Rock Watch: Going Solo

 Two talented musicians deserve better ...

1-800-ON-HER-OWN (C+) - I can't name the title of or hum an Ani DiFranco song, but this crossword-puzzle favorite has been on the radar since the early 1990s as a renegade folkie blazing her own trail on the indie music scene. After watching this sluggish documentary, I still can't latch on to a melody.

DiFranco made her name when she was still a pierced, wild-haired teenager, pushing a propulsive form of post-punk folk and founding her own record label Righteous Babe, blazing a defiant, independent path from the start. This film finds her in a late-career COVID-era menopausal slump, as she is fully slammed with the realization that snubbing major labels for years would inevitably lead to a decades-long slog, struggling to make a buck and pay the bills (the Billy Bragg track). Her spiky youthful attitude has turned into ... just an attitude.

 

We find her on a solo tour (saving money without a band?), now in her 50s, ruminating on her life and her life choices. The former queer idol is in an unhappy hetero marriage in New Orleans with two tween girls, a mom with mundane domestic concerns, like fretting about remote schooling during the pandemic. In anachronistic footage, we see her working via zoom with a producer, Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Snail Mail), who doesn't really seem to be into her music (and is miffed that she doesn't appreciate his resume). The best footage involves him essentially dumping her remotely in the middle of producing the album that would be 2021's "Revolutionary Love."

On top of all of her troubles, we learn the story of last decade's fallout with her longtime guru, the fellow mastermind behind Righteous Babe, Scot Fisher, over business decisions, one of which involves buying an old church in Buffalo that turned into a money pit. All of this middle-age angst is rather depressing, even across an austere 77-minute running time. The clips from the old days -- full of spit and vinegar -- include a carefree band tour from the '90s, and the flashbacks make you wish you could escape this present-day whiny soccer mom and just wallow in Clinton-era nostalgia. It would be interesting if there were a larger point to be made -- or if the music clips were fuller and livelier -- but we end up with a late-career musician trudging through her 20th studio album, and the best she can think to do his to shave her head for the umpteenth time to keep from crying in front of the kids.

ANONYMOUS CLUB (2022) (C) - Stoned or depressed? I've never been skilled at sussing out that nuance. This film profiles Aussie rocker Courtney Barnett, with narration from an audio diary she kept for three years. And, boy, can it be a bummer.

Sometimes it's best to just let an artist's work speak for itself. Trying to explain things can ruin it. Here, Barnett comes across as a moody whiner -- when she most certainly is not -- blathering into a tape recording. At one point she even admits that she is boring herself (imagine what we're going through!) and notes, "all I do is whinge." 

She describes her own interview performances as "horrendous." Collaborator Danny Cohen, who directs music videos, shoots in dim lighting, partial to mood indigo. She's just a shy, introspective person who grasps for meaning. Maybe it's just best to let her songs speak for her. At one point she tells  an interviewer she doesn't want to literally explain a song and make it "too obvious." 

Appropriately, as we near the one-hour mark, she plays a solo electric-guitar version of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Barnett makes great music. She obviously struggles with performing and being a public figure. Maybe don't participate in any more navel-gazing documentaries.

BONUS TRACKS

DiFranco in 1998, live, with "Not a Pretty Girl," snippets of which are a highlight of the documentary:

 

From 2004, "Evolve":

 

Courtney Barnett with "Sunday Roast":

Here's a fantastic set by Barnett live via KEXP in Seattle from 10 years (!) ago, introducing songs from "Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit," featuring a cool fuzz lead guitar on the opening song, a deconstructed "Pedestrian at Best" and a lovely closer, a Billy Bragg-like solo take on "Depreston":