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Bitch, also known as Capital B, is a musician, actress, composer, and performance artist. She sings, plays acoustic and electric violin, ukulele, bass, and keyboard. <gallery> </gallery>
Early Life and musical beginnings Bitch, (born Karen Mould, 1973) is a first-generation American. Her parents emigrated to the US from Coventry, England in 1965 because her Dad, who was earning his PHD in Metallurgy, got a job working in a lab at Cornell in Ithaca, NY. They moved, thinking they would go home in 2 years. Soon, he was offered a job at USSteel and they moved to Monroeville, Pennsylvania and started having kids, and never went back. The youngest of three sisters, Bitch spent her first 11 years in Monroeville. Her mother is a tap dancer and ran a tap-dancing school in their basement. Bitch cites this as the beginning of her love for rhythm. "Our kitchen floor was constantly beaming out rhythms---i was literally surrounded by music. My mom was super into show-tunes and my Dad loved jazz." At 3, inspired by an episode of a cartoon fiddler she saw on Sesame Street, she started begging her parents for a violin. By 4, they enrolled her in the Suzuki program, which was the beginning of 14 years of serious classical training. She also started tap dancing at 3, a student at her mother's school. They moved to Birmingham, Michigan the summer before she started 6th grade. She cites this move as the beginning of her being a poet, writing poems obsessively to deal with moving away from her childhood best friend, Nancy. While in Michigan, Bitch studied at Interlochen in summer programs, and was involved in local community musical theater, as her mother is a choreographer in the suburban Detroit area. She also auditioned for the Metropolitan Youth Symphony, for which she played for 6 years. Upon graduating high school, Bitch had developed a love for the theater, and was moving away from the world of classical music. "Mostly, I hated what I had to wear for those concerts. I loved the music, but it all seemed dead to me, artistically." One of her teachers, Lynda Petranek, was a major influence, encouraging her writing and performing, and helped her audition for acting school for college. "My parents were not into the idea of me going to acting school. My older sister, Ali, was always considered the performer. I think they thought the classical music world was less risky, I could get a good job, etc. At the time, it did feel like a frivolous, maybe even rebellious decision. Now I think I went to acting school to learn how to be in my body on stage." Lynda died at 36 from breast cancer while Bitch was in college and was the subject of one of the first songs she ever wrote, "Climbing", which appeared on Bitch and Animal's first album, "What's that Smell" Bitch and Animal 1996-2004 Bitch met Animal Prufrock, while attending DePaul University in Chicago, where she earned a BFA in acting. They claim to have met on a mushroom trip. Bitch, while at acting school, had stopped playing her violin. "I had such an intense relationship with that instrument--putting it away for a couple years was almost like breaking up with someone you've been dating for years. If I ever tried to pull it out and play again, I would get so frustrated because I would try to play something I had been working on in high school, and suddenly couldn't play it anymore. It's one of those things, that if you stop practicing, you can lose your dexterity pretty quickly." At DePaul, Bitch was the recipient of the Merit Scholarship two years in a row, awarded to one female and one male student each year for their work. Her favorite roles were Rosalie in John Guare's Landscape of the Body and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. "When I met Animal, I was a junior in college and she was a freshman. She was this wild, pot-smoking, shaved-headed rebel from Queens, NY. I had never met anyone like her, and still haven't. She used to carry around a drum and a ukulele everywhere she went. Within an hour of meeting, we took a long walk, then went back to my apartment and I took out my violin and we began to play. It was magic. It was the first time I had just played from my heart, and I could hear the beauty of my instrument without any restrictions on what i 'should be' playing." The two started playing around Chicago, never writing or planning anything for their performances. Their method was based on eye contact and psychic connection. In all the years of their collaboration, they never rehearsed. As a graduation present, Animal bought Bitch a 10-class gift certificate for classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music, where Bitch was quickly paired with Andrew Bird, since they shared a similar classical background. After her 10 week study, and with the money she had saved being a valet parker for a restaurant--("I was the only chick valet in the city of Chicago! I would have to deal with guys asking me if I could drive a stick, which drove me crazy")--Bitch took off to Australia for a 6 month adventure by herself. There, she played in the subways and on the streets, practicing the tunes that Andrew had taught her. When she returned, she went back to Royal Oak, MI where her Mom, recently divorced from her Dad, was living. She was waiting tables and was asked to play a "women in film" event in Ypsilanti, MI--which she quickly accepted, not knowing yet what she would do for the performance. She called Animal who was waiting tables and going to massage school in Chicago, and asked her to do the show. Animal came to Royal Oak a week before the show, and they wrote a show, which included "Feminist Housewives," "Scorpio-LIte" and "Climbing." The two named themselves Bitch and Animal for this event, and described it as 'new theater'--and only thought of themselves as a band after they had a few albums under their belt. After that Ypsilanti show, they moved to New York City a week later, pissing off both their employers with no notice. In NYC, they fell into a scene of performance artists and musicians. They met Murray Hill while he was running for mayor and became life-long friends. The song "Drag King Bar" was based on a weekly drag-king night in the East Village hosted by Mo B. Dick. Their song-writing started exploring gender roles, trans-gender politics and radical feminism. They wrote "Best Cock on the Block" "Boy Girl Wonder" and continued their development of a character they called the Sparkly Queen Areola, an homage to the female nipple, illegal in all 52 states. They played regular shows, and Bitch was turned onto Iva Bittova, who she now cites as a major inspiration, by one of her customers who knew she played violin with a percussionist. In 1998, Bitch and Animal moved to Provincetown for a summer. They played a free weekly show which soon became the local 'thing to do' on a Sunday night. After one of Ani Difranco's team saw the show, she passed Difranco their 4-song demo tape, and DiFranco asked them to open for her in Amherst, MA in 1999. Bitch and Animal recorded their first album, "What's That Smell?" in Seattle, with Kate Wolf (Julie Wolf's twin sister) in the months leading up to the Amherst show. Their first date with Ani was the official release of their first album. Difranco then took the two on tour with her and signed them to her label. They recorded an album, "Eternally Hard" in Difranco's home studio in Buffalo, New York, finished it in Wayne Schrengohst's home studio in Manhattan, and Righteous Babe released it on September 11, 2001. Bitch and Animal went on to make two records for Righteous Babe Records, and toured extensively in the US, Europe and Canada[1]. Robert Hilburn of the LA Times put "Eternally Hard" on his top ten list in 2001. A writer for Time Out New York said it was the worst album ever made. Sour Juice and Rhyme, their 3rd and final album, was produced by June Millington (Fanny) and features performances by Evelyn Harris from Sweet Honey in the Rock and Melissa York from the Butchies, Vitapup, Born Against and the Amy Ray band. The layout and artwork was done by Diane Dimassa, creator of Hothead Paisan, the homicidal lesbian terrorist. Bitch and Animal played their last show together in Italy in 2004, on a European tour with Ani Difranco, citing creative differences. Make This Break This, Be-Sides--one take wonders and poems 2004-2007 The tour in 2004 ended in Italy, where Bitch decided not to return to Brooklyn and let the tour bus drop her off there. She had become involved with the actress Daniela Sea and the two set off on a 3 month journey to Croatia and Bulgaria. Bitch was writing extensively, and was hugely inspired by traveling in Eastern Europe, where capitalism had not yet taken over. From a phone booth in Bulgaria, Bitch called June Millington and asked her if she would produce a solo record with her. She said yes, and Bitch went back to Brooklyn to begin work on "Make This Break This" which came out in 2006 on Kill Rock Stars. It was mixed by Roma Baran and recorded mostly in Wayne Schrengohst's studio in Manhattan. While finishing "Make This Break This", Bitch made a lo-fi album called "Be-Sides--one take wonders and poems." To tour "Make This Break This," June introduced Bitch to Liz Kelly who was 17 and was just graduating from high school. "Liz was so talented, knew all of my songs, had a beautiful voice and great instincts. She came over to June's farmhouse, with her 17-year-old enthusiasm to audition and it was a perfect match for me at that time in my life. It was also my first time playing with a kit drummer, which was a weird transition from playing with Animal, who played djembe." Bitch +The Exciting Conclusion, Shortbus and Boulder 2007-2009 In 2007, Bitch formed a band called Bitch and the Exciting Conclusion, originally with Daniela Sea and Lee Free. The name was based on a hat they found at a thrift store with a picture of a racehorse called The Exciting Conclusion. During this time, Daniela was cast as a character on "The L Word" and was replaced by Gabriel Kubitz. They were also known as B+TEC, a Brooklyn-based trio and toured as an opening act for the Indigo Girls. They released a self-titled ep B+TEC in 2008. In 2008, Bitch started her own record label, Short Story Records, and released "B+TEC" as well as an album that she produced of Ferron called "Boulder." Bitch parked her RV in Ferron's back yard and followed her around for a week or so with her mobile laptop+1mic recording set-up. She then kept the recordings with her while touring, working on it in between her own gigs and recording projects. She recruited talented friends like Jd Samson, Julie Wolf, Ani Difranco, Amy Ray, Emily Saliers, Tina G, Lyndell Montgomery, Catherine Edgerton, Soni Moreno, Jennifer Kreisberg, Samantha Parton and Geo Wyeth to sing and play on the album which pays homage to the great poet/songwriter. It was released in 2008. Bitch was cast as herself in John Cameron Mitchell's film Shortbus. Her character entertained the women of the film in "Bitch's Bedroom." She toured in England and the US with co-star Jay Brannan. Bitch appears in the Bright Eyes video First Day of my Life, also directed by John Cameron Mitchell. She also makes a cameo in the Butchies video Send Me You Blasted! and Thunder 2009-present Bitch began recording Blasted! working on the Ferron album in Michigan, where Ferron also lived. She and Daniela broke up, and Bitch dove into many recording projects. She stayed at Ferron's for a few months, then took the project back to Brooklyn, she flew Liz Kelly out from Portland, Oregon to spend a week with her at Baran Stoll studios in the East Village. She completed the album with Gabriel, recording a lot of it at his loft. In 2009, she launched a Kickstarter campaign to self-release the album, raising $12,000 from her fans and supporters to do it. Blasted! was mixed by Steve Fisk and came out in 2010 on Short Story Records. For her back up band, she took a Miami-based band The State Of who opened most of the shows. Bitch met visual artist/beat-maker Billie Jo Cavallaro while completing "Blasted!" and the two collaborated on three of Bitch's music videos, "Kitchen," "Open Up," and the new version of "The Pussy Manifesto." Currently, Bitch is touring a new show and set of songs called "Bitch FANTASTIC." With her electric violin, ukulele, keytar and bass front and center, and Billie Jo Cavallaro triggers beats and video as Alligator. Billie and Bitch have also collaborated on a documentary film about Ferron called Thunder, which is not yet released. Discography Bitch and Animal - What's That Smell (1999)
- Eternally Hard (2001)
- Sour Juice and Rhyme (2003)
Bitch solo recordings: - Be-Sides, one take wonders and poems (2005)
- Make This Break This (2006)
- B+TEC (2008) Bitch +The Exciting Conclusion
- Blasted! (2010)
References External links
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