Ani Difranco talks about
writing from personal experience...

What I've always done is write what I know, write about what I experience. I'm very leery of people writing other people's experience for them. and yet I have all these reservations in writing many of these little songs. I know the inescapable cliche of "young struggling artiste writes tortured, revealing songs, changes world, becomes rock star, has nothing more to write about than being a rock star." The woes of being rich and famous. And I'm not really rich and famous, so It's not too much of a problem! [laughs] But I do think there are certain interesting questions raised by a goofy little life like mine, like how does somebody who has tried to thwart the industry and to live their politics and then suddenly became really popular and started being implicated in the whole pop music circus -- how does one reconcile that? I think there are issues in these songs about trying to retain my own humanity in the face of the reductionism of the media, or of fans sort of turning me into a symbol or an icon or whatever, a role model, and I'm looking for something real within that. So my job definitely pops up on the album a bunch, but there's a lot of different subjects on this one. (Little Plastic Castle).

Ani on different (and hilarious) topics!

Ani On phlegm:

[while hacking] I swear to God I'm gonna clean that up. I'll get out my little carpet vac. I've had a dilemma lately, and that is what to do with excess phlegm on stage. It's a problem anywhere I suppose. Yes, I need a spittoon. But then my aim is so shitty it would just become incredibly embarrassing. A bowl on stage with a whole bunch of phlegm around it.

In the middle of singing Overlap...

Audience member: I LOVE YOU ANNIEEEEEEE!!!

Ani: It's ANI! [long pause and strumming] Geez. They're so vehemently in love with the image of me but they can't pronounce my name. That's a bit sad...

On Bumper Stickers:

Andy: We had a few gigs in the Midwest recently And a group of Lesbian evangelists decided to show up at our gig and give us a few hundred stickers so we ran around town sticking them on really expensive cars. Ani won this one because she stuck a sticker that said, "DYKES RULE!" on the back of a cop car.

Ani: Oh those state troopers in the mid-west... They're just so open-minded...

Andy: I picture the guy coming back to work and all his friends going "so Jim.. you're not getting weird on us or anything..."

Ani: Yes, it's true he's a lesbian caught in a man's body. horrible way to live. Actually, Andy's one of those aren't you?

Andy: Oh yeah, I'm a big flaming dyke.

Ani: "I'm a big flaming dyke." Well, we'll work on it... Yeah. I wanna get a big t-shirt that says "fag". Of course people would think I was a cigarette around here.

On Sha-na-na:

So I came to the realization earlier today... we were talking about Sha-na-na... Do you remember Sha-na-na? Oh man... And I realized that we've always had this desire to be Bowser Bah-bah-bo-bah (sings) You know that guy, that greaser guy. And, I'm gonna tie it all in here, we're gonna come full circle, and it will be an introduction to the next song... Yes... No. But um... I think I've always just like wanted to be one of those doofy guys. And hence my stupid sense of humor... Like me and my friend Suzy always used to cat call each other whenever we'd see each other. 'Hey baaaybe... wanna ride with me? What's your name? ' And then it just became this standard mode... you know how you get into verbal habits? So now I just say that whenever I see anybody.. 'Hey baaaybe!' And its funny to see women do a double take... Should I tell you to fuck off? You know like when you're just living in your own world and you're the only one who can fully appreciate yourself? Okay, I'll shut up now and play a song...

On "If He Tries Anything":

This is another traveling song... I wrote when I got back from Mexico with a friend of mine. And for like a month before we left, everyone gave us their what-not-to-do-in-Mexico advice. You know... drink the water... walk around in Mexico City late at night, unarmed. The friend that I was traveling with was very tall and very blonde...I think my hair at the time was blue. We tried to tone it down at first... kind of assimilate, which was a ridiculous notion. So then we started to play it up. We figured as long as we were gonna provide entertainment for the people, we might as well do it right. And we ended up breaking all those rules everyone told us to follow. This one guy told us we looked like MTV look-a-likes.

On "Out of Range":

The album is called Out of Range and this song is called "Out of Range" too... and the song is on the album... I played it... trying to think of what other startling revelations I can come up with... actually, stupidly enough this song is on the album twice. Because I put on the album solo, just acoustic... you know, two microphones, bada-bing bada-boom, I'm outta there. And then Andy and I had this wacky idea one day after about twelve hours driving in a van out in Arkansas or something... like 'why don't we do a live, in-studio rock n' roll version'? So there's an electric version. Andy's playing, and another friend of ours... boy, I can tell a story, huh? And so such is the glamour and excitement of my life...

More On "Out Of Range":

This is a little number that... what... is called Out Of Range. that has nothing to do with anything really... but it has a title... and it's sort of a response to... well, I get... we all get labeled in our own special way... I guess... and we all have certain words that are used to describe us that we wouldn't necessarily use ourselves... but... you know... um... they're very effective in writing us off, and boxing us in, and all those other stupid metaphors, and so there's this stereotype of me that I follow around on tour, which is that I'm an angry young woman and that I'm... and... well, when I read in the paper about myself it's always... 'with razor-sharp lyrics that slice into personal issues and a guitar that pounds the listeners ear'. you know... it's always very violent... very like, steer clear of this chick she is bad news... she is like extreme... she's angry, and scary and hairy and all of those things.. and so I don't know... It's kind of funny on my good days, and on my bad days its really maddening. Cause what... cause it ain't true, really, I'm just a total little giggly little twit! But the thing that they don't get is... well, I have this hard time being aggressive or assertive in real life so I write that part of me into my music. And then my tape will precede me to some town and I'll show up and people will say, 'I thought you'd be taller' and I can tell.. So anyway, I used to try and fight it, you know, like a woman that shows anger along with other emotions does not simply become her anger, she's all those other things. We should be allowed to include it as well in our vocabulary. But it doesn't work, they don't believe it really, because the minute you are anything less than loving and nurturing and sweet and wonderful, they say you're angry and militant and tough. So I've decided I'm not going to fight it anymore, I'm going to go with it, I'm gonna ride it, I'm going to be the 'Angry Young Woman' da-duh-da-dah! And, uh... maybe... I don't know... I could go on and on... and do. Well, it seems like a way that some people have figured out how to take the power out of those words that are used against them is by using them themselves. Like you start using all those insults yourself, and then it sort of dulls the edge of it, and then it doesn't hurt you as much when somebody else tries to use it against you. I was thinking about that years ago when I wrote this song with the word cunt in it. And uh... and that was fun. And I try to say cunt as often as possible in an oh, so loving way. Because I thought, why is that the dirtiest word in the English language? They did like a linguistic poll, and most Americans felt that cunt was the most offensive word. It's like, what is that? It's a beautiful thing. Like, what is your problem? So I thought, well maybe it's because there aren't enough women are saying it, in the right tone of voice. So anyway, so this angry thing, I've decided that my new line is going to be, 'Yes, of course I'm angry, angry with a capital A, aren't you angry? no? what's your problem? there must be something wrong with you! So this is kind of a song about anger... I guess...

On Spinal Tap:

I just want these things to blow up.. they're supposed to be smoking... and they're just sitting here. Andy's gonna go up in a big ball of flames at the end of this set, so make sure you stick around. Aye.. just another drummer! No... its a Spinal Tap reference... what's your problem? I tell you, those audiences in Philly... One minute they're feeling sorry for Andy, the next minute they're all going to run out and rent Spinal Tap. It's scary how much life is like Spinal Tap. We would never blow Andy up. He's so cute and cuddly...

Andy and Ani on llamas:

Andy: We got kicked out of the zoo yesterday in Washington. It was fun.

Ani: Rock n' roll!

Andy: We decided to... we thought we'd... okay it was my idea. Actually, I'll admit to it... that we could sneak into the zoo. We drove up to this parking lot that was busses only and we were there like two minutes and this guy drives up, and he's like, "Can I help you?" So I immediately go into this fake Italian accent to think that like I don't understand signs or something.

Ani: "We are here to see the llamas!" That's what he says! The guy's like "uh-huh..."

Andy: But the plan failed miserably because Ani here is like, "Okay, so where do we park?" in perfect English. I'm like, "We are here to see llamas!" He was not amused.

Ani: No, he opens his mouth. And the guy, the security guard and I sort of have this long lingering look at each other, and we're both like... I don't know who this guy is... I'm just driving around with him.. . we're looking at each other for assistance...

Andy: So we didn't see the llamas... We saw nothing.

Ani: We saw nothing! I swear!

Ani on Washington D.C.:

Ah Washington... Our nation's capital... Andy had never been there before. We showed him all the big white buildings with the pillars and stuff. So many... so much to do over there... And we were going to put Bill and Hillary on the guest list, and then we forgot... and I'm terribly afraid we've offended them. You never can please everyone in show business.

On Need:

You all okay? Any problems and you let me know... and I'll tell you how you can do without. That's what my mother always used to tell me, 'You need anything let me know, I'll tell you how you can do without.

On "How Have You Been":

So this is one of those oh-I'm-so-lonely-driving-around-in-my-car-songs. Just another one of those, one of many, actually. It'll be like a theme tonight. I know it's a theme for me. I think I gotta get Harlequin Romance novels on tape. Yeah, that's what I need... [laughs]

On "Out of Habit":

So here's the cunt song. Oh yeah... too many fucking chords... don't write songs like this anymore... [laughs]

On Her Psyche:

No actually, it's true... I'm full of shit. I really love those deep abscesses in my psyche. They're so much fun to squeeze and watch what spurts out... And then sometimes someone will come along and squeeze it for you.

On Germany:

We went to Germany... and das was good, yah...oh they love the song... they were leaping up on the seats and building things, like mechanical things... And I think every American in Europe ended up at the Schauberg Theater the night we were playing. They were like, "yo homey!" They were shouting out states and shit... and then we all went out techno dancing. And Andy and I went to visit the red light district!

Ani Tends Bar:

Andy: Ani nearly got arrested a couple of nights ago actually. There was a bar... We were in this huge hotel, somewhere north of here... and the bar closed, but Ani decided to work the taps herself

Ani: Well my glass was empty... several friends glasses were empty.. it was a travesty, really.

Andy: It was great.. I felt like I was in grade school with you. and this guy came back and was like, "How much have you had? How much have you had and what's your room number?"

Ani: The old codger who like runs the place just happens to walk in as I'm behind the bar like wheeeee!

On "32 Flavors":

So this is another new tune. It's a ... one of my fascinations lately is people who talk one way and live another... just like....my favorite lately is babes who call themselves feminists and walk around saying all this "love your earth mother... you know, bear children, be round..." rhetoric. And then they don't like women. You can just tell... another woman around and they're just threatened. That kind of thing... what's that all about?

On The UK:

All night in London is eleven... It's so fucking weird here. It's just different. Where I come from bars are open till four. And then after you've spent yourself and you've been kicked out you go to a diner and eat greasy eggs. And then the sun comes up and you go home. But, God... I don't know how you guys do it. What do you do... You go home and you have to do pints in your apartment... all that energy... course maybe you have... jobs... lives or something.

On Bi-sexuality:

So I was doing this radio show this morning in Philly and the guy who was interviewing me asked me this question... he was very nice, real cool guy... he asked me this weird question, he was like... I wasn't quite sure what he was saying... he was like, "Well, you know I was at one of your shows and somebody came up to you after the show and criticized you for writing gendered love songs, and I was kind of under the impression that you left all your love songs ungendered..." It was sort of like, "naaa... neeeeh... ahhhhh..." wait... rewind. And um... I was kind of confused by the question because I remember the incident a little differently. But then I didn't quite know... and then I was saying like, "well I have... written songs for different... kinds of people... I was in love with at the time... but now I'm having some songs with no gender because now that it's like totally ambiguous I thought that it might be interesting to write love songs that weren't gendered and where people kind of... to see if people could listen to it without a gender attached... to just listen to love.. without caring what make or model love..." But, I was kinda... I was disappointed in myself and I thought maybe I could share with you because my bumbling little two minute answer I managed to avoid saying the word bisexuality... and um, there were several times when it would have been entirely appropriate and yet I said something like, "well, my openness..." And he seemed like such a nice... like somebody's father or something... there we were in the little room and um... I don't know... I guess in my music I spend a lot of time standing here peeping around and flapping my lips about how important it is to just say it, just do it, like what's your problem, get over it, say it, do it, live it, you know... but, um... sometimes I find that I don't myself, but we're all trying I guess... no actually, there will probably be other times to say the word BISEXUALITY! Thank you for listening... And you know if there are any designers out there, maybe you could make like a nice little symbol that we could put on bumper stickers or something... you know, what's a way of life without a bumper sticker, really. What's up with that word though... it's like something you did to frogs in grammar school.

On Signing A Record Deal:

The only reason I want to sign a record deal is so I can have some beautiful, bronzed, half-naked, oiled boy hand me a tuned guitar after every song.

On Guitar Tunings:

That's a new chord: Q sharp. This is called "thrash folk", which means it's out of tune, yet charming nonetheless.

(After finishing her opening song...)

Ani: Hi. My name is Barbara. I'm the understudy. Can you imagine if that actually happened? What would an audience do? "The person who was supposed to do this can't be here, I'm the understudy.

Audience member: We love you, Barbara!

(later in the set...)

(Random audience member screams incoherently)

Ani: What was that?

(Screams again)

Ani: You know, the crunchy, folk-singer part of me wants to believe that a performance is a dialogue, but I can't hear a fucking thing you're saying.

On the Aragon Ballroom (on a very hot day): (27-Jun-99 - Chicago, IL)

I don't know how many stairs we walked down to get into this place, but it feels like we're preciously close to the molten hot core of the Earth.

On Athens, GA:

Well, y'know, this place is called Athens, like Athens in Greece... where there are all these really big old buildings that have been there for, like, 3,000 years... and so I'm here now, in this really big building called the coliseum, like in Greece, and it has all the columns and shit...so I was looking around and thinking, "I wonder if this place'll still be around in a thousand years? [pause] probably not..." [long pause] When I become king, I'm gonna make a law that all buildings have to be made to last at least a thousand years... which I suppose comes from living in Buffalo, which is basically a city of cinderblock Rite-Aid stores... [sigh] nothing lasts a 1,000 years anymore... so anyway...

On Jason's Knowledge of Hockey: (3-Oct-99 - Binghamton, NY)

Ani: It feels so homey in here... I was expecting more of a hockey vibe... Jason's from Canada so he knows all about the hockey vibe...

Jason: My hockey knowledge sort of stops at like 1975 or something...

Ani: What knowledge starts there?

Jason: That's someone else's knowledge of hockey, not mine...

Ani: Handed over the torch, did ya?... Is that when you discovered your pee-pee?

On the Snow Leopard:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about... sorry… I hear this groan… 'aww…she’s gonna start yapping again…' Perfect opportunity for a little pee break, or you know, go sign the mailing list, or go buy a drink. It’s just striking me, I don’t know. It feels like the older I get, I, it gets harder and harder to be angry, it gets easier and easier to be sad. Which is frustrating, you know, cause anger can be such a useful thing. And sadness can be so debilitating, but I’ve been struck lately so much by, by how much time, and how many of us spend so that much time undoing what other people are busy doing. It’s like you can spend your whole life just cleaning up behind the next guy, you know, and it’s a really weird thing. I was watching this program the other day, I was watching this program about this guy who rides around on elephants in India and tries to save the snow leopard. He’s been, you know, following snow leopards around trying to you know, clean their nails and brush their teeth and make them to fuck each other. You know, like putting on movies and good stuff. And the reason that this guy just sort of spends his whole life, you know, riding around on elephants trying to make the snow leopard fuck the other snow leopard is because there’s some guy who rode around on an elephant like a hundred years before and shot most of them. You know, its just kinda silly. People would have nothing to do were it not for other people.

On Scabies:

Ani: So, I was, I was thinking during "Every State Line" that um, the part about being in Alabama, I just remembered of that journey that didn’t make it into the song and that was a puppy that I found. I did, I found, I was like driving into Montgomery and it was like three you know, one of those like fucking ten lane roads. You know, like three or four lanes on either side of the dividing highway and then two service roads on either side and in the middle of the highway in the fucking median is this little black puppy laying down on the median. And I was like uh!, I’m driving along in my little VW beetle you know, ruggghhhhh, and so, I was, fucking, a little shaved head little folk girl and driving along and I see this puppy and I was like duh grh…so I pulled over at the um, to the next exit and I went back on the service road and I hopped the fence and I’m like playing chicken across the highway, and then and I’m running down the median and the little puppy like, sees me coming and starts running fast and urgh…and uh…I don’t know how it happened, as day goes…you know how it goes. But um, so the fucking puppy is like, I’m like, right, okay, sure, run from me, good idea. But, um so, so I caught up with the puppy being you know, somewhat bigger and higher on the food chain and I went like rampant and he just flipped over on his back. And he was this, he was like a little black lab, a teeny little, you know, I know. Ah yes, I held him in the palm of my hand. So, then, okay, this is not like one of those ah, oh stories though, this is a fucked up story 'cuz. Okay, first of all, I pick up the puppy and the puppy is so terrified by this point that it just shits this runny shit all down the front of me, I swear to god. And then, so being the nice little sensitive girl that I am, I put the puppy in the car and kept driving and am like, okay, now I have a puppy. You know, except that um, the puppy was very very very unhappy, the puppy was like itching and itching and itching and kind of yelping you know. And I had not heard of scabbies at the time, I mean the word.

Andy: It’s gross

Ani: I know, it does, I’m using it worse too. So, this is like, you’re like Paul and I’m like David Letterman at this point. So, so um Paul?

Andy: Yes?

Ani: Just agree with everything I say. So, um, so, yeah the fucking dog was so miserable and I had no idea it was cuz, you know, I mean, it wouldn’t eat, it would just itch and yelp as I was driving along and so I thought okay, I can’t deal. So, I went to a train station um and um, I thought, where do I. Oh, and I was calling around, I was calling around to like um, you know, what do they call them, animal shelters yeah, right, animal shelters and shit and it was like Sunday and stuff and nobody was home and so I thought, well okay, I’ll go to the women’s washroom in the train station, I thought, you know, some little girl is going to come in there and be like "Mooommmie, wah." So, but I didn’t, but before I you know, I released the puppy back into the real world, I picked up a nice healthy dose of scabbies which I preceded, like unbeknownst to me, to spread all over the country. I was like Typhoid Mary. I swear to God. It was sick. I visited friends in Texas. I visited friends in Minneapolis. I was out in California. I went up to Canada. And everywhere I went, I left a little token of my appreciation. I had a whole lot of friends that were awfully mad at me that summer. This is a song about that...

On Birmingham, AL and Goats:

Ani: You know what, one of the things that I like about Birmingham is, you have like this crazy statue in the middle of like five points or five what is it?…all the little animals, you go in the front and there’s all these white men on horses, oh that’s nice but every now and then, it’s good to see a frog on the dog or something. What is that about?

Andy: Satan. That’s Satan's goat

Ani: It’s about, that’s nice, satanic goat?

Andy: Satanic goat.

Ani: Yeah the goat. Well, you know, you know, from a woman who happened to fall in love with a goat, like at one point. It’s nice to see...

On Andy Meeting Aerosmith and Ani's Dad:

Andy: So I came up to this... I came up to this band I thought I knew in Vancouver in this restaurant, and everybody in the restaurant was looking at me. And, I thought, "Wow, you know, this is really cool being in Ani’s band... everybody recognizes you in this restaurant!". And I come back to the, to my table and all my friends were like, "Who did you think that was?" And I was like, "Oh, that’s you know, that’s Gordy and his friends from Toronto..." "No, that was Aerosmith you jerk." And, I came up to Aerosmith, I come up to Stephen Tyler...

Ani: Stephen Tyler!

Andy: I was like, "what are you guys doing in town? You know, We’re playing down the street, do you want to come over?" He was like, "uh, well, we're recording."

Ani: Boy can Andy spin a yarn.

Andy: You almost done with that? (Ani is in the midst of fingernail repair)

Ani: Stephen Tyler... Andy has actually been trying to fix me up with Stephen Tyler for a bunch of years.

Andy: I think they'd make a great couple.

Ani: Yeah, me and Stevie, we'd have the lips and the cheeks covered. But, then we saw the cover of that Rolling Stone and we realized that he's involved with his daughter, so that was out of the... I mean, was it me or did that freak you out? I don't... was that a little freaky? I don’t know, I wouldn’t pose with my dad that way, I don't know... although...

Andy: That’s 'cuz your dad is four and a half feet tall...

Ani: He actually is, I’m taller then my dad. And I'm not as tall as I look from... it’s the platform.

Andy: Cutest Dad in the world

Ani: Cutest Dad in the world, thank you very much.

On Rome:

So, we were doing this tour overseas, and we were doing the tourist thing in Rome...so we're walking around all the ruins and stuff, the whole gang, and this old guy comes up to us, just stands there for a sec, and then somehow pulls his eyeballs out of their sockets! so of course we all scream really really loud, and he puts them back in and walks on his way...

On Low-flying Fowl:

So... uhh... we're all celebrities here... this is (points to Andy)... ummm... Fabio! Yeah, he hasn't really been the same since the duck thing... (pause)... did you people hear about that? Fabio was like at an amusement park, doing the whole celebrity event thing at the opening of a new roller coaster. He was on it the first time it went around, and he's sitting at the top of the first hill, his hair blowing in the wind... And apparently the park hadn't informed the duck community of the new ride, cuz this duck just flies up out of nowhere and hits Fabio in the head! He was fine and I think the duck was too...

On "Untouchable Face":

Usually when I play that little ditty, people take the opportunity to just shout along with the chorus because it’s... I don’t know, so titillating, you know -- a naughty word and everything. I thought you showed... Well, I mean you probably never heard the damn thing before... or you were showing just remarkable restraint. It was very, very good... I showed up yesterday sort of speeding along in my little golf cart. Man, that’s the best thing. You really got to get on this side of the monitors because then you get to ride around in golf carts all day. It’s very cool. But anyway... So I show up yesterday and somebody was trying to get people to sing along, like a good folk music sort of thing. And people were kind of just like, aah... They all had sunstroke and people were like in a coma on the grass, you know, so they were just not having it. And I was gonna go up to them after the set and go, "You just have to put a naughty word in, and they’ll all shout with everything they've got..." I'm gonna write a little Folksinger's Handbook.

On The Ani/Dar Feud:

So the last time I ran into Dar she was like, "Oh, did you hear we're feuding? I heard it on the Internet..." I was like, "Oh cool!" And then we thought we should probably... Well, you know I’ve gotta buy a computer first, but then I can log right on and invent some sort of sordid love triangle story...

On Woodstock vs. Falcon Ridge: (29-Sep-99 - Rochester, NY)

You know, earlier, before the show we were... um, the folks in the Campbell brothers and I were talking about that bizarre phenomena-am-am-ana called the folk festival. Yes, Yes it's true, there are whole gatherings of you know, unshavens and natural aromaed people. Out in you know, fields that on any other day belong to horses and cows, and they go out there and they do the seaweed dance while you play music for them. That's right that's right, they get the kelp vibe going. And the Campbell brothers were saying what a pleasure it was to play these folk festivals, and I must say I've had the same experience. Its just music based on music and community. And there really is a couple of... I have a direction. It may seem like meandering, but I'll come around -- Do you have like a couple of hours? I was at a folk festival playing a little guitar, singing a little folk song a month ago or so, and that very same weekend there was Woodstock 99, which as we all know is outside of fucking Rome! It was nowhere near Woodstock. And I just don't know what people got into at that festival there, it sounds like some people were misguided...

[singing] Some people were misguided... some people had consciences... Some people turned a blind eye... Like a whole... like a whole... Like a whole lot of people do... [end singing]

Meanwhile, preciously close to the Actual Woodstock there was this little festival called the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival...

[singing] 17,000 people and very minimal security... Peace and love in the air... And peace and love and friendliness. Yeah, there was no incidence of abuse... There was no burning and looting... There was no violence... there was no violence... [end singing]

And this is kind of a tune ("Fuel") about the music that happens, and the music that seems to beam down from some corporate nebulae, and get pummeled into our brains from all sorts of sources that we can't control. And I think that that kind of corporate "schmeg" is bound to make a whole lot of people very angry. You know when they show up at a festival and its supposed to be about music and peace and love and its really about product...

[singing] Yeah, it's really about money... Yeah, it's really about Army. Yeah, it's really about corporations... Yeah, it's really about major label promotion... Yeah, its really about... [end singing]

It finally kind of makes you want to take that truck and kind of just kind of tip it over and watch it you know like they all kind of Thelma and Louise kind of vibe.

[singing] I don't think so, I don't think this is real, I wanna watch it burn well that's just how I feel. I don't think so, I don't think this is real, I wanna watch it burn well that's just how I feel... [end singing]

On Appearing on Conan O'Brien: (19-Sep-97 - New York, NY)

That last song is dedicated to Conan, who’s a little too tall, but a nice guy anyway. Oh my goodness! You didn’t happen to be watching TV last night, did you? That was very traumatic. The boys were looking dapper and... I have these cheeks... I have these fucking, colossal cheeks that stick out to here [gestures]. They barely fit on the screen. It’s really incredible... I told the woman in the makeup department to make me look like Cindy Crawford... Maybe it was her first day.

On Andy's Views On The Men's Movement: (19-Sep-97 - New York, NY)

Andy : I was walking through the crowd back there during Dan Bern's set and somebody came up to me and because I'm the guy who plays with Ani DiFranco this guy came up to me and said, 'Where's the men's movement now, like where is it? Where are we men at?' So, I said that, last week I read this article where, when female baboons try to arouse a male baboon they step on their tip toes, and this arouses the male baboon. I thought of stiletto heals and I thought, we haven’t fucking come anywhere.

On Stripping: (19-Sep-97 - New York, NY)

An incident in San Francisco, it's gone down in the history books. I went to this strip club where most of my friends work because I thought, you know, it’d be the sociable thing to do. It was just me and my friends that came with me, the friends that worked there weren't working. So, we said, "Okay, well that's okay, we'll just sit down on the couch and wait for some nice lady to come and you know, entertain us." And, I know from all my friends that work as strippers, that a bunch of hot babes coming in is their idea of a great night at work. So, we thought we're good American consumers. So, we were sitting on the couch, growing old. Nobody was coming over. It was like, I don't know what the scene was it was crazy, it was blasphemous, it was baffling. "Over here... Over here!" It was like me and my two friends sitting on this couch. I don't know, I guess maybe we looking like we didn't have any money or something. So I decided I had to take matters into my own hands, so to speak. I figure I have tits, I can do this. Right? I can do this job. I felt bad for my friends sitting there, you know, unentertained as we were. I thought, "I'm short, but I can jump on this table..." So, I was trying to fill the bill as best I could, and the funny thing was somehow they let me last a whole song, in which I got really busy. It wasn't until the whole song had ended... the bouncers had come up like halfway through the song and they were just kind of standing there like... And I wasn't until the song ended and one of them was like, "You -- you don’t work here..." I was like, "Oh sorry." It’s become a little saying of ours. "You don’t work here..."

On the Littleton shootings:

You all probably heard about the school shooting in Colorado over there. It seems like guns and drugs, man... Certain people make all the money, and certain people die. And they're not usually the same people, that's my guess. And um, I don't know, I kinda hope now that both of those things are affecting the white middle-class children in this country that the people who make laws or whatever they do, are gonna care. But um, this whole, man, oh, it's so fucking weird to me that all this, all this, "Well, we should have more guidance counselors in the schools" or "More police in the aisles" or something like that, and like, you know, I think if they had to get a guidance counselor for every socially maladjusted, angry teen, there would be a lot of fucking guidance counselors. I mean, you know, all this speculation about how come nobody saw it coming, how come nobody was concerned about this group, because all teenagers are fucked, I mean, come on, you know, I mean, personally, I need a guidance counselor most days, you know, and probably a couple policemen, but it's okay, because I don't have a gun! Key difference, I believe, right there, I mean, you know, you get 'em from somewhere, and you learn how to shoot 'em from someone, and, you know, the NRA, Remington or whatever the fuck. They're laughing all the way to the bank.

On the Littleton shootings: (21-Nov-99 - Copenhagen, Denmark)

Well... um this song is... uh... this song is about um... In the states, where I'm from... even though it said I'm from Canada on the poster. I was like, "Oh Canada, how pleasant!" No such luck. I'd be a lot smarter and healthier if I was from Canada... But um... but no, but then I wouldn't have all my guns so.... Well, this is a song about guns actually it's um... In the land of my people we've come to an excruciatingly stupid point in our cultural history... uhh... All the stereotypes... you know...everything you think about America is true... it's actually true. And it's getting, it's getting really fucked up. you know, it's just evidence of the fact that my country is not so much a democracy as it is a capitalist system... And money um, which is so unfortunate... cause the ideas of democracy... I think there's something there... But really our country and our government seem to be controlled by the forces of big business... And uh, guns are some big ass business... so uh... and it's always... it always blows my mind that people uh you know they like to point the finger at rap artists and say, "Oh, it's their fault, you know they're spreading the violent messages," and this and that. And meanwhile standing right behind them is an army of white guys in suits, who own these record companies, who own the TV stations, who own all the sources of media and culture and information... who decide what they're gonna bombard kids with... and nobody ever points at them.

On Ani's posterior: (Sydney, Australia)

Ani: I gotta tell you a story... about my dear Jason.., well it's kinda half a story about my ass and it's also about dear Jason... Oh yeah, and it's about Ms. Thang over there too... ok, once upon a time, Ms. Thang kinda has like a shopping epiphany in some like fucking Fredericks of Hollywood store or something... i dunno where the hell she was, but anyway she comes home with this like tight... gold glittery... spandex mini dress... and I'm having like one of those days on tour... you know one of those days... where you get up... you get dressed and undressed... then dressed again and undressed and you get dressed again and it's not right and you're like, "fuck...fuck..." and then you just put all your clothes into a big pile in the middle of your room and you light it on fire and right there... so anyways...so the crazy thing about our lives is when your absolutely hideous, heinous, stupid and wrong and you shouldn't really be on the planet you have to get up on stage and pretend that's not so...not so... and anyways it's like 5 minutes before showtime...in buttfuck America and I'm having wardrobe crisis well cause of course I burned all my clothes. So Julie, dear sweet thing that she is... comes to my rescue..."you should wear this!! i just bought this! you should wear this" and I'm like "oh-eww-oh, you think so?"

Julie: Oh yes... oh yes...

Ani: I know she took some kinda sick pleasure in it...

Julie: "Girl, you were looking fine!!"

Ani: yeah...i was like looking fine till like 30 seconds into the first verse of the first song...when the damn thing rode up to my waist! my waist!

Julie: oops...ooops...oops oop oops ooops

Ani: Yeah, oops so what are you gonna do... So yeah, I play guitar...which is good and nice and then scary sometimes I was really happy... I've never loved my guitar more... than that night...but the whole first song... as I was just processing this in my head... it was like one of those dreams... You know when you're on the school bus and you're naked... so true dreams come true at the big folk show... so I had my guitar... I was feeling like barely like feeling audience side thing... but then there was Jason...

Jason : The other side of things...

Ani: Yeah the other side of things... so yeah now... at the end of the first song i just walk right up to Jason and I'm like oh man I'm so embarrassed...and he was like "huh" and I couldn't believe it my ass is like right in front of him... right in front of him... the whole time and he wasn't looking at it!! and he wasn't looking at it... but that's ok though... cause you know... he knows what it looks like...

Jason: Well, I must say tonight your ass is looking quite nice.

Julie: I was thinking the same thing!

On Anarchy ('97 - Chicago, IL)

I was thinking about my concept of anarchy which is... as I understand it being not a lack of government but just accentuating self-government. You know governing each other as a community, as the group of people that we are. And I was thinking that pertains to these shows too. Like say, if you are standing there and there is some woman on stage singing so beautifully and there is like some next to you screaming "RACHEL! RACHEL! RACHEL!", you can feel free to just turn to them...going, "excuse me, you need to shut up really soon".

On Changing Fashions (17-October-99 - Dallas, TX)

You know I was thinking during that last song [LPC], Its that "Oh, woe is me!" song, well, Its kind of a theme, an ongoing theme... Its like kind of a series I've been working on. But you know its like, you kinda you sprout a few pubic hairs, and um, the whole kind of like gender dynamic of your life changes, and you know, and suddenly people think that that well, I don't know that they can treat you differently than they used to, so you shave your little head and you put on your big ol' boots and you start stomping around acting really tough, and you start making records all about how you're REALLY tough. Really. And next thing you know, whole bunch of other young women with shaved heads and big old boots, and slappy ol' overalls are coming out saying "yeah yeah yeah, we're really tough too, we're all tough, can't fuck with us. And that's kind of fun, and you drive around and you meet a whole lot of people and you write a lot of folk songs, and you wear right through your boots, and um, then one day you're like, well, you know, maybe I'll grow some hair on my head, do some dumb things with it...what's this? OOH! Lipstick! Ooh!, what's mascara? How do you use it? And the minute you start like, showing any kind of signs of femininity, all them gals are like, "What the fuck? Over?" And you were like, well, I thought the whole point in the beginning was that there is no one way to be a woman, there is no one way to be a man. Yeah you do it any way you can. Any way you want to... any way you can...

But, you know, uh uh uh, what I really haven't considered is the struggle that the men of Kiss must have gone through, when they started wearing make up, how many of their friends came down on them, man!? You know, like "Was it cool? Was it cool? You know, did people accept that?"