Righteous Babe: Anl DiFranco Folk Music is Cool! Wishing Chair and - ; Jamie Anderson Sing Out By STEPH PAPPAS it Saturday October lilth Wishing Chair with Jamie Anderson graced the stage at Burlington Cofiee House where one can go to catch performers up close and personal amidst firiendlly banter. Jamie Anderson and the duo Wishing Chair have been travel- Shouting Out Loud and Clear ant mfirarsee aces aemettztng with her meats Bv TANIA KUPCZAK his review is not meant for all the serious Ani fans out there, because I know _vou’ve already been rockin‘ out to her new album for the last few weeks and you don’t need me to tell you to buy it. Instead, it‘s meant for those of us who have been a little less than thrilled with her recent work. or maybe never got around to giving her music a listen at all. When Ani DiFranco popped onto the folk scene with her self-titled album in 1991, she stole the hearts of boys and girls alike all across the States. Armed only with a closely-shaved head, an acoustic gui- tar and her grinding vocals, her music echoed the great tradition of political song writing. At one of these early shows, it was not unusual to find a crowd of dedicated fans cheer- ing on Ani’s half-sung, half-chanted monologues of corporate greed and governmental abuse. The Boston Globe raved about her 1993 album Puddle Dive, writing, “DiFranco sings songs the way guerillas fight revolutions.” Now, a decade and some later, Ani still has some people pumping their fists for democracy. . These days, though, she barely needs a last name and many of her younger followers have no idea about the issues she’s cleverly couched in punk instrumentation. ' At a recent concert at Memorial _ Auditorium, I saw droves of 13-year-old girls yelling ‘ along to the dildo cheer, “D to the I to the L to the DO.” I ldn’t help but think back on first Ani show I attended, le at Oberlin College in 1993. were all starry-eyed Women’s dies students, and we could ily understand the importance.- a song called “If He Tries : ything.” On Am’s last few albums, particularly 2001 ‘s reveling/reckon- ing, her musicianship has overtaken her political content. and it’s much more difficult to distinguish the rally- ing anthems from the sappy love- and—lose ballads. A consistency in quality of song-writing and accompa- niment becomes the thread of her recent work. I have to admit that l have not been entirely satisfied with the direction ofAni’s music. As wit- nessed by the lyrics in to the teeth (I999), she‘s "just not angry any- more.” Of course, I do appreciate her talent and sensibility, and I am always willing to give the new albums a listen. As I opened the CD sleeve for So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter, Ani’s second double live album, a photo of a truck stop with the words “We Believe in God"- America — Trucks” marqueed on the side told me the old Ani was back. So Much... consists oftwo CDs, which are actually two complete albums. The first, titled Stray Cars, is a collection of favorite tunes, in no particular order, but which begin with a sound so classically Ani — the tune- up of her guitar. She executes a beau- tiful version of“Swan Dive” that traces a musical trajectory through her career, beginning with guitar and vocals and ending in a lush layered orchestration. Feisty and raucous songs dragged from the old days are masterfully reinvented to display Ani’s expanding musicianship. The new material, such as the song “Shrug,” seems to fit smoothly in with the standards, and the overall effect is a slightly off-kilter skip through a decade of Ani’s creative musings. The disc ends with “Welcome To:", a kind of bridge into the next experience oflistening. The second album, Girls Singing Night, is arranged in a more traditional concert format. The sequence of songs guides you through what might be the perfectly hybridized concert. There are moments of casual banter. false starts. and incredibly intense musical congruency. The individual songs were recorded in a variety of venues but all contain the same live energy that Ani became known for in her live performances. It was not difficult for me to resurrect that spirit offemi- nist activism when I heard the enthu- siastic cheers ofthe audience during “Gratitude” and “Self-Evident." This latter track doesn’t appear on any other recordings. It is a recitation in the quintessential Ani style, complete with haunting music — part story about the horror of September 11th, and part diatribe about the mishan- dling of the terrorist attacks by the government. As Ani chants, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, num- ber one: George W. Bush is not presi- dent," the crowd erupts in wild approval. She claims that this poem will not appear on future albums nor will she,perform it again, because "it isjust of its time.” So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter as a double album is incredibly successful. It brings the old fans like me back to the truth of honest song-writing while engaging newer listeners with the entirety of Ani DiFranco’s musical journey. While there are moments of disparity, it is in these human revelations that her talent reveals itself. It is a record in the real sense, as Ani sings, “a record as in the record of an event of people in a room making music together.” V Tania Kupczak is a webgoddess and semicloseted banjo player with poli- tics who lives in Jericho. No Reason To Fret: g Jamie Anderson, left, and Wishing Chair ing for several weeks, swapping the opening set duties and main set role. Their audiences have been slowly evolving from straight coffeehouse- folkies over to more and more les- bians as they become known in women’s communities. It was a mixed audience that night, and I saw more than one mom with a teenaged daughter in tow at these gigs. Wishing Chair has been in Burlington four times — it’s about ,_,,.,,,,,,.,,__.,.,,,,.,.\\w,...........\....\....».s\\~»t. time we got to know them better. Jamie Anderson opened up this particular evening. Immediately I felt the presence of her performer capabilities. She says she’s from North Carolina then goes into a gui- tar strum, and sings the first song “(I Wanna) Drive” of a short half-hour set. Talk was kept brief between songs, though I bet, given a longer set time, Jamie may have elaborated more details. A few sparse notes delib- erately used as a hook were meant to draw us into “Dark Chocolate.” In “Potato Chips,” the third number, we caught Jamie throwing back her head to project the humor in the lyrics. Jamie stayed with the solo- guitar-singer-songwriter fare but invited her two friends known as Wishing Chair to join in on three songs to finish up her set. Kiya Heartwood of Wishing Chair sang backup vocal and Miriam Davidson played accor- dion for two of those songs. For the third and final song in Jamie Anderson's set, Miriam swapped her accordion for back up vocal. The power trio began as Jamie sang “I feel >> . ._.__,_.._._._._._4_... ._ U A