Earlier this year, before the
Republican and Democratic parties had selected their presidential candidates,
folk singer-guitarist Ani DiFranco talked to City about the dilemma facing those who had voted for Nader in
2000. This time around, there was a growing sense among progressives that they
would have to vote practically instead of support the candidate they liked
best.
“If people oversimplify the argument
like that, yeah, it’s like ‘if not a, then b,'” DiFranco says, “but I’ve always
thought listening to the head and the heart simultaneously is necessary to work
things out in life. [In 2000] I was, ‘vote your heart in the lockdown states,
vote against Bush in the swing states, and start talking about the electoral
system being so skewed that we cannot vote freely and make that a platform.’
“And, especially after that debacle,
there was such an opportunity to reform the whole system, from the construction
of the ballots, to the winner-take-all states, to the Electoral College, to
really having third-party run-off or something — campaign finance reform. Oh
well.”
As the election drew closer and
urgency grew around the campaigns, particularly around the war in Iraq, a slew
of musical acts toured the States behind pointedly left-wing material in a wide
range of styles. A short list includes Anti-Flag, Steve Earle, Antibalas Afrobeat
Orchestra, Rob Wasserman, and Napalm Death. DiFranco and fellow firebrand Dan
Bern joined the fray fairly early. DiFranco endorsed left-of-center Democratic
candidate Dennis Kucinich, as well as 94-year-old Doris “Granny D” Haddock, who
ran for a Senate seat on a no-special-interest-money and
ordinary-people-can-run platform.
About Kucinich, DiFranco says, “I
dare you to read anything he’s written in the last bunch a years and find
bullshit in it. It’s amazing. It’s like ‘Wow! Wait! There’s a good man with his
head screwed on, and he’s in politics?'”
Meanwhile, Bern weighed in with his
EP, My Country II, which came out at
the end of August, while Bern was in New York City for the Republican National
Convention protests. Outspoken to say the least, the album (whose title is a
play on “it’s my country, too”) slams the Bush administration repeatedly, sets
Pete Seeger’s poem, “The Torn Flag,” to music, and closes with a song called
“Bush Must Be Defeated.” A newer EP, Anthems,
contains songs Bern wrote during the Convention.
Since the presidency was decided last
month, the dissent has only continued to pour from speakers and stages across
the land. Last week’s Ministry show here, for example, opened with a simulated
gunshot-to-the-head execution of Bush and featured forceful anti-war video
imagery.
This
Saturday, DiFranco and Bern come to town for the conclusion of their
nine-city run of shows together. Dubbed O
Dammit All! as a lighthearted (according to DiFranco’s manager) response to
the election results, the tour is a continuation of DiFranco’s Vote Dammit! outing, a
voter-registration drive which ran through swing states in September and
October. According to DiFranco’s label, Righteous Babe, she collected 20,000
pledges to vote during the tour. (Bern opened some of those dates as well.)
DiFranco has kept
uncharacteristically quiet since Bush’s re-election. Prior to the swing-state
tour, she told Rolling Stone that the
“progressive thinkers and active people” who comprise the bulk of her audience
aren’t “necessarily voting.” She then issued a statement online on November 1
encouraging readers to protect themselves from voting fraud and directing them
to moveon.org for more information.
But that was her last official
statement about the election, which seems unusual and adds an element of
suspense to Saturday’s show. Is she feeling deflated and will that come across
in her performance?
DiFranco’s manager Scot Fisher says
no, that both DiFranco and Bern have been sharing with crowds their enthusiasm
for the work that needs to be done. “That starts with having a good time,”
Fisher says. “You’re in a room with a couple thousand other people who are
probably just as disappointed as you.”
“It’s been great,” says Bern of the
audience vibe at the recent shows. “It really has. People are full of energy,
pent-up energy, and it comes out. They want to have fun and they want to
laugh.”
Creatively,
DiFranco is pushing into new territory these days. While she recorded and
performed her last album, this year’s Educated
Guess, in complete isolation, forthcoming offering Knuckle Down was done with a new band and produced by country-rock
guitarist Joe Henry — the first bona fide outside producer DiFranco has used.
After years of playing in various
band configurations, then solo, DiFranco has also returned to playing live with
just one accompanist (Todd Sickafoose) — what she did for years with longtime
collaborator Andy Stochansky.
Some of Knuckle Down‘s material already appears in her live repertoire. In
spite of the year’s events, though, the album doesn’t contain much overtly
political material.
In an interview conducted by
Righteous Babe and released last week, DiFranco said: “There are certain times
when you are ingesting the outside world and processing through your personal
world, and there are other times when you’re reacting to/speaking back to the
outside world and your personal life is just coasting comfortably.”
On the other hand, DiFranco has always been known
for her broad sense of what “political” means.
“Things are very rarely exclusively
either political or personal,” she said.
She also said that much more
political material has already been written for the album after next.
“I feel like I knew an America before
this,” DiFranco says. “I saw [the change] happen. Those young people today who
are born into this kind of economic control of art and culture and information
— will they fight it? I think yes! I feel it beginning to happen, you know? I
mean [look at] the mass disillusionment. It’s not going to happen how Americans
want it to happen — like now,
without any effort. It’s not going to be like, in 2004, suddenly the light
shines.
“But I think there’s the beginnings
of a social movement and I’m prepared to spend a lifetime.”
Ani
DiFranco and Dan Bern play
Saturday, December 11, at the Auditorium Theatre, 875 East Main Street, at 8
p.m. Tix: $31-$34. Call ticketmaster for tickets: 232-1900.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2004.
