gregg Shapiro: Since I'm talking to you from Chicago, I wanted to begin by asking you to say
something about your connection to this city.
Bitch: I busted out of my suburban home when I was 18 and I moved there. I was studying
acting at the Goodman (Theater) School at DePaul. That's where I met Animal. She was this
wild chick with a shaved head who always carried around a drum. We took a long walk down
Sheffield (Avenue) one day, after partaking in some mushrooms (laughs) and we ended up at
my apartment and started playing music that first day.
GS: What year was that?
B: That must have been '94.
GS: Wow! Almost 10 years ago.
B: Yeah! Jesus! Oh, my God!
GS: Now, you are based in New York.
B: We moved there together. Animal is from New York. We moved there almost three years
after we met.
GS: What can you tell me about where you fit in, or don't fit in, to the music scene in NYC?
B: That's a good question. Where I don't fit in is the bar band scene. We're definitely not the
kind of band you go hear in the background of your conversation with your friends or your
bachelorette party or something (laughs). I identify as a New Yorker who lives in New York
some of the time. Most of the time I'm out of New York on the road. So I identify with the touring
musicians of New York.
GS: You also have performance connections to Provincetown and Amherst, Mass. Have you
also performed in Northampton?
B: Yeah, we played in Northampton a few weeks ago. We also played Boston.
GS: Isn't it wild that some of the queerest places in the country are in the same place that the
pilgrims first landed?
B: Yeah. And Amherst! Do you know who Amherst was? We just spent the winter recording
in the Northampton area. John Amherst was the dude who invented the whole 'smallpox
blanket' thing. And he's got a fucking town and a university named after him. It's sick (laughs).
GS: You have cited Joni Mitchell, whom you 'both use like a really good drug,' as an influence.
Can you please elaborate on what it is about Joni's work that speaks to you?
B: Her lyrics. She's such a poet. Somebody like her and like Ani (DiFranco)—it's like getting to
read somebody's diary. It's like getting to snoop through their personal life. That's what I admire
so much about her.
GS: Bitch And Animal have performed at the Michigan Women's Music Festival over the
summer. What was that experience like for you?
B: That place has changed my life.
GS: In what way?
B: First of all, I went there years ago just to go to the festival. Animal and I had already been
playing music together. We played around the fire pits out there. It changed my life because it
was the first time I had ever basically felt like there was absolutely no threat of violence
towards me. This feeling that there was not going to be some crazy guy jumping out of the
woods. What I have managed to take away from it, in my life, is that now, when I walk through
the woods, I realize that it's not like every town has the crazy guy with the big chainsaw,
waiting to kill some defenseless woman. Those are all just images we've been fed our whole
lives. We're so convinced that those people are around somewhere. That's just from fucking
movies and TV. I got to experience that kind of safety and then keep that with me in my life. I
realize that there are a lot of place where I can feel safe.
GS: June 7, you are going to be performing as part of the Queer Is Folk Festival in Chicago. On
your new disc, Sour Juice And Rhyme, there are 'folk' elements on songs such as 'Feminist
Housewives,' 'Don't Do Crystal,' and 'Betty Ford.' How did you come to incorporate that style
of music into the Bitch & Animal sound?
B: It's not really conscious. 'Feminist Housewives' and 'Betty Ford' are both songs that we
wrote together. It seems like that's the style that comes out when we're together (laughs).
GS: So, it's different than what you would write individually.
B: Yes. Then when we write individually, something else happens. 'Secret Candy' is
something that Animal wrote of her own volition. 'You Left Out' and 'Pac Man' are something
that I wrote separately. Then we came together on 'Feminist Housewives.' I never thought of it
that way before.
GS: I'm glad that you mentioned 'Secret Candy,' because that song and 'Croquet,' from Sour
Juice And Rhyme have their roots in spoken word and hip-hop. Can you please comment on
that?
B: Living here in the States where I am aware that those songs are influenced by really strong
Black culture. I read something that Toni Morrison said the other day that none of us, in this
country, can say that they live a white experience because there isn't that separation. So
much of the musical movements in our country are based on what the Black community is
doing. And any community, period, of people who are being creative together. There are
certain things that come out of that and we are all, the world is changed for it.
GS: Absolutely; for the better.
B: Yeah, totally.
GS: How important is it to have humor in your work?
B: It's really important to me. Again, it's not a conscious thing. We don't sit down and say, 'Let's
write a funny song.' The craziest things seem funny to people (laughs). Things I never
intended to be funny. I think it's a basic human need to laugh. That's one of the things that
Animal and I happened to fall into together. Making each other laugh or making up these crazy
scenarios of these two women who go on this road trip to see Gloria Steinem or whatever. It's
just funny (laughs).
