Blood Harmony Volume 8: Ani DiFranco
A few nights ago, my husband and I made the trip out to the coast of North Carolina for a few childfree days by the beach. We left in the early evening and it poured for the entire drive. It was one of those terrible dark and rainy journeys when you feel like there’s a 50% chance you’re going to end up in a ditch the entire time. Unlike me, my husband actually likes driving so he would normally have been the one at the wheel but his glasses broke (literally fell apart into two pieces, they are currently super-glued) so I was up. First we listened to the Popstar soundtrack (so catchy! so funny!) and then I had him put on the music that has helped me get through stressful drives since high school. Namely, we listened to the first half of the Beastie Boys album Ill Communication (1994, Capitol Records) (skipping “Tough Guy”) and then we went to Living In Clip by Ani DiFranco (1997, Righteous Babe Records).
I was first introduced to Ani by my sibling who showed up one day with CDs of her albums Like I Said (1993) and Out of Range (1994). We both LOVED these albums and played them on repeat on our living room and bedroom stereos. Ani was living in New York at the time but she was from Buffalo and she toured upstate New York relentlessly in the 1990s. I first saw her play at the University of Rochester for $5 in 1994 and I probably saw her 2-3 times/year for the next 5-6 years. I’ve definitely seen her perform live more than any other band besides my friend Jim’s band (The Rollo Tomasi Quartet) who I’ve seen play on-and-off for 15 years whenever I’ve been in Boston.
Last year, I listened to the audiobook of Ani’s memoir No Walls and the Recurring Dream. It’s quite a book. It’s far-ranging in tone and ideas even though it effectively ends right after 9/11 when she quit touring for several years. Here’s a very abbreviated book report re: the things that really stuck with me:
Ani reminded me of how difficult it was to physically obtain her records because they were kept in the WOMEN’S MUSIC section of record stores and lots of record stores DIDN’T HAVE THOSE SECTIONS AND YOU HAD TO SPECIAL ORDER FEMALE ARTISTS FROM CATALOGS. That’s right! If you wanted to listen to Ani or Tori Amos or Natalie Merchant, you didn’t look in the folk/jazz/pop section, you looked in the WOMEN’S MUSIC section or you mail-ordered them.
There’s an odd section where Ani goes into a great deal of physical detail about her sexual relationship with one of her female partners. She describes at length the amount of female ejaculate that this partner could produce and how messy their bed became during a sojourn to Mexico together. Her song “If He Tries Anything” is about this friend. There is nothing else nearly this explicit in the rest of the book.
Ani eventually formed her own label (Righteous Babe Records) and produced records by other artists. I was introduced to the folk artist Utah Philips and Anais Mitchell (who went on to make Hadestown) through Righteous Babe. In her memoir, she talks about how her record company only made money if she was touring (both via tickets and merch) so she was basically on non-stop tour for several decades until she had a nervous breakdown in the early 2000s.
Her song “Untouchable Face” was written about her unrequited love for her married stage manager. She has a story about playing it one night at a show where the audience included his wife and Ani’s long-term partner. It totally blew up both couple’s life and then she eventually married the stage manager.
Living in Clip is a collection of live recordings made in 1995-6 when she was touring with a drummer (Andy) and the wonderful bass player Sara Lee (Gang of Four, The B-52s). It is not a perfect album. One thing to know about Ani is that she was extremely prolific in the 1990s. She was releasing an album/year for the entire decade. There are great Ani songs and there are total duds (same with her records). LiC includes both of these types of tracks. When I listen to LiC, I skip the majority of the slow songs and spoken word poetry tracks and hit up all of the fast, raucous options and a few of the re-worked, mid tempo songs. It’s great driving music and you get the chance to experience how compelling her live performances are. Fun fact: you can hear my sibling yelling their support of Ani in the background on “Fire Door” which was recorded in Worcester, MA.
After I finished her memoir, I went back and listened to all of her recorded albums through 2001. It was a deep dive of nostalgia but it also highlighted to me Ani’s talents as a songwriter. There are some beautiful songs across these albums and a lot of experimentation and growth. She’s worth a listen (just ask Jason Momoa!). In that vein, I have compiled a mini-playlist of my top 5 Ani tracks. Keep them on hand for a rainy drive.
Other Things:
I found this episode of NPR’s podcast Throughline on James Baldwin and his relevance in our current time to be incredibly moving. I don’t know why Spotify shot it to the top of my “recent shows” list since it originally aired in September, but I’m happy it did because I missed it the first time around.
If you haven’t had a chance to watch the Lover’s Rock episode of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe film series on Amazon, I highly recommend it. It’s a short film about a reggae Blues party set in London in the 1970s and it’s incredible. It’s got the pre-party anticipation, the early evening ladies’ dance floor, the creepy bathroom line guy, desire, fighting, the threat of police shutting you down, all of it. The art direction and the soundtrack are both wonderful.
Magdalene by FKA Twigs was easily the most devastating album I listened to in 2019. I really appreciated this piece by Samantha Stallard: On Love Bombing, FKA Twigs, And How We’ve Been Conditioned To Accept Abuse.
Happy New Year all!