Published in RW #3, 1994
IMPORTANT CONTEXT: This “interview” was written in 1994. It was published in the zine Reglar Wiglar. At the time, the zine consisted mostly of parody and satirical content that poked fun at music and pop culture. It was created in the spirit of MAD Magazine and Spinal Tap. No band or music genre was safe from a skewering. For that reason, please take it with a grain of salt. Annie Baldwell is not a real person. The clueless interviewer, Jayne Wayne, is not a real dude, but don’t tell anyone — Chris Auman
Annie Baldwell
Interview by Jayne Wayne
Last year, the female sex was graciously granted one year, out of the entire evolutionary herstory of our species, to be known as 1993, the year of the woman.
Much in the same way that African Americans are given the shortest month of the year to be honored as black history month, both blacks and women, and especially black women, have come to accept retribution in small slaps to the face.
Regardless of the recognition that was absent in the past thousand or so years, women today are silent no more. We are in politics, business, athletics and especially the arts. The music scene is literally blooming with women artists these days, especially in the rock community, and at the forefront of the rock scene today is a young woman who makes music that not only challenges the long accepted positions women have been held to in our society but also questions the sexuality that women were forced to portray.
Jayne Wayne: First off, let me just say that your music is a great source of inspiration to me, especially when I’m in an artistic frame of mind. When I want to be creative I will often put on one of your albums and sort of meditate, get in the mood, you know?
Annie Baldwell: Thank you, yes.
Jayne Wayne: And then I find myself more ready to create, to paint or draw or work on my novel. It really gets my juices flowing and I find that very invigorating and quite refreshing. Are there any artists or group of artists who inspire you to make music?
Annie Baldwell: Well…
Jayne Wayne: And I’m not just talking about music, it can be a painter or sculptor, writer, poet, some computer generated art can stimulate the right side of the brain, Are you a fan of computer generated art?
Annie Baldwell: Not really.
Jayne Wayne: You’re right. Some of it is a bit flat-not dimensionally so much as emotionally.
Annie Baldwell: Can I answer your question?
Jayne Wayne: Of course, be free, this is your interview.
Annie Baldwell: Great.
Jayne Wayne: Which question are you referring to? The graphic art question?
Annie Baldwell: No, you asked me where I get my inspiration.
Jayne Wayne: Right, right. I’m very curious to know how you go about … mentally preparing yourself before you work.
Annie Baldwell: That’s a good question, because I have a somewhat unique approach to my art.
Jayne Wayne: Yoga right? You do yoga. I used to. It really helps.
Annie Baldwell: No, actually, I find television to be quite stimulating.
Jayne Wayne: Television? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh, it’s just that, well, who am I to criticize, I don’t even own a tv, but that seems rather an insipid approach to art. I have always considered television to be the antithesis of art. The destroyer of creativity. Perhaps that sounds a bit archaic, but …
Annie Baldwell: Well that’s a part of it•. TV cleans my mind. It leaves it blank so I can work from scratch.
Jayne Wayne: Tabla Rasa! That’s magnificent. What a naive and guileless approach. That’s beautiful, maybe I should give it a try. The duplicity of it intrigues me.
Annie Baldwell: I’m flattered.
Jayne Wayne: What do you think of men?
Annie Baldwell: Excuse me?
Jayne Wayne: Men. What do you think of them? I personally find them to be very distracting, almost purposely so, and very stifling to the creative process. Sexually stimulating for short periods of time perhaps, but that’s such an overrated experience and almost completely without merit as far as any creative longevity is concerned.
Annie Baldwell: I’m not sure that I all together agree with that, but there maybe truth to some of it. Men can certainly be a distraction but its not an unwelcome one as far as I’m concerned.
Jayne Wayne: Not an unwelcome one. Very interesting. An unwelcome distraction would be what? Cats?
Annie Baldwell: Ahb, I don’t know-a phone ringing incessantly perhaps or doing an interview with a lot of really long questions.
Jayne Wayne: Hah, that’s funny. You have a good sense of humor and a good sense of yourself, that’s very important especially for people as creative and talented as ourselves. That’s good. So what do you find is the underlying theme to your music? What kind of message typifies your music? I find that self empowerment is my strongest theme or the most noticeable running theme that stands out in my writings and my paintings, if one were to analyze my work that’s what they would ascertain almost certainly.
Annie Baldwell: I really don’t analyze my music that much.
Jayne Wayne: Come now, it’s not megalomaniacal to do such. You can admit it.
Annie Baldwell: Were it true I would. You said you find tv to be te death of creativity, well I find over analyzation to be the death of creativity, spontaneity, fun and just about everything else. It’s a sign of anal retention and it really serves no purpose other than to give talentless busybodies something to do?
Jayne Wayne: Oh my Goddess, you might be right! I really shouldn’t be so analytical. Maybe I should try something different. A little less structure perhaps. This is good. I find talking at-talking to other artists to be very therapeutical don’t you?
Annie Baldwell: It depends on who the artist is I guess.
Jayne Wayne: You’re right, there a lot of fake people in the art community.
Annie Baldwell: Exactly my point.
Jayne Wayne: So, when Annie Baldwell writes a line like, “I am a woman nothing more not some fucking metaphor.” That really doesn’t mean that you feel persecuted by men who try to force their own ideas of sexuality on you, there by stripping you of your identity as an individual and leaving you with nothing more than your genitalia as your only defining characteristic, because I thought for sure that’s what you were getting at.
Annie Baldwell: Yes and no.
Jayne Wayne: Wow, I’ve really learned a lot talking to, yoµ. Thank you very much.
Annie Baldwell: That’s it? We’re done?
Jayne Wayne: Unless you’d like to talk some more?
Annie Baldwell: No that’s fine.
